Paranormal Abilities
A poker professional I chatted with recently spoke of the importance of developing a sixth sense about the strength of your opponent’s hand.
He can tell, with a high degree of accuracy, when he is beaten and needs to fold his hand to a raise.
To refine this ability, he suggested monitoring your gut for certain feelings before you decide on a course of action.
A “sinking” feeling, akin to the sensation you get when your airplane hits an unexpected air pocket, is a warning sign.
The “warm fuzzies,” the way you feel when a friend gives you a gift, suggests a safe zone or positive expectation.
Track your accuracy rate and analyze the subtle differences in how you felt and what happened after your decision.
After a while, your predictive ability will improve.
Reflecting on this, I realized there is a parallel to this ability in telemarketing.
For example, two telemarketing agents, one inexperienced, the other an old hand, can have the same conversation with a prospect.
The inexperienced agent will rate the sales potential purely on the content of the conversation and will more often be off the mark in his (or her) subjective evaluation.
Busy salespeople come to appreciate the more accurate subjective evaluation of an experienced telemarketer because it helps prioritize follow-ups.
Can this be taught? Definitely. However, not without a feedback loop.
The poker player has the advantage of immediate, unfiltered feedback.
The call center agent has to deal with delayed, filtered, or nonexistent feedback.
For the telemarketer to develop a “third eye,” the feedback needs to be fast and specific: “George at ABC Co., was a great lead! You were right about the urgency of their needs!”
If too much time elapses, the agent will have a hard time connecting the feedback with the event.
Watered down feedback from a supervisor about the “satisfaction level” of a client, while beneficial, lacks the specificity needed for skill improvement.
And, naturally, without any feedback at all the agent will continue on a course that, even if off by just a few degrees, will send your ship into the reefs instead of safe harbor.
Thinking about the feedback loop in your sales organization, do you get a sinking feeling or the warm fuzzies?