The Force is strong with this one...

This is a response to a recent question on Linkedin ask regarding having power over the sales cycle.

Do you have power over your sales cycle(s)?
Can you have that?
Once you have... How do you sustain that power?
How do you retain the client? Please enlighten me with the steps involved.

This is an interesting question and perhaps I should not be answering it because I do not consider myself to be a "sales guru" or really a guru of anything. Hopefully, no one proclaims themselves to be a guru of anything since self promotion usually leads to egomania. Ha Ha.

Seriously, one can have power over the sales cycle if they choose but we must be careful what we classify as POWER and as AUTHORITY. This may seem like semantics but let me provide an example: A police officer has AUTHORITY to stop traffic (within jurisdiction and all those things) but the cars can continue to flow freely if they do not regard that authority. Now the police officer has POWER to stop traffic if he is sitting in a TANK in the middle of the road! (These are not my own thoughts by the way... something I was taught about power and authority)

The same is true of the sales cycle because a sales person can have authority to move things along or sustain them within the sales cycle but can be powerless if that authority is not regarded. Thus the only way one can have POWER over the sales cycle... over any selling environment is through relinquishment, acceptance and activation. Both parties in the selling process (seller and prospect/ buyer) have power at the beginning of the process because each can control their own actions and attitude toward the process. In order for the seller to achieve the ultimate power of the entire process the buyer would at some point have to relinquish their innate power, (personal actions and attutude toward the process) the seller would have to accept the offering and then activate this power. This commonly happens in negotiation. There is a lot more involved but once this occurs; the power is sustained, the client/ prospect is retained and the relationship begins...

Please weigh in with your thoughts on this topic.