The JF Guest Author Spot 

Stone Payton

You won’t see it overtly expressed in many Sales, or even VP of Sales job descriptions.  It’s rarely discussed in account strategy meetings.  Outside of change management consultancies, only the most progressive of firms — a handful of very smart consultants and technical services providers from other disciplines — articulate it as a distinct client benefit and capitalize on it as an “unfair competitive advantage.”  I’ve yet to see it covered to any great degree in any formal sales training courses. 
 
Yet, Leading Change may be the single most important competency today’s salesperson can master. 
 
If your products and services are truly helping the customer fill an unmet need or realize a new opportunity, you are facilitating change.  Even if purchasing the product / service does not in itself represent a significant departure from the established pattern, the customer is almost certainly applying your solutions within a system consumed by change. 
 
So, you’re in “the change business” whether you ever meant to be or not.
 
So What? / Now What?
 
So What? . . .
 
You can and should get better at it (Leading Change) yourself.
You can and should help your clients get better at it.
 
If you do . . .
 
• You’ll achieve differentiation and competitive advantage that no traditional branding effort ever could.
• Your sales cycle will shrink dramatically.
• Your customer relationships will be substantially stronger.
• Your products & services will be used properly — and therefore, generate the results you promised.
• You’ll discover new applications and new markets for your existing offerings.
• You’ll discover (more easily develop) new products and services for meeting your existing markets.
• Your customers will continue to want your counsel (and perhaps your other products & services) to address the next set of changes, and the next.
 
 Now What? . . .
 
Strategic:
 
Start becoming a “student of change” today.*
 
Read the books, review the thought leadership.  Again, you won’t see much out there overtly tied to sales – but there’s plenty of (really good, solid) material on the topic in general, and an ever growing pool of practical resources available to you.  If you directly serve middle or senior level management in some way, get to a course on Leading Change.  The insight gained from hanging out with people who are struggling with change (and trying to do something about it) will be extremely valuable for you – and your clients.
 
* This is a journey you should start on your own — but if the volume of material and resources available gets to be overwhelming for you, drop me a note with a brief description of what you do and the market(s) you serve.  I’ll be delighted help you focus your efforts where you’ll get the highest and fastest return.
 
Tactical:
 
Start integrating the topic of change into your marketing, sales, and delivery processes . . .
 
1.  Even briefly mentioning the “challenge of change” in your promotional materials, and simply sharing the notion that your products and services help make meeting that challenge easier, faster, or cheaper is a) very attractive to prospective customers, and b) a strong, durable differentiator.
 
2.  Consider addressing “change” front and center in your sales calls.  As an example . . . You might review this article on “What’s Changing?” published by Eyes On Sales earlier this year.
 
3.  Demonstrate your Change Leadership expertise.  The quickest and easiest place to do this is through your broader communication outlets (newsletters, blogs, white papers, press releases, podcasts, webinars, etc.)  These are the venues for (elegantly) conveying specialized knowledge beyond the norm in your industry.
 
In client-specific communications — like e-mails, letters, phone calls, and live meetings — Do Not Duck the change issue.  Change is always an issue, always – though it often goes unspoken in the sales process. 

Hit it “head on” – acknowledging (even surfacing) the change-related implications of following your recommendations and purchasing your products / services . . . and describing exactly how you are uniquely qualified to help them mitigate the risks.  Hand in hand with this of course, is also helping the prospect understand a) the price of not changing — and b) the risks associated with acquiring these products / services without the benefit of the Change Leadership support that you and your firm provide.
 
Your competitors probably aren’t doing this, nor will they be nearly as well equipped to address the change-related concerns of your (now more “change-aware and educated”) prospects.
 
In any economy — up or down, the one constant is change.  Your clients are dealing with it now (and candidly in many cases, really struggling with it).  They will continue to deal with it.  Everything else being equal (or even close to equal), they will gravitate to providers who offer some degree of “change relief.”  If you’re in search of true competitive advantage – distinct positioning and unique competencies enabling you to withstand the ebb and flow of market forces outside your control . . . Leading Change should surely be at the top of your list.
 
 
See Ya In The Fast Lane . . .
 
- Stone

Stone Payton is a Sales & Marketing Troubleshooter specializing in helping Training & Consulting firms Solve Their Sales Problem. “The Most Candid Consultant On The Planet,” and the man who literally wrote the book on SPEED®, Stone plies his craft at: www.marketmate.org and http://stonesells.blogspot.com

He is also a significant member of the Top Sales Experts team and you can read more about him here

Today’s News: On the Top Sales Experts team, there are good guys and there are great guys – Mark Hunter falls into the latter group, he “gets it – listen to him in conversation with Clayton Shold over at Salesopedia by clicking on the banner below.

I am doing some real work again this week and I am with clients, so the News today is brief, but I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Is all about self-motivation – yep, that small thing that makes such a huge difference!

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