photo: Heikki Immonen

Counter attack (part 3)

In martial arts, when your opponent is attacking you, he often pulls down his guard and is open for a counter attack. It is hard to keep a perfect posture, when trying to kick, for instance. Very likely your hands will drop or move, when you start your kick. But still, it is not very easy to take advantage of the situation and it requires a lot of skill and perfect timing from you to counter attack successfully.

In sales, it is often said that the customer is always right and not it is better not to win an argument or trying to prove your customer is wrong with her thoughts. She might get offended if you constantly try to make your point over hers and try to argue against her knowledge on the matter. There is a thin line between challenging her the right way and when you cross the line and make the situation worse.

Timing is the key in counter attacks

Pulling of a perfect timing in a counter strike, it almost looks like you fooled your opponent into a trap. It may look like, you started your attack first and he just didn’t realize it. That is exactly, how it should be. My master used to call this timing “from the feeling”. This means that you cannot plan your counter attack beforehand, it just happens automatically, when you are really concentrated on the fight. You have trained the technique thousand times and somehow the situation in the fight was exactly the same as you have experienced in training. The big question is then how do you prepare yourself in training to have that “from the feeling” moment?

In a sales conversation, you hear buying signals and objections constantly. Counter attack is the perfect answer to a sales objection and results in getting the deal or at least winning the trust of your customer. If you act too early in your best counter attack and try to close the deal, you won’t be successful. You need to set it up for and have the right timing. The big question is, how do you recognize the right momentum?

You need to act "from the feeling"

Back to martial arts and how to build “from the feeling” skill. In the beginning, I always concentrated into looking in the eyes of my opponent. I thought I could see better from his eyes, what he was going to do. That is true to some extent. You can read if someone is afraid, angry or has other emotions. But it is difficult to read the attacks and especially which attacks are coming. When you concentrate on something small, you lose the sight of the bigger picture. That is why, after the beginning and reading the emotions, later in the fight, I started look a bit lower and trying to sense also with my ears (and if possible with other senses too). This gave me a feeling of a much slower motions in the fight and helped me to read the movements of my opponent much better. The rhythm becomes clear and you start to see how your opponent prepares for the attack and then it is a lot easier for you to counter the attack. With a strong opponent, the signals are not that clear, but then you need “from the feeling” level even more. When you train, you should concentrate the same way and with repetition, you will start to feel comfortable, even if the speed is getting constantly faster and faster. You will start feeling the fight is in slow motion and you are in control of everything. At that moment, you have a chance for perfect counter attacks and you will win the fight for sure. These are the situations, when sudden knockouts often happen.

So how to get the same done in sales? First of all, you have to start to think the sales conversation as a whole entity. You can’t see the big picture, if you concentrate on each sentence and try to answer all the questions and sales objections with similar weight. You need to be able to let go of minor details and concentrate on the most important matters from her perspective. The more sales experience you have, the easier it is for you to read your customer. But still, you need to start looking for those important signals of the most important issues on hand. With good objection handling techniques and open ended questions, you are able to build up the situation to your favor. You can be nice and still counter attack at the right moment. When I attend a sales meeting, I always write down the conversation as well as possible with my iPad. I try to make the script and see if certain patterns follow. It is easier to read than to listen thoroughly. It is also possible to glance through the notes, while having a conversation. After the meeting, before entering notes to the CRM, I read what I have written down and try to spot the points, where I should have counter attacked and secured the deal. Sometimes, it also helps to have your manager or peer attending the same meeting and making observations. You can go through your notes together and discuss, where the most important signals where and how you should have responded.

Like in martial arts, you need experience in sales as well. Experience itself doesn’t bring “from the feeling” level, hence you need to start looking for it today. First you need to recognize the situation, then you need to start testing your responses and in the end, you will succeed in counter attacking. Let me know, how you are doing and what pushed you to the next level in martial arts or in sales. I really would like to read some comments and ideas. Those will help me to develop in both sales and martial arts.