Insular: in-su-lar
1. Characteristic of an isolated people
especially: being, having or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint
It seems insularity, a form of tribalism, is endemic to human beings. We don’t consciously seek to be insular, life just happens.
Insularity in selling (and business), keeps us from being the best we can be. It restricts our ability to learn, grow, and perform at levels we had not imagined.
How does this arise?
Mostly, I think, it’s the press of everyday business. We have more on our plates than we can possibly do. We tend to put our noses to the grindstone, doing our jobs in the best way we know how. Largely, this is based on our experience, what we’ve always done. We gravitate to what has worked in the past, sometimes adapting and refining it, but still doing what we’ve always done.
Sometimes, we look around, usually it’s at our competition. What are they doing? Is there anything different? Is there anything we can copy? We invest millions in “Benchmarking,” comparing what we do to those in similar industries and markets.
But, over time, we look pretty much the same in how we sell and how we engage our customers. And our customers have been saying, for years, this isn’t helpful.
Recently, I’ve been having a lot of discussions with executives on innovation. I ask them how they are innovating their customer engagement strategies and and processes. As we discuss it, the problems I’ve outlined above keep coming up. Thoughtful executives ask, “What do we do?”
My response is to reduce insularity.
Usually, they look confused, “What do you mean?”
I ask, “Where are you looking to learn? Where are you looking to understand different approaches to selling? What if you looked in very different places?”
We’ve seen some innovation in technology sectors, some companies adopting practices that have been common in consumer products, media, embedded products. We’ve seen other sectors starting to adopt some of the practices of technology sectors.
It’s amazing, if we start talking to our peers in very different industries, sectors, or markets; we can learn a lot about what is commonplace to them, but which , when adapted and tweaked, can be new and novel to us. I’ve used this example before, but I love taking technologists, professional services, and industrial product sellers to talk to sellers of basic materials. In basic materials, sellers realize their value creation isn’t about the product, since all the alternatives are indistinguishable. Likewise, the basic materials people see some things the technologists/etc are doing, recognizing they can tweak them, engaging their customers in different ways. Or medical device providers can learn things from financial services, and vice versa.
Executives start getting excited. It’s as simple as talking to their peers in very different businesses. “How do we find them, how do we get to know them?”
That’s easy, they are probably our customers or suppliers. We sell our products and services to customers in very diverse industries and markets. What if we started meeting our “counterparts” in those customers? What if we started organizing “idea exchanges” between a small group of very diverse customers. We learn, they learn, we build relationships/trust, and we each have the opportunity to grow and change in ways we may not have imagined.
It’s all about being a little less insular.
Leave a Reply