Donna finishes her last sip of coffee and sets her mug down with a thud. She stares blankly at her sales dashboard. She’d had a week chock-full of meetings (which seemed like a win), but none of them resulted in a sale (which felt like the ultimate defeat).
How could this be?
She opens up her LinkedIn feed, hoping to find a quick hack or brilliant tip that would help her figure out how to close more sales next week. After scrolling for 30 minutes, she goes cross-eyed with overwhelm and self-doubt. “Forget it,” she sighs, shutting her laptop. “When is this ever going to get easy?”
The reality is, it never does get easy.
An amateur comedian might envy Jerry Seinfeld for how easy he makes it seem to quip a hilarious observation in just five words. But Seinfeld works diligently at his craft. Every. Single. Day. He writes and rewrites his jokes with daily diligence. He follows a structure. He puts in the work.
But Donna puts in the work too. She’s diligent and tenacious. She doesn’t expect to hit the easy button – she just wishes she could when her work feels fruitless. We’ve all been there.
The difference between easy and easeful
Despite the cold hard truth that sales never gets easy, sales can be easeful.
What’s the difference between easy and easeful?
Easeful means your prospecting efforts are met with little or no resistance. Easeful means your discovery meetings flow and feel good, even when you’re rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work. Easeful means that you and your prospects co-create a mutually beneficial outcome that unfolds naturally, without angst.
Does the word easeful make you take a deep breath and relax with a glimmer of hope? If you could speak to Donna now, would you give her a reassuring hug and tell her that things won’t be easy, but they can definitely be easeful?
Yes - you might answer – but how do you do it?
How to achieve easefulness
There are two key ingredients needed in order to achieve easefulness:
1. You need the right foundation and structure for your discovery meetings. Even though you should always meet your prospect where they’re at, this does not mean winging it and “seeing where the meeting goes”.
Instead, you want to have a clear roadmap for the information you want to uncover in your thoughtfully planned discovery meeting.
The roadmap helps you identify:
o What business problems your prospect might be facing
o What the impacts of those business problems might be
o What is the root cause of those business problems
o Note! Your roadmap is not focused on how you can sell your product. Instead, the focus is on diagnosing the root cause of their business problems, and identifying the broader reaching impacts of those problems.
Of all the sales methodologies and approaches I’ve studied, the one that makes the most sense and resonates the most deeply with me is Gap Selling by Keenan. (That's why I'm now a Certified Gap Selling Trainer!)
By clearly identifying the problems, impacts, and root causes of each qualified lead, you have a roadmap that provides you with the foundation and structure you need for each discovery meeting.
As a result, you eliminate your:
o self-doubt
o guesswork
o fear of being "salesy"
With a clear roadmap, you know where you’re going, so that your conversations feel easeful, with fruitful outcomes for both you and your prospects.
The Gap Selling methodology does not give you scripts or easy tricks to follow. Instead, it gives you a framework to follow in your discovery calls. Within this framework, you flex and flow according to the conversation (which is not a one-way monologue, aka demo).
And how do you know how to flex and flow with the conversation?
Part of that is based on your preparation and business acumen. The other part of that is based on the second key ingredient that you need to achieve easefulness…
2. You need the right mindset and heartset.
It has been said that one of the most important decisions you can make is whether you live in a hostile universe, or in a friendly one (I take it a step further to say a loving universe).
Once you make this decision, are you open to receiving the guidance that this loving universe gives you? This guidance is available to you in two key forms:
o Your intuition provides you with instantaneous, turn-by-turn guidance. This intuitive intelligence is what can guide you within the clear structure of your discovery meetings as outlined above.
o Your emotional intelligence provides you with the ability to understand your prospect’s emotional state, which underpins every decision they make. Your EQ will also give you the ability to manage your own emotions, so you don’t let them interfere with your sales process.
By leveraging the power of your thoughts and heart (mindset and heartset), you will have the jedi superpowers needed to make your sales efforts easeful. I go into this in much more depth in my book Heart-Powered Sales.
Just imagine if you could reach out to Donna and, after giving her that reassuring hug, hand her a roadmap to structure her discovery meetings with purpose, while developing a positive mindset and heartset.
Now that’s the recipe for delicious easefulness that we all want.
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If you’re anything like Donna (or me, for that matter!) you may also want to check out my blog on How to worry less (even when your income depends on the outcome).