Posts Tagged Effective Selling
Trust Between Seller and Client Must Be Mutual
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION on June 20, 2016
Would you like your clients to trust you? Presumably you would. And in order to trust you, they must feel that trusting you is a low-risk proposition. They must feel you are trustworthy. Most firms get that.
So, most firms go about trying to appear trustworthy. (The better ones, of course, actually try to be trustworthy, since trust is a hard thing to fake.) This often translates into things such as values statements, corporate social responsibility, efforts at transparency, and programs to enhance customer focus.
All of that is well and good, but those efforts are missing a critical element. Because if all you focus on is trustworthiness—cosmetic or real—then you are forcing your client to take all the risks. And if your client is the one always taking the risks, after a while your client will notice and say, “Wait a minute. I appreciate all of the Boy Scout virtues and so forth, but I notice you never take any risks. And that’s not fair. And so I don’t think I trust you.”
You can be trustworthy to the max, but if you never trust your client, then before too long, your client won’t trust you. And as goes their trust, so goes their business with you.
Trust Is Reciprocally Risky
“The fastest way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” That statement is credited to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, and he expressed a powerful concept: trust is a reciprocating exercise in risk-taking. First one party takes a risk, and the other reciprocates. Then the roles reverse, and the exercise is repeated.
Take the simplest of all trust gestures: the handshake. Smiling I extend my hand to you and say hello, signifying good intentions. You almost certainly return my handshake, smile, and greeting. But you don’t have to.
You could, after all, spurn my gesture, refuse to extend your hand, frown, and turn away from me. I would feel embarrassed, upset, and dismissed. And that would be the end of our budding trust relationship. You probably wouldn’t do that, though. Instead, you would meet my risk-taking gesture with trustworthiness, and our relationship would be off to the races.
Corporate Risk Mitigation
This is not an exercise in corporate anthropology. Think about the context in which you hear “risk” in modern-day business. It is almost always in a negative sense.
Risk is seen mainly as something to be mitigated. Post 2008, financial institutions have laid off layers of employees—except in risk management. The contracting process in nearly all companies has added layers of risk indemnification to its documentation. Lawyers are on hand to ensure not just compliance, but even the appearance of anything that could be considered risky. Insurance businesses are inventing new products to mitigate risk in contracts of all sorts. The last few decades have seen the creation of risk management institutes and certificates in risk management programs.
Despite the protestation that some risk is good (think “risk appetite” or “calculated risk” in the financial world), the emphasis is overwhelmingly on the “calculated” part, not the “risk” part. And once one gets outside of the financial world, it’s hard to find examples of thinking that suggest risk is good.
Execution Risk and Dereliction Risk
The management world is obsessed with avoiding execution risk—the risk of doing the wrong thing. Unfortunately, it makes a pact with the trust devil when it embraces dereliction risk—the risk of not doing the right thing.
We want lifeguards to eschew dereliction risk. If they think someone is drowning, we don’t want them second-guessing themselves. We want them in the water immediately. In basketball, Kobe Bryant is the NBA’s leader in most missed shots. He would rather shoot 4 for 20 than 2 for 5. Another athlete, hockey great Wayne Gretzky, says you’ll never miss a shot you never take—but neither will you make any shots. In all of those cases, they understand the importance of taking execution risks and avoiding dereliction risk.
Yet in business, we are afraid of a hundred execution risks. We fear having the wrong answer, giving offense, looking ignorant, looking foolish, or speaking out of turn. So, we do nothing. And because of our penchant for avoiding execution risk, we absorb dereliction risk, which guarantees failure in the long run.
Trustworthy but Untrusting Does Not Compute
You may be proud of your organization’s record on trustworthiness. But ask yourself these questions to see if you may have some work to do on trusting:
- Do you have onerous non-compete clauses for your employees?
- Do your sales pitches hedge their bets or lead with strong hypotheses?
- Do you make your subcontractors insure you against general liability with no limits?
- Do your salespeople refuse to answer direct questions about price?
- Do you ever admit you don’t know something when asked a straight question?
- Do you insist on client non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) beyond your industry’s norm?
- How many ex-employee lawsuits has your firm been involved in in the past five years?
- Are your tardy account collections handled by accounting or by account managers?
- Would you ever recommend a competitor to a client if the competitor were clearly the better candidate for the job?
- Do you use lie detector tests for employees?
- Do you encourage your salespeople to comment on their own and others’ feelings?
