Category: Sales Advice

Categories
Experience Sales Advice Sales Tips

How Desperate Are You?–Part 2

In Part 1 I asked, if, as a salesperson you reacted to pressure by showing desperation.  In this the second and concluding part of the article I will address some additional techniques that should be used to thwart any form of desperation.

Some common “must have answers” for any sale should include the following:

  • Does a need really exist?
  • What are the business drivers and motives of this need?
  • Does a budget exist that supports these?
  • What is the timeline for purchase?
  • Do you have explicit knowledge of the buying process? (See the second bullet point)

Unless you know these, your process is flawed from the beginning and puts you at a disadvantage.  Once you arrive at a point in the selling process, a very valuable tool to differentiate yourself from the competition is to draft and write a deliverable document to the executives and team members.  This serves several purposes:  1) Furthers your relationship within the company (insider advantage), 2) Those that respond are usually your allies, 3) The deliverable usually triggers a reaction related to the competitor(s) and allows you to counteract early, 4) Achieve an upsell if the document widens the scope of the project, but only, if there is value and investment is justified.

If the sales process appears to be lagging for no apparent reason, simply ask if the urgency has diminished or that there was no real urgency in the first place.  This allows the opportunity for customer to reveal the timeline changes to you. It also gives you the opportunity to present real dollar figures about how much not buying your solution is costing them.

Another important area to be aware of is the CxO’s time frame.  In other words, if you truly have executive sponsorship and that relationship is solid, use that time line for planning, not yours.

Those that know me know I do not believe in unilateral concessions.  If your client starts early about concessions, push them off until the end.  A lot of salespeople see this as an opportunity for an early close; don’t fall for it, it is a trap. It also shows you to be desperate about the sale.  Set the stage early on concessions.  An article I wrote describes the re-negotiating tactics for those customers that demand concessions.

This last piece of advice to avoid projecting desperation is to fully plan for the type of negotiations you will encounter.  The scope of this article is not long enough to cover the topic, but make absolutely sure you understand what is and is not important to the client.  From that point you can plan your negotiation strategy.  It is unfortunate, but I have witnessed sales managers that have no clue about the art of negotiation.  It is not all about getting the sale, rather it is allowing them to buy and they walk away with the perception they have the best deal.

If you find this useful, Contact Me or please leave a comment. If you have a Twitter account and found this article useful, it would be much appreciated if you would retweet this at the beginning of the article!

Happy Selling!

Ed Warner

Categories
Experience Sales Advice Sales Tips

Reaching the Decision Maker

How many of you can honestly say you are able to reach the decision maker in any company?  Many can, but for those that struggle, this article is for you!

This article touches two areas:  Decision Makers, and Pain Issues.   I will also show some effective tactics to use that will help reach your ultimate goal, the Decision Maker. In an upcoming article, I will discuss the Gatekeepers in a company.

Pain:

I mentioned pain issues in the previous paragraph so let’s start there and work backwards.  In today’s economy, unless you have a compelling solution to a business’ pain points, you have no right to call on that business.  You must earn that right.  Think about that for a moment.  This is exactly how you will be viewed until you establish creditability.  This link shows a diagram that pinpoints the moment in an organization when change happens.

There are three elements of pain common in any organization:

  • Every organization has it
  • Every organization wants to remove it
  • Every organization down plays the severity

So how do you or I earn that right to call upon that business?  You do so by pre-planning your call with sufficient facts and knowledge of that company’s business structure.  This is the very reason I (strongly) advocate having a plan.

So how do you or I gain the insight to a business?  Some think just having a plan is the magic bullet;  it’s not, rather it is part of a sales process you should be following.  I have used the following without exception to gain the necessary insight to a company:

  • Call the company’s competitors and ask your questions of them

This does two things.  First, you get to practice on someone live that isn’t your target.  The last thing you want to happen is to blow your chance at your target.  Second, you might just generate an interest with this company wanting to gain a competitive advantage.  You could easily be on your way to selling to two companies!

The Decision Maker:

Regardless of the organization, someone IS the decision maker.  This can include more than one so remember one of the first things you need to ascertain is the buying process.  Revealing this early on gives you time to plan your strategy.  But remember one important item: There may (and usually is) an unnamed party that can veto the entire process.

There are generally two ways you reach the decision maker; first contact or being directed to them through working your way through the organization.  If nothing else, remember this: high-level direct contact has the highest success rate than starting at the lower lever. If you start lower, you have for all intent and purposes, created a ceiling for yourself that is hard to break through.  The lesson here is to start high.

With that said, once reaching the decision maker you generally have about 20-30 seconds to make your case before their mind has placed you on the friend-or-foe list.  The higher up you are is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have to speak.  This is the moment that all your planning, practice, and facts had better be second nature to you when you begin to speak.

