Sales & CRM News

How to Fight Above Your Weight Class (Part One)

The Sales Blog - Wed, 09/08/2010 - 00:11

Many of the companies that you compete with are bigger than your company. They have more locations than your company, they have more people working there than your company, they have more resources than your company, and they have more money than your company.

Their salespeople know that they are bigger than you and your company. And your dream client knows that they are bigger than your company.

If you want to win your dream client, you have to compete against bigger, better-financed competitors.

You Must Believe You Can Win . . . Even When It Is Unlikely

The first rule to fighting above your weight class is the hardest rule to adopt and to practice, but it has to be adopted nonetheless. The first enabling rule of fighting above your weight class requires that you adopt the belief that you can win.

You have to believe that you can win because you can and will execute the fundamentals of sales success better than your larger competitors.

You have to believe that you can win because you want the deal more than your competitors, and because you care more about ensuring that the client achieves the new and better result that they need.

You have to believe that you belong in the competition with your bigger competitors because you have something to offer, something better than they have to offer. You have to believe that you are part of the decision and that you can—and will—make a difference in the contest and in the end result when chosen.

You have to believe that size doesn’t matter. You have to believe that bigger doesn’t equal better. Bigger equals bigger. Better equals better.

Believing that you can beat larger competitors doesn’t defy logic or the facts; smaller companies beat larger companies for their dream clients every day. In a real contest with five competitors, you being the smallest, at least three of the larger competitors are certain to lose the deal (think about that).

You Must Act Like You Can Win

The hard part about adopting this belief is maintaining the belief against the longest of odds. You have to believe this even when you are seriously outgunned. This belief is what allows you to fight like Hell. It sustains the never say die attitude that gives you a fighting chance.

The reason that is critical that you believe you can win is that you will only take the actions necessary to winning if you believe. If you don’t believe that winning is possible, you will go through the motions, but your passion for the deal will never be known or felt by your dream clients. You will fail to act as aggressively and as certainly as you should act.

Fighting above your weight class requires that you punch above your weight class. You have the power to knock out a bigger and stronger opponent. Your execution of the fundamentals, your discipline, your passion, your commitment, your business acumen (especially your business acumen), your ability to build the right solution, your ability to lead change, your ability to join your dream client’s team, and your ability to produce the result they need all combine to give you power beyond your weight.

First you have to believe, and then you have to act.

Conclusion

Many of the companies that you compete with are bigger than your company. If you want to win your dream client, you have to compete against bigger, better-financed competitors. To fight above your weight class, you have to believe that you can win, and then you have to take the actions that that belief enables and requires.

Questions

What do you believe about larger, better-financed competitors? Do you believe that bigger companies beat smaller companies simply because they are bigger? Do you believe—even despite the evidence of the past few years and this recession—that bigger means better? What part of your experience tells you that bigger isn’t better, better is better?

What do you have to believe in order to fight above your weight class? What do you have to believe about yourself? What do you have to believe about your company? What do you have to believe about your team? What do they have to believe about you? What do they have to believe about themselves?

Why do so many companies choose a smaller company as a partner over larger companies? What are the differences that make the difference? What do the companies that make this decision believe about the size of the company they choose? What do they believe about the people that they choose to work with?

What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about your ability to fight above your weight class? How many weight classes up can you fight and deliver knockout sales power? How do your beliefs enable and support your decision to act?

Please share your stories here . . . I know you’ve got them!

For more on increasing your sales effectiveness, subscribe to the RSS Feed for The Sales Blog and my Email Newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect to me on LinkedIn, or friend me on Facebook. If I can help you or your sales organization, check out my coaching and consulting firm, B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, email me, or call me at (614) 212-4279.

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

How to Fight Above Your Weight Class (Part One) is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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The High Price of Joyless Sales Manager

The Sales Blog - Tue, 09/07/2010 - 00:31

Salespeople are optimistic by nature. They have to be; if they weren’t optimistic they could never succeed at a job where the first communication they have with their dream client is most often a flat out rejection and where they lose more of the opportunities they pursue than they win. This is true even when they are succeeding wildly!

A joyless sales manager can ruin their sales team and destroy their capacity to win by demolishing their natural optimism.

The Devil’s Advocate

Every opportunity comes with enough risks, threats, challenges, and competitors that the devil needs no advocate. The sales manager’s role is to not to play devil’s advocate when discussing opportunities. When coaching the salesperson on the opportunity it is fair to challenge their strategy and to push the salesperson for their best thinking and their best performance—as long as it is done with the intention of helping them identify and obtain the ideas and the resources that they need to win the deal. It can’t be to simply play devil’s advocate—that role, without fully participating in strengthening the deal yourself—is too negative.

Sales managers who play devil’s advocate without participating in generating ideas that strengthen the deal strategy, without helping to obtain the resources that may build a competitive advantage, and without a good and positive sprit, end up tearing their salesperson down and destroying morale.

I’ll Believe It When I See It

A salesperson has to believe that they can win every deal. This belief sustains them through all of the challenges, through all of the periods when the deal is at risk, and through the trials and tribulations that are part of competing for their dream clients.

They have to read positive buying signals as positive. Doing so allows them to believe they can win the deal and to act accordingly, pulling out all of the stops to win the opportunity. When they believe they can win, they are naturally excited to share the good news with their peers and with their sales manager.

A sales manager who doesn’t share their enthusiasm can take the wind from their sales. The sales manager does nothing to encourage the aggressive, no hold barred behaviors that the salesperson needs to take in order to win by suggesting (or saying) that they will believe the deal only when they see it. A sales manager needs to share the belief that they can win. Period! Even when the deal is incredibly unlikely.

The sales manager may never see the deal. The deal may be lost. But destroying the salesperson’s belief—and with it their optimism and confidence—does nothing to advance the deal or increase the salesperson’s likelihood of winning the deal.

The Deal Is Not Good Enough

Most deals aren’t perfect. In fact, many are far less than perfect. But winning the deal is winning the deal. Maybe the price was lower than desired. Maybe the deal requires more work than is normal or anticipated. Maybe it is somewhat short of what you, as a sales manager, would have hoped it would be. And, perhaps the salesperson made a blunder that made one or all of these things true.

If you are a sales manager, before you point out all of the things that are wrong with the deal, how you could have done better, or what you expected, stop and think about the outcome you are trying to achieve. Is it your intention to build your salesperson up by building their desire and capacity to go and win future contests? Or, do you allow your dissatisfaction to rob the event and the salesperson of the joy of winning?

Winning by a field goal in an ugly triple overtime game is still winning. Would you have liked to win in a blowout? Sure. But winning is winning, and winners celebrate and are celebrated before they review the game films to decide how to prevent a close game in the future.

Conclusion

A joyless, pessimistic, or even realist sales manager does nothing to encourage the optimistic fighting spirit a sales force needs to win. They need to share the optimism and share the belief that the deal can and will be won.

Questions

A sense of optimism provides the salesperson with the ability act and to compete against all odds. What does a pessimistic attitude provide the salesperson or your sales team? What does the realist, pragmatist provide your sales team in the way of hope and fighting spirit?

When you challenge your salesperson’s deal strategy by playing devil’s advocate, what do you do to provide the ideas and the resources the strengthen the deal? How do you share in the ownership of the deal by playing devil’s advocate? How do you strengthen your salesperson’s resolve and their commitment to compete and to fight for the deal?

Your salespeople believe that they will win deals that they will lose. What does it cost you to support them in their belief? This is not to suggest that you should allow them to believe they can win without ensuring they have done what is necessary to win. You don’t have to forecast long shot wins, either. But how do you help encourage them to try and to compete against long odds?

