Most business leaders experience unique moments of success or failure at least two or three times a week. It is in these moments of decision making that a company culture is created and the course of your business – and perhaps your career as a leader – is defined.
Last week I was facilitating a follow-up training session for a client who is in the process of implementing a sales leadership and sales training engagement focused on transforming the sales team from a function that is experiencing declining sales to a modern function that is agile, social, and achieving its sales targets. We have been working on this engagement for several months and are making steady process.
During the portion of the discussion where we were analyzing the current state of the business, one of the leaders in my session shared a very difficult scenario involving leadership, sales, R&D, manufacturing, and financial management that is a typical cross functional problem and why this high-tech equipment manufacturer is losing revenue, profit, and shareholder value.
This Business Unit leader shared a situation where one of his sales professionals was able to gain commitment from a new account on a big deal utilizing an innovative and proprietary approach that will provide the customer with a distinct competitive advantage in their market. Because this type of technical solution had never been created before, the deal took almost two years. This was a prized account and the sales person felt confident that this account would grow and generate more opportunities with the successful implementation of this project.
The deal was agreed upon verbally by the sales professional and the customer and the contracting process was well underway. Because of the new technologies involved, a complicated contract, statement of work, security review, and other agreements had to be developed because the customer wasn’t buying an off-the-shelf product.
While the new legal agreements were being written, the sales team and the engineering team started working with the customer to define the specific scope of the project and begin the process of making a theoretical solution become a real product.
Hours of discussion became days of work and collaborative design. It was clear to all involved after a week that the original technical solution proposed wasn’t going to be the final solution delivered. The Sales Professional understood this and so did her Sales Manager. Unfortunately, the rest of the technical team was struggling and was not on the same page. Here are some of the quotes from the team that included the Technical team, Project Manager, Manufacturing Manager, and the Supply Chain Manager:
- “This isn’t what we signed up for”
- “I don’t think we can do this”
- “Sometimes it’s better to tell a customer ‘no’ and then come back at another time”
- “Nobody has ever done this, why do you think we can?”
As the tension and conflict increased, tempers continued to get short and the sales team chimed in with the following comments:
- “Why is it that it’s harder to convince my own company to try something new than customers?
- “You all are like the anti-sales department. We need this deal, why don’t you get that?”
Unfortunately, for the sales team, their aggressive and incendiary comments made a difficult situation even worse. In our Leading Strategic Execution simulation, business leaders learn that there is a more productive way. Here are three practical tips for leading past the “anti-sales department” and making the deal, internally and externally.
Super Positive Attitude
You have to go into every challenging situation with an absolute belief that there is a solution to every problem. The moment you lose that perspective is the moment that the anti-sales department will kill the deal. Your attitude has to real, genuine, and infective without coming across as demeaning or worse yet, delusional.
Focus on Big picture
While it may sound cliché, it is truly important to focus on and keep everyone focused on the big picture such as how critical this deal is to support the organizational strategy of innovation and achieving your business goals and objectives.
Understand and Diagnose what is Really Causing the Concern
Unless the anti-sales department is completely lazy and worthless (which 99% of the time they are not), then there are real and legitimate reasons for concern as to why this deal is a bad idea. The usual reasons include:
- “Not enough time”
- “We don’t have the right resources”
- “This is out of scope and budget and the customer isn’t going to pay for it”
- “Nobody has ever done this before and it’s too risky.”
Your job as a leader is to understand what the real concerns of the team are and diagnose them. For example, if there isn’t enough time, then see if the customer can give some more time. If that doesn’t work, then conduct a realistic analysis while asking the team in a positive and collaborative way to think differently and come up with a solution that will work.
That’s called leading innovation and strategic execution.