Lastly, if you are called by a lower-level person in an organization, it doesn’t mean you need or if should call him back first.  Rather, if you have contacts there try them first, and then call the low-level person back.  Or, if this client is strategic enough, have a member of your executive management make the call to a higher level while you in tandem call the low-level person back.  This accomplishes two things.  First, your executive management calling is a peer-to-peer call.  This call will have a greater chance of success.  Second, you have satisfied the low-level person’s request for a call-back while your management sets up a possible meeting.

Whatever the method used to reach the decision maker, your tactics used should never be viewed as condescending, manipulative, or arrogant.  You are seeking a trust level, nothing more at this point.

If you find this useful, Contact Me or please leave a comment. If you have a Twitter account and found this article useful, it would be much appreciated if you would retweet this at the beginning of the article!

Happy Selling!

Ed Warner

Categories
Experience Sales Advice

How Desperate Are You?–Part 1

It has been said desperate people do desperate things. As a sales professional, do you?  Let’s try something…Close your eyes and recall this image from your past:  Remember seeing ducks just smoothly gliding on top of the water? Pretty relaxing right?  However, did you stop to think about what is going on underneath?  It could not be more chaotic;  with the constant churning and paddling to make the gliding possible.

This can even be an illusionist’s trick, and one you as a sales person must master.  In trying to close or negotiate a deal, frustration will always be part of the mix.  How you deal with the frustration is how the tempo of your close will go.  Clients do not like to be rushed, but they do need to be prodded sometimes.

In order to keep things gliding smoothly along without showing any level of frustration, you must be constantly paddling, though you don’t have to be going at a constant 0-100 break-neck speed all the time.  The one thing all salespeople see themselves at a disadvantage over, is time.  In fact, some consider it a liability and this can lead to desperation.  I completely disagree with those that do;  but only if it is accompanied by a plan of attack.  In other words, if you don’t have a plan, it is a liability, a big one!  One thing I am adamant about is having a plan. I wrote this article about the benefits of having a game plan.

Time is a liability if you don’t have a plan. This is because when you enter into the negotiation stage and you are pressed to make your numbers,  you will be at an instant disadvantage. The moment you view this as a liability in your sales cycle is the moment you just gave the upper hand to your buyer (client).  When you become desperate in your dealings with customers, it comes through loud and clear on their end.  Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is twice as difficult to stuff it back in.

So how do you keep from coming off as being or sounding desperate?  Here are a few items that work, but keep in mind that for most sales people these concepts are extremely foreign and difficult to grasp. So much so,  I wager that only 3 in 10 sales people reading this article will really understand the concept.  That’s ok, this is more for the managers in the audience.  Nevertheless, if you want to reach the level of your manager you will need to be a little more open-minded and grasp these concepts.  I’m not asking you to endorse them,  just understand them.  So here are some things to try:

  • Build a plan that is inclusive of the buying process of your customer.  This replaces trying to accelerate the process in order to make your numbers.  Did I mention to make a plan? This allows you to forecast the closure date accurately.
  • Time sensitive sales closures should be tied back to cause and effect and the consequences for inaction.
  • Manage your tunnel digging before you have to use it.  The closer you get to final negotiations, people become less talkative.  This is not the time to be trying to reach the approvers.  This should have already been done early in the sales process.  Doing it now makes you look desperate.

I will end part 1 with this:  You must ooze confidence from the moment you first meet the client all the way to the end.  A keen negotiator will look for any kink in your armor.  Remember the duck;  paddle like heck, but glide smoothly.

I will follow-up with Part 2 and cover some additional techniques that will enable you to project the confidence necessary to reach the levels of attainment meant for the very elite of the sale force!

If you find this useful, Contact Me or please leave a comment. If you have a Twitter account and found this article useful, it would be much appreciated if you would retweet this at the beginning of the article!

Happy Selling!

Ed Warner

Categories
Experience Sales Advice

Shoulda, Coulda, Gotta

This phrase caught my eye a few weeks ago when I saw it as a headline for an article on the U.S. debt.  I began to wonder if there was a message here for the sales community. Sure enough, there is..Voila, my next article! The original article addresses the realization that our elected officials are going to have to come to terms with the fiscal issues over the mounting federal debt.  So too does a salesperson have to address the issue of a mounting quota. The successful ones are those that plan for the triumphant climb to the top of Quota Mountain. Indeed, if you cannot climb you cannot be successful.

For those that are on a different fiscal calendar than others, that’s ok as the same advice applies here as well. Now that we are into the 2nd (calendar) quarter I ask:  “How was your first quarter?” Good, great? Ok, maybe you don’t need to read the rest of this article! If not, or the quarter just doesn’t seem to be getting enough steam to roll into the end of the year, maybe I can help.

Let’s back up to last year…Early 4th quarter to be exact. Did you do any planning for this year?

