The Power of Purpose in Sales
When I was in B2B sales, “Sell like Hell” was our tagline to get us motivated. This is what I was told by my boss, so I told myself and told my sales people. Did it work? Not for all, in fact, not for most. Since then, I have trained thousands of sales people across the globe as a sales coach and trainer. In one of the team coaching sessions when I was with sales leaders, they asked me what was the one common factor across all successful sales people, if there was any? I remember scanning through my mind.
No, it wasn’t their personality. It wasn’t whether they were more extraverted, introverted or ambiverts for that matter. It certainly had nothing to do with their sex, age, upbringing/social status and schools they have attended. It wasn’t only their sales style or the kind of process they followed. At the time I concluded that really successful sales people were more self-aware than the others. My own research eventually proved me wrong. I met a lot of very talented and successful sales people, many of them quite seasoned and yet they had low self-awareness. They couldn’t explain to me what they were doing that made them successful.
Then I came across the Sales Executive Council longitudinal sales research which is probably one of the most interesting and comprehensive longitudinal sales study. Their research became famous in the form of a little red book titled Challenger Sales. I think the research is sound, clear and well founded. They identified a style that they coined as the Challenger Sale, which is the most successful approach according to them. This style is all about having rich business insights that allow the sales people to challenge the way customers think about a relevant business problem. By reframing the customer’s thinking and exposing a risk or gap, they can use constructive tension to get decision makers to ask for a solution and there is not need to push anything. As convincing as the research is, something big is still missing. It seems in my own research that following a great process is not enough on its own. I have seen teams following the right process; having the right incentive scheme and great products yet falling short. In most of the those cases it is the Mindset behind the process that doesn't support the success. According to Daniel Pink, author of To Sell is Human, studies point to a trio of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose as the pivotal sources of human motivation. And the people who find Purpose in their work unlock the highest level of the motivation game. The original idea comes from Viktor Frankl, a world famous therapist, who realized that the Jews who survived extermination camp in the second Word War all had some kind of Meaning in their life that carried them forward. For him it was that he wanted to rewrite and publish his book which the Nazis confiscated from him. I have seen in my own research and it is recently confirmed by many other research projects (Gallup 2015, HBR 2014), that behind extraordinary performance almost always there is a Higher Purpose. Or to put it more precisely, if you have a Higher Purpose you will perform Better.
If you can’t answer “Why will your customer’s life be better?” if you make this deal today, don’t go out and sell. You will be inauthentic. You need to have an answer to this question and believe in it genuinely. In general, following your Higher Purpose will prevent burn-out and help you reach exceptional results. Purpose will work on all levels, the same way for a key account manager and CEO. It is not to say, that the process that you follow and the sales style is not important. But the “Why-Purpose” factor is paramount.
On an organizational level, companies with a clear and powerful Purpose will outperform others who don’t. Purpose driven employees will sell 37% more (Shawn Anchor’s research), have 66% less sick-leave and 51% less turnover (Forbes and Gallup), and show 300% more innovation according to HBR. Not having a Higher Purpose is like a fine engine that needs high octane gas but is running on low octane gas. It will damage the engine sooner or later and you will constantly feel like there is more capability there, but it doesn’t seem to come out…
Companies end up creating endless number of KPIs, refining their proposition and training their people and yet, they don’t see the breakthrough.The great thing about Purpose is that it creates intrinsic motivation which is priceless. It creates an inner force that will carry people over challenging situations, the moments when their manager is not there, the times when they have to put up with refusals. It is the difference that will make the difference.
Mickey A. Feher is a coach and trainer and psychologist. He is a former leader in multinational companies such as Deutsche Telekom and Deloitte. He is a successful Global Entrepreneur. He built and developed organizational development specialist Purpose & Company, which provides services in 8 countries. As a coach and trainer he helps companies and individuals to Ignite their Purpose to Unleash Their Best and Beyond. His clients include some of the biggest multinational organizations in the world such as Microsoft, Pfizer, Vodafone or ING.