Still Selling: What 2020 Changed… and What it Didn’t
These last six weeks or so have been very eye-opening for me. So many things have happened both personally and professionally, that it’s been difficult to keep up.
If you’ve been paying very close attention, or are a Deeper Thought subscriber, you know that my primary goal as of late has been to slow down, to be present, mindful, and give myself the space for the next right steps to appear in the face of what can only be described as chaos.
It’s as if everything I’d learned early in the year became a necessary foundation for those next steps to become clear. It’s funny how the growing process works.
I want to share a few of my takeaways from this tumultuous year. It was no picnic to experience in real time, and there isn’t a whole lot that will immediately be different in 2021, but I believe that hindsight will prove 2020 to be a monumental and fortuitous year in my career, and I hope you will be able to say the same.
COVID Did Not Change Selling
The global pandemic changed a lot of things for us. Travel, even commutes, were all but completely eliminated for a lot of us. Handshakes became fist or even elbow bumps. Face-to-face became screen-to-screen. We got very used to mediocre carryout or delivery food.
Though we needed to carry ourselves a little differently, selling did not change in the face of the pandemic. You still have problems that you solve, and there are people and companies with those problems. Your prospects and customers are depending on you to show them what they cannot see for themselves, and to help them get there.
While there is certainly an undeniable gravitas to an in-person meeting, what you say and do will always be much more important than where you say and do it. With everybody accepting and acquiescing to new standards, the fact that you can’t look your customer directly in the eye over a meal does not mean you can’t sell to that person. “But I can’t meet with anybody in person” is a first-ballot hall of famer in the “Best Excuses of 2020” category.
Look, does driving change when you get a new car? Or do you just have a few new tools and some adjustments to make? As soon as you get clear about what has really changed versus some adjustments you need to make, you’ll be a lot better equipped to focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t. I riffed about this with Jason Bay earlier this year, and it was probably my most engaging LinkedIn post, ever.
Prospecting is still simpler than you’re making it out to be
The tools and the tech are out there to make your life easier, but more often than not, salespeople are letting these implements become impediments. As much as ever, sellers are so worried about the best way to prospect at scale that they forget their fundamentals. Know how you help, know who you help, then take your solutions to them. It’s that simple.
You don’t need a fancy cadence or automation. Most of you reading this are responsible for dozens of prospects rather than thousands. While there are certainly solutions out there that will enable you to stay on point, daily, focused activity is still the biggest key to effectiveness. Tech doesn’t help you sell, it helps you scale. Get good at selling to a handful of people at a time before you take it to the masses.
The Path to Your Door is Too Difficult to Clear
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” I remember hearing this as a kid, and it made sense. Hey, if Emerson said it, and I was hearing it in school…
The problem is, there are more mousetraps out there than ever before, and the amount of choices are paralyzing. We’ve all experienced this, and as I wrote last week, if you want someone to see something, you need to put it in front of them and tap them on the shoulder- preferably with some context as to why it should be important to them.
Content marketing is not dead. In fact, it’s more valuable than ever. However, you can’t simply set a clever system of traps and wait for people to fall into them. You need to be proactive with your outreach and use your content to create tangible context for how you help people. Effective sellers have been doing this for years, and this will not change anytime soon.
Good Content is Worth Paying For
For years, I’ve seen colleagues of mine gate some of their best (or at least, best-organized) content. The logic was straightforward, but one of the biggest objections was that with so much free content out there, why would people be willing to pay?
The dirty secret isn’t that the lessons themselves are game changers, but that growth comes with attention and discipline, and people pay attention to what they pay for. You don’t just pay for more concise and consistent learning, your payment combats the paradox of choice and actually reduces friction in the growth process.
Yes, paying for your personal and professional development creates a much higher ROI than surfing the web for free sales tips. You’re going to hear a lot more about my Deeper Thought project in 2021.
Many Heads are Better Than One
One of the recurring themes of 2020 has been how much I’ve collaborated with my friends and colleagues on projects, and how much I enjoy sharing the workload, even though it means sharing the fees. From the paid engagements, to the Deeper Thought project, to the charity group coaching, to the free webinars… I get just as inspired by talking to and working with these leaders as you do, and there’s value far beyond the finances.
Stillness is the Key
As I reflect on these and so many other lessons I’ve learned over the past 12 months, perhaps the most significant thing I’ve learned is the importance of reflecting in and of itself. Solutions take work to implement, but sometimes misguided work gets in the way of the real solutions. You have to give yourself the space sometimes to see the right path open up in front of you.
A few of the “next right things to do” have presented themselves to me over the past several weeks. I’m excited to share them with you very soon, including a new website, expanded offerings within Deeper Thought, more webinars podcast appearances, and a regular live presence across social media.
I’m bound and determined to make 2021 my best year ever. Are you with me? Let’s move forward together.
Jeff Bajorek
Real. Authentic. Experience.
There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.
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