Desert Storm - Mohamed's Story

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you

----- From ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling  ------

In 2011, Mohamed, one of our Story workshop participants, was asked to travel from Egypt to Iraq to represent his company in a dispute meeting with a major Iraqi telecommunications company. 

The Iraqi Telco was experiencing serious network failures and the main suppliers, including Mohamed's company, were all pointing the finger at each other.

It was dangerous to travel to Iraq and company security policy required Mohamed to travel by armoured car and dress in full military protective clothing including bullet proof vest.

Alone inside an armoured car en route to Bagdad, Mohamed lifted a bottle of lemonade to his lips to quench his thirst. As the armoured car bounced on the potholed road the lemonade went down his wind pipe and he started to choke.

With the bullet proof vest strapped tightly around his chest, Mohamed panicked. He couldn’t unstrap the bullet proof vest, he couldn’t get the attention of the driver and he couldn’t breathe.

As he fought for breath, Mohamed had a sinking desperate fear that he would die alone inside the armoured car. He even thought to send a text message to his wife with his last few seconds of consciousness.

But eventually he wheezed some shallow breaths and recovered just as the armoured car reached his meeting destination.

Entering a room full of angry, antagonistic suppliers, Mohamed was oblivious to the commotion. He sat calmly and luxuriated in every breath of air, so happy to be alive.

Suddenly accusing voices rounded on Mohamed’s company. It was all his company’s fault!

Wordlessly, Mohamed stood up and went to the whiteboard. The room fell silent. As he sketched the configuration of his company’s technical solution on the whiteboard, Mohamed calmly explained how the network fault could not have been caused by his company’s equipment.

Silence.

“Ok! So it’s not their fault, it must be …” and the room descended back into acrimonious argument.

Mohamed walked back and sat down next to the local manager who turned to him and exclaimed “how did you do that?!”

***

Of course it was Mohamed's newfound existential perspective that allowed him to calmly manage that heated situation. 

It's a great story. We could just enjoy it for its perspective and humour but we could also retell it in a similar fractious situation to help gain agreement.

There is no chance of agreement when the opposing sides are highly emotional and it is the role of a sales person to persuasively shift the emotional landscape to a positive one. We call this type of story a 'sales process' story because it can be used to move a sale forward.

Great stories can be re-purposed and it is not necessary that the events happened to you.

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Company: Large Telecoms Supply Company

Source:

Told in a Growth in Focus Story Workshop 2017

Story Type:

Teaching

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For Story Students

The Setting:

Iraq after the second gulf war

The Complications:

Mohamed nearly choked to death

The Turning Point:

Mohamed recovered and was calm and composed through a vitriolic dispute meeting

The Resolution:

Mohamed resolved the dispute in is company's favour

The Point of the Story:

Perspective makes a difference

How to use this story: This story can be used to calm a situation where disagreements are getting out of hand. It is an example of a sales or business process story. Here is 

another example

 of a personal story that can be re-purposed for a business situation.

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The Accidental Sales Person

Growth in Focus is a Sales consulting company, but our Managing Director Sue Findlay does not consider herself a sales person. In fact, Sue shies away from sales activities, preferring to leverage her technical expertise in procurement, buyer psychology and winning tenders.

Company Director Mike Adams is also a technical person, but has long experience in sales and managing sales teams across several industries, and so helps Sue with sales activities for her territory in Western Australia.

Mike attended an industry conference in 2015 in Melbourne and met a Perth-based managing director of an international company that he though would be a good future customer. Mike had a brief conversation with the MD at the conference, and agreed to meet when he was next in Perth.

Unfortunately, each time Mike went to Perth on business, the MD was somewhere else in the world. It seemed likely they would never meet. After about five attempts to schedule a meeting, Mike emailed the MD suggesting that he meet Perth-based Sue instead.

Mike received a one line reply:

"Ok I will meet her, but we're not buying anything"

.

Hardly a response to motivate an already nervous Sue.

Mike setup a meeting practise session with Sue and encouraged her to tell the story about

why she founded Growth in Focus

- that story is about Sue's frustration with sales people who are unable to supply critical intelligence for the tender submissions she works on - such as the underlying reasons for the tender and the competitive situation.

Sue went for the meeting while Mike waited anxiously in Melbourne to hear how it went.

Sue called after the meeting and excitedly told Mike that she had told her story about her frustration with sales people and the MD had said:

"Welcome to my world, lets go to a whiteboard ..."

We are happy to report that this company is now a Growth in Focus customer where we are supplying a range of sales consulting services.

