Here at Natural Training, we truly believe (and witness every day) how making just one small change can make a big difference to the outcome of whatever you’re doing, whether it’s making a sales call, building a cabinet or perfecting the iPhone…
Steve Jobs’ adopted father made cabinets for a living. He used to teach Steve about quality and how even the tiniest sacrifice wasn’t to be tolerated. For example, no-one sees the back of a cabinet, so you could in theory use cheap wood. “However while the customer wouldn’t know that it was cheap, you would” he would tell Steve, “and that’s not good enough.” Steve Jobs took this philosophy right throughout his career at Apple –making tiny, 1% improvements wherever he could – for example a higher quality of glass for iPhone that he specifically sourced from Dow Corning. There was no urgent need to find something better – the current standard of glass was considered fine by other phone manufacturers and consumers seemed okay with it.
However, that one bit of insistence from Jobs resulted in the creation of Gorilla Glass – now the scratch and damage-proof standard in mobile devices around the world. The accumulation of 1% improvements by Jobs resulted in world-class product lines and great differentiation from competitors. It also meant Jobs could sleep at night soundly.
Today, selling is a bit like this scenario. Sometimes it is difficult to make any big changes, because you are doing everything pretty well already. That’s why it’s good to realise that the real improvements can be in the small changes. It’s a word or two to gatekeepers, or a Tweet,or a subtle email subject line change that can make all the difference.
Selling today is testing, it’s playing, and giving things a go. Selling is working around the boundaries of normality to find a point of difference that will give you an edge. And these edges do pay off. For example if you make 1000 approaches a month, even a 1% improvement on your ability to get through to decision makers is an extra 10 conversations that can result in a big sale. And these types of ideas have worked in the past for the customers of Natural Training at a much higher efficacy rate than 1%.
We can do a full analysis of your team to find out where they can be making small changes, and then build a workshop that will help them make these small changes and achieve real improvements. Call one of our Training Consultants on 0207 043 1582 to start this process.
There are more stories like the above in our new book ‘The Natural Sales Evolution’ available now at Amazon.
