What mindset do the best B2B selling professionals carry that allows them to be so effective at producing sales results, no matter what is going on month to month?
What is the mindset of the best Funding Pros that produce exceptional sales results month in and month out, no matter what is going on?
Waverly Deutch and Craig Wortmann of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found, through their research, that most professional sellers employed at Fortune 500 companies tended to have more structure and resources to support them – defined territories and verticals, operations teams, product development teams, customer service, and enterprise administrative resources.
And although, these pros had a full arsenal of resources, certain single entrepreneurs (with little to no resources) could produce as much comparable sales revenue results as several of these pros put together.
Entreprenuers, those who bet on themselves and started their businesses, by contrast, are typically dealing with a completely different type of selling environment. Their resources are more constrained and thus their choices have much greater impact.
Every sale rests on the entrepreneur’s shoulders – entrepreneurial sellers need to sell themselves as much as their solution.
The entrepreneurial selling mindset at its core is about problem-solving for your clients.
Your prospects, clients, decision-makers for the most part are entrepreneurs themselves. They are business owners, that in many cases, took a skill they became proficient in and turned it into a business by problem-solving for their customers and making a living in return.
Why does this mindset matter?
Customers expect more
According to Challenger Sales, 57% of the purchase decision is done before a prospect reaches out to a sales rep today because almost 70% of the buyer’s journey is done digitally.
Your customers are far more researched and educated than ever before. You must go beyond being a commodity and add value at every stage of the sales process.
Apart from the right product-fit, your value that differentiates you from the rest, gives you that competitive advantage that allow you to win business rests chiefly in the strategic questions you ask and the insights you bring.
The ownership stance changes the game
Funing Pros who think like owners of their books of business take more accountability for their outcomes and success, no matter what’s going on around them. They find a way, every time, to make their number by usually creating higher value for their clients.
When you Own your book of business, you engage merchants more effectively. Business owners don’t want a one-off service provider, they want a Trusted Advisor – a funding partnership.
How to make the mindset shift?
It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to your territory or you’re starting out with no book of business at all.
Now is the time to create a vision for what you want it to be this year, three and five years out.
Every deal you fund is a problem solved for a client.
Every relationship with a client is an account.
How many more problems can you help the merchant solve/how many more opportunities can you help the merchant capitalize on over the lifecycle of that account?
Build out what you envision your book of business being, and what kind of revenue its generating on a monthly and yearly basis.
Create your roadmap
How well do you know your book of business?
The most successful entrepreneurs analyze their business from multiple angles.
With this ownership mindset you’ll have to keep tabs of:
- Key wins and losses and they why behind them
- Financial projections
- Customer churn rate, including which customers are of the highest value and which are time wasters
- Major trends, overall goals, strategies, and challenges facing their customer sets
Use these to steer your book/business in the right direction every month to actualize your vision.
Own your outcomes, make it a priority to know every facet of your book/business, and Fund on!
-FundingStrategist
Leave a Reply