Are you guilty of criticizing the particulars of a new win when it is reported? How does this build your salesperson’s capacity and desire to win more deals? What is better way to deal with deals that are short of what you need them to be? How could you celebrate the deal and postpone reviewing all of the mistakes until they can be done in a format that doesn’t destroy the joy of winning—and with it the fighting spirit?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

The High Price of Joyless Sales Manager is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Your People Are Your Only Asset (A Note to the Sales Manager)

The Sales Blog - Sun, 09/05/2010 - 23:21

You’ve heard it said a million times: “Our people are our greatest asset.” You may be guilty of saying it yourself a time or two. It sounds really good, too. But walking that talk isn’t easy and it is a path that is rarely taken by management, regardless of their intentions.

I am not throwing stones—far from it. It comes down to what you care about.

People Are All You Have Got

The sales managers job is to get results through others. To succeed, you have to be able to generate results through and with the members of your team.

People are all you have to achieve these results. Caring about them and their success is the whole game.

Maybe you bought and implemented the killer sales process. Using this process helps differentiate you and your offering, and when used properly your sales process creates a tremendous amount of value for your dream client and a competitive advantage for you. Congratulations!

Now who is going to operate that sales process? How good do they have to be to ensure that your investment of time, money, and energy generates the results that you need it to?

Maybe you have invested in the most sophisticated sales force automation on the market. Your SFA is integrated with your lead generation tools and social media, it generates the reports that give you a deep dive into metrics that make a difference for you and your company, and it has your sales process completely built in to the workflow. It’s awesome, no doubt!

Who is going to use the sales force automation? How good do they have to be to take advantage of all that your sales force automation has to offer in helping with their performance?

Maybe you have the killer offering. You have innovated and you have leapfrogged your competition with a product or service that changes the game now and in the future.

Who is going to present your offering to your dream clients? Who is going to help them understand how your offering helps your dream clients produce the results that help them to leapfrog their competition?

When it is all said and done, your people are all you ever really have.

Who is it that really creates value for your dream clients? Who is it that differentiates you and your offering? Who is it that works to understand your dream client’s needs and builds the vision of a future together with your company? Who manages the outcome that you promise and that you sell?

If People Are All You Have Got, It Takes More Than Talk

If your people are all you ever really have, then you have to do more than talk. You have to treat people not like they are your greatest asset—you have treat them like they are your only asset.

If people are all you have to produce results, what do you have to do to ensure that your people don’t fail? Seriously, what can you do to ensure that they succeed?

Do you think that this is too much? What else is there?

Whether your people are your greatest asset and your greatest source of competitive advantage or not depends completely and entirely on whether or not you walk your walk when it comes to treating them accordingly. Their success depends on you taking the actions that ensure that they succeed, and taking those actions requires that you care as deeply that they succeed as you need them to care about ensuring that your dream client’s succeed.

Conclusion

If people are your greatest asset and your competitive advantage, then you have to care as deeply about their success as you need them to care about your dream client’s success.

Questions

If people are your only asset, then what do you have to do to ensure that they don’t fail?

If people are your only real asset, if they are your only real competitive advantage, then what do you personally need to do ensure that they produce the results that you need?

If your success—or your survival—depended on your people succeeding, what will you personally do to ensure that they succeeded in achieving the objectives that you gave them?

Do you treat your people like they are your greatest asset? Do you treat your people like they are your greatest asset when they make mistakes? Do you treat your people like they are your greatest asset when they make mistakes that cost you money or cause you to miss your goals and objectives?

Look at your calendar. How much of it is filled with appointments that directly relate to helping your people succeed?

Do you care as deeply about your people’s success as your expectation about how much they need to care about ensuring your dream client’s succeed with your solution?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Your People Are Your Only Asset (A Note to the Sales Manager) is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Adding Meaning

The Sales Blog - Sun, 09/05/2010 - 01:30

In complex business-to-business sales, there are times when there is little activity on an opportunity and little communication. This is true even in the best of circumstances, but the silence and inactivity in a competitive situation can be excruciatingly painful. Especially when the opportunity is with one of your dream clients.

There are unreturned calls. There are unanswered emails. There are cancelled appointments.

It is easy to assume the worst. It is easy to assume that the silence—the unreturned phone calls and emails—indicates that your dream client isn’t interested. It is easy to believe that during these periods of inactivity that something has gone wrong, that you have lost the deal, your dream client has lost interest, or they have lost budget approval. While any of these things may be true, it is wrong to add meaning to these events (or non-events).

I have known salespeople to call their dream client and leave a message saying that they understand the silence to mean that the dream client is no longer interested and that they are going to move on to another opportunity. I have also known salespeople to call purchasing agents, taking an adversarial approach and questioning the purchasing agent’s professionalism. In every case, the salesperson attached meaning to the silence that was inaccurate and damaged or destroyed their opportunity.

In one case, after a great first sales call, the salesperson spent more than four months continuing to call the dream client with no return calls. She wanted to throw in the towel, and she suggested that her dream client clearly wasn’t interested, and that there was no reason to spend any more time pursuing her. I insisted that she continue to call—not adding any meaning to the silence and lack of returned calls. She eventually scheduled an appointment after discovering her dream client had a serious medical operation that took her from her work.

It is dangerous to believe that something means something that it doesn’t. This is true early in the sales process when you are doing your discovery and diagnosis work, and it is true later in the sales process—when there are periods of less activity than you would like and when there is too much silence.

Instead of adding your own meaning—and assuming the worst—it is better to ask the questions that uncover the meaning of the silence and the inactivity. There may be legitimate issues that are preventing your dream client from moving forward. The demands of their own job may prevent them from devoting the time and the attention to your opportunity or to the improvements that you can help them to make. Your dream client may need to renegotiate the commitments that they have made, and it will surely take more time than you would like.

But even when there is nothing but silence, it is wrong and it is dangerous to add your own meaning to the silence. It is better to stay the course, to continue to call, to email, to make your meetings, and to pursue your opportunity. If you have to attach meaning to the silence and inaction, then it is better to assume that your dream client has demands that are preventing them from moving forward and that you should be pursuing your opportunity, making your follow up calls, attempting to make your appointments, and reaching your contacts deep in the organization to try to understand the deal status and how you can help to move it forward.

When there is too little activity or periods of silence, don’t attach meaning that discourages you or that prevents you from pursuing your opportunity.

Questions

Does silence or inactivity necessarily mean something negative has occurred and that your deal is in jeopardy?

What are the legitimate reasons that your deals may stall, even when both you and your dream clients would both like to pursue a better future together?

What are the dangers of assuming something negative? How does it impact the actions that you take in pursuing your dream client and your opportunity?

What are more healthy meanings that you might attach to your dream client’s silence or inactivity? What are the best actions that you can take when your dream client goes silent?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Adding Meaning is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Don’t Confuse Goals and Disciplines

The Sales Blog - Sat, 09/04/2010 - 02:59

There is a difference between goals and disciplines. As obvious as that statement may sound, many people—salespeople included—mistake these two ideas.

The reason some people don’t weigh what they want to weigh is because they have a goal of weighing a certain amount. But weighing a certain amount isn’t a goal; it is a discipline. To weigh whatever your target weight is on a daily basis requires that you eat a certain number of calories of certain foods, forego other foods, and exercise in an amount that causes you to remain at a constant weight.

Your weight is the result of the daily disciplines that you keep, for good or for ill. If your daily discipline is two scoops of ice cream before bed, then you will weigh exactly what your discipline dictates.