- Do you share your cost information with clients?
- Do you share your supply-chain information with suppliers or clients/customers?
- How many paragraphs of fine print are in your client agreements? And how fine is the print?
- Are your standard client agreements longer or shorter than your biggest competitor’s?
- How do you handle overruns by you with your clients? How do you handle overruns by your suppliers with you? Which is more onerous?
You can be as trustworthy as a Boy Scout, but if you force your clients to take all of the risks, then before too long, they won’t trust you.
This article was originally posted to the Trusted Advisor Blog by Charles H. Green on June 6, 2016.
Plan Ahead To Smoothly Navigate Pricing Objections
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 25, 2016
“That price is too high.”
“Why is this so expensive?”
“I have a better offer. You’re going to have to lower your price.”
It’s the dreaded pricing objection. We’ve all had to deal with it at some point in our careers. Regardless of what form it takes, it can be one of the most frustrating challenges sales professionals have to face.
As part of a series of articles, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at what you can do to overcome this most difficult of client objections. We start today by tackling the question of how to prevent the pricing objection before your clients bring it up!
Address it from the start
If price always seems to become an issue for you, one of the most effective strategies is to preempt the question by dealing with it up front.
Don’t be afraid to talk about price. Train yourself to bring it up first and put it on the table as early as possible in the sales dialogue. Try telling your prospective client something like:
“I want to be up front that our product won’t be the cheapest available. You will always find someone who is less expensive than us, and you will always find someone who is more expensive than us. We are always competitive. Knowing that we are not the cheapest, does it make sense for us to go ahead?”
When you ask this question, one of two things will happen:
One: The buying cycle will end immediately because the client only wants the cheapest product and you don’t have it. Don’t be alarmed. This is good news. There’s no point wasting your valuable time with someone who has no intention of buying.
Or
Two: The client will say, “No problem, we’re not making our decision on the basis of price alone.” This will effectively eliminate the client’s ability to raise this objection later on, and allow you to move forward with a high degree of certainty that price will not become an issue.
Give a ballpark figure ahead of time
Another way to reduce the number of times you hear “your price is too high” is by literally telling your customers your price (or an estimate of your price) before you give it to them in writing. This will allow you to deal with any potential pricing concerns in person, before your client receives a formal proposal.
NOTE: The estimate I give is always about 20 percent higher than I think the real highest price will be. This helps ensure I have a little breathing room later on.
Be ready with alternatives
When you’re ready to talk price, have several options prepared beforehand to handle your client’s response, whatever it may be. This will enable you to retain some control and momentum regardless of whether their reaction is positive or negative.
If the client reacts negatively through body language — such as flinching, shrugging, rolling their eyes, or falling off their chair onto the floor — you can say:
“I sense I’ve missed the mark. What were you expecting to invest?”
Or
“You don’t seem comfortable with that price. Have you found something lower?”
Notice that both of these questions have two distinct parts. First, you acknowledge that the client appears to be uncomfortable. This will help build trust and get them on your side. Second, you ask a direct question. You can use this formula every time you are faced with an objection.
If the client verbally tells you that your price is too high, your first move is to take a breath and remain quiet for a full three seconds. Then ask them, “I guess you’re looking only for the cheapest price?”
They will either say yes or no. If they say no, you can ask, “Really? What else is there?”
If they answer yes, you can say, “Okay, knowing that we will not be the lowest price, does that mean we will never get the chance to do business together?”
Utilize the key word for managing objections
When it comes to handling sales objections, “never” is the most powerful word in the English language.
Most people hate it. Very few are willing to commit to it. As a result, the vast majority of prospects will respond to it by saying, “Well, no… Not never!”
In that case, your job is to simply ask, “Really? Why?” The client will then either tell you what it will take to do business with them or ask you for something that you can’t provide. Either way, this puts the control back in your hands by letting you choose between making the sale or turning down the deal and walking away.
If a client is dead set on getting the lowest price and you know you can’t offer it, then you may as well end the conversation right now and get to work on deals that have a better likelihood of closing. Spending time trying to sell to someone who is never going to buy from you is a bad decision — and a costly mistake.
Create and fine tune your best responses
The final step is to sit down (on your own or with your team) and brainstorm your best possible answers to every potential objection.
Practice your responses out loud until you’ve mastered them. Make them your own. Then review your work each quarter to make sure that everyone on your team knows which responses are working best.
