We are driven to get answers. We know what we are looking for. With our customers, it’s their needs, requirements, who’s involved, how they are going to make a decision, when, who else they’re considering, why this is important to them, and on and on….
We doggedly pursue the answers to the things we are looking for.
Likewise, we expect our customers to be the same–but opposite. They know what they are looking for, they just need to get the answers. What are the capabilities of our solutions, features, functions, feeds, speeds, price? Who else uses the solutions, what’s the reputation of the company, and on and on……
As leaders, we know what we are looking for from our people. Are they hitting activity targets, are they finding and qualifying the right opportunities, are they keeping a good pipeline, are they moving things through it, are they going to hit the forecast and numbers by the end of the week, month, quarter, year? Are they keeping CRM updated?
We can describe every role in our and our customer organizations, describing what they are looking for.
While we’ve refined our lists over the decades, they haven’t changed in substance.
But if we all know what each other is looking for, why are we failing so miserably?
Why are win rates plummeting?
Why is the percentage of people hitting their goals plummeting?
Why is turnover so high, and loyalty so low? Why does engagement look so bad?
Why are sales cycles extending?
Why are customers no longer responding, preferring to buy without rep involvement?
Yet why, after all of that, do they express regret with the decisions they make?
And why do 60%+ of their buying/change initiatives fail?
Such a quandary, while we think we know what we are looking for, we aren’t producing the outcomes we had hoped for.
In truth, I think the majority of time, we don’t know what we are looking for until we find it.
And once we do, we know we have done the right thing and we move forward.
Look at any great entrepreneur, artist, writer. Look at the highest performers in your organizations. Look at all those who innovate.
While they may have an idea of what they are trying to do, they often don’t know until they have found it.
Much of this is about uncertainty and our ability to harness uncertainty in ways that allow us to learn, grow, achieve.
Afterword: Thank you Tom Morris, I didn’t know what I was looking for, on this topic, until something you wrote helped me find it.
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