Sales and Sales Management Blog

November 18, 2011

Sometimes Unconventional is Better than Being “Good”

Filed under: attitude,management,sales,Sales Process,selling — Paul McCord @ 2:58 pm
Tags: , , ,

Ugly. 

Won’t ever make it. 

Worst I’ve ever seen. 

Pathetic. 

He makes a mockery of football as a game of skill. 

You can’t play the game like that.

I suspect every NFL fan recognizes those as recent statements by various football commentators and pundits about Tim Tebow.  All of these men have a certain vision of what an NFL quarterback should be.  For them there is a set of skills that anyone who wants to be a successful quarterback must have.  There are also accepted offenses that can be successful in the NFL and by extension there are others that are doomed to failure if tried.

Football for these folks is a predictable sport—right skills with the right offense mean success and anyone who deviates will inevitably fail.

These guys recognize that Tebow doesn’t fit their predetermined concept of what an NFL quarterback should—must—be.

But the rookie quarterback has something that doesn’t fit into their nice, neat, predictable formula—he has a knack and a drive to win.

He is a winner—one who finds a way to make the football world bow to his talents and more importantly, his will.  Despite all the predictions of failure, he wins.

Certainly Tebow isn’t the only individual who seems to be able to will success.  There are many in every field—including sales.

Unfortunately many times these natural winners end up losing.  Not because they can’t win but because their coaches and managers try to force them to conform to what they believe a quarterback—or salesperson—should be. 

They try to force them to work with a process or system that the individual’s skills can’t support.  They try to make the individual win pretty according to the industry accepted definition of pretty, and thus destroy the individual’s ability to be successful. 

I’ve seen many sellers who had an unconventional sales style (unconventional, not unethical) fail because their manager forced them to work within a system that they were unsuited for.

Process and systemization is currently a hot topic within the sales field.  I’m a big advocate of process.  I have a disciplined, proven process for almost everything I do.  I think most of us need to work within a system that gives us order and as much control of the outcome as possible and every company should have a universal process for their sales team.

But I also recognize that there are some—a few—who are more comfortable and more suited working within their own unconventional, seemingly haphazard system.  Their sales style may be ugly.  It may not make a great deal of sense to the more conventional sales mind.  It may break all the “rules” of selling.

So what?

If it is ethical and the seller is meeting the needs of the prospect without shortchanging or cheating his company, what difference does it make?

Why managers can’t recognize a winner when they see one—as it appears the football commentary world can’t recognize an unconventional winner when they see one—is beyond me. 

Why must we try to force everyone into the same  box just because it works for the majority?

Is it a misguided need to treat everyone the same?  Well, folks, not everyone are the same.

Is it a need for the manager to be in control? 

Is it a trust issue that if the person is successful outside the “rules” he or she must be doing something unethical?

Is it just laziness since it’s easier to treat everyone the same instead of dealing with individuals?

To date, Tebow’s coaches are giving him enough freedom—at least at the end of the game–to be himself and do what he knows how to do—win.  Time will tell if he can continue to will wins from a weak team. 

Hopefully those managers who have a Tebow on their team will learn the lesson Denver is learning—not everyone is conventional.  Not everyone needs to be.

July 21, 2011

Questioning the Value of Questions in the Sales Process

Filed under: attitude,Client Relationships,Communication,sales,Sales Process,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 10:17 am
Tags: , , , ,

I had the honor yesterday of participating in a roundtable discussion organized and presented by Focus.com about the use of questions in the sales process. Moderated by Andy Rudin of Outside Technologies, the panel consisted of some outstanding sales minds:  Dave Brock of Partners in Excellence, Jack Malcolm of Falcon Performance Group, Dan Waldschmidt of Waldschmidt/Arp, and finally, myself, of course.

Our discussion addressed some of the most fundamental myths and misconceptions sellers have about the use of questions in sales.  In fact, we deconstructed the whole idea of questioning as the central aspect of selling.

By all means, all involved agreed that questions are an essential and important aspect of information gathering and rapport building.  Questions help open prospects up so we can uncover new information and help get to core issues and concerns.  Questions can help focus both ourselves and our prospects to dig deeper and look more closely at what’s really going on in a company.

But in the end, questions are only a tool.  They aren’t the be all and end all of our interaction with prospects and clients.

The problem is that some sellers have walked away from their training on questioning feeling that questions are the secret key to success or that in order to be effective sellers they must be ever conscious of asking the “right” question or the “right” kind of question.

That’s simply bull.

Our object with a prospect or client isn’t to ask questions, even though as mentioned above, questions are tremendous tools.  Our object with prospects and clients has to be to communicate—to connect with them in a meaningful way that helps us understand who they are as well as their problems, needs, and wants.

Communication demands far more than an ability to ask questions.  It requires that, as Dan Waldschmidt pointed out, we care—that we care about the prospect, about the issues, about our reasons for doing what we do, about who we are and who we’re dealing with.

Communication demands that we connect on both an intellectual and emotional level.  Communication demands that we go beyond the gathering of information and actually touch the other person’s humanity (as well as our own).

Yes, we did talk about questions and their importance.  But in the end, it was about one human connecting with another, not about how to ask the perfect question.

The real question ends up being why are you asking questions?  Is it to connect and build a bridge to help solve issues for a fellow human—or to get into someone’s wallet?  That, sellers, is the first question that must be answered.

February 22, 2011

Process: Can Success Really Be Just Mechanical?

