How Do You Make an Orange?

“How do you make an orange?”

When I ask business owners and groups of sales professionals that question, I get a lot of different responses (as well as the occasional mystified look):

“I buy them at the store.”

“I pick them off a tree.”

“I start with a seed.”

“So what you’re telling me,” I reply, “is that you have no idea how to make an orange.”  After a few nervous glances around the room, everyone usually admits that, in fact, they do not.  I’m sure you feel the same, but don’t worry: neither does anyone else.  Even an orange farmer will tell you that all he can do is plant the seed and water the tree, then step back and let nature take its course.  That’s a bit of an oversimplification, obviously, but you get the point.  Unless you have access to a genetics lab and several million dollars, making oranges is impossible; all you can do is initiate and support the process that enables oranges to grow.

The same is true of sales: a sale (a new contract, client or other piece of business) is the result, the fruit, of a process.  And, as with oranges, you can’t make the sale happen; all you can do is initiate and manage the process.  That may be a little different from what you’re used to hearing from your sales manager.  After all, the majority of sales managers and executives are concerned with only one thing: trying to make the sale happen. They talk about “closing the sale”, “getting the yes” and “making the deal”.  Those are all different ways of implying that you can somehow learn the magical art of making oranges.

I’d like to challenge you stop trying to make oranges.  You can’t do it, but don’t feel bad: neither can your manager.  I want you to shift your focus, instead, to the science of planting seeds and watering trees and let the oranges, the sales, come as a result of a well-managed process.  What is the process?

First, you have to plant seeds.  If you want to harvest a good crop, you have to be careful about how you do this.  You need the right kind of soil, and you have to give attention to planting in a location that will get the right amount of sunlight.  The same is true with selling.  You want to be careful about how you plant your seeds through your prospecting efforts.  Make sure that you are prospecting in the right places and in front of the right people.  Just casting your seeds far and wide is wasteful; focus your efforts on your target market and watch your results soar.  Take your cue from the orange farmer: the planting phase is well-thought out and highly organized.  Your efforts to plant seeds should be, as well.

Second, you must water the tree!  This is really where you have the most control over the outcome of your harvest.  Again, you have to understand what the right amount of water is for the kind of crop you want to see grow: too little water is not good, but neither is too much.  You want to find the “just right” level of watering and stick with it.  The same is true of your prospects: too little follow up isn’t good, but neither is too much.  You have to find the “just right” combination of amount and content of follow up and stick with it.  Take your cue from your prospects on this one; if you have a properly developed sense of awareness, you should be able to sense when a prospect is feeling either neglected or smothered.

This phase of the process is where you begin to develop a relationship with your prospects.  You do this by asking the right questions, questions that not only help you identify the needs of your prospect but that begin to build rapport between the two of you.  This rapport building is essential to the success of your process; without it, the likelihood of your gaining a customer is significantly diminished.  This is also where you will be presenting solutions that meet the needs of the prospect and doing so in a way that makes sense to their particular way of processing information and making decisions.  Properly executed, these two steps, coupled with carefully planned prospecting will almost always lead to a bumper crop of sales.

All of which brings us, logically, to the next step in the process: your harvest, the legendary “closing of the deal”.  First of all, I prefer to think of this as conversion, not closing.  “Closing” carries a note of finality that is inappropriate to most selling situations; what you are actually doing is converting a prospect into a client, and hopefully one that will buy from you (and refer other business to you) for years to come.

After all the work you’ve put into the process, this should actually be the easiest step, much like picking a ripe orange from a healthy tree.  You simply ask the prospect, “Does this make sense to you?”  If you’ve followed the process correctly, the answer will almost always be “Yes.”  At this point, all that remains to be done is the paperwork…after which you can enjoy a well-deserved taste of all those oranges!

Happy selling!

By Jerry Kennedy

Inside Out Business Solutions

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