Resourcefulness is the ability to find a way to reach 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 develop resourceful skills, it 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 seeing your success.
Resourcefulness in Sales
Great salespeople are resourceful. They use their creativity 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 would otherwise prevent their success.
These modern sales professionals bring their resourcefulness to bear on their own company’s challenges, and they work with management to create the innovative solutions that identify sales capacity, 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 imagination 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 resourceful skills, 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.
Related: How To Master Cold Calling
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 will be won by someone else, often someone 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
How often do I accept a temporary setback—an obstacle—as a roadblock?
Do I exercise my imagination and creativity to find a way around or over these obstacles?
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?
What issues and challenges should I be bringing my resourcefulness to now?
What would I do if I had to succeed?