Filed under: attitude,career development,motivation,sales,Sales Process,selling,success — Paul McCord @ 9:33 am
Tags: , , ,

Today you hear some version of the same message almost everywhere you turn:

“What makes a company successful is process . . . . [successful companies] find a formula that works.”

“You simply cannot be successful in complex sales unless you have a solid process.  A proven process is more important than anything and everything else.”

“If you want to be successful, you must concentrate on developing an effective sales process that produces the results you want because that IS the secret of success.”

“Top producers have a repeatable process.  Everyone else has only unfounded hope.”

All of the above were picked from things I have read in just the past week.  And these are far from the only ones, I could go on and on with statements in the same vein from recent articles and forum discussions. 

Process is the concept du jour. 

Process=Success

No process=Fail 

Everyone’s on the bandwagon promoting the current hot topic.

Now, don’t me wrong, I’m a firm believer in process.  I have a process for almost everything I do and I’m a strong promoter of process.  I’ve written numerous articles and two books that are centered on process.  I firmly believe that a proven, effective, repeatable process is one of the foundations to a successful sales career or a successful business.

I don’t, however, think it is the most important ingredient or the one that determines whether or not one is successful.

Important, yes.  Absolutely, positively, 100% critical?  No, not really.

Success in sales or business is far more than simply turning the right mechanical knobs or punching the right buttons.

Don’t we wish it were that easy?  Simply create a formula that seems to work and success is guaranteed.

We can all think of companies who have a formula that works and appears to be the cornerstone of their success.  Let’s take three examples that we all know: McDonald’s, Disney, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I’m taking these because they are familiar to everyone and the real reason for their success is easy to identify.  We could take examples from any industry and any selling situation, but these three are very simple, straightforward examples of where the cornerstone of success for them lay.  In each instance their business formula helped, but it wasn’t the thing that exploded these companies.

What made McDonald’s, McDonald’s?  Was it Ronald or the Hamburglar?  Not at all.  Was it the machine like efficiency demanded of each franchise and the requirement that the food taste exactly the same no matter what franchise one visited?  No, that came later. 

McDonald’s success lay in the heart and soul of Ray Kroc.  Kroc was a never tiring evangelist for McDonald’s.  He lived and breathed McDonald’s.  In a sense, Kroc forced McDonald’s success because he wouldn’t settle for anything less. 

McDonald’s successful formula was built and perfected over time.  Kroc’s drive and determination gave him the time needed to refine and improve the system that the original founders of the McDonald’s concept had begun to devise.  It took Kroc three years and a bunch of money to develop his successful process—a process that is still being perfected today.  If Ray Kroc hadn’t had the passion to demand success, there wouldn’t be a McDonald’s, at least not as we know it today.

In the same manner, Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto didn’t create Disney.  Disney was more a creation of Walt Disney’s drive and passion than Mickey’s popularity.  Long before Mickey was born, Walt had to overcome lost contracts, a former buyer of his cartoons stealing his entire staff of artists save one and his at that time one original cartoon character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  Oswald might have been lucky, but Walt wasn’t.  Most would have folded their tent and given up after having everything they’d built torn down—especially by someone they had worked with and trusted.

But like Kroc, Walt had passion and unlimited drive.  He believed in himself and he believed that success was right around the corner—if he just continued to sell his passion.  His dedication and drive paid off.  Shortly after losing his staff and Oswald, he found Mickey.  Although Mickey was a success, he still wasn’t the success formula that “made” Disney—Mickey gave Walt the money and time necessary to find his ultimate mega success formula which was turning cartoons into feature length animated movies and the spinoffs from them that continue to this day.

Likewise, Colonel Harland Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken’s success isn’t due to a business formula but rather to a man who believed so passionately in his product and his vision that retired and broke, he hit the road to sell his chicken formula to cafes and restaurants across the country—and his share if they used his secret recipe?  A nickel for every chicken they sold using it.  It’s hard to make a living at a nickel a chicken—even in 1955.

Process is a tool for a salesperson just as a paintbrush is a tool for an artist.  Put a paintbrush in the hands of an artist with the passion and drive of a Leonardo and it becomes an instrument to create beauty; put it in the hands of someone one who is only looking to make a buck and it is nothing more than a tool used to paint a wall.

The same is true with sales.  Put an effective process in the hands of someone with the passion and drive of Harland Sanders and it becomes an instrument for changing lives; put it in the hands of someone who is disconnected and only interested in making money and it becomes nothing more than a way to make a sale every once in awhile.

By all means, find a predictable and effective process; it will help you make sales.  If you want success, you must marry that process to deep, heartfelt passion and drive because whether we like it or not, success isn’t mechanical; success is nothing more than the outward expression of one’s passion, drive, and vision.

September 28, 2010

Are Your Sales Managers Sabotaging Your Sales Training?

Filed under: management,sales,Sales Management,Sales Process,sales training,selling — Paul McCord @ 12:48 pm
Tags: , , , ,

Yesterday the CEO of a mid-size financial services company complained that no matter how carefully they designed their sales process and the accompanying training, they have been unsuccessful in establishing a consistent, long-term implementation of the process throughout the company.

Yesterday certainly wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this lament—and it certainly won’t be the last.

There are a number of possible reasons for sales training failure from treating sales training as an event instead of an ongoing behavior change process, to salespeople who view attending sales training sessions as torture, to the company’s failure to provide follow-up coaching for the sales team.  All of these are real issues that can negate any potential success you might experience from your investment in sales training.

