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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Rejection Antidotes

Pushback (n):  a negative or unfavourable reaction or response.

Mismatch (n):  a failure to correspond or match

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In 2009, while working for a major international supplier of telecommunications equipment, I arranged to meet the CTO of one of Malaysia’s largest mobile network providers. I was accompanied in the meeting by one of our technical sales specialists.

As the meeting warmed up, I asked the CTO how many mobile base stations his company had deployed.

He responded,

“5000”,

Before I could ask my next question, my technical specialist, jumped in with,

“No, you only have 4911!”

Gently kicking the technical guy under the table, I steered the conversation back to my next question.

What just happened?

This was an example of push back, or mismatch. It occurs, often as an automatic response, when a fact or assertion is delivered. In this case, the CTO delivered a ‘fact’ and my technical sales guy pushed back with his own 'adjusted fact'.

While not always verbalised, push back is happening in the minds of all of us when we are presented with ‘facts'. I won't delve into the psychology but it is one of our natural truth and identity processing reflexes.

This automatic push back is often perceived by sales people as rejection of them and their message, when really it's just an automatic response. The trick is to try and avoid making assertions.

In his sales classic, “The Secrets of Question-Based Selling(2000)”, author Tom Freese also describes the

“instinctive tendency of individuals to resist, push back or respond in a contrarian manner”

when sales people make assertions. Freese calls this push back ‘Mismatch”.

Freese goes on to explain that you cannot push back against a question and proceeds to describe a questioning strategy with ‘type’ questions to facilitate the buyer’s journey.

Indeed, it is difficult to push back against a question but it’s also difficult to deliver your company’s insights and positions with questions. Questions are great for demonstrating credibility and exploring and understanding a potential customer’s situation but they are not so great for delivering content. Something else is needed, stories.

Stories are flanking manoeuvres for assertions. With your insights and assertions wrapped in a story you can place the information in the back of your customers mind and avoid automatic push back.

Questions and stories; the persuaders feint and roundhouse kick.

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Company: 

Nokia

Source: Mike Adams personal experience

Story Type: Teaching

_____________________________________________________

For Story Students:

The Setting: 2009 in Malaysia

The Complications: A disrupted conversation

The Turning Point: Re focussed conversation and realisation of what has occured,

The Resolution: Meeting returned to questioning

The Point of the Story: Questions and stories are the two dialectic tools for avoiding push back and rejection.

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

_____________________________________________________

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

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 Zambia Malaria Outbreak Story

In the mid 1990s, Stephen Denning was angling for a top position in the World Bank after a long and distinguished career in the banking industry. Instead of the job he wanted, he was given what he considered a 'poisoned chalice' -  a role to implement knowledge management at the World Bank because the organisation operated all over the world but seemed to be repeatedly making the same mistakes.

It was the early days of PowerPoint and Stephen made what he thought was a compelling presentation full of rational argument and moving slides about why knowledge management was important. He took his presentation on a global tour but was unable to persuade any country to take on in his knowledge management initiative.

One day, back at the World Bank HQ in New York, Stephen was having lunch in the staff cafeteria when he overheard a story being told by some field workers:

A health worker who was part of a project to build a school in a tiny town in Zambia went to the Web site of the Centre For Disease Control and got an answer to a question about the treatment of malaria. This was in Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, and it was in a tiny place six hundred kilometres from the capitol city. 

Stephen included this story in his presentation and there was an instant change in his audience response. The Zambia story connected with his audience and his quest to implement knowledge management finally started to gain traction.

Stephen Denning calls the Zambia story a "springboard" story because it was told and retold countless times and was the catalyst for organisational change

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Company

: World Bank

Source

: Stephen Denning "The Springboard" How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organisations, 2001

Reference

:

Story Type

: Business Purpose; Insight

Labels

: Knowledge Management; Change Managment

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For Story Students

The Setting

: Mid 1990s Stephen Denning was angling for a top position in the world bank

The Complications

: Stephen was given the task of implementing knowledge management and found it very hard going

The Turning Point

: Stephen overheard a story about a malaria outbreak in Zambia and decided to use that story in his presentations

The Resolution

: The story worked brilliantly, Stephen threw away his powerpoint slides and focussed on using the persuasive power of the Zambia story. Stephen went on to write a best selling book on his success using the story

The Point of the Story

: The story worked brilliantly, Stephen threw away his powerpoint slides and focussed on using the persuasive power of the Zambia story. Stephen went on to write a best selling book on his success using the story

How to use this story

: This is a classic change management story. Use it whenever you need to talk about implementing change

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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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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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