Archive for May, 2014
Creating an Effective Thirty Second Elevator Pitch
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 29, 2014
A primary goal of marketing is to create and deliver a consistent message at every point of contact with the target audience. This means that your website, brochures, ads, social media, etc. should all communicate similar strengths, services, and core values to a similar audience in a similar way. Any disconnect across media weakens your brand and confuses the message your firm is trying to send.
This consistency should translate into business development and personal networking practices as well. Imagine that a potential client meets two of your employees at a networking event, and each professional provides a notably different explanation of your firm. It’s likely that the potential client will leave that event confused and unsure of exactly what your firm does. Furthermore, if professionals aren’t trained to communicate the firm message clearly and concisely, they won’t be able to maximize the impact of their time spent networking.
The best way to avoid such pitfalls is by creating a “30 second commercial” (aka “elevator pitch”) for your firm and training employees to use it in their face-to-face interactions with clients and prospects. There are four basic parts of an effective 30 second elevator pitch.
Part 1: The Introduction
The elevator pitch begins with a simple introduction. The introduction should include the professional’s name, firm name, industry classification, and the type of clients served.
Part 2: The Client Pain Points
After introducing yourself and the firm, you must explain why your clients choose to work with you and how your firm satisfies their needs. This is best done by focusing on “pain points,” the common challenges and opportunities your clients need help dealing with. Use powerful words such as anxiety, frustration, pressure, worry, weakness, etc.
Part 3: Differentiation
The goal of the third part of the 30 second commercial is to differentiate your firm from your competitors. Concisely explain what makes your firm different from other companies in the market and why that makes you a better fit for the prospective client.
Part 4: The Call-to-Action
Your elevator pitch should never leave the listener(s) thinking “Okay, now what?” Close your 30 second commercial with an invitation to take another step towards doing business together. Tell the listener exactly what you’d like to do next. The specific action you suggest can differ according to who you’re speaking to and the situation in which you’re speaking, but the important thing is that you provide some sort of next step that will keep the process moving forward.
The End Result
Put all of these pieces together, and you get a short yet informative pitch that includes your firm’s core message and provides a solid foundation for a relationship with the listener:
Is the Paredo Principle Outdated in Sales Operations?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 21, 2014
Sales operations leaders are generally in agreement they can reduce the amount of time sales people spend on non-core-selling activities by eliminating, expediting or automating certain activities. But how do you decide which problems to tackle first? Sales operations leaders often reference the 80/20 rule when prioritizing efficiency improvement efforts.
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, is a common rule of thumb in business and states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the cause. For example: Eighty percent of our profits come from 20 percent of our customers, or 20 percent of sales reps produce 80 percent of sales revenue. The implication for sales operations is that efforts should focus on identifying and eliminating the 20 percent of activities that are causing 80 percent of wasted time for sales reps.
Research done over the last decade suggests we should take a step beyond 80/20 and apply the 4/50 rule, which states only 4 percent of the business issues cause more than 50 percent of delays, defects, waste, rework and cost. In the case of sales effectiveness, we can dramatically reduce wasted sales time, effort and energy if we can identify and eliminate the 4 percent of activities that consume 50 percent of sales reps’ non-core selling time.
Rather than starting with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling designs and complex, expensive rollout plans, we can achieve results faster, demonstrate success, drive adoption and make course corrections rapidly at lower cost using the 4/50 rule. This offers an incremental, measurable and manageable approach to improvement projects, which we refer to as small, manageable chunks (SMACs).
Here are a few key principles of the 4/50 rule, also called the “crawl-walk-run” approach:
- Aim for 50 percent reduction in delay, defects or deviation within six months
- Use small focused teams to quickly solve mission- and profit-critical problems
- Use just-in-time training to achieve organizational learning
- Celebrate each successful milestone
- Accelerate broad adoption by demonstrating success with a small group
The last point may appear counterintuitive but has solid grounding in research on group dynamics, which suggests that when 5 percent of a target population adopts a new technique or practice, the change has begun. To the extent sales people experience a successful improvement project, they will continue practicing the technique. Once adoption reaches 20 percent, the change is unstoppable.
An Effective Strategy Equals Winning More Sales
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 16, 2014
For the past two decades, business-to-business selling has been conducted in basically the same way. Salespeople directly approach customers armed with facts, features, and the benefits of their products to convince customers to buy. However, customer decision making has changed and today’s buyers are smarter and more sophisticated than ever. In addition, competitors have not sat idly by. They’re focused on defeating you so they have educated themselves about your products and sales tactics.
Sales success today requires a new way of thinking about sales strategy. The question is, what is the right strategy?
In his classic book Strategy, famous military historian Lidell Hart detailed the “indirect” approach to war. In painstaking detail he described the superiority of the indirect strategy over the direct strategy, using examples throughout the history of warfare. He theorized that the outcome of every major war from Roman times through World War II could be attributed to the grand strategy the parties selected. Instead of a brute force direct attack to overwhelm the enemy, the victors always chose to battle indirectly. When forced to fight, the indirect strategy involves using surprise, intelligence, logic, and human nature to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses.