But there is another cause of training failure that isn’t addressed as often but can be more destructive to your company’s training efforts than any other single factor—your sales managers.

Are your sales managers reassuring their charges that, “yes, you have to go to the training, but don’t worry; just go and when you get back, sell the way you’ve always sold?”  Maybe they don’t believe in the training you’re giving and are intentionally training their team in different processes and tactics? 

If you fail to get full buy-in from your sales management team to the specific training you are presenting, you will not have comprehensive and universal implementation of the training. 

Your frontline sales managers who work with their team members have more influence on how your salespeople sell than anyone else—more than senior executives, more than middle sales management, more than the training department, more than HR, more than the expensive sales trainers you hire.

If they don’t believe, the salespeople won’t believe.  If they don’t reinforce the messages, the strategies, and the tactics, those occasional training sessions will be nothing more than expensive exercises in futility.

How do you get all of your sales managers on the same page?

Before you ever put a salesperson in a training workshop or seminar, each and every manager must have gone through the management version of the training.  Each manager must understand what the company’s comprehensive, unified sales process is and how the particular training that is scheduled fits in the big picture; what short and long-term results are to be expected; what their job is in reinforcing and coaching the training; and what criteria will be used to determine the success or failure of the training.

Most of all, each manager must believe in the process and strategy.  .

Whether the training is presented by an in-house trainer or by a professional trainer brought in from outside, each segment of training should consist of a management segment designed to gain manager buy-in and to give them the tools and knowledge they will need to coach sellers once they are back at the office and a segment for salespeople that is attended by their managers.

And although the initial cost of training in terms of both time and money will increase, the long-term result will be reduced waste of training dollars and increased sales.  That wished for unified sales process will begin to become a reality because the biggest determent to success has been turned into the biggest promoter of success.

August 26, 2010

Guest Article: “So you Say You Have a Sales Process?”, by Rick Page

Filed under: Sales Process — Paul McCord @ 8:26 am
Tags: ,

So You Say You Have a Sales Process?
By Rick Page
The Second-Best Process Finishes Second – and Sometimes Doesn’t Finish at All.

We talk to many sales executives about sales effectiveness and of course we do discovery with prospects to see where their needs are. Many of them say that they already have a sales process for opportunities and it is true that many companies invested in the funny sales processes of the last dozen years or so.

But when we drill down and examine what they call a sales process refund that many of them are lacking the components that it takes to win. Just having a process is no longer enough you have to have the best sales process — a complete process.

Some of what sales managers call a sales methodology is actually a forecasting process. I sat with one sales executive to review what they were doing and he showed me a spreadsheet with the faces of his sales cycle as the columns in the names of his reps in the rows. He was focused on moving or his numbers from one column to the next. I asked him, “But about the individual deals that make up those numbers?” He didn’t know because he was more focused on counting the business than winning business. This is called flogging the forecast for how much and when. Just defining the phases in your sales cycle is not really a sales process because it doesn’t show you how to win.

Another client, a consulting firm and a very elaborate flowchart with many steps and who was responsible for each one. This is certainly a necessary element but it’s not a strategy either.

Since the birth of consultative selling in the early 70’s many companies have invested in training that teaches their people how to:

1.  Discover and listen for customer needs

2.  Link solutions to requirements and needs

3.    Present back to the customer their vision of a solution

These fundamental skills and process are certainly necessary to any sales process – they define your solution strategy and your value proposition – but they are no longer enough to win a complex sale. Unfortunately this where many sales processes stop.

In last year’s survey by CSO Insights, (we recommend you subscribe) respondents said that of forecasted deals only 49.3% actually closed. Respondents said that 27.2% were lost to competition and the remaining 23.5% stalled out and bought nothing from anyone. This is directly related, in my opinion, to our finding that many sales methodologies fail to address competition and politics, and closing on a source of urgency that is emotional and political rather than just financial.

The closer you are to winning, the closer you are also to losing. That is because of the upheaval of the buying process at the decision-making point of the buying committee — the place we call the crucible. This is where the committee realizes that they are not going to reach consensus, they disagree on their priorities, the issues change, and often a power struggle breaks out. This is where multimillion dollar deals turnaround in a day.

Without a sales strategy process that addresses the political reality that not all buyers are equal or have unequal pains, your sales rep will lose control of the deal at this point. You have to identify all the potential stakeholders, their needs, their preference for you, their power and then identify a strategy for each individual to really get their vote or live without it.

You can win without a strategy, it’s called luck. You also need another dimension to your sales process if you are to win against competition. You must anticipate how they plan to win, predict their tactics, and defeat their strategy. The earlier you do this, the better.

Great salespeople that we know win they’re deals during the discovery phase long before any presentation. Their competitive strategies include developing inside informants who prefer you, planting questions that expose their weaknesses, suggesting changes to the buying process that favor you, and of course getting to the executives with your messaging first.

One of the reasons that so many forecasted deals are lost to competition is that salespeople fail to anticipate any competitive counterattack in the crucible. Once a competitor figures out that they are not winning, you should anticipate and predict that they will slash price and try to go over the project team’s head. The first thing great salespeople do after they get the good news is to immediately prepare these defenses.

Finally, good sales process should address getting the deal closed — especially since 23.5% of forecasted deals stall out. And in this economy, RO I alone will not close a deal because most CFOs have several proposals in front of them, all with good ROI’s, but only so much cash to invest. Without connecting your solution to a source of urgency that is emotional and political two powerful sponsors, your deal will sit on the forecast for a long time. The customer will not change until the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing. And a lost opportunity to save money may not be politically painful.