Overall, if you can reduce the number of objections you receive, you will sell more. Period
This article was originally posted to the Eye on Sales Blog by Colleen Francis on April 7, 2016.
Tell a Story Versus Pitch a Product
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 11, 2016
One of the most common traps in selling is talking too soon and talking much about your product.
Now, if you travel back in time there was good reason why many sales reps fall into the “product pitch” trap. They were constantly being taught the “101 tips for doing a perfect feature pitch.” They were just doing what they were taught.
Fortunately times have changed. Companies have completed the shift from a product-centric to a customer centric approach to selling. Lessons about great scripted product pitches are best viewed as historical tales to be told around the campfire.
So, if it is all about customer value, what is the substitute for the product pitch script? One answer to that question is – tell a story.
It is one thing to talk about a list of reasons why a customer should do business with you; it is another to be able to relate past success stories that bring that list to life. The latter is memorable and repeatable – the former is just another list of features.
So what are some tips for the art of storytelling in Sales?
- Make it personal. If you want someone to care about making sustained behavior change, you have to individualize the story. The more personal you can make the link between the story and the desired behavior change, the greater your chances of success.
- Keep it positive. A positive story narrative moves a customer along a path towards change. Interjecting negative outcomes that might result if the status quo is maintained are unlikely to be helpful.
- Probe why a customer would make a change. Learn early on why a customer would change from one product to another and why they won’t. Weave this information into the story.
- Stay on message. What is the primary goal that the customer wants to sustain over time? How can you craft the story so that it illustrates how working with you and your company can help them move closer to achieving their goal?
Storytelling allows you to translate your sales message from a feature pitch to a positive customer experience with business outcomes. It is worth noting that great stories are not usually created on the spot. Like most things that have high impact, they take time to develop and they require practice and feedback.
Here it is important to note that individual reps should not be the ones that have sole responsibility for creating the stories. Marketing needs to help for a whole bunch of reasons. This help is particularly important in companies where a lot of new reps are being hired.
This article was originally posted to the Sales Training Connection Blog by Janet Spirer on March 15, 2016.
Complex Selling Essentials: Focus, Systems and Talent
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on March 14, 2016
Complex B2B sales are usually characterized by lengthy, high-value buying decisions that involve multiple stakeholders and frequently end in a decision to do nothing and stick with the status quo. But that doesn’t mean they have to be complicated – far from it.
Over-complicated responses to managing the complex sales process have a woeful success rate. Sales people simply don’t see the value in having to enter reams of information into CRM systems that they doubt management will ever pay proper attention to – or conform to processes that they see as doing nothing to increase their chances of winning. And they are right to rebel.
I believe that the evidence is clear: mastering three deceptively simple principles turns out to be critical to winning the complex sale…
1: FOCUS
First, and at the risk of stating the obvious, your sales and marketing activities must be laser-focused on identifying, engaging and qualifying the opportunities that are most likely to want to buy from you. It sounds like a simple principle, but many sales people and the organizations they work for nevertheless manage to squander enormous amount of time and energy pursuing “opportunities” they have little chance of closing.
Focusing on the right issues requires that you identify and target critical pain points that – once they recognize them – your prospects will be forced to address, and for which you have a demonstrably superior solution.
Focusing on the right organizations involves much more than the classic demographics of size, sector and location: it requires a profound understanding of the common characteristics of your most promising prospects and the trigger events that will cause them to act.
And focusing on the right stakeholders involves identifying and targeting the people who are most likely to act as catalysts for change (also known as “mobilizers”) within these target organizations.
Any failure in any aspect of focus simply sets the foundations for failure.
2: SYSTEMS
Even if you’re focused, you can’t afford to leave sales success to chance. That’s why today’s most effective sales organizations have defined dynamic sales processes that mirror the way their prospects make buying decisions. These systems reflect the winning habits of top sales performers, and offer a simple but effective guide to all sales people as to what they need to know, do, use, share and avoid at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
This emphasis on the buying decision process is critical: it forces the sales person to think about what the prospect needs to achieve in order to achieve consensus around the need for change.
The best of these sales systems are based around simple, flexible frameworks rather than rigid guidelines – and they dynamically evolve to reflect the latest learning about how sales success is best achieved.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of having an effective sales process – they can help to dramatically bridge the performance gap between the best and the rest, and ensure that new hires become productive quickly.
Over-complicated or inadequate systems inevitably mean that your sales people will spend much of their time on things that fail to advance the sale.
