Open Water Cruising and Sales

Open Water Cruising and Sales
Do They Share Attributes

I had the privilege of piloting my friends 60' Ocean Alexander again recently, and it reminded me of many of the fundamental tenants of successful selling!

1. We discussed our trip and knew where we hoped and wanted to go, what we wanted to see, how long we expected it would take, and then planned the details necessary to support those “trip” goals.
a. We all need an “account plan” which reminds us of our goal, timeframe, expected mileposts in the process and the like so our “call” plans reflect the strategy documented in the account plan which, of course, can be changed as it needs to be, just as we’d change the cruise plan for adverse weather.

2. Before leaving the dock we checked each system, made sure the boat was ready for the large body of water we were about to undertake
a. Exactly as all truly great salespeople do—review everything they’ll need on a sales call before the sales call to be sure they are prepared and ready

3. Then we checked our planned routing and developed an alternative
a. precisely as we should all know where we expect/want the call to go, and be ready for the deviations that might get thrown at us

4. As we navigated the waters, one was the pilot and one stayed steadfastly on lookout for deadheads and other “flotsam and jetsam” that can cause havoc with a boat/rudder/propeller, ruining what could be a great day or worse.
a. It takes a team to effectively sell. All too often we either expect sales people to be entirely independent and /or they choose to be “lone rangers.” Neither works. Smart successful salespeople know when and how to engage others with skills and experience that can help avoid those “deadheads” that can derail the sale. Just as important, while the sale is progressing nicely, it’s wise to stay ever vigilant; is competition just around the corner; will they surprise us when they show up; are we ready for them; have we anticipated they might present themselves and have we planned for that occasion?

5. When we arrived we carefully and thoroughly documented the trip in the log book including comments on interesting things we saw, how the boat preformed, things we wanted to remember about that days cruise, maintenance issues, etc
a. The great salespeople know to immediately log the call in their CRM for ready reference and for using to help plan the next call. They include the results of the call versus their plan for the call, issues they want to recall, subtleties that occurred they want to remember and account for, like a new person of influence they hadn't met before, or how involved/distracted the prospect was and how to manage/account for unique behaviors in the next call. They don’t rely on their memory!

6. And the next day we started over again, invoking the same disciplines and to the same level of detail
a. Too often we all fall victim to believing we know the customer/prospect well and don’t really need the same attention to detail we might use with another, but when we do, we put the sale at risk!

I wondered how we can successfully transfer the need for a disciplined approach when we’re cruising the open water, to the sales process, and why it seems so hard for so many. Those that get it, are wildly successful and we refer to them as “natural” salespeople—not the case at all—we can all be “naturally” great if we adopt and stick to the same disciplines necessary to have a safe and enjoyable cruise!