Archive for July, 2015
Do Your Questions Differentiate You?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on July 29, 2015
Critical thinking gets customers out of their box. During my graduate work in training and development, I had the good fortune of taking a psychology class. Toward the middle of the semester, the professor asked me if I would assist him in reviewing more than 20 years of research relating to the way people communicate. At first I was somewhat reluctant. It sounded like a lot of work, and I really didn’t have the time. Then I realized that he had been very helpful to me and very insightful when it came to the material he presented in class, and now he needed my help. So I signed on to help. Most of the material I reviewed talked about open and closed questions.
The goal is to differentiate and brand yourself, gather key information, and move your existing relationships forward. Chances are that the customer views what they are selling as somewhat similar to what the competition is providing.
There are probably few products offered in today’s market that are remarkably different from the competition and that offer significant difference. As a matter of fact, the customer probably assumes that both you and the people you compete against will provide relatively the same thing. Therefore, you are being viewed as the same as the competition, almost like a commodity. Of course you want to establish a strong business relationship, separate yourself, stand out, and become a significant partner in the customer’s practice. To make that occur, you need to engage in relevant dialogue.
During my analysis of 20 years of research on the way people communicate, I came across several interesting articles and studies that made me think a little differently about questions, how they are presented, and the way salespeople ask them to build and develop relationships. These studies focused on the fact that too many recital questions were being used.
A recital question is a question that is asked of individuals that gets them to recite what they already know. Educator Meredith Gall suggested that recital questions get someone to recall information that requires little to- no thinking.
When a customer answers a recital question, he/she recites something they already know and probably have already been asked before in previous conversations. Think of all of the questions that were asked prior to reading this. Do your questions fall under the category of recital? If so, is it possible that you might be boring your customer’s, because you are forcing them to go over the same ground they have been going over with everyone else?
How many salespeople do you think your customer sees in a day? One salesperson? Two salespeople? Could your customer see as many as 10 salespeople per day? For argument’s sake, why don’t we settle on five salespeople a day? That is 25 a week, 100 per month, and more than 1,000 sales calls and conversations per year. The customer hears the same question hundreds of times and gives the same answer.
What makes a better question?
My research suggests changing from a recital question to a dialogue question. Dialogue questions stimulate a complex thinking process involving a longer exchange that solicits opinion and thought, not just a correct answer.
When calling on customers, you want to engage them in dialogue. Your goal is to get them talking at least 70 percent of the time. Most important, when you ask a dialogue question, you create the possibility of change. And change leads to new thinking. Your goal is to craft a question that gets the customer to stop, reflect and respond with a new answer.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Charles Brennan Jr. on June 15, 2015.
Focus on the Customer and Magic Happens!
Posted by Rick Pranitis in Sales Process Evaluation on July 21, 2015
Several weeks ago, I did a deal review with a client. It was a very large deal, important to my client. The sales person is an outstanding sales person–one of the top performers in the organization.
As I looked at the notes on the deal, the sales person had a number of good conversations with people in the organization. He had a pretty good understanding of what they were trying to do. He was laser focused on demonstrating how his solution was the best in helping the customer achieve the goal.
He was trying to reach the decision-maker and had hit a road block. He’d made call after call, sent email after email. He was very frustrated; he was normally accustomed to getting into whoever he needed to see at an account. But this particular customer was just not responding to any of the creative offers he made—lunch, a demo, meeting with product managers, an extended loaner of a system—nothing would drive a response. What was worse, is the people he had dealt with before started going dark.
As I looked at the email chain, each email was a variation on the same theme, “Let me tell you how wonderful my product is.” The emails were written much more artfully and each offered an enticement about learning more about the product. But there were no responses.
In the review, I started asking my usual questions, “What are they trying to achieve, why are they doing this, what are the consequences of doing nothing, how does this fit into their overall strategy/priorities/vision, what are the personal wins for each person involved in the decision, ……..”