3: TALENT
This leads neatly to the third key principle: no matter how clear your focus, and no matter how effective your systems, you can never achieve your full potential without the right people on board.
It’s disturbing to observe how often new hires with apparently highly relevant experience fail to make their mark in their new organization. It’s particularly apparent when people get hired out of large corporate into start-ups or expansion-phase companies – the cultural differences often prove to be unbridgeable wide.
Hiring for experience alone clearly isn’t enough. In fact there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that, faced with a choice between hiring for aptitude, attitude or experience, experience is the least reliable predictor of future success.
In fact, aptitude and attitude turn out to be so important that they simply cannot be left to chance – and this explains the dramatic rise in assessment solutions for both hiring and employee development.
Without the right talent, any complex sales environment will surely fail.
ELIMINATING AVOIDABLE ERROR
When you think about it, these three principles are less to do with striving for perfection than they are about eliminating avoidable error: they are about not pursuing opportunities that are a bad fit, they are about not doing things that fail to facilitate the prospect’s decision process, and they are about eliminating poor hiring or staff development decisions.
Striving for perfection may be an inspirational goal: but eliminating avoidable error (and simplifying your focus, systems and talent management) is usually a far more practical – and effective – strategy.
This article was originally posted to the Inflection Point blog by Bob Apollo on February 23, 2016.
The Art of Listening: Establishing Trust Without Saying a Thing
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on November 2, 2015
It’s Buyer Psychology…
Ask a client what they want, and they’ll tell you “expertise; credentials; someone who’ll meet my needs.” Ask them what their needs are, and they’ll tell you. But ask really successful salespeople (or honest clients with experience in buying), and they’ll tell you how it really works. Clients only ask for credentials and expertise because they’re not really sure what else to do. In truth, they’d rather get in range with expertise, and then decide based on their trust in the seller. Clients will tell you their needs because they think they’re supposed to, and because they’re afraid if they don’t, you’ll take advantage of them. But if you can engage them in honest discussion, they’ll admit their uncertainties and discuss, engage in, and evolve their views of what their needs are.
It all depends on why you’re listening.
If you’re listening to hear an answer to a predetermined question, then you will hear the “canned” definitions of needs that clients have prepared for you. You’ll hear their request for credentials and expertise at face value, and not hear the undertone in the question, or in the bored way they listen to your answer. Because what clients really want to talk about is what everyone wants to talk about: Themselves. When someone says, “Tell me about yourself,” they’re just being polite – whether it’s on a date, at a social event, or in a sales call. The right answer is not to tell them about your vast experience with other clients – it is to get them talking about themselves. And to listen as they do so.
The Quality Of Listening
The usual form of listening is conditioned by sales models looking for answers and by flawed views of buyer psychology focused on surface dialogue. What is required is a different quality of listening. The main reason for listening to prospects is to allow the prospect to be heard. Really heard. As in, actually being paid attention to by another human being.
This kind of listening is listening for the sake of listening. Listening to understand, period. No strings attached. No links back to your product. No refined problem statements. Because that’s what people in relationships, at their best, really do. They listen because they want to know what the other person thinks about whatever the other person is interested in talking about. This kind of listening validates other people. It connects us to them. It provides meaning. And, among other things, it sets the stage for sellers and buyers to interact – if that is the right thing to happen next.
Authors Bill Brooks and Tom Travesano, in You’re Working Too Hard To Make The Sale, note that people greatly prefer to buy what they need from those who understand what it is that they want. Read that over again, carefully. People prefer to buy what they need (stuff they’re going to buy anyway), from those who understand them on the basis of what they want (things in life they’d love to have – wishes, hopes, desires). You don’t even have to give them what they want; it’s enough to understand them.
To bring it full circle back to listening: Relationships are the context for successful selling. Relationships are based on trust; they predispose us to engage in qualitatively different kinds of sales conversations. And listening – unrestricted, unbounded, listening for its own sake – is the way we develop such relationships. And therein lies the paradox. The most powerful way to sell depends on unlinking listening from selling – and instead, just listening. Listening not as a step in a sales process, and not as a search for answers to questions. Listening not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. The point of listening is not what you hear, but the act of listening itself.
Making It Work
Here are 5 tips to listening this way. Number five is the most powerful.
- Ditch the distractions. You cannot multitask undiscovered. Being multitasked feels insulting. Close the door. Face away from the window. Blank the computer screen. Turn the iPhone over. Now, pay attention.