In addition, this is when procurement and legal become involved in your deal and a process called commoditization begins. After months of demonstrating differentiating value they suddenly can’t seem to remember any of it. That’s because these people are trained to ignore it. Some procurement people would buy a pacemaker from the lowest bidder. They just know your price is too high. No matter what it is, it’s too high.

While procurement may try to isolate you at this point from the end-users, you should have negotiated earlier for their assistance at this point. Only they understand the true value of your solution and the relative risk of the legal issues. If they are powerful enough they can help push it through procurement or legal. In this economy, it often takes as long to close a deal as it does to win it.

In complex sales, you either win or you don’t. They either close or they don’t. A partial sales process and strategy won’t produce a partial sale. Outcomes are binary. The worst outcome is to finish second, late.

Without a complete opportunity sales process including:

1.  Solution and value strategy

2.  Competitive strategy

3.  Political strategy

4.    Closing strategy

you are basically going to a gunfight with a knife.

A recognized authority in the complex sale arena, Rick Page, Founder and CEO of The Complex Sale, Inc., has trained salespeople from more than 50 countries during his long and distinguished career. One of the foremost experts on sales management and selling, Rick continues to develop innovative sales programs and is the author of Hope Is Not A Strategy – The 6 Keys to Winning The Complex Sale and Make Winning A Habit – 20 Best Practices of the World’s Greatest Sales Forces.  Visit his website

August 9, 2010

Guest Article: “When Bad Needs Analysis Happens to Good Sales Reps! by Paul Castain

Filed under: Qualifying Prospects,Sales Failure,Sales Process — Paul McCord @ 9:18 am
Tags: , , ,

When Bad Needs Analysis Happens To Good Sales Reps!
by Paul Castain

The Needs Analysis is no doubt, a critical step of the sales process. Execute properly and and you pave the way for a higher probability sale. Execute poorly and you disconnect!

Here are several of the mistakes I see sales professionals make. I’ve included several tips on how you can ace your next needs analysis.

1)    Failure to have the proper selling environment. This includes everything from not having enough time, to allowing people to tell you “we know exactly what we want so you don’t have to ask us those questions” etc. Let’s be clear. We need to be respectful and control the meeting without being controlling (there’ s a huge difference) but by the same token, would you go to a Doctor’s office and say “Put away that Stethoscope Doc. It’s my bladder so I just need you to work up a quote on surgery?” Selling should never be different. If someone is rushing your due diligence to the point that you know that this will be a “screw you” down the line, get the screw you today instead and insist (respectfully) that they allow you to be the professional you are.

2)    Allowing Your Needs Analysis To Take On A “20 Questions Guessing Game” Vibe. Maybe it’s the impatient New Yorker in me coming out, but why get into this “Is it animal or mineral” BS? I like to cut to the chase and ask a question at the start of my needs analysis that goes like this “Granted I called you . . . what prompted you to take this meeting today?” It gives me a direction to go in 9 out of 10 times and saves everyone the annoyance of questions that have nothing to do with “where it hurts”.

3)    Asking a lame question. This includes everything from questions that you could have answered yourself by taking a time to research (How many locations do you have? etc) to weak questions that don’t serve you or the prospect. So how does one ask a better question? By mentally firing yourself from your industry and rehiring yourself in theirs! If you were the dude/dudette buying what you sell, what would piss you off? I would imagine it could be things like quality, deadlines, surprise costs, communication, managing multiple vendor relationships, internal customers, dealing with sales people, navigating around internal external buying policies, how to sell a change to the internal team, cost containment etc. On a more positive note, there are things all businesses want such as more customers, more market share, more profit, happy customers, employees and shareholders, lower turnover, better image and brand awareness, increased efficiencies, quicker to market turn times, innovation etc. What questions can you ask to get them thinking about this? This is the stuff they want fixed! Want to take this over the top? Think of one killer, “knock you on your hiney” question. I’m talking about one question that flaws the prospect and makes them think “Holy schnikees. Nobody ever asked me that before. The insurance industry has the ultimate “If something were to happen to you, could your family meet its financial needs?” Whoa! Way to stun me long enough to make me listen to you dude!

4)    Asking a good question at the wrong time: When we jump right in with a more intimate question, a prospect might think “Who the heck is the person to ask me that? I don’t know them or trust them” and then they shut down on you. Personally, I like to ease into my questions by starting with more situational types of questions and then increasing the intensity at a pace dictated by my read of the prospect.

5)    Answering your own question. Don’t laugh. It happens more than you think!

6)    Asking a clichéd question: Example “What keeps you up at night?  “On a scale from 1-10 how is your present service?” “What would it take to make them a 10?” Don’t get me wrong, I could think of worse things to ask a prospect, but why sound like every other sales person who sits in the hot seat? I know this is harsh, but when someone asks me cliched, used and abused questions I immediately think “is that all you got?”

7)    Asking a set up or “salesy” question: These are the questions that they see coming from like a hundred miles away. My favorite “If I could show you a way to blah, blah, would you seriously consider blah?” I think the 80’s called and wants their monkey style kung fu  back!

8)    Being so attached to your questions on paper that you don’t follow up on the answer or allow the conversation to “go there”. My best suggestion here (aside from being flexible enough to allow a “discussion” to occur) is to memorize by the topics your questions fall under. This way when a conversation goes from something that’s a deadline issue to a communication issue, you know how the questions execute out of sequence.

