Leadership Lesson – Follow Your System – Recognize and Overcome Hidden WeaknessesSATURDAY, DECEMBER 19TH, 2009
One of the more difficult lessons that leaders need to learn is the value of following your system. This past week I was reminded of this when a prospect I had met with for a needs analysis of his business got back to me that he preferred to work with a coach in person rather than on the phone.
Anytime a prospect wants to think it over and you fail to close you automatically reduce your opportunity to convert by 50% or more, so my chances for success with this prospect had diminished significantly when he didn’t decided to move forward after our meeting. What aggravated me more was realizing that I had failed to follow my sales process in the meeting. The prospect had almost immediately begun asking questions and identifying what his specific problems is when I had started asking my qualifying questions.
One of the five hidden weakness the Objective Management Group’s assessment had identified for me is emotional involvement. When the prospect began to tell me his needs I immediately sprang into the rescue mode. I focused on him, which in most cases is good, however I failed to follow my system. I allowed him to control the sales process. We’ll discuss next blog why knowing where you are going is important in the strategic sense, this is a case of the importance of knowing where you are going in the tactical sense.
I have a system that has been proven 66% successful at converting leads into sales. Yet with all my experience the hidden weakness “ emotional involvement” superseded my instincts and I got off track.
The result was a lost sale. More importantly I spent nearly two hours on the phone with a prospect who had I followed my sales process I would have identified had a preference toward a coach he could meet with in person. Following my system I would have recognized that earlier, either resolved that conflict, or disqualified myself much earlier and not invested the full two hours educating him on uncommon offering of Positioning Systems coaching process.
I’m on a mission now to review my client acquisition system to improve it so this doesn’t happen again. I’m also on a mission to improve my Hidden Weakness of emotional involvement so I don’t allow it to intervene in the future and spoil another opportunity.
At the core of this issue is discipline. In this case a lack of tactical discipline to follow the sales system, and possibly a failure to continuously train to overcome my hidden weakness in selling. We’ll explore the leadership quality of discipline, specifically strategic discipline next.
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