The same is true of your sales results.

Some salespeople believe they have a goal of making four sales calls per week. Making four new sales call per week, much like maintaining a certain weight, is made up of certain activities, including spending time prospecting each and every day, making cold calls, asking for referrals, attending networking events, and nurturing the relationship that you need in order to schedule these appointments.

Making four sales calls per week is a discipline. It is a constant, much like your weight. If your daily discipline is surfing the web, hanging at the water cooler, and avoiding your prospecting work, your sales results will be exactly what your daily disciplines dictate.

Disciplines are the things that you do every day, every month, every year, over and over again and without failure.

Goals Are Singular Events

Goals are single events. They are one-time occurrences. You may have a goal of billing $2,000,000 in 2010. At the end of the year, you will or will not have reached that goal. You may have goal of winning your $1,000,000 dream client, of increasing your wallet share by 25% across your top five key accounts, of opening a new market, or of launching a new product in the fourth quarter. These are all events. They are goals that can be measured and reached.

Disciplines Are More Powerful Than Goals

Disciplines are way more powerful than goals. Reaching your goals is the result of having maintained all of the daily disciplines that make up and lead to your goal. The reason so many goals are never achieved is not because the goal is unreachable, but because of a failure to maintain the daily disciplines that would have resulted in the goal being achieved.

A goal cannot easily be executed. But all of the activities that make up the goal can be.

Instead of making a goal to read one book per week, adopt the daily discipline of reading one hour a day and put it on your calendar. Executing this discipline leads to the achieving of the goal.

Instead of making a goal of making four new sales calls per week, adopt the daily discipline of making 2 hours of prospecting calls per day, attending one networking event per week, of asking every client for a single referral, and of executing the activities that you built into your nurture toolkit with devotion that borders on the religious.

Questions

What are your goals as a salesperson? Are they single, measurable events, or are they really disciplines that you wish to keep?

What are the daily disciplines that you are required to keep to reach your sales goals?

What goals do you believe that you have that are really disciplines that you wish to keep?

Make a list of your daily disciplines. Then, write down what will occur at some point in the future by keeping those daily disciplines. That is your goal. Then focus on keeping the your commitments to yourself and keeping your daily disciplines.

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Don’t Confuse Goals and Disciplines is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Back to School Reading: Part 1

Selling To Big Companies - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 21:03

For the past few weeks, I've been on a reading frenzy. As a blogger, I get sent tons of new books to review. As a prolific learner, I order a bunch more.

As a reviewer, I only share those I really like - which is something I'll be doing in the upcoming month. I hope you enjoy these two books as much as I did.

_______________________

Make What You Say, Pay

Anne Miller, author of Metaphorically Selling (one of my favorite books), is back again with another excellent resource for sellers.

In Make What You Say, Pay, she shares strategies to help you inspire prospects to take action, open their minds to new options, overcome resistance and more - all through the use of language.

Rather than bombarding crazy-busy customers with tons of data and statistics, you'll discover how to start painting more pictures -- which have a much higher success rate.

In my Reeling in the Big Ones article, I show how I found just the perfect words to get my prospects to understand a difficult concept.

I stumbled onto that approach. Finally. After screwing up many opportunities. That's not too smart. But I don't anymore. Anne Miller taught me how to change things.

In Make What You Say, Pay!, she shares and dissects 50 different stories (including the above one) to help you see how other sellers have changed their words - and changed their results.

Summary: Excellent book; geared more toward experienced sellers who are fine-tuning their approaches and/or want new strategies to take their business to the next level.

Click here to download two free chapters, order right now or sign up for Anne's newsletter.

_______________________

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
By Verne Harnish

If you're an entrepreneur, this book is a must-read. Author Verne Harnish nets out the key factors that leaders need to embrace if they want to achieve if they want to achieve rapid growth.

The focus? Finding the right priorities, making decisions based on the right data, maintaining a business rhythm, and eliminating the chokepoint.

The best thing about Mastering the Rockefeller Habits are the tools:

One-Page Strategic Plan – a powerful resource that helps you get on the right track and stay there. (it's used by over 20,000 companies worldwide).

Management Accountability Plan: a tool you can use to get everyone in the company on board and contributing to the key priorities.

Problem Solving Guidelines – excellent strategies for making the best decisions for your firm

And that's only a few of the excellent resources you'll find in this powerful and practical book. Well worth the investment if you intend to grow

Verne Harnish is also CEO of the Gazelles, a company that helps grow leaders of growing companies.

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Can You Sell Better Than the Saleswomen of the Tibetan Mountain Passes?

The Sales Blog - Thu, 09/02/2010 - 10:03

As you travel through Tibet, you will encounter thousands of people selling things, including Buddhist prayer bowls, prayer wheels, and prayer beads, carpets, art work and, of course, jewelry. I fully expected to see this in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

What I did not expect was to encounter some of the greatest salespeople I have ever witnessed selling on the mountain passes between Lhasa, Tibet and Mt. Everest.

At the top of the mountain passes (some as high as 16,800 ft. in altitude), there are stunning and breathtaking views that demand you leave your car to stand in awe of nature’s beauty and to take pictures. The views are some of the most beautiful you will ever see, and they are emotionally very powerful.

What better place and what better conditions to set up shop to sell souvenirs and trinkets?

Do I Have Your Attention?

As you pull over to the side of the road and begin to take pictures, the saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes set upon you immediately. They know that the first thing they need from you is your attention, and being a tourist, they know how to get it. They start by shouting: “Hello!”

Having encountered your kind before and knowing your motivation, they follow up with: “Just looking.” Apparently everyone who has ever walked in front of them has said, “just looking,” and they are now repeating it.

Finally, they attack you with “Cheap, cheap,” and “very good,” and “yak bone,” even when none of these things are true. They follow their scripts, and they have your attention.

The Puppy Dog Close and the Negotiation

If they don’t have your attention, they will press on with harder tactics, like stepping in front of you and putting jewelry in your hands. And Heaven help you if you dare to pick up or accept the piece of jewelry or whatever is handed to you. The saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes will not easily accept the jewelry back—they know that if you were looking at it, you almost certainly like it, and they are going to sell it to you.

Once it is in your hands, it is almost certainly yours.

This sounds like a hard tactic, but it isn’t. Even though they are wearing masks to protect their skin from the damage of the elements, you can see that their eyes are smiling.

Then they start the negotiation. You say: “How much?” They reply: “Cheap. Cheap.” Then, they pull out a tiny pocket calculator and type in the amount in Chinese yuan. They start with a number like 110 yuan (about $16), anchoring the negotiation on their side—knowing full well that you are going to reject their first offer. You say: “Too much!” Then, in a brilliant negotiating tactic, they hand you the calculator and say: “How much?” The saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes allow you to anchor the negotiation on the other side, knowing with an almost absolute certainty that your offer is going to be more than they were ever hoping to get.

The negotiation continues when you type the number 50 into their calculator and hand it back, upon which you will be greeted with a bright smile that is visible even through their masks. Your saleswomen will type in a new number that appears to have met you somewhere in the middle, but closer to the number you have used as an anchor. Now, she looks like she is completely reasonable, and the reasonable thing for you to do is accept her counteroffer of, say, 65 yuan.

I watched this occur over and over again. Those who thought themselves tough negotiators were cutting the original price offered by 50%. But those who knew better were negotiating prices that were as much as 80% or 90% lower by simply saying no and walking away. Well . . . trying to walk away. When their price was accepted, they walked away with bags and bags of jewelry and artifacts, pleased with themselves for being such shrewd negotiators.

