The first post about how to win a fight, when your opponent is much better than you, was about making your opponent feeling insecure by not attacking when you get a chance, but building it up and waiting patiently for the best possible chance. There is also another method and strategy, that you can use, but this requires a bit more skills from you.

When you start a boxing training, you always start with skipping rope. This improves your stamina, but also helps you to train your rhythmic skills. Moreover, this improves your body for boxing steps, which you need in fights, in order to be able to move fluently across the ring.

In sales training, you often train for open-ended questions. Those keep the conversation going on and you get the customer to talk more than you. The better questions you can come up with, the more she values your conversation and feels that you are valuable to her business. But what if, her knowledge much better than yours? Or your competitor is already doing a great job with her? And you just have only single pieces of advice that you could give to her, not the whole picture she wants?

Rousey vs Holm on paper

I watched the UFC 193 main event fight Rousey vs Holm. Rousey being a dominant champion and destroying her last 3 opponents in a mere 64 seconds in total. Holm is a well-rounded boxing champion, who has moved to mixed martial arts. But still, Holm lacked a lot of experience needed for MMA fights and Rousey had previously been dominating with her judo-background in grappling and wrestling. Even though, Holm had been training those as well, she could not have the skills to win a grappling fight against an Olympic Judo medalist, who had a perfect record in MMA of 12-0.

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.

In a fight, when the opponent is attacking you, basically you have three choices - to evade, block or counter. Evading gives you a chance to monitor the situation and you stay unharmed. If you chose to block, there is always some contact, but the attack breaks or starts over again with another attack. With counter attack, you chose to take advantage of the situation and try to strike where you seen an opening.

In sales, you have the same options when your customer is trying to object your sales pitch or starts questioning you before agreeing to buy. You can try to evade the situation and lead the conversation to another direction. The second option is to answer the (sales) objection and show that you are an expert in the field. The third option is to challenge your customers thinking and by using your knowledge, outwit your customer.

Like in a fight, in sales you can’t always use the same tactic. You need use all of these approaches in a single sales conversation. The big question is when to use which?

Evading (try to find the rhythm)

In a fight, the first thing I try to do is to find the rhythm of my opponent. This means, that I try to find out how fast he is with his attacks. How well does he moves and what kind of sequences is he trying to use when trying to attack me. Evading and keeping the distance is the best way to feel comfortable and avoid risks. With full contact fighting, it is better to avoid the contact, before you feel comfortable. In the beginning of the fight, the surprise attack is the most dangerous. You don’t know what to expect, therefore it is better not to take any risks. But still, it is wise to get the opponent be the first one to attack. From there, you can start to find his rhythm and adjust your speed to his. The one who controls the speed, is the one who will succeed in his attacks.

When starting a new sales conversation, the first impression is very important. You can lose the sales in the first few seconds, if you don’t play your part well. The prospect often waits for the sales person to start the conversation, but don’t push it too far. Try to see how she wants to play it. Start with being polite and ask simple questions. When you introduce yourself, try to get her to talk more about herself. Some people are easy to lead into conversation and some more difficult.

Open questions are good to start with, but if she gives you short answers, you are have not found her rhythm yet (meaning that you have not connected in the conversation) or you are asking too difficult questions. If it feels like interrogation, then the flow is lost in the beginning. Your body language, words and other expressions should invite your prospect to a warm and intriguing conversation.

Evading also means that you lose the tension. In a fight, it gives you time to relax, but at the same time you have no chance of attacking back. In sales, the conversation feels nice, but gets you nowhere. When you have found the rhythm, you need to start getting points. More about this in my upcoming posts.