Becoming comfortable with ambiguity is essential to professional selling. That’s because there’s an invisible wall between salespeople and their prospects. It’s built of apathy or resistance. Prospects are often apathetic or resistant to a salesperson’s efforts. Salespeople might even be feeling that way about some of their prospects.
And, anytime there’s a wall between two people, ambiguity exists. Salespeople have to work to understand what’s behind that wall. We have to work to understand why a prospect would buy from us.
The wall gets broken down by whoever (prospect or salesperson) most want what’s on the other side. For prospects, that’s whatever is being sold. For salespeople, it’s the sale.
Regardless, until it’s broken down, the wall of apathy or resistance creates ambiguity.
We’ve all been in sales situations where we’re disinterested in working with a particular prospect. Maybe our focus is elsewhere (a vacation) or perhaps we’re thinking this prospect will be a pain in our side. Regardless, we’ve certainly been resistant.
We’ve also all been in situations where prospects are apathetic or resistant to our sales efforts.
Our jobs as salespeople, however, rest on our abilities to overcome those feelings and break down that wall.
How do you break it down? What’s the best way to understand what’s on the other side of the “wall”? Let me know.
