Do you think of yourself as a craftsperson? No? It’s about time for you to become one! Approaching sales as craft
· gives you a bigger purpose that makes the grind bearable
· makes success repeatable, both where you are now and across your career
· secures and creates value for you and your clients that only grows as your career progresses
· makes your career more fun, especially on the days when all you’re faced with is rejection, managers who are tools, and other downers
· provides your customers with value and experiences that make them happy and make you stand head and shoulders above other salespeople in their eyes
Focusing on sales craftsmanship gives you a long-term career purpose which transcends any given day, will consistently earn you more money, and make your customers say “Wow!”
But what does sales as a “craft” even mean?
craft (noun)
skill in planning, making, or executing
Merriam Webster Dictionary
A cautionary tale
The new hire sat not far from me. Within a few days, it was painfully apparent that he wasn’t going to succeed. His days had no structure. He had no plan for his work; no apparent overall understanding of the activities needed to be successful in his role or how to serve customers. He was reactive, not proactive, focused only on doing the rote activities that management used to measure progress — working to stay out of trouble and keep his Key Performance Indicators out of the red zone. When he engaged in specific activities, from prospecting, discovery, needs assessment, proposing, closing - he was all over the map. His skills were inadequate to sustain him. Definitely no sales craft, nor interest in developing it. I was carrying my own bag and didn’t have time to hold his hand all day. But we sat close enough; I tried to help. “Hey, so what’s your day look like?” “What’s next on that account? Sounds like an interesting prospect, how will you approach them?” “Let me show you what I’m doing here. What do you think of that approach?” “Here’s how my quarter looks – what does yours look like for you?”
His responses felt mechanical — no drive, curiosity, interest, organization, nor purpose. He wasn’t going to make it. And really, he probably needed to find a different career – one in which he could invest himself to develop craft: skill, knowledge, process – in an area where he felt some strong urge to learn, contribute, and do more.
Let me ask you - what do you think these successful people have in common?
· Hair Stylist
· Cabinet Maker
· Jazz Musician
· Salesperson
They each can develop and maintain systems for approaching their profession as craft. The most successful of these are fanatical about every aspect of their work, because they love their craft. To blow the top off your career, you and your customers both deserve for you to be a craftsperson.
Hair craftsman
In addition to my sales career, my wife and I have owned hair salons for the past two decades. We have seen stylists come and go over the years. Those who stay are “core” people – craftspeople – who grow and thrive. One of the strongest indicators that a new stylist will be successful, is that person’s ability to systematically work through a haircut.
This is a process, if you will, but really it is key evidence of their individual craft – their unique way of serving customers. Craft is a thoughtful way of completely and perfectly delivering a service from start to finish. If a person has a system, you can work with them to refine it. If they don’t have a system, will they use one if you teach it to them? If so, there is hope. If they won’t develop one, there is no hope. Without a process, one haircut may be great and another awful. A stylist without a process might cut your hair in 7 minutes one time and 36 minutes the next. In contrast, a hair stylist with a systematic way of working through a service will deliver consistent results with consistent times. And you definitely want your stylist to give you the same great experience each time, don’t you? Craft is the almost obsessive focus on developing and honing the skills and knowledge needed to excel.
At 14 years of service, Hilton Dang is one of our longest-tenured stylists and is most definitely a craftsman. Every aspect of his work – from greeting customers through the “thank you” at the end, is carefully thought through and seamlessly delivered. His core hair cutting skills are unexcelled, and people love his work.
Every action Hilton takes and tool he uses is measured, purposeful. No wasted motion. Just the right conversation with customers. Sports with this one. Family with another. Quiet with a third who just wants his space. With customer service, cutting skills and knowledge of people that he keeps as sharp as his tools, Hilton is a craftsman of hair.
Cabinet maker craftsman
We hired a cabinet maker, Israel Cruz, to help with updating our kitchen and bathrooms. Our old cabinets weren’t designed well, and I had no clue how to replace them. What to look for? Other cabinet stores we visited just wanted us to come in and pick things out. Really? We know very little about cabinets. How on earth are we supposed to pick things out when we don’t know anything? Worse, our house had no straight corners. Standard cabinets would never do. Our contractor recommended Israel. Right from the start, I could tell he was a craftsman, as he started to work us through his way of delivering service. What focus! He took out a pad of paper, started asking questions, drawing, measuring.
