We are going backwards

Most of it is do with binning the old-fashioned thinking and the habits developed that don't serve us today and using things that will work because they genuinely put the customer first

This can be tough as 'old habits die hard' and when things are turbulent it is comforting to hang on to something we know

But this sense of comfort and familiarity can be causing us the issues so we need to address

To keep it simple (and feeding my love of alliteration) lets focus on
- Flip
- Follow
- Focus

Flip
Put your attention onto the world of the customer. Talk about them. Talk about their challenges, their issues and what they're bothered about. Not yourself.

Follow
Use an approach that identifies those issues, not one that forces solution. Some ‘solution selling’ is not really about the customer at all. It's “I'm gonna get you to a position that I am gonna talk about my stuff as fast I possibly. I wanna get into a demo quick as possible”. That's selfish

Focus
We want to focus on the things that actually work. Not the old school tricks, the clever 'closes’, and all that kind of nonsense.

The things which work now are different. There have been shifts.

And people can make the shifts I know, I've done it. I've had to go through this myself.

It's stuff I study, it's what I like understand. I do get a bit geeky about it, but that’s because I want to be giving people the best advice that they can take and use.

To make sure that they can evolve as sales has evolved.

There's been an evolution in sales. We need to get the bits that are still relevant and give them subtle tweaks.

But please don't think that this is about starting from scratch.

It's not.

There'll be things that you're doing, that you understand and that you've learnt, which will be right. Though it might still need just a little bit of a nudge to get fully up to date.

We can easily refine that and we can add to it

Change doesn't always mean taking away

Where a lot of people are surprised by is how big some of the shifts have been in the last few years.

We need to understand these to stay relevant but it's not about 'throwing the baby out with a bath of water'.

There is still good old fashioned stuff that works. We just need to make sure that we are aware of these subtle shifts because if we are not making a change, we are going to be caught doing stuff that isn't wholly relevant for customers.

If they're not getting what they need they will go elsewhere or they'll try and sort stuff out themselves.