You don’t need a great salesperson to move your business to the next level. In fact, a salesperson may actually weaken your business model. When you rely on a great salesperson to grow your business, you’re selling based on a single relationship — not based on the full business. And relationship selling is no way to grow your business. Here’s why:

There’s no such thing as losing a bid. I have an almost visceral response when someone calls me and says they “lost” a job they bid on. Usually, I reply with something snarky like, “Really? Did you win it first? Did the client sign the deal, write the check, and then snatch it away from you?” Of course not. You didn’t lose the job. You just didn’t win it. But you still have an opportunity! Here’s what I mean:

If there is one change you should make in your leadership today, it’s this: Stop seeking consensus. Make a decision and move on. Many of us have a tendency to avoid making a decision by continuing to talk about it. We think we can make more decisions if we just get everyone “on the same page” and have more meetings. I’ve sat in these meetings, and the truth is, they’re not helping you. It’s time to stop. But how? What’s the alternative? Leadership.

Don’t you hate it when customers ask questions you can’t seem to answer? You drew up a stellar proposal only to face complaints from the client about the cost, price-breakdown, or what they think is a mistake. Sometimes these situations seem insurmountable. But they’re not. In fact, they may be simpler than you think. As I work with salespeople to help them navigate objections, I find most objections are “single-level” objections — an objection you can diffuse with as little as one word or one simple explanation. These objections are often the buyer’s way of processing information, and the worst thing we can do is overreact to a single-level objection. You don’t have to change your price or the way your company operates. Instead, just give the objection the brief response it requires. Here’s how:

Back in the day, dealership agreements were territory-based. You were THE dealer for a product in a city. But, as the industry grew, they started dividing up those territories, making them smaller and smaller until there was no longer any territory — there were 2, 3, 4, or 40 dealers for the same product in the same city. So, dealers started adding more products as they lost territory. They assumed that more products equaled more value to the buyer. But it doesn’t. I doubt you can name anyone right now that is still doing this strategy successfully… except Amazon. Why? For the rest of us, product is not a strategy.

We ask these “what if” questions because they grant us insight. The more time we spend in these types of questions, the better understanding we’ll have about what our strategy needs to accomplish for us. These questions help us understand what people think us from the outside, a.k.a. our “branded perception.”