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Sales careers

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The 7 Laws of Sales Success

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  • by Graham Hawkins
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  • 8 April 2019
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  • 5 min read
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There are certain "Laws" of the universe which successful people often leverage, and today's' sales people must learn to embrace some of these important laws to ensure future sales success.

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The 7 Laws of\r\nSales Success -

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Practically every profession has some laws\r\n(if not, then Guidelines) that practitioners must abide by....that is, except\r\nfor the so called 'sales profession'.

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  • Marketers have\r\n increasing laws around Privacy and Permission. GDPR etc.
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  • Finance\r\n professionals must adhere to increasing laws around compliance (Sarbanes\r\n Oxley) Governance and Reporting (GAAP).
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  • Human Resources,\r\n - Workplace Law, Employment Law. Labor Regulations etc.
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  • Health care\r\n professionals – laws and regulations everywhere you look.
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  • Sales professionals – zip, zilch, nada. Aside from the laws that everyone must follow in\r\n business there are no specific certifications, qualifications or LAWS that\r\n govern the conduct of sales people, more's the pity.
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Sales has always been a strange anomaly (in\r\nso many ways) and throughout my 3 decades of sales experience, I have witnessed\r\nsome reoccurring themes and some unwritten laws of the universe that always\r\nseem to be at play. Thus, I’m now going to present my view of 7 well known\r\n“Laws” that I believe must be observed if you want to be successful as a modern\r\nsales professional:

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1. The Law of Attraction (LoA) :

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LoA states that you will attract into your\r\nlife whatever you focus on, meaning that whatever you give your energy and\r\nattention to will come back to you. What you give is what you get returned, and\r\nI have personally realised my greatest sales successes through selfless\r\nactions, and by being focused on helping the buyer get what they want.

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The most consistently successful sales people\r\nthat I know have always intuitively understood that we must: “create value\r\nBEFORE you try to extract value”…...and that means NOT focusing on your quota\r\nor commission.

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The incredible power of the LoA cannot be\r\nunderestimated, and it will bring unimaginable positivity and prosperity back\r\nto you as a by-product of simply focusing on the right things.

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Sadly, the vast majority of my 30 year has\r\nbeen a constant battle against the principles of LoA. Why? Because I’ve nearly\r\nalways been measured and managed (and rewarded) on self-interest, and until\r\nbusiness leaders WAKE UP and change the focus, they will not reap the amazing\r\nbenefits of LoA.

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Create value before you try to extract value – Brian Halligan (CEO HubSpot)
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2. The Law of Reciprocity (LoR)

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LoR says that when someone does something nice\r\nfor you, you will have a deep-rooted psychological urge to do something nice in\r\nreturn. Also known as the Law of Sowing and Reaping, allows us to receive as a result\r\nof what we give or do, and that’s why LoA and LoR work so well together. In a\r\nbusiness context, if you want to change what you are reaping them you have to\r\nchange what you are sowing.

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In my experience, when modern B2B people\r\nswitch the focus to giving,\r\nand not receiving, then sales success will take care of itself.

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“Modern selling is about what you bring to the\r\ntable, not what you can swipe from the table when nobody is looking\"
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3. The Law of Diminishing Returns (LoDR)

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The LoDR is an economic principle that states\r\nthat in a production process, as one input variable is increased, there will be\r\na point at which the marginal per unit output will start to decrease, holding\r\nall other factors constant. In effect, this is exactly what is happening right\r\nnow in the world of B2B sales….declining returns from the same (and now\r\noutdated) processes. 63% or the worlds B2B sales people are failing to meet or\r\nexceed quote and that trend increases in the wrong direction at pace.

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As Einstein said, the definition of insanity\r\nis to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result….so why the hell\r\nare so many of the worlds so-called business leaders making no effort to change\r\nthe process? Are these senseless people unable to step back at see that their\r\n1980’s approach to sales no longer works with modern buyers? Apparently, these\r\nsame senseless people are happy to accept the ‘diminishing returns’.

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“The definition of insanity is doing the\r\nsame thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein.
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4. The Law of Motion (LoM)

LoM states that a body at rest remains at\r\nrest and a body in motion remains in uniform motion in\r\na straight line unless acted upon by an external force – sales success for me\r\nwas always about knowing when I need to push hard at the beginning of the\r\nmonth/quarter/year in order to establish that all important sales momentum.\r\nMonth/quarter/year end always means that the clock resets on your quota and\r\nit’s back to $0, and I’ve seen so many sales/business people that failed to\r\nunderstand the importance of exerting the right level of effort to generate the\r\nmuch needed motion for sales success. 

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Once momentum has been established, then it\r\nbecomes a fine balance to simply keep the motion moving forwards at the right\r\nspeed.

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“The momentum of continuous action fuels\r\nmotivation whilst procrastination kills motivation” – Steve Pavlina
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5. The Law of Propinquity (LoP)

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LoP is not well known, and it states that the\r\ngreater the physical (or psychological) proximity between people, the greater\r\nthe chance that they will form friendships or romantic relationships.

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In my sometimes overly simplistic way of\r\nthinking, sales people that do not go and meet their buyers where they are\r\n(nowadays on social platforms) then they have zero chance of ever building\r\nthose coveted relationships.

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As I keep saying, 'visibility creates\r\nopportunity' and if you don’t get in front of your customers then don’t be\r\nsurprised when they form a relationship with your competitors - whom are meeting\r\nthem where they are learning about solutions to business problems.

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6. Law of Unintended Consequences,

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LoUC states that actions often have effects\r\nthat are unanticipated or unintended.

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In modern sales parlance, it strikes me that\r\nit’s virtually impossible to have sales people focused (measured, managed and\r\nrewarded) on revenue/quota attainment and commissions without there being some\r\nunintended consequences. Seems obvious now, but these old models nearly always\r\naccentuate that “next deal” ethos along with a dreaded dog-eat-dog culture where\r\nunnatural acts are committed often to hit some silly internal KPI.

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If you subscribe (as I do) to the old ‘what\r\ngets measured gets managed' then you can’t be surprised when\r\nself-interested sales folks are unable to practice the LoA or LoR….that is,\r\ntheir self-interest precludes them from ever being able to properly focus on\r\ncreating customer outcomes/value because their self-interest is too prominent.\r\nAnd that’s more akin to the LoDR.

\"In any two horse race, always put your money on the horse called 'Self Interest' - because at least you know it's trying' - Paul Keating
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7.    Pareto\r\nLaw (PL)

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Put simply, PL states that, for many events,\r\nroughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, and we have all heard\r\nthat 80% of revenues tend to come from about 20% of customers. So, why are so\r\nmany sales leaders still focused so heavily on chasing shiny new logo’s [link\r\nto recent short form post]….often at the expense of those high value existing\r\nclients?

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Everyone knows about the old 80/20 rule, and\r\nyet far too many businesses ignore it. Very few business leaders have a\r\nsensible strategy about which clients they pursue or why, and that’s a disaster\r\njust waiting to happen. We must ALL be crystal clear about a) our unique value\r\nproposition, and b) where, how and with whom that value proposition is best\r\napplied. Most businesses only need 40 new customers each year, and yet they\r\nchase 400…anything that looks like a potential buyer is pursued and that\r\napproach simply throws scarce company resource into the toilet.

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Despite how much we all seem to\r\nover-complicate it, business is really not that difficult. The above ‘Laws’\r\nsimply serve to highlight that if we follow some of these well established\r\nconcepts and principles (in effect, going back to the basics) then we ‘should’\r\nbecome much better aligned with our buyers.

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Play the long game, be patient, put aside\r\nself interest, and create value before we attempt to extract value then it will\r\ncome back to us in spades. Yes, this mindset requires a definitive ‘leap of\r\nfaith’, but for those that can organise their sales execution models around\r\nsome of the above-mentioned Laws, then they will be the big winners in the\r\ncustomer-first economy.

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By\r\nGraham Hawkins

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