How To Be Patient To Be Pushy

Everyone feels the constant push-pull in sales.

You want to make the big deal happen. However, the buyer isn't yours to control.

You want to push. You have to be patient.

Pushy? Patient? You gotta be both.

Being pushy is the ability to create forward momentum in a deal.

To be pushy is to identify opportunities to deliver needed value and win commitments to next steps in exchange.

The problem for many sellers is that forward momentum on every deal ebbs and flows.

Sellers grow impatient in the absence of movement.

Impatience encourages bad sales behaviors. Like lobbing time-wasting, valueless "check-in" calls into the buyer…

This is why patience is the partner of pushy.

Being patient is the ability to correctly read a sales situation and resist taking actions that might make you feel better...but do nothing to help the buyer make their purchase decision.

The temptation for most sellers is to push without momentum. Because that’s what you’ve been trained to do.

Since pushing without momentum works about as well pushing a wet noodle uphill with your nose, you need to learn some patience.

Yes, patience is a learned skill. It’s not a “set and forget” part of your personality.

Try this approach to make patience a habit: reframe how you think about the situation you’re in with a buyer to connect it to your larger story.

Psychologists call this cognitive reappraisal.

For instance, imagine you’re trying to land an anchor customer in an important new market segment.

Your frustration is triggered by the buyer’s lack of response to your emails since your last call (which you think went really, really well.)

Your emotional impulse is to hit up the buyer with a check-in call (or three.) None of which would be well-received or have any value to the buyer.

Instead of acting on your frustration, pause and acknowledge your larger story, which is the value this buyer will have as a reference account to help open the doors into many new customers in this new market segment.

Then choose what to do. Risk a rash action with unforeseen consequences. Or, stay patient until you have identified the next opportunity to deliver needed value and win the buyer’s commitment to next steps that move the deal forward.