9)    Not asking continuation questions and racing to your next question. The best information you can get is usually when a prospect is encouraged to continue or expand. You can facilitate that by simply following up their answer with: “Tell me more” “can you give me an example of that?” “what happened as a result?” and even using some strategically placed (get this) silence. People have an innate need to fill silence. Let it be your prospect. One disclaimer: If you wait too long you might get  a “Bless your heart” and a pat on the head.

10) Making “I wasn’t listening statements” after they answer your question. Examples: “Fair enough” “Interesting” First of all, what the hell are you saying to me? When someone says “Interesting” I feel like you are doing some amateur psychoanalysis and you just concluded I was a bed wetter or something. Are you judging me? “Fair enough” WTF is that? Is that you feeling I was defending an opinion that you don’t agree with? Was that your reentry back into our conversation after an outer body experience and it came down to either saying that or shouting out some other random word like “DAISEYS”  Either way, congrats, you are conditioning me to not give you so much on the next question. Gold star, Rain Man! Here’s an idea. Don’t know what to say after someone responds, thank them for their answer and move on.

11) Asking questions that are so full of prefacing and tangents that they confuse the prospect. I’ve witnessed a bunch of those in my career. The best was when the prospect just stared at the sales rep when he finished and said “I have no clue of what you said, or where you are going with that last question. Was it a question?”

12) Making the Needs Analysis an interrogation instead of a conversation. I offered to help someone the other day with a challenge they were having. I came prepared with a page and a half of ideas. I didn’t get a chance to help this person because they just kept peppering me with questions. At one point I resisted the urge to ask her if I should get my attorney. The cure (in my opinion) is to use different types of questions and to make the exchange conversational and collaborative. Otherwise you are encouraging the prospect to shut down on you.

13) Failure to validate feelings. When someone tells you about a challenge or an incident, don’t race to the next question, acknowledge and validate. This goes back to something I say all the time in this blog “Everyone has a story and wants to be heard” How about a little “I give a damn? How about an “I’m sorry to hear that” or “that would bother me too, and what a testimonial to your professionalism that you kept a cool head” Remember: race to your next question too quickly and you might brand yourself as insensitive and cold. The best part, is that they might not even be able to articulate that. It may hit them as more of a “gut feeling”. When that happens, classic fight or flight kicks in and we simply avoid.

14) Asking a closed question. Under this same category (I’m too lazy to make another category) are questions that make it easier to default to a nice safe “no” Instead of asking closed questions, try focusing on “Experiential” questions. That is, questions that bring a prospect back to a time when they experienced a less than favorable result that you can impact with your solution.  The topic of experiential questions deserves its own future post so stay tuned!

15) Recycling Questions (asking the same question multiple ways) Unless you have a really good reason for this and you are really good at disguising repetition, don’t go there girlfriend!

16)  Conclusive Questions (aka putting words in the other dude’s mouth) Example “Tell me about the challenges you are having with your current vendor” Meanwhile, nobody said anything about challenges.

17)  Allowing Unproductive Tangents. Part of your responsibility as the professional is to facilitate a process without being controlling. If the conversation is going in a direction that isn’t beneficial, then you need to get things back on course.

18)  Failure to Customize Your Questions based on your Pre Call Planning findings: Don’t be this creature of habit who must ask the questions they always asked. Better to have your arsenal, and choose your weapon and even create your weapon based on the situation at hand. Besides, doesn’t asking a very specific set of questions, that demonstrates that you did your homework help out in the rapport department?

19)  Committing Any Combination of the 4 deadly sins: Interrupting, talking over, finishing thoughts, rushing the prospect’s answer.   I know someone who has this annoying habit of saying “right, right, right” when you are answering their question or just making a statement they want you to cut to the chase on. Don’t ever do that to your prospect or you will be (once again) conditioning them to not give you the details you need. The best way for you to avoid interrupting or talking over is to simply pause after they answer the question. Done!

20)  Disrespecting the word “Why”. The word “why” can serve you, and in many cases it can hurt you in that it might make the other person feel they have to defend their position. Try changing “why” to “what” as in “what prompted you to take that position” or “what were the events that led to those feelings”  The “what” question gets you into mechanics and processes which can be far more productive. Don’t get me wrong, I love to get to the emotions and the feelings. That’s why I phrased this one “Disrespecting the word “why”.  I can’t emphasize it enough that if we aren’t careful, we literally condition prospects to be guarded! Not a good place to be hombre!

21)  Considering a Needs Analysis A One Time Thing: I hope you highlight this one. I see so many people who conduct a brilliant needs analysis, win the account and then never do it again. Things change my friend. Statistically speaking, just in the time you spent reading this post, something has changed somewhere. Immediate Action Item: Starting thinking of a needs analysis as the annual check up at the Dr. Schedule a check up with your clients and every prospect that you haven’t done a needs analysis in the last year. Some will argue that it should be 6 months. That’s your call to make, not mine.

I won’t lie to you, there’s a lot here to digest. My suggestion is that you print this out, and commit to “owning” these tips.

Your closing ratio will go up dramatically when you do!

He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever

Chinese Proverb

Paul Castain is the Vice President of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics (CGX) one of North America’s leading general commercial printing companies. Paul has over 25 years of sales and sales leadership experience. He has trained, mentored and coached over 3,000 sales and sales leadership professionals.  Visit his blog: Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook

June 30, 2010

Guest Article: “What Do Formula 1 Drivers and Great Sales Professionals Have In Common?