- Use your whole body. Lean toward the speaker – even on the phone. Use facial expressions. Use hands and arms, shake your head, and use “non-verbal” verbalisms. This improves your listening – and indicates you are listening.
- Keep it about them – not you. Use open-ended, not closed, questions. Let them tell their own story – don’t use them as foils for your hypotheses.
- Acknowledge frequently. Paraphrase their data, empathize with their emotions. Make sure you are hearing both correctly; make sure they know you are.
- Think out loud. The biggest obstacle to listening is your own thinking. Be courageous – postpone your thinking until they’re done talking. Be willing to think out loud – with the client. Doing so role-models collaboration and transparency, and that reinforces trust. I hear you. I value you. I respond to you, with no hidden agenda. I trust you. You can trust me.
That’s the message of listening.
This article was originally posted to the Trusted Advisor Blog by Charles H. Green on September 28, 2015.
Today’s Buyers Are Not Mono-Channel
Posted by Rick Pranitis in MARKETING on October 5, 2015
I was recently in the market for a new car and while I was fairly certain I knew the car I wanted, I was intent on doing my research. Like most people in today’s digital age, I went to Google and typed in “best all wheel drive vehicles” and scanned through the results. Several more searches on key terms led me to a manufacturer’s website as well as some good consumer blogs. As a result, I had narrowed my search to three cars specifically and it was a pretty quick and efficient way to research.
A few days later, I went to Edmunds.com to further my research, as I wanted an independent review. In addition to my online research, I talked to a few friends (some in person, others online) who had the makes and models of the cars that were on my short list to ask about their experiences. During this process, I also received a direct mail piece from one of the manufacturers that aided in my decision making process.
The later stage of research (speaking to friends and scanning the web) was done over the course of several weeks. In addition, I emailed various dealers in town with questions and specifications of what I was looking for and simultaneously researched my best financing options.
All in all, I used multiple channels during my purchase process (web, social medial, word-of-mouth/peer referral and email) and it took about two months. I used four channels just to end up buying a car, but this is the digital age and as the buyer,I have access to all of these channels easily via my phone. Why not use it to my advantage as the thought of walking onto a car lot and dealing with a car salesman was not an option.
I am no different than other consumers in this scenario. We conduct our own research, we ask questions directly, we collect information, and we read independent reviews. This applies to buying a car or picking a place to eat…we use multiple channels to consume information that may or may not lead to a purchase. If this is how we operate in our personal lives, why is it that B2B vendors lose this concept when marketing to their buyers?
According to recent articles and blogs the best approach to a B2B demand generation program is mono-channel. Advice like how to have “The Best Email Campaign”, “Tips to Accelerate Your Social Media Strategy,” “How to Implement a Webinar Program” and the list goes on focus on mono-channel solutions. However, today’s buying process is more multi-channel than ever with buyers consuming content across an array of mediums and sharing across the buying committee. If this is true, then the idea of a one-channel program or a strategy designed for one specific content channel is a waste of time, effort and money.
There are a few key changes that B2B organizations can make to address this issue and better align with their buyers and their purchase process:
1. Break down the Departmental Silos: Many of the B2B marketing departments I encounter are designed by channel or function. Email teams, web teams, social teams, content teams, event teams, etc. Each has their own focus and measurement and in reality, they each only ever own a fractional part of the buyers journey. They work in silos and have no vision into the full approach their buyers take to buying. This needs to change. Companies need to begin looking at holistic demand generation that encompasses the full buyers journey and design their organizations accordingly. Without this holistic approach, content will not properly align to the buyer and organizations run the risk of poor communication in general, not to mention wasting valuable resources on ineffective content, leaving buyers less than impressed.
2. Theme First, Channel Second: I speak to many marketers who begin planning their approach to demand generation with the content asset in mind – white paper, eBook, webinar, video, etc. However, this should come secondary. The first thought needs to be the topic or theme of the content piece. What needs to be said to the buyer at this stage in their purchase process? Once that is determined, then the channels and asset type can be determined and most likely the theme will be used across multiple channels.
3. Gain an Understanding of Your Buyers Content Consumption Patterns: The best way to understand the channels your buyers use during their purchase process is to ask them. Simply asking your customers and buyers how do you like to consume content, where do you consume content and what type of content serves you best during the purchase process will help drive the content strategy. Without this buyer-centric understanding, everything else is a guess.
