By Brett Merritt, Director of Content Marketing at Consensus, @brettcmerritt
The sales process can often be an aggressive pursuit. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But sometimes, when you’re working to get the buy-in of multiple stakeholders, the conversation can feel forced. Decision makers look to protect their ideas, their reputations, and their political capital. To reach agreement, you (the salesperson) and the challenger Mobilizer within the prospect company must work together to align stakeholders around the common goal of helping their company grow — and do it with professionalism, mutual respect and even kindness. But is kindness a sign of weakness in a sales environment?
USA Today best-selling author Vicki Hinze recently wrote an article on why we can’t afford to consider kindness a weakness any more. And much of it applies directly to sales.
“Kindness is often mistaken for weakness. It’s not. Kind people fight the battles they consider worth fighting,” Vicki Hinze writes. “They don’t feel they must compromise their principles to do it. They don’t feel compelled to fight dirty or to lie and manipulate or threaten. The truth holds up under logic and reason, and truth is sufficient to battle and win.”
In gaining consensus, finding a path toward a solution that honestly solves a business problem for the company you’re selling to — in partnership with an internal Mobilizer — will always win out over manipulation or vendor-first positioning.
To read the full article click here.
To learn more about automating your demo process and finding a kinder, gentler way for driving buying consensus, click here.