For example, at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, the smaller Carthaginian army under the command of Hannibal defeated a numerically superior Roman army using the indirect strategy. Hannibal placed his weakest infantryman in the middle of his line to give the impression of vulnerability while positioning his heavy infantryman and cavalry on the flanks. As the battle progressed, his flanks closed in on the surprised Romans and they were vanquished.
Hart argued the indirect approach was not solely a war strategy but also an influential philosophy that could be applied wherever opposition to new ways of thinking exists. He said, “The direct assault of ideas provokes a stubborn resistance, thus intensifying the difficulty of producing a change of outlook.” For example, “The suggestion that there is a bargain to be secured is far more potent than any direct appeal to buy.”
Here are seven principles of the indirect strategy and their business-to-business sales application.
1. Employ psychology. The first and foremost principle is that the indirect strategy is a psychological operation (“psy-op” in military jargon) based upon understanding, predicting, and influencing human nature. In sales, winning requires earning the trust, respect, and friendship of another human being. The victor builds the strongest customer relationship. The secondary psychological goal is to sew doubts among your enemies, because a halfhearted warrior is more than halfway to losing.
2. Plan your overriding strategy. During a long sales cycle of several months or more, it’s easy to focus on individual battles and lose sight of winning the war. The sales cycle is reduced to a series of battles without an overriding grand strategy. Salespeople become fixated on the next customer interaction, proceeding from the initial sales call to the sales presentation, then on to the product demonstration and evaluation. However, all salespeople are like generals who should create a strategy to win their wars long before the first battle begins. The successful military leader preplans how and where he will attack in accordance with the resources at his disposal. The victorious commander achieves his objective through calculated maneuvers to gain the advantage and counter tactics to neutralize his enemy’s advantages.
3. Know your enemies. How well do you know your competitors? How much time do you spend studying their websites, products, and marketing collateral? Do you take the time to perform an honest win-loss analysis after each engagement? Most salespeople argue that they simply don’t have enough time for these types of activities. However, history repeats itself for those who don’t learn from the past.
4. Be the first on the battlefield. As a rule, it is always best to be the first salesperson in an account. The chance to understand a customer’s environment first, establish relationships, and set the criteria for the selection process has obvious advantages. But if you work for an underdog company that competes against industry favorites, being the first on the battlefield is the difference between success and failure.
5. Get privileged information from spies. Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote about the indirect strategy when he said, “Knowledge of the enemy’s position can only be obtained from other men. Hence, the use of spies.” These words are still true today. In order to win any complex sale you need proprietary information that only a spy can provide. These spies are members of the selection team, other company employees, or business partners. They provide valuable information about the internal machinations of the selection process and inform you about the thoughts of the various selection team members. Without a spy, you never know how well you are positioned in an account or what the enemy’s next move will be.
6. Understand how the objective is organized. All battlefield commanders need location-based information so they can map the way to reach their objective. Similarly, salespeople need a complete understanding of how the evaluators are organized within their company because political power during the decision-making process goes far beyond the lines and titles on an organization chart.
If you are involved in selling an enterprise solution, you already know the importance of understanding the inner workings of the various departments within a company. Your product might be purchased by the information technology department and used by accounting and manufacturing. Therefore, it’s critical to map out the political interrelationships between evaluators and their respective departments of the organization.
7. Create turning points. The indirect strategy is based upon creating turning points which cause enemies to lose momentum they can never regain. Like a battle, every deal has a critical moment, or turning point, that determines the winner and the loser. In sales, information can be used to create turning points which eliminate competitors. Your expertise on the customer’s industry, understanding of best practices, knowledge of unflattering facts about your archrival, and the willingness to raise critical issues the customer is unaware of can be used to create turning points.
For the sales warriors of the business world today, the difference between being hailed as a hero or branded a failure hinges on winning. But in order to win, you must know the steps it takes to develop a winning strategy. Winning is everything in sales as it is in war. In the words of master strategist Napoleon Bonaparte, “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
Effective Sales Training Is All About Timing and Quantity
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 7, 2014
For many sales organizations, training salespeople is one of the largest investments made in performance improvement. From the onboarding of new hires to annual training events for the rank and file, billions of dollars are spent each year to improve the skills of employees. In fact, U.S. businesses spent more than $62 billion on training last year.
However, sales training is also one of the most perishable investments a company can make if the learning is not immediately and consistently reinforced. At least two factors conspire against the stickiness of most sales training; the amount of content delivered and the timing of the content being delivered.
Too Much, Too Soon
The sheer volume of content included in many training programs is overwhelming to salespeople. It is expensive to take a sales force out of the field, so sales leaders are motivated to jam a year’s worth of learning into a single event. In order to make the most of the investment, it’s not uncommon to see three, four or even five-day sales conferences where training is the primary activity.
With such a vast amount of information being poured onto the salespeople, it would be literally impossible for sales managers to reinforce all of this content when they return to the field. Realistically, a sales manager should spend much of his time reinforcing a single new behavior, such as call planning or questioning techniques, so it would take a team of full-time coaches to address the content of a five-day training event. As the training agenda deepens, the chance of it sticking diminishes quickly.