The sales person thought he knew the answers, but struggled. He realized that he had jumped from “discovery,” to “pitching” before he really understood all the stuff critical to his sales strategy and winning the deal.
We decided to do a little research. It took just a few minutes–we went to the company website. We started understanding more of their strategies, priorities, and what might be driving the need to change. We went to Google and pretty quickly we found a number of press releases, speeches, presentations the company had given about their strategies and priorities. This particular project and its impact on the company were mentioned several times. In fact, the key executive we had been trying to reach had been interviewed a number of times–including his priorities around this particular project.
We went to LinkedIn and started looking at the profiles of each person involved in the project. We were trying to discern their biases, motivations, experience with these solutions, and the personal wins. Again, the profile of the key executive was rich with information. He had posted a number of presentations and video’s in his profile. It was clear the executive was a real visionary, he was driven to achieve certain things in the organization, and he had a strong strategy.
I know what you are thinking, why didn’t the sales person do any of this up front? He really should have, in hindsight he recognized the error. He had fallen into the trap too many of us fall into—listening for what he wanted to hear, rather than really trying to understand what the customer was trying to achieve.
To his credit, once we started to see the problem, he came up with a new strategy. Through the research, we had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but he still needed to reconfirm everything with the customer–understanding their strategy, priorities, the views of each person involved.
He wrote a very short email to the decision maker. In that email he indicated his understanding of the key issues–but posed some very good questions about what they were trying to achieve. In one sentence, he explained the experience my client had helping similar organizations on this issue. He finished the email, leveraging some of the executive’s quotes on his vision and the importance of the project in implementing the strategy. Then he asked for a meeting.
Late the other night, I got an email from him, it was titled, “Some Magic Happened!” He had forwarded me the response from the executive. It was the kind of response any sales person dreams of. The customer was impressed with the knowledge and understanding of his and his company’s issues/strategies/priorities. He was intrigued to learn more about how my client might help them address the issues. He was flattered by the reference to his quotes and visions. He was eager to meet, share more about what they were trying to do and learn more about my client’s ability to help.
After weeks of emails and phone calls focused on “Let me tell you about my product,” shifting the approach to focus entirely on the customer and the individual had completely changed things.
The door is now open. The sales person has a long way to go, but he now has a strategy that puts the customer and what they want to achieve at the center of everything he is doing with them. This stuff works! It’s not trickery, manipulation, or any great sales technique. It’s simply focusing on the customer, understanding what they want to do, learning from them–then helping them learn. It’s really that simple!
Take a look at your most important stalled deal. Do some research on both the company and its people. Try answering for yourself the questions I posed earlier in this post. Then go to the customer and ask them, let the words come from their mouths, probe, verify, validate, quantify. Be interested in them and what they want to achieve.
This article was originally posted to the Partners in Excellence Blog by David Brook on June 23, 2015.
Three Questions to Assess Sales Force Effectiveness
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP, Sales Process Evaluation on July 13, 2015
Every company wants a more effective sales force but few know where to start. Seeking quick results but unsure as to what is broken, sales leaders often launch a dozen or more initiatives simultaneously, hoping one of them is the real root of the problem.
Unfortunately, this approach often creates entirely new problems. Scarce resources are stretched thin. Sales teams, pulled in many directions at once, are unable to execute well. Results are typically poor when trying to focus on too many initiatives rather than three or four ideas that might really matter. As effectiveness slides, frustrated leaders must ask again, “What levers should I be pulling to boost performance?”
While the specific levers differ for every company, sales effectiveness issues can most often be traced to one or more of six very common culprits. Before launching any sales effectiveness initiatives, ask yourself the following three questions to maximize your chances of attaining good results.
- Is our field sales management effective in driving sales performance?
Companies aiming to improve sales effectiveness usually zero in on “fixing” the sales force but often the problems lie with the managers who lead them. We see it time and again: When a company with an average sales team hires a great manager, that manager elevates the performance of the entire team. The opposite is also true. When a team of superstar reps is led by a mediocre manager the performance slides and turnover increases.
