Become Cosmonauts In Your Next Forecast Session To Rocket Your Pipeline
On Tuesday I caught the latest Soyuz rocket launch. Three cosmonauts sped to the International Space Station. One paid for by the British taxpayer.
During the live feed, I was struck by the orbit of Sales angles that could help our funnel truly lift-off.
Gravity Indicator
My pic above is of the grainy camera from inside the cockpit. In the middle you can just about make out a type of comedy, toy pen. Big, thick, bluey with a dash of orange, dangling from its berth by way of rings. (Not to be confused with an elder spacepen of renown.)
When racing starwards, it swung around violently. As the pull of the earth lessened, it slowed. Before coming to a calmness.
Viewers learned this was to show when space was reached. Previously, they’d used a cuddly toy. When floating, the visual cue complete.
I’m reminded also of the canary in mine or figs on vineyard. Warning signs they each emit.
There are many such indicators we too can deploy on a bid. All along the scale of danger to compliance. Is a phonecall taken? Does your prospect reply to an email with key info? Are you truly collaborating on a Prop? Their ceo taking keen interest still in you?
Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation
Literally sprinkle a burst of rocket science onto your bids. This is all about the power required to successfully take off.
What does it take for you to escape the pull of your competition? To get any prospect to truly fly with your project? To know that your process is the genuine command module?
You could go deep with this. Wikipedia lists the five variables. You can swap in your own. Better still, if you’ve a team, get them to create them. Could ‘v’ represent perceived value? Or each ‘m’ be a type of Return, one money, one personal? Or perhaps fit to buyer corporate goals, budgets or even key strategy enabler?
The Overview Effect
This is the new term coined for how astronauts change having seen the earth from afar.
Once seeing our ‘pale blue dot‘ below them, their perspective tends to alter. Global issues take hold. Climate, famine, war, tribalism, ecology.
For solution salespeople to win through, we also tend to need a kind of this overview effect to prevail. Someone who sees our help on their wider canvas. How we tick all the boxes perhaps not only for the short-term policy makers, bean counters and parochial jobsworths. But also those who really do care, with vision, altruism and determination.
Who displays this among your prospect personalities? Who can stop your plans ‘hanging in the void’? And who can help the ‘cognitive shift’ towards you from within their colleagues?