COGNITIVE SKILLS SPOTLIGHT 3: Data Orientation & Data Affinity

Because data driven decisions deliver value to Customers

Customers expect help in leveraging data insights 

The role of data in influencing Customer choices and decisions has been growing in the recent years. Customers now expect salespeople to help them leverage insights from data. So, Data Affinity and Data Orientation has become a must-have cognitive skill for all sales professionals  

Benefits of Data driven Decisions 

Data driven decisions eliminate the possibility of serious errors due to (i) Emotional or impulsive conclusions (ii) Mental shortcuts and views based on patterns (iii) Susceptibility to biases and assumptions (iv) A preference for narratives unsupported by data. Sales presentations supported by data win over Customers much faster 

Where to start in building Data Affinity 

But for all this to work, the salespersons have to develop a comfort with numbers and data. They should then build on this orientation to cultivate an affinity for data. Building data literacy could be a good starting point 

Harvard Business School (HBS) suggests the use of 3 blocks to build data literacy 

  • Reading data 
  • Communicating with data 
  • Working with data 

How can data orientation help in adding value to Customers 

Friendship and comfort with numbers gives you an X-ray vision. You develop the ability to “see” the real story hidden in the data. It adds depth and width to your probing in a Customer call. You then tend to ask meaningful and “data-rich” questions like - How much does it cost you to acquire each new customer? Or what is the contribution that every additional unit bring to your profit? Or how frequently do your Customers come back to you?  And so on. You are able to diagnose the Customer need with greater precision and craft a value proposition unique to each Customer 

Data is usually analysed in 4 different ways. Each of them generates a different insight: (i) Descriptive Analysis (what happened) (ii) Diagnostic Analysis (Why did it happen) (iii) Predictive Analysis (What is likely to happen) (iv) Prescriptive Analysis (What should we prepare for) 

Data affinity also sensitises the salesperson to non-linear trends, while looking at sales graphs. A simple example of this is a sales trendline of a newly introduced model in a product range. It increases gradually at first, then rises more steeply. Ability to pick out non-linear trends is a valuable skill

4 Strategies to Internalise Data Orientation 

How can this cognitive skill be internalised? Insights from HBS suggest 4 ways to accomplish this: 

(1) Look for patterns everywhere 

(2) Tie every decision back to the data 

(3) Visualize the meaning behind the data 

(4) Learn more and start liking data and numbers  

 

“Without data”, as Edward Deming said “all we have is an opinion” 

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

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