When the Calendar Allows
Training is typically done when it is convenient for the calendar. And not necessarily when it is the best time to learn. If the annual sales meeting is in September, then the annual training will probably be in September, too.
Unfortunately, if a new skill is not immediately reinforced, whether through coaching or by actually putting the skill into practice, it begins to erode with frightening speed. Ideally, training is held in close proximity to the need for the skill, not just when it is can be squeezed into the calendar. When a vast amount of information is given to a salesperson that does not immediately use it, the knowledge literally goes into hiding… perhaps never to return.
A Just-In-Time Approach
By looking closely at organizations with world-class sales forces, you’ll discover their approach to training is dramatically different than above. These companies have adopted what could be considered an innovative “Just-In-Time” approach to sales training.
Rather than holding comprehensive training events where a year’s worth of content is dumped onto the sales force, they opted for smaller, more focused sessions where very specific skills were taught. This allowed the salespeople to concentrate on mastering one or two skills before moving on to others.
Also, the training took place in close proximity to when the salespeople would need to use the skills. By providing the learning experience immediately before the sales force was expected to demonstrate the skills, these organizations improved the likelihood that the learning would stick. Train today, use tomorrow, allowing no time to forget.
Lose the Fire Hose
Training should be a large investment for every sales force, but the investment must be protected. A clever approach to avoiding post-training atrophy is to rethink how the training itself is delivered. Specifically, avoid at all costs a fire-hose training event that takes place when the calendar happens to allow for a good dousing.
Instead, deliver bite-sized training to your sales force when the skills are actually needed. If relevant and timely training is provided in easily digestible chunks, salespeople are more able to focus on the new skills and reinforce them through immediate usage. Usage leads to adoption, and adoption leads to improved capabilities, and that leads to a wiser training investment with better sales results.
Sales Situations When You Should Slow Down
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on May 2, 2014
Many sales people are notorious for speaking too quickly and this habit can cost them money in lost sales. Here are 15 critical times sales people should slow down:
1. When opening a telephone call with a new prospect. Most people are not fully engaged when they initially answer a call. The majority or still focused on the task they were working on when the call came through so slow down until you have their full attention.
2. When speaking to someone who is calling from their cell phone. Most cell phone connections are not as clear as a landline so it is important to slow down your conversation to ensure that the other person hears everything.
3. Immediately before you ask for the sale. Many people are nervous asking for the sale. To relieve the stress associated with this, try slowing down and taking a deep breath before asking your prospect for their agreement or commitment.
4. When you begin your sales presentation. Too many sales people race through their sales presentations often due to nervousness. When you slow down before a presentation it gives you the opportunity to collect your thoughts and to think about the key points you need and want to make.
5. Before you respond to a question. Instead of blurting out a quick answer, take a few moments and carefully think about your response. This will help you build credibility and gain your prospect’s respect (providing of course that your answer is appropriate).
6. Before sending an email. One of the biggest time wasters is sending an email and forgetting the attachment. Do yourself a favor and slow down before you press ‘send’. Use this time to make sure your attachment is included and that your email is properly written and free of mistakes, spelling errors (including your prospect’s name!) and grammatical errors.
7. When introducing yourself. Do people ever ask you to repeat your name when you introduce yourself for the first time? If so, you are probably speaking too quickly. Slow down when you state your name so people can hear and understand it the first time.
8. Before you respond to an objection. Avoid the impulse to react quickly to an objection. Objections are not necessarily negative and slowing down before you respond can help you position your solution more effectively.
9. When you notice that you’re speaking too quickly. I often catch myself talking too fast, especially on the telephone and during presentations so I constantly remind myself to slow down.
10. If you feel your emotions getting the better of you. Sometimes people will say something that triggers an emotional response. Slow down before you say anything and prevent your emotions from affecting what you say.
11. When you don’t understand the other person’s perspective. When a prospect or customer references something and you are unclear what they mean, slow down for a moment before forging ahead with the conversation. Ask them what they mean by saying, “Can you clarify that for me?” or “What do you mean?”
12. When writing a sensitive email. If you need to write a sensitive email slow down and carefully choose your words so your message is not misinterpreted. However, I highly suggest that instead of sending an email in these situations, that you pick up the telephone and speak directly to the other person.
13. Before returning a call from a customer or prospect. Make sure that you have all the information necessary for the call before you dial. This includes a list of questions you need to ask if it is a prospect calling about a particular product or service. A few minutes of preparation can make a big difference in your results.
14. When you’re rushed. I realize that this sounds contradictory but here’s the rationale. When you are feeling rushed, you are more apt to make a mistake. So, in these situations, make a concerted effort to slow down, check your work and prevent a mistake from occurring.
15. When you don’t know the answer to a question. Many sales people feel obligated to respond to questions even when they don’t know the answer. Instead of falling prey to this fatal mistake slow down and tell your prospect that you don’t have an answer and that you will get it for them.
Speed isn’t everything especially in sales. You can stand out from many of your competitors by slowing down at opportune times. Great sales people know that slowing down at the right time can improve their sales results. Determine which of the suggestions in this article most apply to you and begin integrating them into your sales approach.
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