In an ideal world, companies would give their safety managers a blank check to ensure excellence in health, safety and environmental performance. In the real world, safety managers must compete for resources. Are you equipped to succeed in such an environment? Have you developed effective strategies to sell management on the training and other initiatives you need to succeed? Let's look at what it takes to be a successful advocate - or "sales person" - for safety.

Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

It does not matter how much technical expertise you possess. If you cannot be an effective advocate for safety, your chances of completing your mission are slim. Being an effective advocate involves accepting and embracing a greater level of responsibility. Your goal is to be a difference maker. To make a difference, you cannot simply react to events. You must be proactive in the areas you deem essential. And, by taking the initiative, you will become a leader, showing the way to others with clarity and certainty.

Will you meet with competition? Probably!

Will you meet with resistance? Most likely!

Will you meet with conflict? Good chance!

Will you be uncomfortable at times in the sales process? Absolutely!

You might find some or all of these things distasteful. But if you want to achieve your safety goals, you must be willing to step out of your comfort zone and take whatever actions necessary to "sell" your vision and whatever programs and initiatives that you need to achieve it!

Putting Things into Perspective

To be an effective "sales person" you must put sales in the proper context. Webster's defines "sell" to mean: "To develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of: to gain acceptance for: To persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something." This definition is a good description of what safety professionals must do to achieve excellence.

To start, a sales effort must identify why people want to buy something. We buy something either to fulfill a particular need, relieve a problem, hurt or pain or to address something that is missing. We will also buy something to fulfill a particular want and create a new possibility for ourselves that can arise from our vision. In other words, something might be working but we will buy something if it offers a way to make it work better.

Knowing How People Listen

When making your case for safety, you need to pay attention not only to the substance of your "product" - the initiative you're selling - but to whom you're selling it. More precisely, you need to think about how your sales message will be received by the decision-makers to whom you present it. Be aware that people "listen" in a number of ways.

The Pragmatic Listener: Some in your audience will "listen" from a pragmatic, numbers-oriented perspective. For example, they will hear and respond most readily to OSHA statistics, workers' compensation costs, quality measures and other statistics and formulas that illustrate "how we are doing." "We had 5 customer complaints"; "we had 3 recordables and 1 lost time this month"; "rejected inventory has cost us X dollars and injuries have cost us $350,000 in workers' comp costs." Pragmatic listeners will also be responsive to goals or predictions set in numerical terms. "If we do this, we believe we can achieve a 50% reduction in quality defects or in recordable incidents."

The Humanist Listener: Other people respond most readily on a humanistic level. Examples: "3 of our valued employees were injured, 1 severely enough that he was unable to work"; or "By implementing this, we believe we can prevent more of our valued employees from being injured."

Conclusion

Since we don't always know whether the decision-makers will be pragmatists or humanists, we recommend that you "sell" productivity, safety, health, environmental excellence or quality in both numerical and humanistic terms. In any event, it is essential to do your homework, be prepared, be clear about your vision for excellence and high levels of performance in all areas. Now take a deep breath and go for it!

WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A SALE

The 6 Traits of Top Salespeople

By Catherine Jones

Professional speaker and author Zig Ziglar notes that "every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust." Michael's article explains how you can overcome these obstacles by presenting your case for safety in terms that meet the differing listening styles of the decision-makers - individuals you likely know. But what about salespeople who sell to strangers every day? How do they overcome these obstacles? According to Sogistics Corporation, top salespeople rely on these 6 traits:

1. Concept astuteness: The ability to use logic, rational thinking and numbers to present a product in a way that suggests its role in a customer's profits;
2. Interpersonal intelligence: The ability to be personally detached from the outcome; in other words, to not take 'no' personally nor as a final answer.
3. Word inventory: The ability to learn and speak the language of the customer;
4. Idea generation: The ability to quickly think "outside the box" and creatively problem-solve;
5. Expressive spontaneity: The ability to speak on-the-spot;
6. Motivation: A strong drive to produce results.

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