The multi-channel approach we take in our consumer lives is not all that different than how we participate in buying in our B2B lives. Organizations need to adapt to this approach and understand it is a multi-channel (and not always digital) world.
This article was originally posted to the Annuitas Blog by Carlos Hidalgo on September 1, 2015.
The Six Main Components Which Create Sales Excellence
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on August 3, 2015
Excellence is a word that is bandied about so much these days that it can often lose its meaning or its differentiation. The dictionary defines it as ‘being exceptional, being superior in some way, achieving extreme merit, preeminence or distinction’. When we use the term, we commonly confuse it with something that is just better or an improvement of some sort. However, for something or someone to be given the accolade of ‘excellence’, we have to be more than just better; we need to identify the qualities that deserve the term, or we are in danger of diminishing the stand-out qualities that are required to receive the honor.
To achieve excellence in sales, we need to lay the foundations that support and enable the results we need to achieve. Here, we’ll discuss just six key components that create excellence in salespeople and make them stand out from the crowd. The first three are classed as intra-personal skills (internally-focused) and the others are interpersonal (externally-focused). Each one will assist in the development of quality and stature.
Develop a Full Range of Skills & Attributes
The top salespeople we have encountered take their own personal development very seriously. They create and implement a development plan for themselves that include seeking out training and coaching opportunities, reading, listening to and watching subject matter experts, update their product knowledge, develop their industry knowledge and plan their career progression in such a way that it enhances opportunities at every step.
Also, they see how new technologies their own company and competitors are producing add value to the industry, learning how these advancements affect and add value from their customers’ perspectives.
Accept Change As The Norm & Embrace It For Progressing Salesmanship
Great value-creators recognize that they must build a clear and flexible path through the changes their customers and industry must go through. They understand that their products and services must be instrumental in driving those changes. This requires the mindset to be adaptable to whatever circumstances the customer may throw at them.
Become Future-Focused
The high-quality salesperson will recognize the lesson that past teaches. Grab hold of the opportunities the present offers and develop the foresight to apply those learning’s to the future. In other words, they see the only things they really have control over are those future opportunities.
By recognizing the future is a blank slate ready to be written upon, the great salesperson doesn’t harbor resentment over what has occurred, but treats it as a school to learn how to build resilience and elasticity in their future plans.
Understand The Customer’s Business As Well As The Customer Does
Yes, it takes time, diligence, effort and guile, but it differentiates the haves from the have-nots in terms of knowledge and partnership abilities. Treating your customer’s business like your own means you build trust, and with that come the openness and exposure that allows you access to the inner sanctum. By having the attitude of curiosity, great salespeople build reasons for customers to develop close business relationships with them, hence reducing the emphasis on price that might let in competitive offerings.
Be Passionate About Service & Business Results
Passion is a chosen response when you feel enthusiastic and engaged with a project or task. Great salespeople choose this emotion wisely and use it to drive their actions and responses.
Having a passion for something engages you like nothing else does. Without it, you lack the inspiration or drive to concentrate on excellence or quality responses. Having passion separates you from the masses who allow the ‘that’ll-do’ attitude to affect their diligence. Having passion for business results helps you build value in the customer’s eyes as they recognize the impact your intensity and desire for improvement has on their business
Build Relationships Throughout The Customer’s Business
High-quality salespeople recognize the value of building many strong relationships throughout their accounts. This allows them to build business acumen and confidence when dealing with various people at differing levels. They see the value of discussing financials with the accounts team, talking strategies with the sales management team and highlighting technological advancements with the product-development team.
This allows a clear understanding of the shared needs and unique concerns of each component that makes up the customer’s decision-making teams, and allows trust to be engendered throughout the purchase experience.
Each of these components need to synergize together to create an overall impression of professionalism so that the salesperson is seen as a major asset to the customer’s business rather than just another supplier who blends in with the competition.
It takes time to determine which of these components are best developed and utilized with every account; but they offer a differential that will set you apart in many customer’s eyes as someone who is indispensable to their future journey.
This article was originally posted to the MTD Sales Training Specialists blog by Sean McPheat on July 2, 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.
Five Practical Tips to Build a Better Network
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 27, 2015
For many businesses to continue to grow and thrive, it takes more than just excellent products and services. It takes building awareness and a loyal customer base. It also requires patience and resilience to make it through the difficult times. And it takes building a community of partners, contacts and allies for continued success.
