Hi Friends, Here is your end-of-the-week insight into what I see going on in the business world,...
Hi Friends,
Here is your end-of-the-week insight into what I see going on in the business world, what I’m thinking about, and what I’m learning about. Forward anything that you feel inspired to share. One last thing—we will be moving Fuentes Fridays exclusively to LinkedIn at the end of the month. Make sure you subscribe here.
Important Note!
This month is the last month I’ll be sending Fuentes Fridays to your inbox, so be sure you subscribe to it on LinkedIn so you don’t miss anything. The posts on LinkedIn foster a lot more conversation that I think you’ll enjoy.
What I’m Hearing From Sales Leaders/Professionals
This week, I had a few conversations with people who were falling victim to the sunk cost bias. From an objective viewpoint, there was one path that made a lot more sense (close lose the deal, let go of an employee, move on from an employer), but their emotions were preventing them from moving forward.
When pressed, all of them, in separate conversations, said similar things. “I have just spent so much time/money/effort that it would be a shame for it to go to waste.”
All of us fall victim to this line of thinking at some point. We hold on to an opportunity, stay with a job, or keep an employee for too long because we don’t want to waste all we have put into it so far.
When I identify that my coachees are stuck in a sunk cost bias argument, I do two things:
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Plainly call it out. “Sounds like you are falling victim to the sunk cost bias, and the only reason you don’t do anything about it is because you don’t want to lose your investment even though it makes sense to move on.”
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Repeat back to them the situation with some additional color. E.g., “I have this salesperson, he has not hit quota in a year. He also has not hit his KPIs in that time, and he is difficult to work with. But he has been with us for three years. As a salesperson, it is his job to hit quota and, at a bare minimum, meet his KPIs, and he has not done that for a year, so for a year he has not done his job. What should I do?” italics are me. Also, this is a real situation!
Outside of personal decisions, the area where businesses suffer the most from this bias is in the sales pipeline. It is not unusual for Maestro to do a deep dive in a pipeline and see that it is bloated with many opportunities that are one-sided relationships.
Using the framework above, when I see this in pipelines, I say:
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“This looks like it is only open because you don’t want to let it go.”
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“You have emailed and called them for 4 months straight, and they barely respond. And when they do, it is to tell you they are still thinking about it and will get back to you. They never accept your meeting requests, and you have never established the impact of doing business with you. What should we do?”
These conversations, however, do not need to happen. You can avoid them by establishing entrance/exit criteria, time-in-stage criteria, communication standards and criteria, etc. Otherwise, emotions and biases will rule the forecast.
Systems and processes over emotion and bias are critical in healthy and accurate pipelines.
Need help? Feel free to reach out to us at Maestro.
What Made Me Laugh
We have a few interns (shout out Ari, Collin, and Sadie!!!). I imagine their notes from our first meeting look like this, too:
This Week’s 40/20
For every 40 hours of work, I believe you should spend 20 (additional) hours mastering your craft. This is how I spent some of my 20 hours this week.
Thanks, John, Paul, George, and Ringo! Do you know any other major invention that came from an unlikely source? I guess the Michelin restaurant rating system, but when you learn why it was created (to sell more tires), it makes sense.
Potpourri for 800
Potpourri (shoutout to Jeopardy!) is a category that covers a variety of topics.
This scooter is so cool. Although it reminds me a little bit of the small car from the Simpsons episode “A Streetcar Named Marge.”
Quote for My Son
Every day, I leave my son a note with a quote. This was my favorite from this past week:
“The difference between the greats and the legends is their ability to focus for longer periods of time.”
– Jordan Burroughs
You can get weekly helpful information for sales professionals by following my company’s Maestro Mastery blog here.
Let me know what you think about this week’s edition of Fuentes Fridays. Which section was your favorite? How can I make this better? Shoot me a message on LinkedIn @willfuentes.
Until next week!
Thanks,
