4 Reasons Female Prospects Kill Your Hopes

Or not… Regular readers will know I like to embrace many an unusual source for selling inspiration. So I saw a show about a young professional lady who was busy shooting policemen.

A profiler intriguingly revealed that motives for such crimes differ between the genders. She described four driving forces behind a specifically female serial killer;

the pleasure-seeker gets high on the sheer ‘hell of it’
the visionary answers voices in her head from a ‘higher authority’
the purger rids society of unwanted ills &
the controller determined to command her environment.

It is naturally not my intent to compare prospects that try and scupper our plans with sociopaths. (I’ve even blogged before about possible cold-call traits in such mould.)

I sadly recognised similar traits from blocks to my own proposals over the years;

People thinking it’s funny to see you thrown out (hilarious…).
Those that only do what they believe their boss would like.
Buyers that won’t let anyone in who could ‘rock the boat’.
And the many who’s stance is that if they neither brought in the idea nor have direct supervision over it then it must die.

In our Sales arena, plans can be made for all these (and several more).

Yet we perhaps often leave it a touch too late to act.

Maybe a useful once-off forecast task could be to see if any of the above apply to key individuals involved in a bid. Ahead of time.

Whichever framework you use, spotting blockers and making a plan for them is essential solution selling fayre.