There is no substitute for a great network, even as our definition of what makes a network becomes more elastic as our preferred ways of connecting and sharing information evolve over time and in response to new technology (Twitter follower? Facebook Friend? LinkedIn Connection?). Here are our five favorite tips for networking better this year to help you build that community.
Attend Events Across Industries – If you are looking to build a network in your local business community, don’t limit yourself to events related to your specific business type or industry. You want to broaden your potential network as much as possible and open your business to as many relevant customers as possible. Look for events in industries that are complementary to your type of business, or that also target the same type of customer as you based on geography or demographics. You’ll be more likely to find businesses willing to cooperate and work together, since you are not in direct competition with each other. More importantly, you never know whom your new contacts will know and this is the key to networking. There is enormous unknown potential in every new relationship.
Share Your Story and Listen to Theirs – All business owners and entrepreneurs have at least one thing in common: the courage to take that big risk for something they believe will be successful. Take the time to share your founder story with other business owners and learn about what motivated them to start their business. You may learn that you have a lot in common–similar challenges, suppliers, even customers. Exchanging stories is the first step to building a relationship that can help your business grow.
Reinforce an Offline Connection Online, and Vice Versa – Any time that you meet a new contact at a networking event, conference, or even the coffee shop, make sure to also connect with that person online. Reaching out via LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook is a great way to thank the person for their time and remind them of a few points from your conversation. The same advice works for online contacts: if you’ve made a new connection through LinkedIn, make the effort to have a phone call or meet in person to explore how you can work together to make each other’s businesses grow. Bonus tip: Make sure your company’s online presence is memorable and professional. Put your logo on your LinkedIn profile, company Facebook page, or Twitter page for a consistent look online.
Always Be Prepared – Make sure that every interaction is productive by being prepared. Have a stack of updated business cards with you at all times, and keep flyers or postcards with your latest offers or promotions handy as well. These critical marketing materials can be made quickly and affordably online with an online business card maker, so there’s no excuse for being unprepared. Even as our social and professional lives move more and more online, business cards are here to stay. So challenge yourself to share twice as many cards as you did last time. It’s also easy to stay on top of your online presence. Prepare yourself before releasing a new product, service, or offer to your customers. Usually when a business does something new, customers can have a fair amount of questions and feedback. Grab a friend or two to man the phones at your business or saddle up on your Facebook messages page to help handle the rush of comments. Releasing new products should get people excited about your business, not get you too stressed out.
Set Up a Next Step – It’s easy to lose momentum after a networking event; they can be overwhelming at times. But all these events can be worthless if you don’t make plans to communicate after the event is over. Make sure you can gather as many business cards as you hand out, and reach out to these people soon after the event closes. Stay on the top of their minds. Set a date in their calendar, whether it’s for tomorrow or two months from now. All of your networking efforts can be worthless if you don’t follow through. You can’t always depend on the other party to set up the next steps. Take control of the situation and make a name for your business.
This article was originally posted to the Business 2 Community Blog by Dena Enos on April 2, 2015.
Social Selling Isn’t Just “a” Thing – It’s “the” Thing
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES on April 15, 2015
You can’t read a sales- or marketing-related blog without seeing something about social selling. There are tips and techniques, camps and courses, and even social selling consultants, both real and fake.
But as this new sales trend/methodology/process starts to take hold beyond just the cutting-edge techies and social media mavens, it’s starting to look less like a “new sales methodology” and more like a requirement for any salespersons’ toolkit.
If I were to say to you today, “I want to help you learn telephone selling techniques,” you’d laugh me out of the room. Why? Because you’ve been doing that your entire career, as has every other salesperson.
Social networks, however, are relatively new. And it took a few years for smart salespeople to figure out how to leverage them for insights that helped move deals along. It also took a few years for people—you, me, your manager, your leads, their marketing departments—to all jump on the Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and other (Yes, I use Google+. Don’t judge me.), bandwagons.
Now, the use of social networks is ubiquitous. Seriously, who do you know who doesn’t have a Facebook account or a LinkedIn profile? It’s a pretty small group. So using this information to help you sell more is an obvious, albeit new, part of your daily life and it’s going to be for a long time.
So while the term “social selling” is pretty popular these days, it’s not really a thing. If you want to achieve your quota and outsell your competition, you need to treat it as the thing, meaning it’s what will set you apart for now, but pretty soon, it’ll be a normal part of selling, not just a buzzword.
This article was originally posted to the InsideView Blog by Jason Rushin on March 18, 2015.
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