This is the first part I call Shoulda!
While I don’t like to dwell on things we can’t change, that doesn’t mean we cannot analyze for a better next quarter. Keep in mind the goal is to build for the end. Remember Quota Mountain? That’s the objective.  This is the time a lot of junior and some senior sales people as well, realize that hindsight is 20/20.  Here is some advice to keep from looking back over your shoulder.

  • Plan every step of your next move. Plan for what might not happen rather than what will.
  • Keep progress notes and use what works.
  • Look to your sales organization and the management to see what they expect you to use as best practices.

I like to take 5 top clients from the prior year and use the strategy that worked with them to align myself to the current list of clients.  This gives you a running head-start and allows you to change your tactics as needed.

The second part I call Coulda!
This part can also be considered a “looking over the shoulder” move.  If you lost a deal, the first thing one tends to say is “I coulda done that!”. If you have said this, then I have one question for you: “Why didn’t you?” Do not get into the mode of never wanting to take a chance if the decision is based on sound advice or information.

Strategically, you have to outsell you competition. It is not about what your widget does; it is about how that widget can solve a business roadblock.  Ask yourself this, “How important is my product to the strategy of the company I’m trying to sell to?” Can you answer this? No? Go match your pitch to the company’s goals.

Finally, the third part of this is what I call Gotta!
If you have arrived at the end of the year still doing the two parts above, Should & Coulda, you will undoubtedly fall into this third part.  The pressure in making your number is going to be intense and unless you are skilled at pulling a rabbit out of the hat, your chances of year-end success is minimal at best. Panic is going to bear down with the words “I Gotta make my numbers!” There isn’t much I can offer as advice at this point other than to say, “Don’t wind up here– “

I leave you with this quote from Erma Bombeck.  Apply it every day to your life as a salesperson. It will yield awesome results!

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”


If you find this article of value please comment. Have a Twitter account? I would be most appreciative if you would retweet this at the top of the article!

Happy Selling!

Ed Warner

Categories
Experience Sales Advice

Stop the Churn

I never thought I would ever write a public service announcement, but that is exactly what this post is going to become. STOP the CHURN! I aim this message at companies that are sacrificing long-term talent for short-term gain. Whether you are a newcomer to my web site or follow me with regularity, you know I mostly aim for the sales side of the audience; but not this time. I point my finger in absolute disgust at companies that are using talented workers as throw-away pawns in an effort to forge some semblance of profitability.

My routine is to regularly “stalk” websites, postings, and even job listings in order to stay abreast of changes in sales and the competition. I am seeing something I find unsettling. A trend among companies to hire hastily and hope for the best. Are they expecting exceptional talent at low-ball prices? What is the reasoning? The fiduciary responsibility of any company’s executive leadership is to the stakeholders, whether those stakeholders own part of the company or not. This responsibility is being ignored. I often use the phrase, “Churn-n-burn” when I talk of a salesperson’s desire to sell and get out quick. Well, it is apropos when it applies to those that are sacrificing bottom-line dollars to make themselves look good.

I will give you two examples I have personally observed without revealing the names of the innocent.
FIRST: I have followed this particular company over the past 18 months and have seen advertised an opening for a account manager/sales representative listed 6 times for the same area! You do not have to have higher math skills to understand the people have only lasted three months! More likely 45-60 days since there will be some time period necessary to fill the position.

SECOND: Another company decided they would branch out from their inside-based verticalized sales model for a sales model based on territory. This is a model I embrace, so it is one I fully understand and believe in when a company’s strategy is to go to the next level of revenue. They brought in sales management to execute this strategy,  which they in turn brought in territory-based sales people. For those not familiar, this type of change takes time–a long time to see end results. So what was the outcome? Within 4 months the senior VP was let go and within 5 months the personnel he brought in was gone; some sales people with as short tenure as 45 days. Seeing a pattern here?? The second example is pretty extreme, but none the less true.

This is costing companies thousands of $$, let alone the cost in terms of brand damage. Think I’m wrong? Ask any reputable company what a revolving door of personnel does for company reputation. I wrote an article, “Hiring the Right Salesperson” where I mentioned the cost associated with hiring the wrong person. Think about how costly it is to the company in both tangible and intangible elements. Hire for the long-term. Hire and treat employees as you do your product. Use “Life Cycle Management” theory and apply it to the employees. If, as a company, you continue to go through not only sales people, but any employee you must understand your variable costs are going to be skewed. Is that the overall intent, screw with the variable costs at the right time to make the contribution margins look better? Let it be understood that this will catch-up on the backside–BIG TIME!

Show this to your company’s executives. See their reaction. Was it snuffed? I’ll let you decide.

Find this article useful, interesting? Contact Me or please leave a comment. If you have a Twitter account and found this article useful, it would be much appreciated if you would retweet this at the beginning of the article!

Happy Selling!

Ed Warner