He was absolutely in his element and took complete charge — consumed and engaged by our project. Throughout our remodel — designing, exploring options, building templates, test fitting, identifying finish elements — I could tell each step fit into an approach, his craft, that would deliver great cabinets. I could see success building with each part of his process.
Israel’s process involved careful needs exploration, thoughtful questions, lots of ideas, drawings, and then flawless execution. He helped us to choose what we needed - what would fit and work. Israel’s workshop is a model of organization – tools carefully selected, immaculately maintained. His work is beautiful, and each cabinet fit and worked exactly as he planned and as we expected.
Oh, and we also paid more for those than we originally planned, but we were delighted to have done so. Yes, Israel was delivering cabinets, but it was the resulting obsessively-executed service process, from the beginning to the end, with his skills, tools, knowledge, and judgement that showed his full craft.
Jazz craftspeople
Jazz musicians are “artists”; surely, they don’t have craft, do they? I mean they are “making everything up”, right? Well, actually, no. Paul Ferguson, a college roommate and friend has lived a life building the craft of playing, arranging, conducting, and teaching Jazz. He leads the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, conducts master classes and has composed and arranged music that is played around the world
Jazz musicians learn to play segments, “riffs” in every key. They listen to thousands of hours of other musicians’ recordings. Paul would sit in our college apartment with headphones on, listening for hours. Over and over. Jazz musicians practice and pick up other musicians’ bits. They’ll learn different styles. Different ways to manipulate the music. They’ll practice assembling these in countless hours of rehearsal. Learn to select things that build on and play off other musicians. Take a piece from this person or song. Work with it. Learn and practice different techniques. Sometimes, they’ll create something new. So that when the performance comes and you’re sitting there listening, sipping your drink, you marvel over how they are just “inventing” something on the spot. Although, what you are listening to is the latest display of their process of selecting, practicing, and delivering music that fits that particular moment. Their craft. One they hone over and over.
I’m sure you know people like these: skilled, knowledgeable people committed to a craft. You don’t have to be famous to be a craftsperson. You just have to decide that the way you do what you do is going to be extraordinary. That you are so enthralled with the service you are delivering, that you will think over and over – even obsess about — every single step, system, tool, skill or element of knowledge you need in the process. You will commit to make each the best you know how. And deliver a service that is like art. Craftspeople use knowledge, skills, tools, and build systems to deliver art. You can, too. And you should.
Be a sales craftsperson
Salespeople need skills, tools, knowledge, and systems, too. For sales to be satisfying as a career, you need repeatable success. You need a system – a way of working and doing your job that spans your major tasks.
· I don’t mean whatever sales methodology the current head of sales is directing you to use. (Methodologies, are great, but they are just tools. As a matter of course, you should have a working knowledge of several methodologies to select from, depending on the sales need.)
· Nor do I mean the “sales steps” dictated by your Sales force automation system and the mindless required fields you have to fill out to make it happy.
· Nor the list of “top deals and next steps” that your manager requires.
· I also don’t mean the latest 84-slide deck that Marketing insists you must use in all your presentations.
None of those are enough. I mean your systems: process, knowledge, skills, tools. Your brain. Your unique overall vision of how you, as an individual human being, will find and engage another human being in a way that creates lots of value for both of you and delights them. While respecting both your and their humanity. This is also your value add. It is your craft.
Your systems will include steps you perform at each phase of your work. You will also need to identify and hone the skills and knowledge you have or need to accomplish those. You must list and acquire the tools you use to perform those tasks. You. Not your company. You. As a craftsperson, the owner of your personal craft, you will focus on building each of these, relentlessly. You have to own it.
When you treat your sales career as a craft, you will have something that is self-improving. Your craft is a guiding North Star to keep pulling you in the right direction. As a start, to build your craft – and your way of thinking of your career as a craft, consider:
· How do you prospect? How do you identify potential customers, work through the steps you need to get them to gladly meet with you? How do you move them from suspect to prospect? How do you ensure you do that consistently, so you don’t miss opportunity? How does your system ensure that you always have new prospective customers – so you won’t become distracted with later stage work and forget to keep your pipeline full? What does your new customer machine look like?
