If you’re competing on price, you’ll never achieve maximum profitability. It is critical to make value creation everyone’s job.
Are you sure that you’re providing the value your customers bought into? Even if your answer is an emphatic yes, you might want to take a closer look into your customer’s world. In my experience, 50-plus percent of all companies feel that they aren’t getting true value from their suppliers. That number almost certainly includes some of your customers. The danger is you may be assuming that the fault lies with them-maybe it’s an implementation issue or maybe they’re blind to the value that you believe exists but they just don’t see. It doesn’t matter.
If your customers can’t perceive the value you provide, it simply doesn’t exist. That’s the value gap and it’s one of the biggest roadblocks to sustained growth and maximized profitability.
The value gap can often be traced back to cross-functional dysfunction, a term that basically means that individuals or departments are not working together, or even worse, they may be in conflict with each other. Consider these examples: Are new products created that have little connection with your customer’s real problems? Is marketing generating leads but not held accountable for their quality? Are salespeople rushing to “present” solutions instead of seeking out relevant information on the customer’s real requirements? With confusion and disorder, customers default to what they do understand – price – and there goes the downward spiral to commoditization.
The issue is when various departments or individuals are operating with cross-purposes, a company’s value strategy is likely diluted by the time it reaches the customer. The customer perceives, rightly or wrongly, that either the value being offered simply isn’t there, it isn’t unique compared to alternative solutions, or there are doubts that the value being promised will be delivered -all of which leads to hedging, forcing price comparisons and driving profits down. Sellers ultimately watch their margins erode as price becomes the driving force of the decision.
In order to close the value gap, companies must create “Prime Solutions” – solutions that:
- deliver optimal results, capable of leveraging value to the highest level of the customer’s business,
- ensure that customers have identified and purchased the best solutions to their problems, and\
- provide implementation and value creation strategies that enable customers to achieve the ROI that they anticipated.
To achieve this goal, a company must end cross-functional dysfunction. It must replace “cost cutting” with “value creation” as a core competency. In other words, creating and selling value must become everyone’s responsibility.
So how can you build a culture in which value creation becomes the mantra and your customers see you as an incomparable source of value? Here are some guidelines to start transforming your organization:
Begin with a tangible and compelling customer problem.
All too often, we can develop products and services based on faulty assumptions about value. Chances are these assumptions could be inconsistent with the customer’s perspective. By the time we discover the disconnects, time, money and market position have been lost. Not only must we look through the eyes of our customer and develop products and services that address our customer’s financial well-being, but we must constantly validate our assumptions about value. We must ensure we can convert what we believe is value into value our customers can fully achieve and measure.
Commit to Diagnostic Marketing®.
You define your solution, which has been designed to solve a problem that your customer is currently facing, or will likely experience. You then create your market message based on a thorough diagnosis and understanding of that problem and its solution. Your messages however, must be written in the “negative present,” a place customers don’t want to be. They ask a customer to examine their current situation and suggest…These are the symptoms of the problem you may have, and if you are noticing this evidence, we may have the solution.
Additionally, marketing must prepare the tools and support materials that will be used to diagnose the customers’ business problems and design the solutions. These materials must guide salespeople through the same diagnostic process that is used in solution development and marketing. They must assist salespeople in identifying the indicators and consequences of the customers’ problems that their solutions address.
Learn the art of diagnostic conversations.
Traditionally, a salesperson’s goal has been to close the sale, get the signed order, hit the numbers, bring in the business… win. In Prime Solution companies, the desired outcome of the sale is the same, but the focus and the process are dramatically different. The diagnostic sales professionals work more like physicians. They provide high-quality diagnostic services, prescribe and treat responsibly, and attempt to ensure optimal health for their “patients” (the customers).
Keep an eagle eye on impending issues.
The rewards of keeping close to the customer are well known. We must ensure that customers attain the valuable results they expected when they purchased our solutions. That means not just solving problems that crop up, but actually watching for and diagnosing problems that customers don’t realize they have. We are closest to our customers when we are serving them, and therefore we are well-positioned to diagnose additional issues and opportunities before the customer may recognize them and ask for help.
