Your Dream Client Didn’t Hire a Sales Rep

You made the call, you scheduled the appointment, you did your discovery, and you made your diagnosis. You discovered the truth of your dream client’s problems, you helped create a vision of a better outcome and a better future, and you won the deal. Congratulations! Your sales skills, attributes, and abilities carried you this far and they carried the day.

You won the business because of your sales abilities, but that isn’t why your dream client hired you. They hired you to get them result that you sold and that you promised. They didn’t hire a sales rep.

They Hired a Manager

Your dream client hired you to manage an outcome. They hired you to make an improvement in they area in which they were dissatisfied. They expect you to manage that outcome, and they expect you to own it. You are now part of their management team, at least as it pertains to the result that you sold.

Management means ensuring that the resources are in place to get the outcomes that your dream client needs, and that those resources perform effectively. You can’t drop the contract off on your sales manager’s desk and leave; your job is just beginning.

They Hired a Leader

You helped create the vision and you helped to sell the vision. Your role in sales does not end there. By helping to create and to sell the vision, you own that vision. Now you have to lead the realization of that vision.

Your role is to lead your team, and to participate in the leadership of your dream client’s team (and sometimes you have to lead both teams outright). Walking your talk means ensuring that your team and your company delivers. You are the de facto leader, and your phone is the phone that is going to ring when the problems occur.

Want to be a consultative seller? Want to have influence and credibility? Then you will have to lead.

They Hired a Team Member

Your dream client hired you to be a part of their team. They have brought you in to their trust, and they want (and need) you to make a contribution as a team member. They expect you to be engaged in their business. They expect you to have a presence—especially early on when your new initiative and endeavor is most at risk. They expect you to help them manage change.

Your success in sales requires you to be the member of many teams, including your dream client’s teams.

Your dream client hired you to be part of their team, not just a sales rep from a vendor.

They Did Hire a Sales Rep

Your dream client did in fact hire a sales rep. All of the razzle-dazzle you gave them with your situational knowledge, your business acumen, your killer diagnosis, your creation of a vision, and all of your other sales abilities now have to be employed to influence your team and their team to create the change that you sold together.

They expect you to help them sell within their organization, and they absolutely expect you to sell within your organization to get them the outcome that they need. Your influence and your credibility as a salesperson doesn’t begin or end with your dream client, it begins and ends within your own organization.

Your job is to sell, and sell, and to keep selling until you get whatever you need to ensure that you achieve the outcome that you sold. You may have to resell a group of people over and over again, using all the persistence and determination that brought you this opportunity in the first place.

You dream client did hire a sales rep. One who will help them to sell everyone necessary to making their vision a reality.

Conclusion

Your dream client hired you because of your sales skills and abilities. Now they expect you to deliver, and that means your role, your duties, and your responsibilities require more than just your sales skills.

Questions

1. 1. What are your dream client’s expectations of you after you win the deal?

1. 1. What attributes and skill sets are required of you to succeed for them and to accomplish the results that you sold?

1. 1. How do your sales skills and attributes compliment or strengthen the other abilities you need to succeed for your clients? What attributes do you most need to develop?

1. What sales skills and attributes are necessary to achieve results for your dream client after the deal has been made?

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