What Makes Great Salespeople

What makes the saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes so successful is that they keep asking for the sale over and over again. As you try to walk away, the salesperson (and her calculator) follows you, shouting: “Last price! Last price!” When you stop and turn around, she will enter in a new number on the calculator and hand it back to you for your last price (which I assure you is not your last price unless she agrees to it, otherwise, she will grab your arm and continue hammering prices into her calculator).

They are determined, relentless, and they persevere.

They are fearless and they ask for what they want.

They ask for the sale, and they keep asking until they get someone to buy.

They have to sell because they have people who are counting on them. And so they sell.

They also know the value of additional services. The picture you are looking at cost me 50 yuan.

Conclusion

Great salespeople exhibit great sales behaviors. This is true no mater where you go in the world, including the remote Tibetan mountain passes. What can you learn from the saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes?

Questions

The Tibetan saleswomen walk from their small villages every day, putting themselves in a position to sell their goods where their prospective clients will be. What are you doing to ensure that you are where your clients will be? Do you have a presence that ensures that you are there when opportunities arise?

What do you do to ensure that you have your dream client’s attention? How do you ensure you know and understand their motivations for buying? What language choices do you make based upon what you know about your dream clients and their likely needs and motivations that ensure you capture their attention in a meaningful way?

The Tibetan women follow you eyes and hand you the jewelry or whatever you were looking at; they are attuned to your buying signals. How do you assure that you are attuned to your dream client’s buying signals? What are the signals?

Negotiating does not easily frustrate the Tibetan women. They are playful and bring a good spirit to their negotiations—even though each sale may mean more to them than to someone somewhere else. What do you have to do to make your negotiations less adversarial and less zero sum? How can you learn to enjoy the game?

Who do you have to be to be as determined and relentless as you need to be to succeed?

Who do you have to be to be as fearless in asking for what you need to make the deal work for you and for your dream client?

Even though the saleswomen of the Tibetan mountain passes make transactional sales, there is much to be learned from them on asking for obtaining commitments. Who do you have to be to continually ask for the commitments you need to succeed?

Who is counting on you to behave like a salesperson?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

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Can You Sell Better Than the Saleswomen of the Tibetan Mountain Passes? is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

If You Are Not Going to Sell Price The job of the salesperson is to create value for...
The Last Few Miles Are the Most Difficult, but the View is Worth It I disappeared. I disappeared from the blog, I disappeared from...
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Categories: Community

If You're Crazy-Busy Too, This Might Help

Selling To Big Companies - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 12:48

Ever read a book and saw yourself in it? That's what happened recently when Mike started reading my new book, SNAP Selling.

As I described today's frazzled prospects who are struggling to get everything done, it hit home. But what really bothered him was when I pointed out that their frenetic multi-tasking actually caused them to accomplish less.

He knew it was true, but didn't know how could he stop this sales-derailing behavior. So he wrote to me for advice.

Here are some of my suggestions:

Block out times in the day where you are uninterrupted. No reading email or allowing yourself to go off on a tangent. Unplug what you can. Do just the work that needs to get done. Be vigilant in protecting this time. It's AMAZING how much more work you can do.

Give yourself time limits. For example, give yourself 60 minutes to make prospecting calls. No more. No less. That way, it will get it done. It can even become a game for you.

Prepare your plan for the next day before you leave work. Just take 10 minutes to do it. Then stick to the plan the next morning.

Don't start the day with emails. You'll get sucked in and before you know it 2 hours have disappeared. Do them at 11 am & 4 pm. That's all. Try it for a week. It's really different. And, like I said, you actually get a lot more done.

Please, please share your best advice too. We are all crazy-busy and it's killing us.

Categories: Community

The Last Few Miles Are the Most Difficult, but the View is Worth It

The Sales Blog - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 07:24

I disappeared. I disappeared from the blog, I disappeared from work, and I disappeared from everything else for thirteen days. (Thanks to all of you who were kind enough to email me, call me, and direct message me to make sure nothing happened to me!)

A few months ago, I was offered a chance to visit Lhasa, Tibet and Shaghai, China with some friends. While planning our journey, one member of our group noted that, while we were so close to Mt. Everest, we should make the trip to Base Camp 1 at 17,000. We did the research, made the arrangements, and made the trip.

No doubt I will be using what I learned from this trip for some time to come. Some of the pictures I took tell an amazing story. But this metaphor is one of my favorites: the last few miles are often the hardest, but it is the only way to get the view, and the view is worth the effort.

To reach Everest, you have to travel across the Tibetan countryside for days. You literally have to cross over mountains with very little (or nothing) separating you from the edge on a road littered with obstacles like rockslides, livestock, and other drivers to whom lanes mean nothing. Crossing these mountains takes you to elevations almost as high as Basecamp, some as high as 16,600 ft. above sea level. A short walk from the car can leave you breathless, and you can expect to be awakened in the middle of the night gasping, for no other reason than the air is so thin.

Driving to Everest isn’t a trip you can or should make in a single day. To make the trip, you have to allow your body to acclimate to the high altitude. So your journey requires that you stay in the little towns between Lhasa and Mt. Everest for a few days, gradually climbing higher into the altitude. The best hotels you can you find will serve food that, should you be willing to eat it, will likely result in making your trip more difficult. The air quality is poor, and the countryside is dusty, and you’ll know this to be true even standing inside your hotel room.

The best accommodations won’t resemble anything that you are used to, even though the Tibetan people are sweet and generous, and even though they will offer you the best of everything that they have to offer.

But the last 60 miles is the toughest traveling. Once you leave Shegar, the last small town between you and Everest, you are off paved roads. You’ll travel up and over mountain passes that have never been paved, on roads that switch back dozens of times with nothing between you and the edge. The road is rough, and even the suspension on your four-wheel drive won’t do much to make traveling over the uneven earth easier. In many places, your guide will go completely off the road, knowing that it is both smoother and safer.

You make this trip not knowing what the view you will be like once you get there. If there is bad weather, you will see very little of Everest, even from Base Camp. If it is windy, the highest mountain on earth may be completely covered with clouds. Some stay for days and never see what they traveled so far to see. But if you make the journey, and if you have a little luck on your side, the journey ends with a breathtaking view that is provided to the few that are willing to make the journey.

What does any of this have to do with sales?

The Mountain Doesn’t Come to You: To Get the View, You Have to Make The Journey

The distance between you and your biggest dream client is great. The journey is not going to be easy, and the road that you have to travel over to win your dream client can sometimes be the most difficult and challenging road you will ever face. But to get there, you have to make the journey.

The mountain doesn’t come to you. It doesn’t come to anyone. Those that experience the mountain make the journey.

What Is Easier Down Low Is Harder at Altitude

Working on smaller, more transactional clients does nothing to prepare for you for what you face when pursuing giants. What may be very easy and very natural to you as you call on clients at one level may become incredibly difficult as you move higher (sleeping and breathing is easy at sea level, it is something altogether different at 15,000 ft.).

You may not rely on your sales process to win smaller clients. You may even win some deals after violating the iron laws of sales. But when you climb higher, you will find that what works at one level doesn’t work at all as you move higher. A half-assed needs analysis may get you by on transactional deals and may cost you your deal as you pursue your dream clients.

To survive and thrive and altitude, do what those who live at altitude do. They follow the rules, and they are happy to share them with you. They go a little slower. They do what they know to work most often. They put themselves in a place to succeed.

The Last Few Miles Are the Hardest. Make a Way.

The last few miles pursuing your dream client are often where the road gets both dangerous and bumpy. You run across challenges that you have never before encountered, and you often find yourself way off anything that resembles your road map.