To capitalize on these valuable, and for the most part untapped, resources, you must create conduits for continuous feedback. These feedback mechanisms connect the end of the value chain back to its beginning. The information that’s captured by customer service employees actually flows back into the cycle and serves as the basis for the development of new Prime Solutions. Thus, the conclusion of one revolution around the cycle becomes the impetus for another.
This may sound like a daunting amount of work, but the result – transformation into a Prime Solution provider and the resulting impact on your bottom line – is its own reward. Think of how you would respond to a solution provider who brought these capabilities to your door…a resource who would help you achieve a successful implementation, quantify and maximize the return on your investment, and ensure the sustainability of your optimized business performance. This sounds like a highly valued business partner, a source of continual competitive advantage…a position we all want to occupy in our customer’s minds.
Jeff Thull is the President and CEO of Prime Resource Group, a strategy and performance consulting firm based in Minneapolis. Jeff’s book, “Mastering the Complex Sale” was released in 2003 and is rated one of the top 30 best business books by Soundview Executive Book Summaries and #1 best selling book on Amazon.com. Jeff’s newest book “The Prime Solution” was released in January 2005.
The key to success in sales is, according to Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig, authors of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship (Portfolio: 2008), helping the client reach their goals, that is, putting the client’s success first.
Nice, but hardly a novel sentiment.
We’ve all read dozens upon dozens of books telling us that we must put the client first. Nothing new here.
The problem with all those other books is they haven’t given us a workable way to deal with the unspoken but paramount issue separating clients and sellers and preventing us from truly putting our client first—fear. The client’s fear of being taken advantage of and our fear of losing a sale.
Creating a way, a path, for us to work with our clients in a format that eliminates the ingrained fears of our clients and ourselves is the primary contribution of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play.
The authors begin their journey in creating a process that will allow us as sellers to really seek our client’s success first and foremost by outlining their 5 key beliefs:
The authors argue that these five key beliefs set the groundwork for a process that will allow sellers to deal with prospects and clients in an honest, straightforward manner where we can work with them to really discover their issues and needs, gather the hard information we need to create a solution that puts our client’s success above all else, and we can do these without the fear of wasting our time and resources pursuing non-business.
Khalsa and Illig devote almost half of the book to discussing how to qualify an opportunity because the qualification process sets the stage for remainder of the process. As sellers, we must make sure that we a pursuing a legitimate business opportunity. We cannot afford to waste our time and energy pursuing non-business. Consequently, we have to qualify based on Opportunity (is it worth pursuing); Time (reasonable and adequate); People (who does what and is it the right mix); Money (can the client afford it); and Decision Process (who, what, when, and how decisions are made).
Exploring each of these areas reveals whether or not we should go forward. Naturally, getting a green light in each area means we go forward. A red light in any area means there isn’t a viable business opportunity now. The real key is looking out for and understanding how to handle yellow lights—situations, questions, and issues that must be fully and honestly investigated to determine whether they are actually red lights or can be clarified into green lights.
The last half of the book is dedicated primarily to discussing how, when and where to present the solution proposal. At the crux of the proposal is its purpose—to enable a decision. Everything has lead up to this, the decision enabling meeting. The authors walk us through the process of creating a meeting plan that leads naturally to making the purchase commitment. Although useful and well laid out, I found this part of the book to be less compelling than the first half that dealt with qualifying.
The process Khalsa and Illig layout is thorough and workable if not seeming a bit cumbersome at times (the “Quick Reference Guide” in the appendix 16 pages long, hardly ‘quick’). It does, however, address the fear issues that keep sellers and clients from working together to clarify and address core issues with which the client is struggling.
Designed for and well worth the read of any salesperson or sales leader engaged in the complex sale, the book is also worthwhile for salespeople and managers engaged in any relationship driven sale, even for those engaged in consumer sales as many of the observations are applicable in numerous sales environments.
