Finding Sales vs Creating Sales

Top performers - they don't just find opportunities—they create them. This distinction isn't merely semantic; it represents fundamentally different approaches to selling.

Most sales professionals spend their careers chasing prospects who already recognise their needs. They search for companies with established budgets, identified problems, and an active buying process. In other words, they find sales opportunities that already exist. In in so many ways, this makes a lot of sense given the budgets sellers face as well as the insessant need to build pipline.

But the exceptional sellers? They operate differently.

The Creator Mindset

When I coach sales teams worldwide, I often ask a simple question: "Are you waiting for opportunities or making them?" The uncomfortable silence that often follows tells me a big part of the story.

Creating sales means engaging prospects before they've fully recognised their challenges. It means helping customers articulate problems they feel but haven't named. It's about connecting dots they don't yet see.

The Thinking Framework That Changes Everything

Creating sales opportunities requires deeper thinking skills—the exact skills many training programs overlook. Traditional sales training emphasises responsive tactics: handling objections, closing techniques, negotiation strategies. These matter, but they assume the opportunity already exists.

What transforms average sellers into exceptional ones is developing the ability to think beyond the surface. This isn't about manipulation; it's about genuine curiosity and business acumen.

The core of this approach lies in asking questions nobody else asks. Not just about pain points, but about business context. Not just about challenges, but about their implications across the customer's organisation.

I've found that sales professionals who master this approach, especially when done proactively, spend significantly longer in customer conversations—not because they're talking more, but because customers engage more deeply. Given that on average, buyers tend to spend sub 17% of their entire buying process with suppliers, makes this approach even more important.

Practical Application

So how do we move from finding to creating? Here's where theory meets practice:

First, study your customer's business before discussing your solution. When I work with sales teams on live deals, we spend more time researching the customer's industry, challenges, and strategy than discussing product features.

Second, prepare questions that explore connections between business issues. Average sellers ask about budget and timeline. Exceptional ones ask how a specific challenge impacts other areas of the business.

Third, bring insights that challenge thinking. The most valuable sales conversations often begin with "Have you considered..." rather than "Let me tell you about..."

The Thinking Planner Approach

In our work with global corporations, we use a framework called the Thinking Planner that guides deeper customer context exploration. This isn't a script; it's a thinking tool that helps sales professionals explore business contexts systematically.

The approach involves mapping the customer's strategic priorities, exploring how various challenges connect, and identifying implications the customer might not have recognised.

What makes this powerful isn't complex methodology—it's simply a structured way to think beyond the immediate conversation.

The Results Speak Volumes

Sales teams that master opportunity creation consistently outperform those focused solely on finding existing opportunities. They close larger deals with less price pressure and develop deeper customer relationships.

More importantly, they become valued business advisors rather than vendors—a distinction that transforms careers.

The transition from finder to creator isn't easy. It requires developing thinking habits and discipline that many find challenging. But the alternative—competing for the same visible opportunities everyone else sees—becomes increasingly difficult in crowded markets.

I believe the future belongs to creators—those who can help customers articulate and solve problems they haven't fully recognised. This isn't just a sales approach; it's a mindset that transforms how we deliver value.

The question isn't whether you can find the next opportunity. It's whether you can create it before anyone else even sees it.