Filed under: career development,Sales Process,Uncategorized — Paul McCord @ 9:16 am
Tags: ,

What Do Formula 1 Drivers and Great Sales Professionals Have In Common?
David Brock

For sometime,  I’ve been haranguing readers about the importance of the selling process.  Even in a recent post, I considered use of the sales process as a condition of continued employment.  I’m not softening my position on this, the sales process is the cornerstone to personal and organizational performance excellence in selling. 

However, the posts have generated a good amount of discussion and emails.   Some have suggested the process removes creativity and innovation.  Some have said the highly scripted nature of a sales process is not conducive to the highly customer focused/responsive approach to selling we need to be executing.  My colleague, Andy Rudin, has made some outstanding arguments about the need for sale professionals to be able to “call audibles, deviating from the game plan” in order to be responsive to the situation.  I tend to agree with Andy’s concept.

It seems much of the discussion is about the level of precision and prescriptiveness of the selling process.  I thought it would be useful to provide some clarification.

In the past, I’ve used the analogy of a road map.  A sales process is a lot like a road map.  A map offers directions to get from Point A to Point B, in fact it may offer several options based on different criteria (e.g. Freeways, Surface Streets, Scenic, etc.).  A road map doesn’t describe everything one encounters on the journey.  It won’t describe every pothole, twist or turn.  It doesn’t describe road conditions or hazards that might be encountered along the way, nor does it describe what to do when those hazards are encountered. 

While the road map offers directions to get from Point A to B, it still requires a skilled driver to execute it.  The driver’s skill needs to be much higher, if you want to get between points very quickly.  Then you add traffic, it takes even more skill to navigate, while going very fast, with dynamic and changing traffic conditions.

Let me extend the example, I like watching Formula 1 racing.  Anyone that can drive, can drive a Formula 1 race course.  But to drive a Formula 1 course at 200mph, dealing with other skilled drivers, dealing with changing road, car conditions, accidents, and winning at the end requires the highest level of skill and performance.  Formula 1 drivers, think and analyze—very fast, they adapt and improvise quickly.  They change to meet changing conditions.  Above all, they stay on course, that is if they want to finish the race and win.

The sales process is a lot like a map.  It provides general directions, and may even provide options.  But executing the sales process, in the face of changing conditions, while moving at full speed, and beating competition requires the highest levels of skill, performance, ability to “read the conditions,” and adaptability by the sales professional.  The best sales professionals, like Formula 1 drivers, don’t seek to “drive on their own course,”  but learn how to exploit the course/process, adapt it to the current situation and conditions and go on to win.

Formula 1 drivers never blame the course if they fail to achieve goals.  Likewise, great sales people never blame the sales process for failing to achieve their goals.  Great sales professionals know that the sales process positions them to be as effective as possible, but that in the end, it’s all about execution—better, faster, more effectively than anyone else.  They know the execution is not blind, but requires thoughtfulness, adaptation and nimbleness on their part—if they are going to win.

I have a problem with sales processes that try to be overly prescriptive.  Those that try to anticipate everything that can happen on the journey.  Those that try to describe every twist and turn, every possible road condition, every possible situation that can happen in traffic.  It’s impossible.  Those that try to do this usually fail.  They create a process that is overly complex, too cumbersome, unresponsive, and slow.

At the risk of alienating some of my audience, I think overly prescriptive, highly scripted sales processes demean the sales professional.  The script the sales person has to follow without any deviation or adaptation to the system removes the real time thinking, analysis, and adaptation that is critical to winning fast, efficiently, effectively.  I tend to think that organizations that put this type of process into place do it because they either do not trust their sales people, they do not want to invest the time to train sales people, or they are looking for the lowest level of skills.  These jobs will disappear—they are better executed through the internet or through robots.

Selling is complex.  To be effective, we have to have a road map or a course.  To win, we have to think, analyze, adapt, and execute at full speed.  Great sales processes enable great sales professionals to execute and win like Formula 1 drivers.

Dave Brock is President of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company. Partners In EXCELLENCE helps its client achieve the highest levels of performance in developing and executing business, sales, marketing, and leadership strategies. Follow Dave on his blog at http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com, on twitter @davidabrock, or contact Dave directly at dabrock@excellenc.com

February 19, 2010

Guest Article: “The Seduction of Low-Hanging Fruit,” by Jill Konrath

Filed under: Closing Sales,prospecting,Qualifying Prospects,Sales Failure,Sales Process,selling,time management — Paul McCord @ 10:06 am
Tags: , , , , ,

The Seduction of Low-Hanging Fruit
by Jill Konrath

I remember the first time it happened. It was on a Thursday, about 4 pm, and I was worn-out after a day of cold calling. I hadn’t uncovered even one viable prospect. Enough was enough! Time to go back to the office and do some paperwork.

When the phone rang, I answered it tiredly. But by the time I hung up I was a new person. I had just talked to one hot prospect!

Her company was BUYING! Not just looking – BUYING! They needed several new systems to handle their growth. And they wanted to make a decision quickly.

“Can we come in for a demonstration,” she asked.

How could I refuse! They came in the following Monday and we spent about two hours together. We discussed their needs and I showed them several possible options. Things seemed to go really well. In parting, they asked me to call back early the next week.

