The Science of Sales

When thinking about sales as a science, I think the #1 place that salespeople and organizations fall down is when it comes to testing what works.

AND #2 being willing to consider failure an important part of the process… which may be a circular argument: not waiting to fail certainly means being reluctant to test to see what works and what doesn’t.

Experiment: be open to trying new questions, techniques, and ideas.

I guess what I’m really talking about is the experimentation MINDSET.

• Are you willing to consider that what you’re doing may not be the “best” or “most effective” way of selling?
• Do you look at the individual actions you take from beginning to end and analyze what works (as well as what doesn’t)?
• Are you able to let go of your ego’s attachment to being right?

Process: you need to be willing to follow the same steps, consistently, to uncover what works best.

If you’ve been reading my stuff, listening to me speak, etc – you know I believe winging it is for the birds NOT for sales.

Yet, many salespeople and leaders are not process driven people. Process doesn’t have to be complex OR complicated – the key is to have it be repeatable.

Which comes down to asking:

• Why do customers buy from me/us?
• What makes our prospects convert to customers?
• How can I make those two happen more often?

Test: being willing to systematically change ONE thing at a time to see what happens to your results.

Since we’re talking about the science of sales – the type of testing we’re doing would be considered an empirical study, where everything is based on direct observation or experience in “the field” (aka on the phone / email / demo / etc for Inside Sales).

It means we have to be willing to:

• Commit to using that ONE thing we changed multiple times, let’s call them attempts. Put ourselves in a position to test the new way.
• ACTUALLY, track the outcomes of our attempts.
• Review what the results are and decide if the new way is effective.
• MOVE onto another ONE thing you’re going to systematically change.

The two mistakes in testing I see most often are:

1. Changing multiple things all at once.
2. Not having enough attempts to truly determine if the new way works before abandoning it.

It’s time to get into the experimentation mindset, create a process that you’re willing to follow, then test to see if it actually works.

Then follow the instructions from the shampoo bottle – rinse & repeat.

Scientifically yours,
Lynn
 
ps: If you’re like me and would like to go down rabbit holes of testing methodology – Sacred Heart University Library has a great page on Types of Research Designs (aka testing). Of course, it’s for Organizing Academic Research Papers not sales so you may just hyperventilate when you start reading… you’ve been warned.