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Company: Growth in Focus

Source: Sue Findlay and Mike Adams experience

Reference:

Story Type: Insight, Personal

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For Story Students:

The Setting: Perth, 2015

The Complications: Sue did not feel competent or able to have a sales meeting with a prospect customer

The Turning Point: Sue was encouraged and trained to use a purposeful story in her first meeting with the prospect

The Resolution: Sue created rapport and interest with her story and it is now an important Growth in Focus customer

The Point of the Story: The right story can win a sale

How to use this Story: We use this story to underline the importance of stories in the sales process

Evaluating Sales People

In mid-2015, Steve was one of six candidates for a head of sales position at fast growing Telecommunications software start-up. The company had engaged Growth in Focus to assess candidate sales conversation skill which was done using a simulation. Of the six candidates, Steve was outstanding and was offered the role.

Fast forward 10 months and Steve, now Head of Sales, contacted Mike about performing a similar evaluation for two sales candidates that he was considering. Mike performed a skill evaluation and neither tested too well.

When Steven watched the simulation video he was shocked. In Steven's words words it was "...sobering to watch".

Steven had met and interviewed these candidates and thought that they would be suitable but the simulation showed significant weaknesses in the core sales skill - conversation skill. This is a significant insight.

You might think "an interview is like a sales meeting, I can evaluate their sales conversation skill in an interview"  - and

you would be wrong

. It is necessary to analyse a well structured sales situation to properly evaluate sales conversation skill.

In response to this insight, Steven is now evaluating recruiting candidates and current team members to see what the training requirements are.

Steve continues to grow his international team and the company is going from strength to strength.

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Company

: Telecommunications Software Company

Source:

Mike Adams consulting experience with this company assisting them to hire the best sales people

Story Type:

Insight; Business Purpose

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For Story Students

The Setting: Mid-2015 Steve applied for a head of sales role with a Telecommunications start-up

The Complications: The start-up needed to ramp up fast and hire head of sales and sales people all over the world. Steve was one of six candidates to be assessed via a sales simulation run by Growth in Focus

The Turning Point: Steve got the job and then started building his team. Eight months later Steve was considering two international candidates and decided to use Growth in Focus again to evaluate them/ Steve was shocked a the results

The Resolution: Steve resolved to simulation test all sales people including current hires

The Point of the Story: Steve resolved to simulation test all sales people including current hires

How to use this story: We use this story as a reference story to build our sales recruiting business

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The most expensive dry hole in South East Asia and practising safe questions

A few years ago I accompanied one of my sales people on a customer meeting in Indonesia. In the pre-meeting briefing, I was informed that the person we were meeting, the exploration manager for a mid-sized oil and gas company, had famously just completed drilling the most expensive dry hole in Indonesia. That is, they had spent more than $100 million dollars and failed to find hydrocarbons.

We were selling software that had the potential to avoid a repeat of that failure, so clearly, we would like to discuss the recent dry hole and the reasons for it.

My sales person, however, was nervous about asking, fearing that the topic would be embarrassing for the exploration manager. So I explained a specific question type which is safe for this sort of situation.

The question is: "To what extent is

x

an issue in ...."

When you ask to "what extent is" you are not making any assumption about the answer, so its a safe way to ask.

As we were selling software that could have imaged the target better our question was:

"To what extent was target imaging an issue in your recent non-discovery well?"

Note that this is safer than an alternatives such as:

"Did you have trouble imaging the reservoir in you recent ...?"

With this question the listener is likely to hear "...you have trouble ..." and take offence.

We asked our "to what extent is .." questions, and had a constructive meeting - to the relief of my local sales person.

Learning to ask the right question in the right sequence is critical to sales success and something we teach in our Diamond Dialogue conversation training.

Read more about sales questions at:

http://www.gifocus.com.au/sales-training-academy/diamond

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Company

: Mid sized Oil and Gas Company

Source

: Mike Adams personal experience

Reference

:

Story Type

: Teaching

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For Story Students

The Setting

: In 2010 I was working in Halliburton as Head of Sales and I had a meeting with an exploration manager who had just drilled the most expensive dry hole well in SE Asia

The Complications

: I needed a way to get the conversation onto the topic of the dry hole without embarrassing the exploration manager

The Turning Point

: I called on my question skills training to devise a safe way to ask about the dry hole useing the "To What Extent ...?" quesion

The Resolution

: We had an engaging conversation and were able to position our software products to prevent future issues

The Point of the Story

: We had an engaging conversation and were able to position our software products to prevent future issues

How to use this story

: We use the story in our sales conversation training and to show the benefits of the Diamond Dialogue questioning framework

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The Siemens art exhibition bypassing tender rules

In the early 2000s  Siemens sales manager Paul Thompson was sweating on the result of a major tender.