Highly effective field sales management may be the single most important driver of overall sales force performance yet many companies don’t develop and tightly manage an effective sales management process. To begin, identify the skills and capabilities required for sales management success in your company, hire to those skills and then invest in proper development and training. Sales managers must be viewed, managed and measured with the same lens as salespeople: Are our sales managers helping their reps target and prioritize the right prospects? Are they coaching reps to help improve the win rate? Are they tracking metrics that measure the right behaviors and activities in the sales force and coaching to improve performance? Without excellent sales managers, even the best designed sales force effectiveness program will fail.
- Are our sales reps spending time on the activities and prospects most likely to generate incremental revenue?
Targeting and prioritization continues to be a top issue for sales forces. It comes down to this: Are your sales reps spending their time with the prospects that will generate the most incremental revenue and who are most likely to buy? It sounds basic, but we find most reps spend up to half their selling time pursing the wrong customers. These include prospects that are unlikely to buy, who have small incremental revenue potential, who are geographically convenient and who are “comfortable” because they are friendly. Growing incremental revenue requires spending more time selling to the highest priority targets.
A related problem is the limited time reps spend with customers. Time-use studies reveal many reps spend as little as 30%-50% of their time with direct customer/prospect selling activities, largely due to administrative burdens, corporate demands and lack of support. By freeing more of reps’ time to sell, then making targeting and prioritization activities a key part of coaching and metrics, sales reps can learn to re-direct their efforts and their expanded selling hours to prospects with the highest revenue/margin potential and the highest probability of buying. Sales managers often focus their coaching on point-of-sell messaging, but prioritizing who to pursue may be a more impactful lever.
- Do we fully leverage both hunting and farming activities to drive new revenue?
Any good revenue engine needs the right mix of revenue from winning new customers and from farming existing accounts. The right blend of hunting and farming activities will be different for every company and it is important to be intentional in creating it. Hunting involves knocking on new doors to drive new business; farming requires deepening relationships to further penetrate existing accounts. These are different activities that require different skill sets, different behaviors, different process and different metrics. Successful sales organizations leverage these differences to effectively target each prospect with reps whose skills match the opportunity.
Sales territories created by geography or industry without a real understanding of where revenue opportunities are and how they align with the assigned salesperson’s skill set usually produce lackluster revenue results. Hunting and farming skills are so dissimilar, they usually don’t reside in the same person. When organizations understand the hunting and farming requirements in their particular environment and differentiate those activities to match the skill sets of the sale team, revenues improve.
This article was originally posted to the Sales & Marketing Management Blog by Brad Wilsted and Ryan Tubman on April 27, 2015.
Three Ways to Ensure Price Isn’t the Main Criteria for Decision Making
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on July 5, 2015
Many salespeople believe that their customer base revolves around the concept of price. That is, price is the be-all and end-all of their decision-making process. Certainly, if they listen to what many of their prospects say, you can understand the reasoning.
Expressions like: “You’ll have to do something with your price before we can even consider this” or “What’s the best deal you can offer me?” or “You competitor offered 25% off list price. How far can you go?” are designed to make the sales person feel they have to concentrate on price before the sale can be advanced in any way.
Actually, you can make sure that price isn’t the main criteria for decision-making in the customer’s mind by building on these three components:
Make sure you know the value of your products and services and how they link to the customer’s business situation. This is the key to creating value and is at the heart of selling with integrity and credibility. A salesperson must understand the departments that are most affected by the solution, and the financial impact of his solution on various departments within the entire company.
Understanding the customer’s critical issues, dissatisfactions, and frustrations, plus recognizing the business opportunities that arise from them, takes research, time, commitment, and dedicated work. But it is definitely worth it.
If you’re able to find out information prior to the visit or on previous visits before you start talking about prices, then you build opportunities for you and the prospect to select other, more credible, ways of achieving their goals and objectives.