Ireland is a small Island on north-west of Europe with a population of just over 4 million people. Mass emigration means however, that over 80 million people worldwide are now of Irish decent. This Irish Diaspora is over fourteen times the population of the island of Ireland itself. From JFK to Barack Obama, Joyce to U2, Guinness to Riverdance, tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day; when we invite the world to join with us in celebrating all things Irish.
One famous Irish landmark is the Blarney Stone; legend has it that kissing the stone gives the gift of eloquence. Eloquence is the ability of expressing strong emotions in striking and appropriate language, thereby producing conviction or persuasion. The term is also used for writing in a fluent style.
The story goes that Queen Elizabeth the 1st requested an oath of loyalty from Cormac Teige McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney. She received a response that promised loyalty without “giving in”. Elizabeth proclaimed that McCarthy was giving her “(a lot of) Blarney”, thus apparently giving rise to the legend.
One man who definitely has the gift of eloquence is my friend and colleague, Dave Brock. Dave and I have been exchanging ideas about the concepts behind” Provocative Selling”. We thought our different views complemented each other-rather than merging them, we thought we could stimulate discussion in the community by posting both and encouraging you to read each. Read Dave’s views in his post “The Big Idea, Solve Your Customers’ Big Problems”
So is “Provocative Selling” a new kind of selling eloquence or just the same old Blarney?
It talks about moving our thinking and methodology about selling from focusing on “What keeps our customers awake at night,” to “What should keep our customers awake at night.” The premise is in changing the objective, you change the discussion. Different conversations lead to different outcomes with the goal to find bigger problems which in turn will lead to bigger sales.
While I not entirely convinced that what keeps and what should keep our customers awake at night are actually that far apart, I am impressed with identifying the need for a different type of conversation. What I really like about Provocative Selling is its process, the how to get from A – Z bit. The simple fact of having a much more open starting point to our dialogue with prospects, will I believe lead to having much better conversations. Too many of us continue to talk customers in the same way about the same things and it’s stopped working.
Maybe there is not something spanking new here, but perhaps we do all need reminding that what we should be talking to our customers about is “how we can help them to help their customers”. The reality is that no other conversation is worth having at the moment. The combination of expertise, knowledge and skills required is high, but maybe it’s now “a must have” in the salesperson’s toolbox.
Another important facet of this approach is that it increases the worth of the salesperson, not just in the eyes of the customer; but more importantly perhaps in the eyes of the salesperson. Dave often speaks of how salespeople need to “create value in every interchange with customers” Surely the starting point must be salespeople who have first built upon their own intrinsic value before customers and sales.
Top salespeople are constantly looking to add to their repertoire of knowledge and expertise. There is a subtle yet powerful difference, between finding opportunity and having the ability to go and create it. Could it be that in many ways? Provocative Selling is what top salespeople are already doing
Niall Devitt is the founder of Beyond the Boardroom (www.btbtraining.com), a leading Irish business development consultancy specialising in providing highly tailored solutions in the areas of sales training and recruitment. To date, Niall experience spans both B2B and B2C, where he has delivered training programmes for the IT, Construction, Medical, Utilities, FMCG and Financial sectors. Niall brings success to companies and individuals by assisting them to maximise potential through identifying, resolving and overcoming performance issues.
Today’s the day! Can’t say much till Noon Pacific Standard Time–but it is worth the wait.
Noon today PST, the doors open – on an offer that has the potential to save you thousands of dollars, increase your sales exponentially, and perhaps best of all give you peace of mind in the midst of a downward spiraling economy, massive budget cuts and increased sales quotas!
Watch the countdown to noon here.
Best,
Paul McCord
Benefits
Most salespeople follow a chaos theory of managing a sale – whatever happens, happens. Consequently, after leaving an initial meeting with a prospect they wonder how, when and why they should reconnect with the prospect. Not only does this lead to lost opportunities, even with prospects who do become clients the process is difficult, fraught with worry and uncertainty, and wastes a great deal of the salesperson’s time and energy. Managing a sale need not be chaotic. The ladder method is a logical progression process that will allow you to maintain complete control of the sales process, save time and energy by keeping your prospect engaged and committed, shorten the sales cycle, quickly eliminate nonprospects, and create additional and add-on sales and generate quality referrals (in conjunction with the PWWR Referral Generation SystemTM).