It was the 'radio silence' evaluation period when the customer's tendering rules precluded any contact. Paul was nervous about the result and wanted to continue to influence the tender decision process.

Paul found out that his customer did not own their corporate headquarters building, so he organised with the building owner to run a Siemens sponsored art exhibition in the main lobby which the tender evaluation team would pass through each day as they went to work.

Paul was in the art exhibition when the customer's head of procurement walked past, looked at Paul and shook his finger to say "never again", but them smiled.

Paul won that tender.

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Company

: Siemens Communications

Source

: Mike Adams discussions with Siemens Head of Sales Paul Thompson

Reference

:

Story Type

: Business Purpose

Labels

: Bending the Rules; Tenders

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For Story Students

The Setting

: Early 2000s, Melboune Australia

The Complications

: Siemens were in the 'radio silence' pahse of a very large tender evaluation

The Turning Point

: Paul organised a Siemens sponsored art exhibition in the customer's HQ building lobby

The Resolution

: Siemens got the additional advertising and marketing benefit and procurement amended their tender rules

The Point of the Story

: Siemens got the additional advertising and marketing benefit and procurement amended their tender rules

How to use this story

: When talking abut innovative ways to influence in sales

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Pick up the phone to make your quarterly number

I had my first sales role in Stavanger in Norway in 1996. We were selling high-end graphical software to Oil and Gas companies.

There were three salespeople in the team, all new to sales, reporting to the Norway country and sales manager Lars Wiborg. Lars was Swedish and a larger than life character, life of the party (and instigator of a great many of those parties).

It was end of quarter and Lars called us all into his office with its magnificent views across Stavanger harbour to the Lysefiord in the distance. As we sat around his meeting table Lars explained that he was going on vacation and needed to know how we were progressing against our quarterly sales targets.

Lars:

"Mike, what have you got? "

Me:

"Not much, it looks like Amoco will drag to next quarter, Shell already purchased last quarter, I'm not going to make my target"

Lars:

 "Gareth?"

Gareth:

"Conoco won't be buying this month and I don't have any other prospects that will close this quarter"

Lars:

"Bixi?"

Bixi:

"Same story, I've got nothing"

Silence and a dark look from Lars. He then reached for the telephone in the middle of the table, started an animated call in Norwegian.

After a few minutes ...

Lars: 

" Ok, Five Charisma 3D licenses and and two 2D licenses for Statoil

Rings again, more animated and jovial discussion in Norwegian.

Lars:

"Three Stratlog licenses and a Charisma Data Loader for Norsk Hydro. How much does that make?"

Mike:

Yes we got the number but don't stop now! Stay on the phone and we can get our annual target.

It was a fascinating lesson. There was a reason that Lars had us all in his office to observe that performance. Sometimes you can (and must) ask for the business. At that stage none of us had developed the necessary level of customer relationship but we also would not have thought to just pick up the phone and ask.

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Company

: Schlumberger

Source

: Mike Adams experience

Reference

:

Story Type

: Teaching

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For Story Students

The Setting

: 1996, Stavanger Norway

The Complications

: Sales Manager was taking vacation but there were no orders for the quarter

The Turning Point

: Lars called his major customers and requested and received some orders

The Resolution

: The quarterly number was achieved

The Point of the Story

: The quarterly number was achieved

How to use this story

: When teaching sales people about making the number adn asking for the business

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Using 'because' to get away with murder

In the late 1970s, Ellen Langer and some colleagues at Harvard University showed in a simple experiment just how powerful reasons can be.

At the Harvard library there was a single photocopier that always had a line of people waiting to use it. For the experiment, Langer’s colleagues would walk to the front of that line and ask to cut in. If they said it was ‘because I’m in a rush’, 95 per cent of the time the people in the line said yes. But if they gave no reason, only 60 per cent of those queuing said yes.

Interestingly, if the researchers gave a bogus reason but still used the word ‘

because

’, 93 per cent of the people in the line still said yes.

Human beings like reasons, and the the word 'because' is the hypnotic link to the reason. As sales people we need to use the word 'because' such as

"... I'm calling you

because

 I read an article about how you are ,,,"

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Company

: Harvard University

Source

: Anecdote website and changingminds.org

Reference

: http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/rationality.htm

Story Type

: Insight, Teaching

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For Story Students

The Setting

: Late 70s at Havard University

The Complications

: Experimenters were investigatimg some surprising human behaviours in the photocopy queue

The Turning Point

: They noticed that even an irrational 'because' led to a compliant queue

The Resolution

: Humans need the 'because' to generate meaning in situations

The Point of the Story

: Humans need the 'because' to generate meaning in situations

How to use this story

: Useful for sales people in cold calling and many other scenarios

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