If you have done everything right to get to the final stages, the last few miles can often be where deals are won and lost. Navigating the rough terrain, selling inside, going off the roadmap, and negotiating the terrain are all part of getting there. You may be physically tired, and you may be out of your element, but the end game is where you will be tested.

The challenges of winning increase as your deals get larger. Sometimes there is no road. Being a professional salesperson—and winning—means making a way where none exists.

Even If You Lose

Some people sleep in tents at Base Camp so that they have every possible chance to see Mt. Everest. Their determination and perseverance are sometimes rewarded. But the smart people make the journey knowing that even if they don’t get the outcome they were seeking, that the journey provides them with the growth, the experiences, and the stories.

It is best to journey to Everest when you have the greatest chance of a clear view. But sometimes, you have to go when you have the opportunity. The same is true of pursuing your dream clients: while it is nice to have favorable conditions, you have to make your attempt when you can—even if the conditions aren’t favorable.

And you have to love the journey—even when the road is rough and even when you don’t get what you came for.

Conclusion

Winning your big deal dream clients is a journey. The end game can often be the most difficult part of the journey. But if you would win, you have to make the journey.

Questions

What is your Mt. Everest? Who is your Mt. Everest? Have you started on your journey? Are you making the attempt that you need to make in order to win your dream client? Or, are you waiting for the mountain to come to you? When will you start your journey?

Do you recognize that what may work at one level may become a liability at a higher level? Do you recognize that those who perform at a higher level have rule-sets that they follow that allow them to succeed at that level? Are you studying those rule-sets? What discernments are you making about what you do and what those who live and breathe at a higher level are doing? Who are you studying?

Are you willing to go off the roadmap and make way to get there with your dream client? Are you comfortable being uncomfortable? What are you willing to do to move obstacles, to navigate over and around them when necessary? What are you doing now to make a way? What should you be doing?

What do you have to do to love the journey? What are you gaining from your experiences? What lessons are you learning and how are you applying these lessons to your future deals? How are you applying what you learn to your life? How do you get the most from losing?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

The Last Few Miles Are the Most Difficult, but the View is Worth It is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Can You Sell Better Than the Saleswomen of the Tibetan Mountain Passes? As you travel through Tibet, you will encounter thousands of...
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Categories: Community

Top Sales Resources: August 2010

Selling To Big Companies - Mon, 08/30/2010 - 13:42

Check these resources from colleagues whom I highly respect:

A-Game Selling
By Leisa Mohler-Erickson

In this ebook, Leisa says, "Back to basics" strategies are akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic --a losing proposition to effectively leapfrog the competition." She's absolutely right. Achieving an A-game requires a laser-focus on driving meaningful behavioral shifts throughout the ranks.

Download A-Game Selling

_________________

100 B2B Sales Interview Questions
By Lee Salz

If you're a sales manager, you'll love this ebook because Lee nets out everything you need to think about to ensure you hire the right person for your company. And, if you're interviewing for a sales position, this book is filled with all the best questions you better be prepared to answer!

Download 100 B2B Sales Interview Questions

_________________

The Social Customer
By Attensity & Chess Media Group
Edited by Comity Advisors

The era of the passive customer is gone, replaced by the hyper-connected, creative and collaborative social customer. Understanding her is critical to your success. This fundamental shift is here to stay and the impact on you is huge.

_________________

Download The Social Customer

The Value Prop Generator
By Jill Konrath, Sponsored by Rare Agent

The single biggest obstacle preventing salespeople from getting in front of decision makers is a weak value proposition. In this ebook, you'll get a great overview of how to create a strong and compelling value proposition -- one that your prospects can't resist!

Download The Value Prop Generator

Categories: Community

What Do You Need to Master the World of Selling?

Selling To Big Companies - Tue, 08/24/2010 - 22:04

Just a quick note today about a new book that's out called, "Mastering the World of Selling." This book, edited by Eric Taylor and David Riklan, includes articles from top sales experts, premier training companies, as well as the old masters.

As someone who was selected as a contributor, I can assure you I gave them my "best stuff." So did everyone else.

You'll find articles from sales gurus/authors such as:

Charlie Green, Trust-Based Selling
Neil Rackham, SPIN Selling
Linda Richardson, Perfect Selling
Tony Parinello, Selling to VITO
Colleen Francis, Honesty Sells
Bob Burg, The Go-Giver
Jeffrey Gitomer, Little Red Book of Selling
Sharon Drew Morgen, Integrity Selling
Mike Bosworth, Solution Selling
Kendra Lee, Selling Against the Goal
Art Sobczak, SMART Selling
Anne Miller, Metaphorically Selling
...and so many more

Here's the Deal: If you get Mastering the Word of Selling during their book launch promo, you get tons of goodies too. Check them out here: www.masteringtheworld.com/konrath.html

Final Caveat: Order it on Amazon today with SNAP Selling & get free shipping too. Wow. Heck of a deal.

P.S. I don't receive any commissions or fees for promoting this book.

Categories: Community

Social Selling to Crazy-Busy Prospects

Selling To Big Companies - Mon, 08/23/2010 - 14:44

Recently I had a chance to talk with Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView, about his perceptions on the changing sales landscape and the emerging concept of "social selling."

Jill: How do you see social media impacting salespeople? I'm talking about things like blogs, twitter, Digg, YouTube and more.

Umberto: Salespeople are now facing a new breed of prospect that I call Customer 2.0. These are socially-engaged and well-informed buyers. They have abundant visibility into the companies they are considering doing business with. They've done their homework.

Plus, the control of a company’s brand is quickly transitioning to customer-to-customer conversations that are taking place in social media…and salespeople are being pushed back further in the sales process.

Jill: In my new book, SNAP Selling, I talk about crazy-busy prospects. How does that relate to your Customer 2.0?

Umberto: Customer 2.0 is crazy-busy. He's under pressure to do more with less money, time and resources. If you're a salesperson calling on Customer 2.0, your call better be timely and relevant with a good chance of addressing their urgent business issues and challenges.

If salespeople want to be successful with Customer 2.0, they should leverage "social selling" strategies themselves. Instead of being on the defensive, they can level the playing field.

Jill: Can you tell me more about "social selling?" It's an interesting term.

Umberto: Certainly it's about sales organization adopting social media and online collaboration tools themselves. And it's also tapping into social networks to “warm up” cold calls.

But social selling is a lot more than that. It's the sales organization’s response to Customer 2.0’s demand for relevance. And, it's a fundamental shift in selling behavior to synchronize the selling cycle with the buying cycle.

Since the new social customer expects their sales rep to know about them, their companies, and their needs before engaging, social selling has to start with listening before talking.

Jill: Listening? How does that relate to social selling?

Umberto: Listening to social media means that salespeople and companies understand what is being said about and by their customers and prospects. This gives them unique insights that aren't available through more traditional sources. Of course, it's a huge task to monitor the social conversation, filter out the noise to hone in what’s relevant.

Jill: It sounds darn near impossible to me. Salespeople simply don't have the time to spend on all that.

Umberto: Social selling has to simplify the process and give salespeople the tools to tap into this valuable sales intelligence without impacting their own sales productivity. It also needs to simplify how we associate these new social insights we discover with what we already know about our target accounts to create that 360 view into the customer.

Last but not least, social selling needs to make it easy to tap into existing social networks to leverage relationships into prospects or customers to improve prospect targeting.

Jill: So where do you see it all going?

Umberto: Selling has been and will always be a relation-driven business. But “who you know” is being replaced by “what you know about who you know”.