Agenda
Faculty
Paul McCord, McCord Training
Paul McCord, of McCord Training, has more than a quarter century of in-the-trenches experience as a salesperson, manager, executive and business owner in the construction, publishing and financial services industries. His experience is both broad and deep. From selling millwork to apartment and commercial builders and home centers, to wholesaling insurance and securities to NASD broker/dealers, to selling mortgages on both a retail and wholesale level, his background encompasses the full spectrum, from retail to wholesale to direct to business sales and sales management.
Mr. McCord’s heavy sales and management experience across a broad swath of the sales world combined with his years of experience training and consulting with companies of all sizes in dozens of industries has given him a unique understanding of the problems, issues and opportunities salespeople, managers and companies face.
Mr. McCord is the author of two best-selling sales books, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (2006), which was selected as an offering by the prestigious Forbes Book Club and is quickly becoming recognized as the authoritative text on referral generation; and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Be Becoming a Sales SuperStar (2007). His third book, Connected: Turn Your Connections into Your Most Powerful Business Building Tool, will be released in the Spring of 2009.
A prolific writer, his articles, interviews and quotes appear regularly in numerous business and industry publications such as Forbes, Business Week, Selling Power, Advisor Today, Sales and Marketing Excellence, Advisor Today, Hotel and Motel Management, Airport Business, Enterprise Week, SalesForceXP and many others. Mr. McCord is also the author of the highly popular Sales and Sales Management Blog which is often picked up in syndication by Fox Business News, Reuters, Nielsen Business Media, Hoovers and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mr. McCord’s work with salespeople and companies includes coaching; conducting sales training workshops and seminars; and consulting with companies on a variety of issues such as designing company sales training programs, training managers, and designing and overhauling districts, regions and entire departments.
Mr. McCord’s clients range from small to mid-size companies to behemoths such as GE, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, New York Life, Siemens, Merrill Lynch and others. In addition, he is a frequent speaker to business and industry associations such as The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, REALTOR® associations, marketing and public relation associations, and government groups.
One question I hear from salespeople on a regular basis is: “what do I do after the initial meeting with the prospect to maintain contact and increase their interest?”
The question from their point of view is, “what do I say when I call them back?”
In reality their question is an admission of a lack of preparation and planning. Not just a lack of preparation for calling an individual prospect, but a total lack of preparation for meeting with prospects.
Unless you are engaged in a one-time close sale, you know going into the initial meeting with a prospect that your sales cycle will require you to maintain contact with them over an extended period of time before the sale is consummated, whether that be a week, a month, or a year. Since you know you will have to follow-up with additional information, more meetings, a proposal, a committee presentation, and/or a formal needs analysis, you should be fully prepared to carry the relationship forward, knowing exactly what your next move will be before you ever enter the initial meeting with the prospect.
After only a short exposure to meetings with prospects you have seen virtually all of the variances your meetings can take, from the prospect that shows a great deal of interest, to those who show no interest at all, and everything in-between. Once exposed, you have no reason not to be fully prepared to take control of the situation when exposed to that type of prospect again.
Since you will see the same basic situations over and over again with your prospects, you should know exactly what the next step in your process will be before you wrap the initial meeting with your prospect. Instead of going back to your office and wondering what to do next, you should have already agreed with your prospect on the next step to take, whether that be another meeting, sending follow-up information, or simply putting the prospect on your long-term touch program.
Think of the sale as a staircase with a number of alternate stairways branching off of the main staircase. If you are familiar with the drawings of E.M. Escher, think of his etchings of stairways 
where there are myriad branches but all stairways eventually lead to the same location. That’s your sales stairway with all of the branches eventually leading to your central location-the sale. Some stairways are short and direct, others take a very circuitous route.
