Tag: tactics

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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
Sales Advice Sales Basics Sales Tips

So You Wanna Be the CEO?

CEO’s have a tremendous burden in that they must not only perform, they must often outperform. They fail not for the lack of planning, strategy gazeor the lack of a long-term vision, rather because of a simply task, Execution.

Too often we (salespeople and alike) act as though our tasks and daily routines are insignificant. On the contrary, everything you do has a certain degree of separation that touches the bottom line. We fail to realize just how important our job is, regardless of the occupation. In spite of where you are in the corporate structure, treat your sales territory as though you were the CEO… Execute!

In order to execute, you still have to have a plan, but the execution must plancover the humdrum details of account management. Many a salesperson has made the mistake of believing they can do these at their leisure. and the customer will be happy! Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a relationship sell kind of person, therefore I believe in cultivating relationships for the long-term. I do not believe in the churn-n-burn mentality. If that’s your nature and it suits your job description, then more power to you. But if your goal is to keep the customer in hopes of selling to them again, there are continuous must-do’s you have to perform.

  1. Follow-up and make sure your solution did indeed perform–their pain MUST be gone
  2. Regular contact–this allows you to uncover additional pain or issues as they arise
  3. Competition Watch–contact allows you to understand their penetration, if any

So what’s your excuse?
Sounds fairly simple, so why is there such a disconnect in execution? TIME Make the time and make the call or visit. I have heard just about every excuse, but the one that stands out is: I don’t have time, I need to concentrate on this quarter’s numbers. hourglassThis excuse is the biggest reason for not doing anything; the illusions of time dwindle. You actually have more time than you realize and here is how you dispel the myth and reclaim the edge.

Account Division
In order to make sense of your time this really only works for those that do account management. Divide your customers into three groups, 1,2,3 or A,B,C. Decide on one key element that will divide them. It can be something like: yearly potential selling value, lifetime selling value or whatever makes sense for you.
Start by putting the top 20%-30% customers in the first tier, the next 50%-60% into the middle tier the rest in the last tier. Once that happens, make a contact plan for each of the tiers according to importance. Put this into your electronic calendar as a to-do!

Rule of thumb: 1st tier call monthly, 2nd tier call quarterly, and 3rd tier call every six months. What are we trying to accomplish? Relationships. It’s all about relationships. Still true today, people buy from people! All of your 1st tier customers should be your key account or best prospects. Increase ten-fold, the relationships you now have within those accounts. fightFailure to win this battle will guarantee you lose the war! This is a priority so treat it as such. Do what is necessary to cultivate the relationships

Your goal is to follow the same procedure for the next tiered accounts, but in a more restrained role. Tier 2 accounts can be thought of as the next Tier 1 accounts so starting early puts you ahead of the curve. The last tier of customers need to be jettisoned or cultivated. As a salesperson, no one likes to say goodbye to a customer, but consuming more resources than their sales potential is capable of replenishing, it is time to cut the strings.

I will leave you with this thought provoking question: Why win additional customers if you cannot keep the ones you have?

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