COURAGE My wife and I mentor at-risk high-school kids through a program called Teach One to Lead One(R) . One of the character traits we talk about is "Courage", defined as Heroic Risk + Confidence. With my own children, I describe Courage as NOT a lack of fear, but doing the right things in spite of your fear.

There is a lot of fear in our country right now. Fear of a recession, fear of job loss, fear of personal financial crises, corporate melt-downs, high-cholesterol, kid's futures, global warming, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. As a sales executive, this undercurrent of fear is meaningful at two levels. First, it is obviously personal in how you deal with your own job, family, career, life. And second, you are making a huge mistake if you ignore how fear is influencing the behavior of your decision-makers, influencers, and other prospect personnel. Mull over how the economy and other market conditions will hinder some pitches and help others - sell accordingly.

So Courage is the topic for this quarter's post. It should give you a couple things to think about that might have been off-radar.

Happy Hunting - Few sales people really like cold-calling, and only a few more actually like cool-calling. We all gravitate to the warm leads for the obvious reasons that they have a lower risk of rejection and a higher probability of success. Unfortunately, we don't always have a huge backlog of warm leads and must then call people we have only spoken to briefly or not at all in the hopes we can turn them into real opportunities. Here are a couple things to make it easier.

PLAN - Don't lay out 50 calls or simply pull up the contact data base to pound away. Plan with purpose. Identify the prospects you really want in your pipeline that have a reasonable likelihood of needing what you are pitching. Even just a little homework before the call (actually before they get on the list) will elevate your confidence in the call and dispel some of associated fear.

PRACTICE - I don't mean standing in front of the mirror and going over your Oscar acceptance speech. But you do need to think through the key points that are intended to grab your prospect's attention. Remember the basics? AIDA? Attention Interest Desire Action? That leads to...

PARALLELS - People get interested in other people and their own issues. After you introduce yourself and the general statement of what your solution is, offer up what you have done to impact other companies' revenue, expenses, customer acquisition, etc. Based on the planning you did earlier, these parallels to your prospect's likely issues will bear more fruit than general open-ended pitches.

PROBE - Finally, throw the question out there. Don't leave this to a shot from the hip - figure it out in advance. How is your company looking at ___? What impediments are you seeing to your _____ plans? When we were able to reduce _____ time for Company A, they were ecstatic. How would that kind of performance impact your group?

Separating Yourself from the Pack: On with the Courage theme. Looking back at the definition above that Courage = Heroic Risk + Confidence, we should break it down to see how it impacts selling.

CONFIDENCE will come with practice and experience. The more you hone a skill, the more you face a challenge, the more you act with integrity in spite of a fear, the more you will then have the confidence to take on that challenge again. Turning away from the challenge or procrastination only strengthens the fear.

HEROIC RISK is not as daunting as the term might seem. Rather than describing physical danger, it really has more to do with doing the right thing in spite of your fear, whether it is a fear of rejection, inconvenience, failure, conflict, discomfort, etc. For example, publicly going to bat for someone about to take the fall for their boss's mistake when you fear the loss of political capital would be pretty heroic to them. Here are some other "Heroic Risks" you might take as a sales exec:
* Refuse to deliver a proposal that embellishes key elements of your solution.
* Pull the plug on a deal you know will fail to accomplish what the customer wants
* Pitch an expanded solution that is a better deal when the prospect is focused on cost
* Off-load a more senior member of a pursuit team because they are detrimental to the deal
* Stand your ground for a long-shot deal strategy (e.g., change the rules) when your boss thinks you should just take a normal head-to-head approach.

The Team Sell: