Compassion and Patience Work in all Aspects of Life

My son was at an indoor play area today with his sister and the babysitter. There were some other children much smaller than my son (he's 6) and the mother of one of the other children was concerned that my son was playing too rough and might hurt one of her children. As a parent, I can completely understand this feeling. However, this person chose the WRONG way to deal with this matter. Instead of going to the adult watching my son and asking her to reign him in, she decided to confront my son and tell him "you need to calm down or go home." There are two problems with this tactic. First, I would NEVER take it upon myself to discipline the child of a total stranger and I think it was rude that this woman decided to yell at my son. Second, my son has autism, and a complete stranger walking up to him and trying to communicate with him is almost completely useless. Even if he was inclined to pay attention he would have a great deal of trouble understanding someone yelling at him. In contrast, there was another woman present, who also had a small child. She saw my son's actions and said to the babysitter "excuse me, is he autistic?" Now, I don't expect the world to simply accommodate my son for his differences (or magically recognize his disability) but I do think it is in their best interest to understand a situation better before taking action. So with this life lesson, I found a seed of inspiration for applying these ideals to sales
We have all been in a situation where something happened and the results were totally unexpected. The first thing to do is listen to your instincts.If someone you've known for a long time does something completely out of character, there is usually a substantial reason why. If this wasn't the outcome you expected, what possibly could have changed it? Did you do something that the other party did not understand or did not like. Did you use a procedure or tactic that has been appropriate before but was not appropriate this time? Really look at the final  results and REGARDLESS of your desired outcome, understand why the other party did what they did. I have found that many sales people take it personally when a customer chooses another vendor or solution. 80% of the time I know when I am not the front runner. The ones that really get to me are 20% that I was sure were going with me and went in another direction. But you have to consider these a learning experience and then apply what you learned to the next opportunity.
Having compassion for a customer means that you can look at their situation and can appreciate what they are responsible for on a daily basis within their company. NEWS FLASH! your sale is probably not the the #1 priority on their "to-do" list today. So it is important to find what is important to your customer and use that to make your solution important to the customer. If you've had a situation where your product is good for he customer and the customer has agreed it's good but has not signed on the dotted line, that is a telling statement. It means that however valuable you may think your product or solution is, it was not "compelling" enough to make them sign on the dotted line. As a sales professional, it is your job to make the solution, not only work, but make it compelling.

So here's the summary: Be compelling, be compassionate, truly understand waht motivates the customer & review the situation from the perspective of all involved parties. And show patience, the world doesn't revolve around you.

Thanks for reading today

Mike S.

BTW follow me on twitter @mistertelecom @selflessnetwork