Habit 2 of Stephen Covey’s famous, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People,” is “Start (Begin) with the end in mind.”
Covey writes about the importance of having a destination or a goal, Knowing what we are trying to achieve forces us to focus on the things critical to achieving the goal. Without this, we wander aimlessly, perhaps without understanding what we are trying to achieve.
But, as we work in organizations and work with our customers, sometimes this can be the source of a giant disconnect.
For example, as sellers, our focus is on closing a deal. We orient all our activities to getting that order. We know what questions we need the customer to answer to qualify the deal, we know how to present the capabilities of our products, how to handle objections, how to move to close. Our focus is on the critical activities to close the deal.
The problem is, the “end in mind” for our customers is seldom about buying a solution. More often, it’s around solving a problem, addressing an opportunity, driving a change. And within that destination, they want to make sure they are doing the right thing. Success to them, is not about product selection, but about doing the right thing for themselves and their organization.
As a result, we have a giant dilemma. Our goals or “ends” are not aligned with the customers.’ Buying a product or solution is, usually, the smallest part of the customer goals, but it is what drives us and our activities. We are, too often, working at cross purposes.
What if we realigned what our “end in mind” or goal is? What if we focused on helping the customer achieve their goals, helping them solve their problem, drive a change initiative, make sure they are doing the right thing?
Shifting our focus, aligning it with the customer goals has the potential of changing everything.
- We will help customers succeed in their project. Over 60% of the time, they fail–but what would it mean to them, and, consequently, to us if we increased their success rate?
- We know we can’t achieve our goals, getting an order, until the customer achieves their goals.
- In the rare case where the customer might select another solution, we have developed a relationship and understanding of the customer that enables us to find different and more opportunities with the customer.
Starting with the end in mind is a fundamental to our effectiveness. The challenge is, we rarely can achieve our goals without involvement and support of others. If we are going to maximize our effectiveness and our ability to achieve our goals, we have to find ways to align what we are trying to achieve, with those we are dependent on for success. We don’t win unless they also win.
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