Social selling is about enabling sales organizations to provide value by engaging their prospects at the right time with the right message – and stay relevant. And that's what I think sellers have to do today.

Jill: Thanks for your insights today. I appreciate them.

---

InsideView helps companies increase sales productivity by delivering relevant business media and social intelligence to customer-facing employees. To learn more about their tools, visit www.insideview.com.

Categories: Community

Creating Content that Attracts Prospects to You

Selling To Big Companies - Fri, 08/20/2010 - 13:48

Recently I had a conversation with Chas. Cooper about how important content is to capturing the attention of today's crazy-busy people. Personally, I believe if salespeople don't have quality content for all three stages of their prospect's decision process, they're fighting a tough battle that's hard to win.

Good content is delicious. It makes your prospects want more. They can't wait to take another bite. Mmmmm good.

That's why, when Chas posted the resulting article on his blog, I asked if I could share it with you. Here it is!

Maximizing the Time Value of Content

We all know about the time value of money. Getting money today is worth more than getting money tomorrow. But what happens when we turn the tables and look at the time value of content from the perspective of our prospects and customers?

Answer: We find out that the further upstream a prospect is in our marketing funnel, the more the prospect places a heavy premium on the value of time. The implications of this lesson for content marketing professionals is profound.

In a recent post on aligning content marketing with your customer lifecycle, you may have noticed that every micro-transaction in a good content marketing plan requires a prospect to make some commitment in time and attention. The customer lifecycle begins with trading companies’ content for prospects’ attention and then gradually transforms into trading companies’ products for customers’ business.

In the early stages of the customer lifecycle, the prospect’s time and attention is the most important asset the company seeks to get from the prospect. This is the stage when the company needs to communicate its brand messages to convince the prospect that the problem the company solves really exists, that the company is uniquely positioned to solve that problem, and that the problem is a high enough priority that it should be solved now.

All of this education requires the prospect to donate time and attention to the company’s messages. If the company’s content marketing cannot compel the prospect to spend the time and attention to get past the earliest stages in the customer lifecycle, the prospect will never become a paying customer.

At the same time, the early stages of the customer lifecycle are exactly when prospects are least likely to donate their time and attention. They’re already inundated with information overload from countless other companies pushing their messages.

They don’t know your company from the hundred others barraging them every day. And your company has not yet established any credibility or trust to justify spending any time listening to your marketing messages.

B2B prospects don’t make impulse buys. They’re not lounging on the couch or in line at the store wondering what to buy. They’re busy people with hectic schedules and they’re only willing to spend time and attention on something that will help them accomplish their missions. Everything else is noise.

So what’s a content marketing professional to do? The whole customer lifecycle depends on getting early-stage prospects to take that first step. A prospect’s time and attention is critical to achieving that goal. But the prospect places the heaviest premium on time and attention at this early stage in the relationship.

I was recently discussing this very dilemma with Jill Konrath, author of the blog Selling to Big Companies and the new book, SNAP Selling, which focuses on the topic of getting your message through to prospects whose scarcest asset is time and attention.

So I asked Jill for a quick summary (yes, putting her to her own test) of what content marketing folks can do to break through to time-sensitive, early stage prospects. Here’s what she had to say:

“You’ll speed up sales and convert more customer if you offer a simple message that’s aligned with your prospects’ top priorities, put high priority decision points in front of them in a timely manner, and become the person your prospects can’t live without.”

In case you’re still reading past the hook, she went on to offer more insights into exactly how you can put her advice to good use:

“Today’s decision makers have less time than ever. Their inboxes and smart phones are filled with useless marketing messages. Getting their attention is more challenging than ever. To stand out from all this background noise, pack as much value into every word as you can.

Keep your message simple so it can be read quickly. Make sure it’s relevant to their top priorities. Once you’ve got their attention, don’t lose it. Make sure you’re always on topic with what matters to them most. That’s the path to being the one person your prospects can’t live without.”

Although Jill’s advice seems like common sense in many ways, I’d be wealthy beyond all measure if I had a nickel for every time I saw a marketer fail to execute on what Jill is describing.

Jargon replaces message simplicity. Product-focused marketing content fails to focus on the top priorities of prospects in favor of feature-oriented “show up and throw up” content. And sales reps rarely reach the status of trusted advisor.

So if you’re looking for ways to get early stage prospects to donate their coveted time and attention, I’d recommend listening to Jill’s advice. She’s nailed the key points right on the head.

In my own quick summary of her key points:

Keep the message short and simple.
Focus your content marketing from the point of view of the prospect (not your company or products).
Frame your content marketing within the context of solving the prospect’s highest-priority problems.
Create content that positions your sales reps as trusted advisors.

About the Author

Chas. Cooper, has over a decade of experience as a product marketing professional for cloud computing and software companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more articles like this, check out his B2B Internet Marketing Strategies blog.

Categories: Community

Check Out My Recent Fox2 TV Interview

Selling To Big Companies - Wed, 08/18/2010 - 12:40

Recently I flew into St. Louis to do a video interview with small business expert Susan Solovic. Her It's Your Biz show for entrepreneurs just debuted on Fox 2 TV. (My segment starts about one minute in.)

Susan asks me why I wrote SNAP Selling, why people are so crazy-busy, my thoughts on a rebounding economy, if and how small biz can really land big customers .... plus MUCH more.

Here's the link to the rest of the inaugural show. It includes interviews with multiple entrepreneurs, Plus, click here to get updates on Twitter or Facebook.

Categories: Community

Is Your Year in Sales the Same Year Over and Over and Over ?

The Sales Blog - Tue, 08/17/2010 - 14:37

Just a few questions:

Is your sales year this year the same sales year you had last year? What is different about this year for you? What are you personally doing to make this year different for you?

Is what you are doing measurable? Is it having the impact that you need it to have? What do you need to do, what do you need to change, what improvement do you need to make, to have the impact that you need?

Are you producing the same results that you produced last year? How are your results different? In what areas have you made massive and noticeable improvements?

Is your sales year made up the same week being repeated over and over and over again? From week to week, from month to month, and from quarter to quarter, what changes, modifications, and improvements have you made? What are you focusing on?

When you look back on 2010 (to date) what changes are you going to point to that demonstrates you personal and professional growth? What are you going to point to that demonstrates your greater effectiveness? What are you going to point to that demonstrates your greater results?

Conclusion

Success in sales is not found by having the same sales year over and over again. You need to make the changes that allow you to grow and develop both personally and professionally, lest you repeat yourself.

Is Your Year in Sales the Same Year Over and Over and Over ? is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Categories: Community

In Sales, There Are No Rules and You Have to Know Them All

The Sales Blog - Tue, 08/17/2010 - 00:41

Say their locking him up, they got him on the run,
Might as well sue all the doctors when they don’t get it done,
Not everything everybody does, works all the time, son.

–Preacher in the Ring, Part II by Bruce Hornsby

Yesterday’s post on win-loss reviews sparked an interesting conversation. The object of studying your wins and your losses is so that you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t work. This conversation, however, turned certainties.

The salesperson that challenged me on my post suggested that sometimes he has won deals even when he didn’t follow the rules, and he has lost deal when he did everything he was “supposed” to do. He suggested that because there were no certainties, it didn’t rally matter that he work to capture the lessons from prior deals, since they weren’t necessarily going to help on future deals. Why study the rules if you weren’t certain they were going to work?

Someone once said: There are no rules in acting, and you have to know them all. I would say the same: There are no rules in sales, and you have to know them all.