Make sure you can help the customer calculate the cost of not using your solution. Before you can offer a remedy, you must be able to firmly establish the results of not using or buying your solution. You must help the customer identify physical symptoms of his problem and show him that multiple departments are suffering. Remember, if there is no pain associated with the current situation, you’ll find it difficult to move the prospect out of their comfort zone and make the decision to change.
Pain is the most basic human motivator for change. It is the natural defense mechanism that tells people that if they don’t change and deal with a problem, they will face consequences. And of course, change itself is painful. Therefore, change will not occur until an individual or company recognizes that the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same.
Tell the prospect the impact of your solution over those of your closest competitors. Make these figures specific. This is where you should be able to pre-empt all but the most irrational objections. If you can get the customer to recognize that your product will provide a specific financial impact, such as cutting the cost of a critical process or increasing desired revenues, they will realize that your premium pricing makes solid business sense. You get them to identify how the benefits outweigh the costs incurred, especially if they see a competitor’s offer as offering more value to you.
When you quantify the impact of your solution, it will quickly become obvious to your customer that your solution, at your price, makes for a solid business decision. If that is clear to them, it solves the challenge of them having ‘buyer’s remorse’ and helps them persuade other decision-makers who might have a say in the final decision.
Try these three ideas out before the prospect talks specifically about price. It will build the value of choice before their mind goes to think about commoditizing your product.
This article was originally posted to the MTD Sales Training Specialists blog by Sean McPheat on February 9, 2015.
Six Steps to Building a Powerful Lead Referral System
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on July 3, 2015
If word-of-mouth is the best way to get new customers then referrals must be a close second. The problem with word-of-mouth advertising is you need a huge network of people who are talking about your products or services. Good Luck with that!
If a prospect does not let their friends know they are looking to buy then the chances of word of mouth advertising working are very slim. On the other hand if you know how to create a great referral network it can mean the difference between no leads and a steady supply of high quality, qualified warm leads.
The Six Steps to Building a Referral System
- Your current customer must be very happy with you and be willing to tell others. Look at your repeat or long time customers first.
- You must frame the referral in the right way. Asking people to hand out your business cards will not work and is only going to make your printer happy.
- You need to position the referral so your clients see the connection as a way to help their friends and associates.
- You must be willing to pick up the phone and ask the new prospect for a meeting.
- You must work your referral program constantly.
- You must follow-up with the person who provided the lead and “if appropriate” give them a gift or at least a thank you card for their help.
The Key is Step three – Position the Referral. Unfortunately, most sales people ask their clients if they could give them the name of three or four friends, relatives or associates that they could contact and “name drop” that you are the person who provides the product or service to them. This method is not very successful and won’t do much to build your business.
On the other hand if you position the referral properly you can almost be guaranteed a steady stream of quality referrals. The key is to think about it in terms of ‘what’s in it for them’. If they help someone it will reflect positively on them. The danger on the other hand is what happens if it doesn’t go well. It will hurt their reputation.
Let me give you an example of how it would work for a company that designs website.
Sales Person – “(Tom) we re-designed your website and according to your feedback on the objectives you wanted to accomplish we have doubled your traffic, added the social media functions you were looking for and created a site that you could edit simply without the need to call someone every time you wanted to make a change or update.”
- Would that be a fair assessment?
- Do you feel we have delivered a quality website within the target budget?
- Has the new website resulted in an increase in business?
If the client is in agreement with your points then it is time to move to the request for a referral.
Sales Person – “I am happy we have been able to help you grow your business and appreciate your confidence in (your company). Tom, I am sure you have an associate that has mentioned they need to upgrade their website in order to generate more business. I would be more than happy to approach them and schedule a chat about their current challenges and what opportunities are available to them.”
Regardless of your product or service, you must create a powerful positioning statement before you ask for a referral. You will be amazed at how well this type of request will work and I guarantee if you use it properly you will be generating more, better quality leads for your business.
This article was originally posted to the Sales Compass Blog by Robert J. Weese on March 3, 2015
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