by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
Yesterday I attended my partners, niece’s wedding. It was a lovely day. Two people obviously very much in love, bringing together family and friends to celebrate that love.
We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day.
The ceremony took place at Reigate Golf Club, which offers couples the chance to have ceremonies both inside and out. Because of the the summer weather we were able to have the ceremony outside. As a civil ceremony it was short and to the point, which in my book is good.
As well as the bride and the groom were 6 bridesmaids and 6 best men.
The bridesmaids and best men were all given a job to do. This meant they were not just there for ceremonial purposes but all involved at some stage through the day. The speech, calling people for the wedding lunch, making sure people sat in the right place was delegated out across a team of 12.
At the end of the ceremony one of the best men had the job of handing out “bubble makers”. So while rather than the traditional confetti, people had small containers to make bubbles.
When the time came we opened the top, dipped the bubble maker into the soapy liquid and blew the though the loop at the end. The air filled with bubbles. A great affect and in fact better than confetti.
So what has this got to do with sales?
Of course there were people that tried to create short cuts. Couldn’t we just dip the bubble maker in the soapy solution and wave the stick? No. You have to take the effort (which is no effort at all) to blow through the bubble maker and create the bubbles. As the saying goes, it’s all about execution.
We see this all the time in sales. For example. Sales Navigator is the best lead generation tool on the market. But give it to somebody without teaching people how to be social, and it does not sell more, in fact it turns them into the worlds best spammer.
If you implement in a new tool you need to invest in the people and process that surround that tool. Each tool, will mean a new way of working, new efficiencies and effectiveness that your business can use. It certainly shouldn’t be assumed to be the same old, same old, company but with a new tool. For example, now that we have more efficient ways of communicating with each other we use them. We don’t use mobile phones to call it each other, it’s more efficient and effective to Slack / WhatsApp / Text each other. You may not like it, but the world has changed and we are not going to go back to the old days.
When I was taught to ride a bike, my horizons changed, the same when I was taught to drive a car. These tools changed my life, no more walking or being reliant on people for lifts. New tools meant I could, and I did do things differently. This is how we should work in sales. These tools give us greater efficiency and effectiveness and there is no need for short-cuts and just like the bubble creators, those short cuts don’t work anyway!
People who read this article slo read these:
https://dlaignite.com/thought-leaders-or-old-ideas-rehashed/
https://dlaignite.com/is-your-team-doing-what-they-should-be-doing/
https://dlaignite.com/how-not-to-run-social-media-transformation-strategy/
