Watch Your Parking

Rocked up for a meeting with a first-time prospect, only to be ridiculed for wearing a flasher-mac.  And I was sure it was trendy.  Thankfully, whilst our fashion sense differed, our sales-sense converged.  One key area we discussed featured objection handling.

The frustration with reps not self-analysing enough cropped up.  I remember a wonderful moment in a web-services sales meeting where 50 people in a room were asked if anyone knew their own sales stats, starting with average length of sales cycle.  Only one person put up his hand.  Then the question was whether he knew his close ratios.  Again, he alone did.  Amazing.  His name is Brendan Gillies, a winner.  I also recall once the peerless Alan Hansen commenting that in all his years winning trophies at Liverpool, he never saw a video of a win.  He only ever had to sit through matches they’d lost.  At least there was some analysis.

What, I wondered, were the kinds of things being missed by such disregard for personal skill improvement?  And parking objections was a major issue.

I know I’m guilty of this.  You get an objection, and steamroller it.  It no longer comes up as an issue.  But all you’ve done is to mute it.  The objection remains in play.  But you ignore this fact, in blissful denial of its importance.  And eventually you turn out to be #2 on the deal.  Loser, big time.  Understanding the difference between parking and handling an objection can make a real, huge difference.