Your job is to have planned each route and to know exactly what you must do to guide your prospect through the stairway he or she has chosen. To do that you must have a well defined plan, knowing exactly what your moves will be well ahead of time.
The first step in your staircase is, of course, setting the initial appointment. That step naturally leads to your second step-the appointment itself. Unfortunately, that is where the staircase ends for many salespeople. Don’t allow yourself to ever be put in that position.
Just as the first step-setting the appointment-lead naturally to the second, your second step should lead naturally to your third step, and so on throughout the sales process. What your third step is will depend on what transpired during the initial appointment since your prospect may choose one of several staircases to climb.
For most of us, the initial appointment serves numerous purposes, one of which is qualifying the prospect. In fact, for many, the appointment isn’t with a prospect at all, but is rather with a suspect-someone we think or maybe just hope might be a prospect. During the initial meeting one of your primary jobs is to determine if the suspect is a prospect and if they are, what type of prospect-short-term or longer-term. Your staircase will branch off in different directions depending on whether you determine the suspect is not a prospect at all, is a short-term prospect, or a long-term prospect.
If you determine your suspect is not a prospect, your staircase ends with this meeting. There is no need to pursue them further.
If you determine your prospect is a short-term prospect, your staircase will continue, but you’ll have to decide during the meeting which branch of the staircase to lead your prospect-are you going to set another meeting, present a proposal, send or deliver additional information, or is another move appropriate?
The key to building your staircase and your relationship is to have your prospect agree on the next move before the end of the meeting, and in order to do that you must know both what the logical next move for the particular prospect is and where that move is going to lead in the sales process. Never leave a meeting without agreeing on what will happen next and when it will happen:
The key to building your stairway and leading the prospect to the sale is to always have your next step built before you finish the step you are on. If you are to deliver information, know exactly what information to deliver, how you will deliver it and agree on what will happen once the information is in your prospect’s hand. If your are setting a meeting, agree on the time and date, the goals for the meeting and the next step to be taken after the meeting.
Don’t rely on chance, luck, or happenstance-plan your moves well in advance and gain your prospect’s agreement and commitment.
Planning your moves is not difficult. If you are meeting with a short-term prospect you know what the likely next moves will be, in fact, there are probably only a handful of possible moves. For some prospects the next move will be another meeting, for others additional information, for others possibly a demonstration or a proposal. Since you know what to anticipate, have a clearly defined plan of action for each eventuality.
Build the third step in your staircase the same way. During the second meeting you gain your prospect’s agreement on what should take place next and then set a specific time and date for that step along with specific goals for that step. When delivering the agreed upon research, agree with your client on the next step and again set a specific time and date and goals for the next step in the process.
By continually gaining agreement from your prospect to the next step in the process, you keep your prospect engaged, you continually monitor the prospect’s level of interest, and you prevent yourself from falling into the awkward situation of wondering how to re-engage your prospect. Never leave a meeting or finish a conversation with your prospect without knowing what will happen next, when it will happen, and what the anticipated results of the step will be.
If you find you are working with a long-term prospect, you build a staircase that, like an Escher staircase, takes a longer, less direct route to the sale, but just as with a short-term prospect, you guide the prospect along a stairway that you know leads to the sale. Your steps may have longer intervals and may entail less direct interaction, but they must still be agreed upon by your prospect. These steps may include your monthly or quarterly newsletter, scheduled phone calls at a specific future date, or even calls based on specific future events such as the release of a new product or the passing of a specific threshold such as the beginning of a new quarter.
Prior to your next appointment with a prospect or suspect, create your staircase and map out a logical route to the sale for each scenario you are likely to encounter. Although you’ll have stairways branching off from your main staircase, you’ll probably have no more than a handful of branches for short-term prospects and probably no more than two or three for your long-term prospects.
Lay out on paper each logical step for each branch and then plan how you will lead your prospect to agreeing to each step along the way. Although many salespeople believe writing out scripts is fake and insincere, be aware that you will eventually create an effective-or ineffective–script that you’ll use over and over to introduce and seek agreement from your prospect to the next step to be taken. You can either leave the creation of your script to the spur of the moment as you are standing in front of your client, or you can take the time and care to do it while you can carefully think through the best way to introduce the next step and gain your client’s agreement. Either way, you’ll eventually end up with a script you’ll use over and over.