Tuesday morning I left a message. Wednesday and Friday too. My calls were never returned. It wasn’t till a week later that I finally got my prospect on the phone. She thanked me for my hard work, fast service and excellent demonstration. Then, very apologetically, she told me they’d selected another vendor.

I asked “Why,” but her answer was evasive and focused on minor details. Of course, price was thrown in too – as it always is when you lose.

I’m embarrassed to tell you that this happened to me more than once. And sometimes I invested an inordinate amount of time and effort in those so-called “hot prospects.” I coordinated elaborate meetings and prepared detailed proposals. I even rearranged meetings with prospective customers who weren’t quite ready to move ahead.

Can you guess what happened? That’s right. I almost always lost the business.

Lest you think I’m not too smart, it didn’t take me too long to figure out something was wrong. My proposals, presentations and demos were fundamentally sound, so it had to be something else. But what … When I talked to the more seasoned sellers, I was cautioned on wasting my time with ‘low-hanging fruit” – in other words, companies who are ripe to buy.

They told me that many of these prospects already have made their decision, but are checking the market for two reasons: 1) To prove to higher-ups they did a thorough investigation, or 2) To leverage competitive offers to reduce their preferred vendor’s pricing.

Yikes! That explained a lot of things. Naively, I had assumed that I had a fair shot at every deal.

Learning how to ferret out those opportunities where it was worthwhile to pursue low-hanging fruit was hard. I had to be much more straightforward than I was used to being and ask questions that made me uncomfortable. But by doing this, I saved myself lots of hard work. And, I had more time to spend on prospects where I could win.

* * ******************************************************************

It’s not only individuals who are seduced by low-hanging fruit. Sometimes whole companies are sucked into these ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes.

Several years ago one of my clients introduced a new product targeted at a highly profitable niche owned by their competitor. They were late to this market and, in essence, their product was a higher-priced copycat with enhanced capabilities.

In the months preceding the launch, sales reps continually fed marketing stories about all the money being left on the table because the new product wasn’t ready. They told marketing about all the prospects who called wanting to know when their new system would be available. Everyone was drooling. So many buyers, so little time.

Their entire launch plan focused on the low-hanging fruit. Sales reps, armed with proposal templates and PowerPoint presentations highlighting competitive strengths, were chartered to go after companies on their “Hot Prospects List.”

Hard as I tried, I couldn’t convince them of the folly of this decision. The seduction was complete.

So what happened? In the six months immediately after the launch, very few systems were sold. Their only orders came from existing customers where reps had strong, long-term relationships with key decision makers. Within two years the company quietly exited this market niche because it was too costly to penetrate.

The lure of low-hanging fruit never completely goes away. The chance to make easy money is just too seductive.

I still have to caution myself when I encounter these opportunities. The worst thing about them is the wasted time that could have spent with prospects where my chances of winning were much higher.

Lessons Learned

1. In most cases, you can’t get into a sales process late and expect to win. If your competitor already has a strong relationship with the customer, they’re in the driver’s seat. They’ve likely already established decision criteria that only their company can meet.

2. Be willing to ask tough questions. If your new prospect is ready to buy, make sure you ask them:

- Who else are you looking at?

- Has your company done business with these companies before?

- Why would you consider switching?

If your prospects express strong dissatisfaction with a competitor, you might have a real opportunity. But if they’re just looking around, be wary of investing too much of your time and company’s resources trying to get the business.

3. Your best prospects will be those companies where you already have an established relationship OR where you get in early, before customers are making a decision. In the latter case, by uncovering and developing account needs, you’ll build the strong relationship you need to win the order when they’re ready to make a change.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big  Companies, is a recognized sales strategist in the highly competitive business-to-business  market. A popular speaker at sales meetings, she helps her clients crack into  corporate accounts, speed up their sales cycle and generate demand for their offering.  Visit her website http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com

February 2, 2010

Guest Article: “Turn Selling Around,” by Ram Charan

Filed under: Client Relationships,sales,Sales Process,sales psychology,selling — Paul McCord @ 11:07 am
Tags: , ,

Turn Selling Around
by Ram Charan    

The heart of the new approach to selling is an intense focus on the prosperity of your customers. This is a radical departure from what most salespeople and selling organizations do. The entire psychological orientation is shifted 180 degrees. No longer do you measure your own success first. Instead, you measure success by how well your customers are doing with your help. You’re not focused on selling a specific product or service; you’re focused on how your company can help the customer succeed in all the ways that are important to that customer. By tapping the many resources you have at your disposal to help customers meet their business goals and priorities, you are adding value.

This ability to create value for customers will differentiate you in a crowded marketplace, and you will be paid a fair price for it — one that is commensurate with the value customers perceive they are getting and the value you do in fact provide. I call this new approach value creation selling, or VCS.

Value creation selling is sweepingly different from how most companies sell today, in these ways:

First, you as a seller and your organization devote large amounts of quality time and energy — much more than you do today — to learning about your customers’ businesses in great detail. What are your customer’s goals? Which financial measures is he most keen about? How does he create market value and what are the key factors that differentiate his product or service from those of his competitors? Only then do you look for ways to help the customer in the short, medium, and long term. The greatest opportunities lie in the medium and long term, where you and your customer can work together to change the nature of the game in your customer’s industry based on value you can help provide.