· How do you discover and explore possible fits in ways that demonstrate complete mastery of the service you intend to deliver? What do you need to learn to demonstrate solution mastery? Remember that customer needs are textured and often have deep consequences for customers. Needs often touch universal human themes. Your exploration method should help the customer to unfold these layers so that you can explore them in their fullest. My cabinet maker: “The corner cabinet you want is deep. How will you use it? Do you need something to help you store and retrieve items from the back?” What is your strategy for getting information and creating incredible value during that process for both you and your client? Are your current questions adequate or do they just scrape the surface?
· What process will you use to preview and discuss solutions to ensure that the richness of the need and any trade-offs fully addressed? Cabinet maker Israel: “Ah, a large ‘lazy Susan’, while expensive, will allow you to conveniently store and retrieve the large stock pot you want in that deep corner.’”
· How do you ensure that you capture all needed information and have it available to you? Few things are more impressive than gathering that information once and then using throughout your engagement with a client. It builds huge trust that you’re focused on them. Hint: it doesn’t have to be fancy. Israel, the cabinet maker, uses graph paper and pencil. But he never asked twice about any piece of information. He caught it all.
· When the need is fully laid out and designs have been previewed and selected – how do you prepare and present your proposals and demonstrations, showing the satisfaction of the need? Show how each component is tied to a part of the whole fabric you’ve created to meet their need.
Like the jazz musician, you’ll need to build out lots of segments – or “licks” to play your piece. You need to be able to play them in every key. (A need exploration with an end user sounds different than one with a CIO.) And you won’t use all of them with every client, will you? Rather, you’ll select them sparingly, judiciously as needed – the right lick in the right key. You’re putting your piece together from all things you’ve heard, thought of, practiced – based on the groove you’re in now. Yeah, man, you’re a hip cat!
The better you become at building out each element of your sales craft and the more work you put in, the more effortless it appears – to everyone who interacts with you. This, of course, is ironic and occasionally even problematic. Occasionally I encountered a leader who said something like “Well, that deal was so easy, we probably shouldn’t pay you full commission for it.” Now that I think of it, isn’t it interesting that no one ever said “Gosh, that deal was so difficult and time consuming that we should really pay you more for it.” When your craft becomes art, the result looks effortless from the outside.
By focusing on developing, honing, perfecting your systems – your knowledge, skills, tools, processes — with the goal of delivering a seamless service experience for your customer, you become a craftsperson. And you can focus on delivering art: sales service that is so focused and sublime that your customers love working with you and gladly will pay more. Oh, and boy, it is fun!
Focusing on your sales craft is a meta game. It lets you rise above the fray. Yes, I know you’re going to have to hit your quota this quarter (or die trying.) However, while you’re doing that, you can select and work on individual parts of your skills and knowledge. Improve something about one of your personal tools. Overhaul your prospecting process. Think more deeply about what you’re doing. You get the idea. You’re walking and chewing gum at the same time: nailing your short-term needs, while keeping a view over and improving the entire way you build, deliver, and exchange value and create delight with your clients. Thinking as a craftsperson forces you to look at how you consistently deliver the service and customer experience – and drives you to improve it all the time.
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Challenge yourself to build your craft with these questions.
· How can you conduct prospecting in ways that prospects thank you for contacting them?
· What methods of exploring needs make customers understand that you can help them in a manner that they could not do themselves? Discovery questions are tools. Sharpen yours.
· How will you demonstrate your solutions so compellingly that every action you take addresses something the customer vitally wants to know? How can you build a demo that unfolds in ways that answers the questions that emerge in the customers’ minds at each point in the demonstration that they think those questions?
· When you write proposals, how can you speak authoritatively, touching the deeper themes that drove the customer request? How can you show the value that working with you will uniquely provide the customer?
· What questions should you prepare to answer so that you are really ready? What contingencies can come up and how will you address them? Build a robust repertoire of “licks” and you can roll with whatever tune comes. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.
· What set of steps will you take in presenting your proposal? How will you tie your proposal to the customer needs in such a way that it will make requesting the business almost irrelevant – so that the customer can see that this – your presented solution – is the obvious and best answer? So that they say “yes” even before you ask.
In addition to the success you’ll experience, there are other powerful benefits of focusing on building and delivering sales craft. A focus on building craft makes all the many annoyances of daily sales life worthwhile. You’ll also see an overarching benefit or vision that drives and focuses your career. Make your work your craft and you will provide service that creates magic for clients while earning a great living for yourself. And that is a blast.
You should be teaching this knowledge at a business school! Really good 👍. What company did you work for and what did you sell?