Spot the gorilla playing basketball!

In  the 1993 Wimbledon Final Jana Novotna was leading Stefi Graf 6-7,6-4 in sets and was 4-1 games up in the final set. Most pundits assumed it was game over. In one of the most famous ‘chokes’ in sport she lost the next five games in a row and Stefi Graf won the match and the title.

Scientists did an experiment asking kids who didn’t play basketball to throw balls to each other standing in a line. They then had man in a gorilla suit walk down the line between them as they threw balls to each other. None of the kids noticed the man dressed as a gorilla walk between them. When they repeated the experiment with professional basketball players, the players all stopped throwing balls as soon as the gorilla opened the door to the gym and appeared. What have these two stories got to do with each other more importantly what has this got to do with sales?

Humans learn using the explicit part of the brain. As they learn and become accustomed to a procedure or process it becomes embedded and moves to the implicit part of the brain. This is where ‘muscle memory’ is for example. Jana Novotna, under huge pressure, stopped using the implicit part of the brain and started using the explicit part – in other words she forgot all the tens of thousands of hours she had spent practising and started effectively playing like she was just learning to play tennis. She double faulted, missed easy shots, missed lobs, etc. The kids who had never played basketball were using their entire concentration and the explicit part of the brain to focus on what they were doing, which is why they missed  a man dressed as a gorilla walking between them. The pro players were using their implicit part of their brain to throw balls, which effectively ‘freed’ them up to concentrate on other things and why they instantly noticed the man in the gorilla suit as soon as he stepped into the gym.

In sales you need to be like the pro players – you have to spot the man in the gorilla suit. You have to be using the implicit part of your brain to pitch. In my last blog I spoke about why a script was so important. The next step, once you have refined the script, is to learn it so you don’t need to think about what you’re saying. You don’t just need to learn the script. You also need to learn all the answers to all the objections you are likely to get. You have to embed all of this in the implicit part of your brain.  This then frees you up to watch and listen to the prospect.

Sales is about listening not talking. It is not possible to listen properly or to watch, if you are busy thinking about what comes next in your script or what to say in response to a certain objection. If any part of your brain is busy focused on trying to think about what to say next, then there is a good chance you ‘ll miss a buying signal or even just an indication of interest.

This is why hunting in twos is so common in sales. One of you can present while the other watches. You can divide and conquer.

Practice makes perfect when it comes to sales and this starts with the script and the most common objections. Unfortunately, it is not especially common that a prospect will give you a strong buying signal. Usually the signs are quite subtle. If you think back to when you personally are buying anything where there is a possibility of negotiating a discount, then you’ll know always not to appear too keen. You can’t scream and dance with excitement and then pretend to be unconvinced and ask for a lower price. So, even if a prospect is interested, the buying signals will be subtle and sometimes easy to miss.

This is why you must have the sales script and objections practised until they are deep in your implicit brain. When people stary in sales they are often given small poor quality leads to practice and learn on. This is why.

When you’re bootstrapping you don’t have that luxury. You are starting with your most promising prospects and you are also starting without a fixed defined product. This makes this practice even more critical. You must have practised your script, even as you are building it and the product, so that you are able to spot any interest from a prospect and hone in on that to see if there is an opportunity. A co-founder is invaluable in these initial meetings if you have one.

 A lot of the more traditional types of objection handling in sales are not designed to help with this.  They are designed to identify a standard objection, turn it around and move in for a hard close. This is not what you want to do when you’re bootstrapping.

You need to stay close to your first potential customers. You need to keep the conversation open. This means that how you handle objections is quite different to a salesperson with a brand and a defined product behind them.  I’ll look at this difference and objection handling in next weeks blog