If you are a creative person, don’t hide this fact in your
sales life. No one gets up wanting to
buy something from a stuffed suit.
They’d love to do business with an artist who also sells or delivers a
world-class product.
You don’t need to stifle creative endeavors in your
life. They are your greatest assets for
solving the deal. For those of you
sneaking off to write music, capture breath-taking photos, paint or draw…I’ve
got a message for you. You are
successful because of your creative tendencies and not despite them.
For too long, I segregated Tim the sales guy from T.S. the
lead singer in a rock band. Several of
my bosses thought they conflicted with each other, and encouraged me to leave
them behind along with my youth. They
were dead wrong. When I proudly took my
artsy ways to work, and applied to complicated situations, the difficult became
easy (and remarkably fun). As one of
my mentors told me back in the day: Integrity is when you are singing the same
song on the outside as you are on the inside.
Integrity sells. People
gravitate to the real, from what they watch on TV to whom they invite over for
burgers on a spare Sunday. No one wants
to journey with a conflicted soul. They
want to do business with the real deal: brimming with passion, but fueled by a
unified purpose you can smell. You
aren’t a good enough actor to fake it…especially with the customers you respect
the most.
Bring creativity to work.
Let your freak flag fly. Walk it
past product and marketing, dropping off a little in legal and finance. Make sure it ends up, with your backpack, in
the sales department. The next time you
are in the field, be creative when it comes to helping your customer succeed at
doing business with you. Be a little
foolish. Don’t be afraid to tinker with
the system. Cajole your hot prospect to
do the same, for the sake of the future.
No one is married to the structure, just the outcome.
You’ll not only solve-the-deal, you’ll find rays of joy at
work. Yeah. Not just with the pitch, but also in the
stitching of the enterprise: Where budget, procurement, policy and ambiguity
collide to create barriers to all but the imaginative. You will stand out as a creator in a world of
funnel squeezers. Your passion will
trump their closing skills (which are more manipulative than creative). You’ll bring your customers with you,
enriching their lives at the same time.
And they will remember you.
They will want to introduce you to their friends and even their
boss. You aren’t just money. You are fiscal fun.
