When you sit in on your next sales meeting, count how many times you hear the word feeling(s), or "I feel like..."
Nothing wrong with "gut feel;" it's valuable in many ways such as bonding and rapport, empathy, and intuition about people. But in selling it is also very dangerous.
If baseball kept no stats, most hitters would FEEL like they're failing, because they make an out far more times than they do not. The same failure rate is true of sales prospecting, but often the team does not keep the stats. A salesperson may FEEL like they're not effective and stop calling, when in fact the stats may show they get appointments on 14% of their calls, which is like a .300 hitter in baseball. Or the data may show that for every 4th referral from a client, on average an $84,000 contract is sold. Or, every time we do a lunch and learn for potential clients, we average two new additional clients.
Feelings also are bad when debriefing or strategizing. Do you hear things like "I feel like they're going to make a decision next week," or "feels like we should send them a proposal?"
Call planning and debriefing are not about feelings. They are about facts and intelligence. Proposals are not given unless all the items on the pre-qualifying checklist are achieved: need, pain, impact, lost $'s, budget, personal impact, decision makers, competition etc.
Solution: Get out of the feeling business, TRACK EVERYTHING, and implement a proven selling system that can be debriefed with a checklist, not feelings.
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