Most of us who have attended any sales training or read any sales book have experienced this term: Sales Obstacles. However I believe now is the time to rethink this term and replace it with this one: Sales Limitations.
The reason for this possibly heretical change is one of truth. Limitations are far more restrictive than obstacles if the goal is to increase sales. Obstacles are viewed in many instances as something far more tangible than a limitation. They are top of mind.
Limitations are often ignored, shrugged off or put to the side as minor inconveniences. The SMB owner, sales manager or salesperson look to those big sales obstacles, those roadblocks that are keeping them from sustainable business growth.
Marcel Proust wrote “The true voyage of discovery is not seeking new landscapes, but seeing with new eyes.” Maybe it is time to see the sales training and development landscape with new eyes?
Success in sales is far more about subtly than an all out attack. Through active listening, the salesperson can hear what other salespeople have missed. What was missed from my experience were the limitations not the obstacles.
Sales limitations in many instances are the small things, the inconsequential things. However when all those limitations are uncovered, they probably are much larger than the known sales obstacles.
Additionally, sales limitations reflect the overall sales culture. For example when someone in accounting fails to send the correct invoice, this is not viewed as a sales obstacle. However it is a sales limitation when the salesperson seeks a second or third sales from the same customer.
Others have made this statement which is really an update of Proust’s words: “When you change how you look at things, the things you look at will change.” I truly believe now is the time to change how we look at sales obstacles.
P.S. Sales prospects have been conditioned to the word “obstacle” or even “what is keeping you from…?” You then sound like all those other salespeople. However by using the word limiting or limitations you are prodding your sales prospects to think differently and better yet to think differently about you.
