For more on increasing your sales effectiveness, subscribe to the RSS Feed for The Sales Blog and my Email Newsletter.

The fifth in the foundational attributes of sales effectiveness is Resourcefulness.

Resourcefulness follows the first attribute, self-discipline. Self-Discipline is the ability to keep the commitments one makes to oneself and includes the ability to take actions that are in your long-term best interests. Self-discipline is not simply the ability to control one’s actions and behaviors; it is also the ability to control one’s beliefs. This includes the belief that you can find a way or that you can make one.

Resourcefulness follows the second attribute, optimism. Optimism enables by the belief that a positive outcome can be found or created.

Resourcefulness follows the third attribute, competitiveness. Resourcefulness builds on the competitiveness of the salesperson by helping to identify the resources that ensure victory.

Resourcefulness follows the fourth attribute, initiative, but these are two attributes that build upon and reinforce each other. You need to be resourceful to take the initiative, and taking the initiative is in itself a form of resourcefulness.

What Is Resourcefulness?

Resourcefulness is the ability to find a way to achieve your goal or to make one. This is especially true when the goal is difficult to achieve and when little or no direction is given. Resourcefulness is the ability to think creatively, to generate ideas, and to identify alternatives. Resourcefulness is also imagination, the ability to visualize how something could be achieved when there is nothing there but the vision.

To be resourceful takes self-discipline and an iron will. First, self-discipline enables the belief that there is a way to achieve the outcome. Second, it takes an iron will to ignore the naysayers, the devil’s advocates, and those who simply lack resourcefulness themselves and so have no interest in your success.

Resourcefulness in Sales

Great salespeople are resourceful. They use their resourcefulness to find ways into prospects that others fail to uncover. Once inside, they work with their prospects to generate ideas that create a vision of how a problem may be solved or a competitive advantage might be gained—for them and for their prospect.

They find away to overcome obstacles to a deal that would otherwise be a roadblock. They identify the resources within their own company, their prospect’s company, and within their networks, and then they bring these resources to bear on the obstacles or challenges that prevent their success.

These salespeople bring their resourcefulness to bear on their own company’s challenges, and they work with management to create the innovative solutions that win deals, grow their sales, and move their company forward.

They imagine a way. Then they help create that way.

When Resourcefulness is Missing

When resourcefulness is missing, salespeople accept defeat. They believe that obstacles are actually roadblocks that cannot be overcome. Even though they possess the ability to imagine and to create, they don’t exercise their ability to do so. And without exercising their resourcefulness, it atrophies.

As sales has become more and more competitive, and as the rules of business are continually being rewritten to keep pace with the changing business climate, this lack of resourcefulness is a liability to the salesperson—and their company.

The lack of imagination, the lack of creativity, and the lack of the ability to identify resources that may move a deal forward results in losing deals that may have been won. Deals that were won by someone else, often that someone was more resourceful.

Conclusion

The role of the professional salespeople continues to change, and it continues to require more critical thinking and creativity. In order to succeed in sales, professional salespeople need to be resourceful, and they need to bring their creativity, their imagination, and their ability to identify and manage resources to bear on their prospect and customer’s challenges and opportunities.

Questions

1. How often do I accept a temporary setback—an obstacle—as a roadblock?

2. Do I exercise my imagination and creativity to find a way around or over these obstacles?

3. Do I use all of the resources available to me, including the resources within my own company, my prospect and customer’s company, and my networks to find a way to succeed when it isn’t apparent?

4. What issues and challenges should I be bringing my resourcefulness to now?

5. What would I do if I had to succeed?

For more on increasing your sales effectiveness, subscribe to the RSS Feed for The Sales Blog and my Email Newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect to me on LinkedIn, or friend me on Facebook. If I can help you or your sales organization, check out my coaching and consulting firm, B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, email me, or call me at (614) 212-4279.

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Related posts:

1. The No Excuses Guide to Selling Without a Sales Manager Young people have a lot of questions as to what their first sales job should be. They want know what industry they should pursue, how...
2. Deal Stalled? There Is Always More Than One Way. Much of what we do to produce sales results is difficult. We make it more difficult to get results when we fail use one of...