Here is the simple truth of the matter: in sales, there is nothing that is certain. There are iron laws of sales, like diagnosing before prescribing, that absolutely increase the likelihood of winning a deal. Violating this law will cause you problems later. But following this iron law doesn’t guarantee that you will win; it simply improves the quality of the job you do as a salesperson, and more often that not, it helps position you to win. Breaking this law automatically means you have done poorer work than you might have otherwise.

The danger for those who believe there are no rules (or who refuse to study the iron laws of sales) is that they become the “what-I-do-is-special” kind of salesperson. They say things like: “Every deal is different, and “I just have to find my way through each deal,” and “there is no reason to follow any rules or process, you have to make it up as you go along.” These salespeople say things like “Sales is an art.” But even art has rules—only the masters know how, when, and why they are breaking the rules and then they break them intentionally—not unwittingly.

Only those with the deepest understanding of the iron laws of sales know when and why they are breaking the rules. Knowing the rules allows you to be flexible in your approach. Being a thoughtful, professional salesperson requires that you be sensitive to what you see, what you hear, and what you feel. Over time, you begin to discern what you need to do to move some deals, and what you don’t need to do. This growth and sensitivity only comes after much time and much study.

By studying your wins and losses, you increase your odds of winning by doing more of what works and by doing less of what doesn’t work. You learn to observe the iron laws of sales and the rule-sets that lead to success. But even then, when you have what the Germans call fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feel), not everything that works will work every time, and not everything that doesn’t work should be abandoned because you lost a deal. By studying and reflecting over a long period of time, you learn all of the rules—and you learn when, why and how to break them.

Conclusion

Not everything you try in sales will work the first time, nor will it work every time. And not everything that fails should be abandoned. It takes years of studying and learning the rules to know when and how to break them. And that only works sometimes.

Questions

How do you feel when something doesn’t work? How many times do you try before you abandon and idea? How long do you believe you should try to gain competency at any new activity before you simply quit trying?

What tactics and ideas do you stick with even then they are not working? What can you do to study and discern the differences between opportunities, deals, and situations when the tactics you adhere to work and when they don’t work?

How could you learn to notice what is working and what isn’t working in time to change your approach? What do you have to do to develop the additional ideas, skills, tactics, and attributes to have other ideas you can pursue?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

In Sales, There Are No Rules and You Have to Know Them All is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

What Your Company Expects of You Your sales process, in part, encapsulates how your company believes...
The Last Few Miles Are the Most Difficult, but the View is Worth It I disappeared. I disappeared from the blog, I disappeared from...
What Hasn’t Changed: Three Ways to Improve Your Sales Effectiveness A friend recently asked me what has changed in sales....

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Categories: Community

Can Marketing Ever Make Sales Happy?

Selling To Big Companies - Mon, 08/16/2010 - 12:54

Of course, I don't have an opinion on this topic! It's only something I've been ranting about for 20 years.

That's why I jumped at the chance to write a chapter in Manticore's new ebook, "The Quintessential Marketing Automation Guide.

Never one to mince words, I wrote "A Candid Letter from Sales to Marketing," in which I address the sales and marketing gap head on.

Truth is, we can't continue like we are today in most companies. It's totally unsustainable -- especially when you have to deal with crazy-busy prospects.

Fortunately, there are solutions today. And companies who aren't evaluating them right now are missing a serious opportunity.

Enough said. Get this ebook. There are excellent articles in here by some of the best people I know:

Andrew Gaffney, publisher of the Demand Gen Report, offers some terrific insights on Marketing Metrics that Matter. You can get a preview here.

Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, shows you how to use intelligent and contagious content to entice and entwine prospects.

Craig Rosenberg, Focus VP and Funnelholic blogger, writes about succeeding with marketing automation.

So get your FREE ebook now. It's worth the read - especially if you're wondering about it's value to your company. And, if what I said doesn't make sense, then it's even more important to read it! Click here now.

Categories: Community

Taking Stock: A Real Sales Win – Loss Analysis

The Sales Blog - Mon, 08/16/2010 - 00:39

After your dream client has made their decision, and they are either your new dream client or they are back on your nurture list, you need to review why you won the deal or lost the deal. This analysis is fraught with dangers, including focusing only on why you lost or getting mired in the quicksand that is indentifying the reasons your loss was not your fault.

When You Lose Rule 1: No Excuses

Maybe you lost on price, or something else that you believe that you cannot control. It doesn’t matter.

You don’t improve your individual performance by making excuses; you improve your performance by focusing on what you might have differently to obtain a better outcome.

You lost on price. Fine. Then you have to believe that you failed to create enough value to demonstrate that you were worth more and that your cost was lower. Or maybe you should have mercilessly disqualified this prospect in the first place.

You lost because, after all your time diagnosing your dream client’s needs and building a solution, they saw something that you didn’t present in your solution–only because it was not important until they saw it. You failed to ask for a commitment for an appointment after your dream client finished their beauty pageant and missed the opportunity to respond.

Maybe you lost because an unknown decision-maker stepped in at the last minute in wrenched the deal from your grip. Why was the decision-maker unknown? Did you do enough to build a surrogate salesforce within your dream client to vocally oppose that decision and demand that you be brought to the table.

This is tough stuff, I know. Evaluating your losses this way move the focus from what you cannot control to what you can control. There is no reason to review your losses if you do not intend to change your sales behaviors to prevent losing future opportunities for the same reason you lost prior opportunities.

If you sell, you will lose some deals. You will some deals that belong to you because you are the right partner, and it will hurt. But the object is your personal and professional development; it is growth and improvement.

When You Win Rule 2: It’s About Future Behavior

You may be quick to conclude that you won your deal because you presented the right solution at the right time and at the right price. Perhaps you did. But perhaps you did more than that and had some favorable early outcomes create a tailwind that ensured that you were going to win.

Maybe you developed the relationships deep enough within the organization that your name was the first name and only name ever really considered.

Maybe you demonstrated that you were the only person who could be trusted to own the outcome that your dream client needs.

Maybe the circumstances that brought you to the table generated a strong tailwind. Maybe it was the fact that someone at the C-Level who you met during a conference insisted that you be considered.

Or maybe you really were simply the best salesperson and you followed all of the iron laws of sales perfectly.

The possibilities are endless (and I love to hear some of the factors that brought deals your way), but the goal is on making whatever contributed to your win repeatable.

As you analyze your wins, take note of the exceptional and work to understand how it moved the deal in a favorable way for you. Did the relationships you developed insist that you be provided an opportunity? Did they give you information, sharing their vision with you in way that ensured you had an unfair advantage going into the contest? How do you repeat this in your next deal?

Did your dream client suggest that your commitment to their deal moved it in your direction, even when there were other great solutions? What did you do to create this belief and how do you do it again on future opportunities?

More of What Works, Less of What Doesn’t

I am not suggesting that there aren’t legitimate reasons that might cost you a deal that are beyond your control. But many of the reasons that you believe to be beyond your control are not beyond your control. They may require that you get a greater vision of yourself and your power or they may require a campaign to sell inside your own company.

The goal of your win-loss analysis is to identify what works, so that you can do a lot more of it and win more often, as well as what doesn’t work, so you can stop doing what causes failures. Your analysis has to include both, and you need work to understand your own performance so that you can improve it.

Conclusion

Analyzing your wins and your losses together can build a powerful set of lessons that informs your future actions and behaviors. Take stock of these lessons learned, and make no excuses!

Questions

Do your win-loss reviews focus on the losses only? Do you ever look for legitimate reasons that the deal was lost that absolve you of any responsibility? How does this confirmation bias prevent you from learning and from improving your performance?

