The Sandler Success Triangle: Unleash the Power of B.A.T. !

By Cal Thomas, Sandler Morristown
Some people think success in sales is simply a matter of learning the right techniques. That's only part of the equation. David Sandler, the founder of our company, advocated a revolutionary, holistic approach that incorporates not just mastery of specific techniques, but also improvements in two other areas. These three elements, Behavior, Attitude, and Technique (B.A.T.), form the three corners of Sandler's famous Success Triangle.

Although all three of these elements are interrelated, and all three are equally important, the Success Triangle may be easiest to understand and master when we begin by looking closely at the lower-right hand corner, Technique.
 
Technique: The How
The Technique corner of the triangle is all about specific strategies and skills we learn and practice as professional salespeople. It's the answer to the question, "How do I accomplish X?”
 
Anything we're not born knowing how to do, but then learn how to do, is a technique. For instance, none of us is born knowing how to set and defend an Up-Front Contract with a prospect at the outset of a meeting. We must learn and practice that.
 
Of course, the right Technique is important ... but Technique must be supported by the right Behavior and the right Attitude for us to register meaningful, sustainable improvements in sales performance.
 
Behavior: The What
The Behavior corner of the triangle points us toward what takes place, in an objective, countable way, in the real world.
 
If we know how to set an Up-Front Contract, and we can easily do so in role-play situations ... but we never actually attempt to set one during a whole week's worth of interactions with prospective buyers, ... then the problem we're facing is not one of Technique. It's a problem of Behavior. We're not executing.
The Behavior corner is where we get the answer to the question “What happened?” -- and specifically, “How often did X happen?” Tracking and measuring outcomes (like the number of Up-Front-Contracts we set in the opening minutes of real-time discussions over a given week) is extremely important. Without that data, we won't understand what's delivering positive results in our sales process, and we won't understand the correlation between our activity and our income.
 
Attitude: The Why
The Attitude corner of the Success Triangle is all about our self-concept and our mental outlook. This is where we find the answer to the question “Why am I doing X?”
 
Attitude is one part of performance improvement we may at first be tempted minimize or overlook. After all, it's usually much easier for us to focus on learning and practicing a new technique, such as setting an Up-Front Contract, and then executing that skill in the real world, than it is to tackle big questions like:
 
“Why am I doing this?”
 
“What's my purpose?”
 
“What do I believe?”
 
Yet Attitude is every bit as important as the other two points on the triangle. You may have heard the old saying that 90 percent of success happens between the ears. That’s easy enough to say. But what does putting this principle into practice really mean?
 
In practice, this means taking personal responsibility for our own Attitude before, during, and after the implementation of our sales process.
 
Improving this third corner of the Sandler Success Triangle means adopting a set of constructive beliefs about ourselves, our company, and our marketplace. It means knowing ourselves well enough to design specific beliefs that support us, and then choose those beliefs over other beliefs that don’t support us. It means making the conscious decision to cultivate a healthy self-concept, day after day after day, no matter what obstacles may come our way. And it means identifying and pursuing goals that align with those positive beliefs.
 
So, let's say we know how to execute an Up-Front Contract. And let's say we've got a proven track record of doing so out in the real world. After let's say that, after tracking our performance metrics for a full working month, we confirm that the Up-Front
 
Contract really is a Technique we can and do execute at the beginning of real, live meetings, thereby making it a countable Behavior pattern that we can analyze over time.
 
But let's say one of the things we notice when we analyze our numbers is this: For some reason, we are much, much better at setting and defending Up-Front Contacts with younger decision makers than we are with contacts who are 50 years old or older.
 
That's a problem. But is it a Technique problem? No, because clearly, we do know how to execute the skill.
 
Is it a Behavior problem? Probably not. The what is showing up in a countable way, it's just not showing up consistently.
 
Odds are, what we are looking at in this situation is an Attitude problem, an issue that connects to our belief system about ourselves in relation to older decision makers. Attitude problems sometimes (but not always) require extensive coaching discussions before they are resolved.
 
Work All Three Corners of the Triangle!
 
Integrating consistent improvement in all three of these areas -- Behavior, Attitude, and Technique – is, in our experience, non-negotiable for people and teams who are committed to delivering sustainable revenue growth.
 
By understanding and applying the Success Triangle, by working on all three corners over time, we're not just selling more effectively. We're growing as human beings. This is the genius of the Sandler system.
 
Listen to our special podcast episode, How to Succeed at Living the Success Triangle, to discover practical applications and real-world success stories that show how improvements in Behavior, Attitude, and Technique synergistically create sustainable sales success.
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At Sandler, our VISION is to be the undisputed market leader in driving sales performance through tech-enabled, data-driven sales training. Our MISSION is to drive market-leading growth for the brands we partner with. 
 
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