Second, you use capabilities and tools that you’ve never used before to understand how your customers do business and how you can help them improve that business. Sales is no longer just for the sales force: you need to muster the help of people in many parts of your company to do that. People from many different departments, including the legal, finance, R&D, marketing and manufacturing, become intimately familiar with your customer. You compile large amounts of information about your customer, both facts and impressions, in useful databases that are shared and used to determine the best approach for helping your customer win.

This will demand that you build new social networks, both within your organization and between your organization and the customer’s shop. Information will have to flow in both directions, and there will be a need for frequent formal and informal interaction among people serving different functions within your company and between your company and the customer’s. For example, your engineering people will need to meet with the people in your customer’s shop who define the specifications of your customer’s products or services.

Third, you’re going to make it your business to know not only your customers but also your customers’ customers. It is no longer enough simply to satisfy your customer’s demands. You also have to know what motivates his customers, what their problems are and attitudes are and what decision-making processes they use. In order to tailor your solutions to your customer’s market, you have to know who his customers are and what they want. To devise unique offerings for your customer, your company must use its capabilities to work backward from the needs of the end consumer to the needs of your customer. This is the customer value chain.

Fourth, you have to recognize that the execution of this new approach will require much longer cycle times to produce an order and generate revenue. It requires patience, consistency, and a determination on your part to build a high degree of trust with your customers. This is imperative because in this new relationship the two-way information exchange is far deeper than what you have relied on in the past. But once it gets going, the cycle time can be very fast, because you will have established trust and credibility.

Finally, top management in your company will have to reengineer its recognition and reward system to make sure that the organization as a whole is fostering the behaviors that will make the new sales approach effective. Hitting quarterly sales targets is not the only basis for rewarding the sales force under this approach. Further, other members of the sales team from various functional areas must be recognized and rewarded proportionately for their contributions. If after receiving sufficient training and support the salespeople or other functional executives don’t adopt the new approach with wholehearted enthusiasm, you will have to replace some people.

Ram Charan is the author or coauthor of many bestselling business books, including What the CEO Wants You to Know and Execution. For more than thirty-five years, he has worked behind the scenes at Fortune 100 companies like GE, Bank of America, DuPont, Thomson financial, Honeywell and Home Depot to help senior executives develop and implement strategic plans. www.ram-charan.com

January 31, 2010

Book Review: Selling Change: 101+ Secrets for Growing Sales by Leading Change by Brett Clay

Filed under: Book Reviews,sales,Sales Process,selling — Paul McCord @ 11:16 am
Tags: , , ,

Change is a natural part of all life and, consequently, a natural part of our sales lives.  Nothing is static; not our products, not our prospects, not our clients, and certainly not our competitors.  Change is the only constant.  But surprisingly enough, change as a central theme of selling has seldom been addressed head-on.  Brett Clay in Selling Change: 101+ Secrets for Growing Sales by Leading Change (ARIVA Publishing; 2010) changes that.  As you can tell by the title of the book, change is the central theme of his sales philosophy.

Clay argues that our job as a seller isn’t to sell a product or service as a solution to a problem or issue but rather to understand the change forces taking place within the organization or individual and then show how our solution changes the organization or individual for the better, that is, how we not only solve a problem but at the same time advance the goals of the organization or individual.

Although not a new idea, Clay’s format for relaying the idea makes it easy to understand the steps in turning selling from a simple solution orientation to a change management orientation.  Rather than lengthy chapters of detail and endless discussion, Clay has divided the book into 107 “secrets” which are themselves divided into 5 sections which together make up what he calls the Change Leadership Framework®:

  • Force Field Analysis:  Which asks what change force is the customer feeling?
  • Change Response Analysis: Understanding how the customer is responding to this change force.
  • Power Analysis:  What effort will the customer have to undertake to make the necessary change?
  • Value Creation:  What value will the customer experience from the change?
  • Change Actuation:  How will the change be made?

Each “secret” then has its own short, two-page chapter broken into three parts:

  • What I Need To Know: a brief description of the secret
  • What I Need To Do: an action that must be taken based on what you now know
  • Action Summary:  a couple of bullet points about what you just learned

The 107 secrets range from the obvious such as “No One Needs Your Product,” to the obscure such as “Stay Away from Turtles,” to the critical such as “Where There Is Change, There Is Conflict.”  Each new secret builds upon the previously explored secrets. 

If you’re looking for a change primer, Selling Change is an excellent starting point.  If you’re more advanced, I’d recommend Sharon Drew Morgen’s Dirty Little Secrets instead as it is currently the definitive book on change management within the purchasing process. 

Selling Change’s great asset is its simple to read basic content laid out in such a manner as to make both reading and implementation easy.  In fact, the only drawbacks to the book are that it is too basic in some areas where I’d like to see the secret explored in more detail (difficult to do when each is relegated to only two pages) and–as a purely personal issue with the book–Clay quotes himself several times, a practice I find very irritating and in poor taste. 

The book is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other fine booksellers.

HELP!

My article “Sales Call Reports–Are They Worth the Hassle?” has made it to the finals for Sales Article of the Month for February at Top 10 Sales Articles.  I’ve got tough competition from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Keith Rosen, Lee Salz, Kevin Eikenberry, Danita Bye and others.  To win, I need your vote.  Half of the selection of the winner is based on reader votes; the other half based on votes by a panel of professional sales trainers and consultants.  I’d appreciate it if you’d hope over to Top 10 Sales Articles, read the 10 finalists and vote for the one you believe best (mine, of course).

Next Page »

Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com. Fonts on this blog.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 3,814 other followers