Take out your last pipeline report. Choose five lost deals. Review these deals to determine why you lost them, eliminating any reason that absolves you of the responsibility for losing—even if it is a true and legitimate reason? What would you do different, knowing that the path you took last time led to a loss? (Don’t stop until you have a list of different actions that might have led to a better outcome).

Look at your recent won deals. What did you do that enabled you to win? What different actions, behaviors, or circumstances led to you being awarded your dream client’s business? How are these action, behaviors, and circumstances different from deals that you have lost? What can you to make them repeatable on future opportunities?

Look at the circumstances that helped you to win and had little to do with you. What can you do to enable those circumstances on future opportunities?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Taking Stock: A Real Sales Win – Loss Analysis is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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Do Your Homework to Sell Inside

The Sales Blog - Sun, 08/15/2010 - 00:03

One of the devils in your deals is the belief that you know something that you don’t know. There are lots of reasons that you need to acquire that information that you need to both win the deal and to succeed for your dream client once you have won.

When you don’t have the information you need to meet both of these goals, you would be well advised to do what is necessary to get the information. One of the primary reasons that you need to acquire the information that you need to win your deal is because you are going to be asked questions—especially when you are selling inside your own organization, managing the Sales Prevention Department and the Vice President of We Can’t.

Here is how this usually plays out. You know what you need to do to win. You know what your competitor’s strategy and pricing are likely to be, and you know the issues that put your winning at risk. So, you sit down to meet with your internal team and management to talk through the deal.

They start by asking some questions. They say something like: “So, in order to win this deal, we have to cut the price of this part of our solution by 10%. How much of this service do they use?” You say: “I don’t know. I just know that this is what we need to do to win.”

You haven’t done your homework. You don’t know how much of this product or service they will use. The problem caused by your not knowing is that your team can’t help you win the deal based on your guesswork. If your dream client uses this service in one way (or at one volume level), then it might make the deal unprofitable (and we don’t take unprofitable business). If they use it at another level, it may in fact be a non-issue.

You don’t know the information you need to know, and you cannot behave as if you do. By not knowing, you have turned your internal team into the Sales Prevention Department and your Management into the Vice President of We Can’t. You did that.

Your job as a salesperson requires that you have the business acumen to do this analysis before you even sit down with our internal team. Your job as a professional salesperson also requires that you take the initiative to gather the information that you need to win the deal. When you sit down, you need to be able to say: “Look, my analysis indicates that the concession on price for service A is easily offset by the greater overall profitability we will generate on service B. They only use service A at a minimal level and we have agreed upon pricing that increases should they become more expensive to serve in this area.”

You still need to be prepared to prove that your work isn’t guesswork, and it is likely that you will still be asked: “How much of service A do they actually use?” To which you, having done your homework, will respond “Last year they used 1,200 of service A, and the year before that it was 1,400. It is slight downward trend that they expect to continue to decline based on factor A and factor B.”

Now you are in the driver’s seat, and you can fully expect to put together the deal that you need to win.

Doing your homework to be able to sell inside helps you to help your dream client, your company, and your own sales results. You need to make sure you anticipate the questions and that you already have the answer. But, if for some reason you don’t know, don’t answer the question. Call your dream client and get the answers you need to both win the deal and to succeed for them after you have won. Get the answers you need to sell inside.

Conclusion

If you are going to succeed in sales, you are going to have to sell inside your own organization. This means you need to do your homework, just like you would to sell outside.

Questions

How much preparation do you normally do to prepare to present and sell an idea to your dream client? How much time do you spend preparing to sell your ideas internally?

Why do you want to know what you need to know to win your deal with your dream client? Why is it important to anticipate their questions? Why is it important to know the facts? Why do you believe selling inside should be any different?

If you need concession, changes, and modifications from your team, what attributes do you possess as a salesperson that you can use to ensure that you get them?

How can you learn the facts that will allow you to put together the right deal for your dream client and your company?

Does your sales manager treat you like you are leaving money on the table? Does she treat you like you are selling price? What part of your behavior do you need to change to be treated differently?

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

Do Your Homework to Sell Inside is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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If Moving Your Opportunity Requires a Do-Over

The Sales Blog - Sat, 08/14/2010 - 02:28

Sometimes you miss the opportunity to do your very best work on a sales call. Sometimes you leave without all of the information you need to really help your client. Sometimes you leave without gaining access to the people that can help you to understand your dream client’s needs and their vision of what a successful solution looks like.

If you are a long time reader of this blog, then you never leave without a scheduled commitment that advances your opportunity. But, let’s pretend that this can sometimes happen, too (to other salespeople, right?).

As you are driving back to the office reflecting on your sales call, it dawns on you that you left the call without something that you need. You experience that aching, gnawing feeling in your gut that it is a mistake not to have achieved the outcome that will help you to do your best work. Now that you are five blocks away, your brain suddenly kicks into high gear and you think of the one question that needs answered.

You are embarrassed. It’s only one question. Or maybe it’s just one contact; how much light could she really shed on the issue? You are now faced with a choice.

You can go without what you know you need and put your opportunity at risk. Or, you can take action to make sure that you put all of the pieces you need in place. Your job in sales is do what is necessary to tilt the playing field in your direction, and this means asking for the commitments that you need to win the deal and to succeed, whether those commitments are access to people or access to information.

Instead of going without what you need, pull over to the side of the road, pull your dream client’s business card out of your pocket, and grab your cellular phone. Call your dream client and say: “I just made a mistake. I left your office without having asked you for an appointment with your operations group. To ensure that we do our very best work for you I need to meet with your team to make certain that I understand the implications of the challenges we discussed and how we best serve them. Can I trouble you to schedule appointment for me with that group? Your relationship is important to me, and I really want to make sure we do our best work for you.”

You need a do-over? Ask for the do-over!

If you need information, ask for it. If you need access to people, ask for the access? If you forgot to ask a question, call and ask. If you need feedback on an idea that strikes you between your client’s parking lot and your office, call and get the feedback.

Making corrections is the sign of a true professional. Only amateurs and children hide from mistakes and fear the embarrassment of making corrections. Handled correctly, your transparency will make a statement about the kind of work and the kind of relationship that your dream client can expect from you.

Don’t go without what you need to win your deal and to succeed once you have.

Conclusion

Sometimes you miss achieving the outcomes that you need to advance your opportunity with your dream client. If you need a do-over, ask for a do-over. Don’t go without what you need to win or to succeed.

Questions

Pick a random deal from your pipeline. What are you missing? What is the one big, glaring hole in this opportunity? What will help you to win the deal? What do you need to ensure that you succeed if and when you are chosen?

Pick up the phone and call your dream client and ask them for what you need. Tell them why you need it. Tell them how it will help you to help them, and that you want to give them your very best effort and very best solution.

How do you ensure that you have what you need to win? What do you do when you don’t have what you need to win or what you need to succeed?

What risks do you face by proceeding without what you know will tilt the playing field in your direction? Why is it a mistake to go without?

Is it easier to lose the opportunity that you worked so hard to gain, or is it easier to make the call? If you lose, how long will it be before you obtain another opportunity with this dream client? (Just a little nudge . . . alright, a big shove. You’ll thank me later).

Read my interview with Tom Peters (Part One and Part Two).

Read my Blogs.com featured guest post on the Top Ten Sales blogs.

Read my monthly post on Sales Bloggers Union.

Get The Sales Blog iPhone App to read The Sales Blog and Twitter Feed on your iPhone.

If Moving Your Opportunity Requires a Do-Over is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

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