I suppose it’s human nature to be self centered, focused on those things that impact each of us, our goals, dreams, and aspirations. Within business, we focus relentlessly on our own performance objectives/goals/comp. We are consumed by the day to day activities and tasks critical to achieving those goals.
I talk to many sellers frustrated by the “obstacles” standing in their way, “Just leave me alone, let me do my job!” Increasingly, I talk to sellers who feel isolated in doing their jobs.
It’s useful to pause to reflect on the reality that selling is a job that is 100% reliant on the support of others. Perhaps it’s trite, but selling is the ultimate team sport.
Even for the most transactional sales, we rely on our organizations to provide the products, services, customer support that enables us to sell and meet the commitments we make to the customers. We count on the systems and infrastructure that enables all that to synchronize in a way that allows us to sell, retain, expand, grow. Without any of that we would have nothing.
Yeah, I know that sounds trite and simplistic, but the reality is without all that we take for granted, we fail.
As we get into more complex solutions, we rely more deeply on others in our organizations or our partners. We can’t be deep experts in everything, we need specialists, support people, and others. We need to put together complex configurations, proposals. We need supporting materials and programs. God forbid, we even need legal support for very complex contracts. Without all that working smoothly beside us, without that support we fail.
And there’s all the other stuff, the training programs, the tools, the marketing programs, content, data systems, even our managers. While sometimes they are annoying, without them, we fail.
When we move into leadership, the importance of strong teams amps up. We are nothing without our people! It is through their ability to perform, meeting their goals, that we meet ours. Our jobs are to provide them the support, coaching, development to enable them to perform at the highest levels. Our job is to remove any barriers to their performance and to promote/support them within the organization. Without our people, we fail.
Then, ultimately, we are dependent on our partners and customers. Without them, we cannot achieve our goals. Sometimes, we tend to take them for granted. They are the objects of our actions, the widgets we process through our selling factory. But without them, their trust, their engagement, we fail.
We get frustrated when any of the above groups seem to get in our way, slow us down, or keep us from achieving. But without them we fail.
And without them, we would be alone.
Who are the five people you are going to thank today?
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