The New ABCs of Sales

I recently had the opportunity to see Daniel Pink speak about his latest book, To Sell is Human, at the SAVO Sales Enablement Summit in Chicago.  In fact, this was the second time I’ve had the opportunity to hear Dan speak on the topic (although this time I had the pleasure of following him on the main stage).  If you’ve read the book, you’ll be familiar with his main tenants but I wanted to share a few takeaways and how they tie into much of what we are seeing at CEB.

The one big insight that Dan emphasized was that “sales has changed more in the last 10 years than in the last 100.”  And why is that?  Dan shares that in the past, the buyer-seller relationship was one of information asymmetry.  We, the sellers and suppliers, held all (or most) of the information.  That gave us the power.  This is what created the idea of “buyer beware”.  But then something happened.  Information asymmetry disappeared because buyers had access to information like never before.  This empowerment created a different dynamic, one that Dan called “seller beware”.  This is what we’ve been sharing with many of you over the years with our research findings on customer buying behavior – the fact that customers have completed, on average, 57% of their buying process before engaging suppliers.  We’d absolutely agree with Dan – sales has changed dramatically in recent past because customers are empowered with more information than ever before; that their ability to learn on their own has changed the nature of sales.

Dan went on to share three core ideas, that to him and his research, define successful sellers in this new “seller beware” world. He calls them the “ABCs of Selling”.  While inspired by Alec Baldwin’s character, Blake, in Glengarry Glen Ross, he isn’t talking about Always, Be, Closing; rather he uses the ABCs this way:

A is Attunement – this is about seeing things from the customers’ perspective.  The ability to look at it from their side of the table, going even beyond empathy.
B is Buoyancy – being buoyant is an “ocean of rejection”, as Dan put it.  The ability of an individual to continue to move forward and press on despite a high amount of rejection.
C is Clarity – the capacity to help others see their situations in fresh and more reveling ways and to identify problems they didn’t realize they had.  It’s a shift “from problem solving to problem finding”.

It’s been interesting to listen to Dan (and read his book), because much of his findings and thoughts align and support the conversations we have been having with CEB Sales members.  It also provides additional support and confirmation for the Insight Selling journey many are now on, most especially attunement and clarity.  When Dan speaks of clarity, all I think is commercial insight.  Teaching customers something they underappreciate or don’t recognize.  When I hear attunement, I think the Challenger skill of tailoring, to have conversations that resonate with each individual stakeholder.

What we continue to see in the commercial marketplace is that our sales and marketing organizations HAVE to change approaches and behaviors to grow in a “seller beware” world.

CEB Sales Members, learn more about Challenger Selling, and visit the Challenger Starter Kit for recommended tools and resources. Also, register for one of our upcoming Challenger workshop series on Challenger Messaging or Challenger Sales Process and Opportunity Management.