Flow: A Different Look at Prospecting
It’s seems so obvious that easier to use is better; let’s examine this a bit through the lens of flow states.
In order to get down into the gritty details, we’ll need to use an example. Considering you’re on LinkedIn and I’m at Sendbloom, let’s look at what it takes to achieve flow states in the act of enterprise sales prospecting.
First, a flow state, which sounds ‘new age-y’, is complete absorption into the task at hand. In other words, continued and deep concentration in motion.
In the world of sports, this state is called ‘being in the zone’. In Bill Russell’s words, the flow state “was almost as if we were playing in slow motion. During those spells I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be taken.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has developed a framework for thinking about this state. Let’s take a look at his graph:
Now that we’ve got a framework for thinking about flow, let’s examine the two axes as they relate to prospecting.
For the sake of this analysis, let’s assume Skill increases regularly over time.
On the Y axis, we find two flavors of Challenge. These two flavors are good challenges and detrimental challenges.
An increase in good challenge can move a sales rep from A2 to A4, for example, giving a top performer more accounts. This type of challenge, when met, will be super beneficial for the rep and the company.
Detrimental challenges, like complex sales tools, can only move reps from A1 to A3 and can’t be countered with an increase in skills. These types of unbeneficial challenges tend to be more systematic and generally not in a rep’s control.
Considering that burnout and low performance can come from boredom or anxiety, sales leaders have a threefold job:
1) Increase the skill of their team
2) As skill increases, introduce more good challenges
3) Smooth and remove detrimental challenges
This flow state lens can explain some of the tenets of modern inside sales:
Blocking off time for phone calls: Having a list of phones numbers and reason for calling them drops the detrimental challenge to almost zero. All that remains is the good challenge of booking a meeting with a live person and the skills to do so.
Going deep into an account: Immersing one’s self into the priorities and personnel structure of a prospect company is at the heart of account based sales. Larger accounts are more challenging and require more skill to understand.
Easy to use sales tools: Once a solid process is established, most detrimental challenges come from complexity introduced by poorly designed tools. UX design matters and this is why easier to use is better.
Single screen workflow: If reps have to jump from system to system and tab to tab, that’s a huge detrimental challenge. Workflows that take place in the CRM are so vital.
The benefits of sales reps in flow states are difficult to overstate. This state is the source of taking ownership and creativity, which are vital for productive prospecting and everything else!
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This post was originally published by David Sneider on January 31, 2017. You can find the original post on LinkedIn.