You don’t have to be like the majority of salespeople who struggle to keep in touch with their prospects and move them along the sales process. Instead of worrying about what to say, when to contact a prospect, or how to get your prospect to move along the process, simply build the next step while you’re with your prospect. Not only will it give you more confidence since you know you’re in control, you’ll close more sales and close them faster-and that’s a good move.
As Carle was walking back to her car after her first meeting with Ann, the COO for a small manufacturing company, she was worrying about her next call to Ann. The meeting seemed to have gone well-Ann seemed to be genuinely interested, there seemed to be real potential for a sale, but she didn’t feel that there was a definite direction to go from here. What should be her next move? When should she get back with Ann? What was she going to say? What could she do to move the sale along? What sale exactly?
Carle’s dilemma is one faced by thousands of salespeople everyday. They work hard to find and connect with a prospect, have a really good initial meeting-and then don’t know where to go from there.
If you find that you also have meetings that seem to go well but when you walk out you’re not sure how to proceed, there is a simple three prong solution that should be incorporated into every one of your sales calls:
1. Qualify your prospect. Carle thinks there’s a sale for her with Ann-but she really doesn’t know what it is. She didn’t qualify her prospect. She should have taken the time to dig to further to find out if Ann’s company is a true prospect. Do they really have a need, issue, or want Carle can help resolve? If so, what is it specifically? If she can solve the issue in a manner that makes sense, does Ann’s company have the resources and desire to implement the solution? What are the implications for the company if they don’t resolve the issue?
2. Identify a specific next step. Identify the next logical step in the process. Is it constructing a proposal? Gathering more information? Giving a demonstration? Inviting Ann for a plant tour? Unless you identify what needs to be done next, you’ll walk out wondering where you go from here, and more importantly, wondering how you’ll reconnect with Ann.
3. Gain agreement on implementing the next step. Knowing the next step isn’t good enough-your prospect has to understand and agree to what is to happen next. You should never walk out of a meeting without both you and your prospect in agreement about when you will contact her next and why.
Your initial meeting should naturally flow into the next step of the process. Neither you nor your prospect should ever walk out of a meeting wondering where things will go from there. Each step of the process should lead to an agreed upon next step until the sale is finalized, you determine you cannot solve the prospect’s issues, or the prospect determines your solution is not right for them.
If you’re not doing so already, make sure you qualify your prospect; identify a real need, problem or want you can address; and then have your prospect agree on a logical next step and you’ll never again have to walk out of a meeting wondering where to go next or how you’ll reconnect with your prospect.
Ah, the endless search for the silver bullet, that magic formula that will make sales so easy, so quick, so painless. For many in sales that Don Quixote quest is never-ending. The internet is full of sites that promise that magic bullet-if you’re willing to pop for only $895, they’ll send you the 14 page e-book that will give you the secret you’ve been looking for.
OK, so it doesn’t exist.
That’s not to say that there aren’t real strategies that work. There are. And Craig Elias is presenting a free tele-seminar that gets you as close to THE silver bullet in sales as you’ll ever get.
Yep, it’s free.
Yep, it works.
Nope, it ain’t easy (surely you’re not gullible enough to believe that those things that really do work are easy).
It’s called timing-and it’s the real thing.
What will you learn during Craig’s 30 minute presentation?
You’ll also learn:
DATE: September 17
TIME: 10AM Pacific (1PM Eastern, Noon Central, 11AM Mountain, or GMT -7 for other time zones)
Register HERE: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/705326053
Head over and register. It’s short. It’s real training. It works.
Linda Richardson has released her New York Times best-seller, Perfect Selling. This short, easy to read book deals with her 5-step process to creating a successful sales encounter.
Perfect Selling (McGraw Hill) is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, and all fine booksellers.
Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com.
