I wrote Make Them Think for leaders of all kinds whose job, by trade or by nature, is to help people learn, grow and change their lives for the better. What a lot of people don’t know about the book is that it was born out of a corporate training I used to give for managers, internal coaches, and sales teams.
Recently I delivered a 90-minute workshop to 250 commercial bankers at their national sales conference, focused on sales conversations that drive insight, ownership, and action.
Here’s what makes sales such an interesting application of coaching principles…it’s messier. In coaching in its purest sense, the conversation is wide open. You and the person you’re coaching can go wherever your brain’s imagination (and limitations) take you.
But in a sales context, there are constraints everywhere. You have specific products and solutions you’re able to offer. In a heavily regulated industry like banking, there’s bureaucracy, red tape, and risk controls that limit what’s possible. Your clients have frustrations that are just part of doing business, problems you can’t necessarily solve no matter how good your products, research, and conversations are.
Even with all of those constraints, the most important thing about a conversation doesn’t change: the person across from you doesn’t think like you do. And yet, when someone is plateauing, stuck or underperforming in business, we tend to give advice, rush to fix faster and push harder.
I opened the way I always do: with a word association exercise.
I prepare the audience that I’m going to say a word, and I want them to shout out the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word. This time I said the word “banana.” The room erupted. Answers flying in from every direction. Monkey, peel, Mario Kart. One woman said her husband always buys too many bananas, and then they turn brown before he eats them, and then he does the whole thing over again the next week. That was a first for me, and the whole room laughed at that one.
Then I asked: why did we all have different answers?
The first person said, “Because we all think differently.” The next said, “Because we’ve all had different experiences with bananas.”
Bingo.
The brain is a connection machine, and no two are wired alike. In fact, because the brain is constantly wiring and rewiring with every new input, no one brain is exactly as it was even 24 hours ago. So any time a salesperson (or coach or consultant or manager) walks in the room with a predetermined solution in mind or a preconceived idea of what their client needs, even when they’ve done their research extremely well, that’s basically like walking in saying “I have the best banana bread recipe!” When in reality, that client may not have the same problem with brown bananas sitting on their counter. Or they may not think they have a banana problem at all.
The entire workshop built from there. We talked about how the brain defaults to defense, not discovery. How social threats, like the sense that someone isn’t actually listening because they think they already have the answer for you, will shut down the creative, collaborative thinking you want your client to be doing with you in a trusted advisory relationship.
The group practiced a different way of showing up in conversations: asking about the ideal instead of talking about the problem. Listening to deepen understanding and propel the conversation forward rather than just nodding and repeating back what the other person just said. (Haven’t we all had that experience of someone saying, “What I’m hearing you say is…” and thinking with exasperation “Yes I know that, I literally just said that!”)
At the very end, I asked the room to share their biggest takeaway.
One person raised his hand and said, “If you ask questions long enough, the client will arrive at the right answer themselves.” He called it a patience game.
And he’s right. Because what dawned on him in that moment is that the very best way to be a trusted advisor isn’t to advise on products. It’s to ask questions that help clients arrive at a solution. When they arrive at the solution themselves, it belongs to them. And that ownership is what leads to action.
Moreover, when a client sees you as the person who helps them do their best thinking about their toughest challenges, you will be the first person they call the next time. That’s the competitive advantage. That’s the difference between a transactional relationship and a trusted advisory relationship.
And it works even inside constraints. Even when you have only specific products and solutions to offer. Even when there are problems you can’t fix. Even when the client is frustrated about something that has nothing to do with you, it’s just part of doing business. The person across from you still thinks more clearly, trusts you more deeply, and makes better decisions when you create the conditions for them to do their own thinking first.
That’s coaching. That’s sales. That’s leadership. That’s parenting.
It’s all a patience game.
What’s one conversation this week where you could slow down and ask one more question before offering a solution? Tell me in the comments.
Jenn Farrer is a certified executive coach and the author of Make Them Think: How to Coach for Ownership, Insight and Action. She has worked with thousands of leaders, athletes and teams as an executive coach, running coach, trainer and speaker.
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