Six Things You Must Know Before Sending a Proposal

Business ProposalThere are six things you must know in order to let your prospect pass – in other words, before you reward your prospect with a proposal. Your ability to conduct a professional and complete qualification of your prospect during the meetings leading up to this point in the sales cycle will provide you with the answers. Here are the checkpoints.

 

1.  You understand the prospect’s problem thoroughly and are able to provide, at a minimum, a satisfactory solution.

If you don’t understand the problem completely, how can you be sure you can suggest a solution that would be enthusiastically endorsed?

2.  The prospect has to do something – it is NOT an option to keep things the same.

If keeping things the same is an option for the prospect, they might very well select that option.  Problems tend to fall into the “fix it” or “forget it” categories. Unless there’s a compelling reason to change, most find it easier just to do nothing. No pain, no change.  Find the compelling reason why they’d want to go through the hassle of changing suppliers or implementing something new. If they can’t present a compelling case for change, they probably won’t change.

3.  You have access to the decision maker and will make your presentation to him/her. 

A good rule of thumb is never to make a presentation to someone who can’t say “yes.”  It’s that simple.

4.  The prospect needs to implement a solution in a time frame that makes sense for you from a business standpoint.

Time kills deals. What’s the point if your prospect doesn’t want to do anything for 18 months? Too much can happen to in the interim to send the deal sideways.

5.  You understand the prospect’s selection criteria, and have a reasonable chance of meeting those criteria successfully. 

What are the top three things they’ll evaluate when selecting a business partner, and why are those things important?  This will give you a good handle on just how good your chances are.  If this is a price driven deal, for example, and you can’t or won’t compete on price alone, why try to compete at all?  It’s a very competitive world out there and your competitors are trying just as hard to win the business as you are.  You’ve got to know their strengths and weaknesses, how they’re likely to react in certain situations, how hard they’ll fight for the opportunity that you’re trying to win.

6.  The prospect is considering only a small number of suppliers and is not putting the deal out to every company in the area. 

Generally, “RFPs” are not the most optimal type of business to win, since price plays such a major role in the selection process and the opportunity to communicate openly with the prospect is often quite limited. Prospects whose attitude is “the more, the merrier” are more interested in price than a relationship. Finally, increasing the number of options for the prospect decreases your chances of winning.

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Melissa Clemens Joins Flannery Sales Systems

mel_johnWe’re excited to announce that Melissa Clemens has joined our team at Flannery Sales Systems.

Melissa brings the practical experience of running sales teams to our customers, along with the understanding of what strong selling skills look like. Most importantly, Melissa knows how to coach salespeople to their optimal performance, and effective coaching is the keystone of success for our customers. This, combined with her strong written and analytical skills, adds another layer of expertise to our team. It is a pleasure to have Melissa on board.

Prior to joining Flannery Sales Systems, Melissa spent over 15 years in various sales, marketing, professional services and entrepreneurial roles. Most recently, she spent 5 years leading sales organizations at Kleiner-backed Plum District and marketing automation start-up bridg.com, where she was responsible for all sales functions including hiring, training and overall revenue performance. Prior to that, she built and ran her own e-commerce company.

Melissa has her BA from Stanford University.

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Turning Your Go-To-Market Strategy into Tactical Sales Execution

map1When you open up your smartphone to access a map, you’ve got a particular destination in mind; where you want to go for dinner, a meeting, a certain address, or a landmark you wish to visit. There is a focus on the journey’s end, and you want to get there in the most efficient way possible. The map you access usually starts out with a 40,000 foot view of the landscape.

 

map2With the destination logged in, the smartphone then prompts you to input some more detailed information:  Where you are starting from; how you will be traveling- on foot, bus, or by car; and what mode of directions you would prefer, audible or inscribed? Once you have keyed in the basic information, the map application will zero in on your exact location and guide you, step-by-step, until you arrive at your destination.

1. Formulate Your Go-To-Market Strategy, and Align WHERE Sales Will Compete

A Sales Strategy is the 40,000 foot view of the vision or mission of an organization’s long and short term objectives. The strategy is carefully formulated by upper management to move an organization toward their specific destination. If, for example, an organization has the desire to increase revenue, a Sales Strategy for increased revenue may be formulated with the careful consideration of many different factors: assets, competition, the marketplace, margins, operational costs, the number of product lines, distribution, channels, value propositions, and plans for growth, to state a few.

We recently worked with an organization who wanted us to help them build a Sales Process to “get more sales now”! Their short-sightedness of only looking at the “close up” of the map gave them the misguided idea that their destination was nothing more than to get the reps out there selling better!  We were able to guide them through a Sales Strategy exercise, and THEN helped them build a Sales Process on what to do to execute their strategy.

2. Turning Strategy into Tactical Execution: Sales Process Illustrates the HOW

The principal component of a Sales Strategy is execution. Sales Process outlines the step-by-step, most efficient, customized directions to get to the final destination.  It provides information on how to get to the destinations in specific detail, based on selling skills.  This specificity enables the implementation of strategy by providing the following advantages to the entire team:

  • A common objective
  • A common path and language
  • Practical messaging tools based on the strategy
  • Skill sets that are tied to Process steps
  • Process Steps that are tied Pipeline Milestones

3.  WHAT To Do at Each Step Along the Way: A Clear Path

If you ensure that all sales reps and managers follow the Sales Process, you can outline expectations and more easily benchmark your sales team against common criteria, providing an excellent evaluation of the strategy at the rep level.  A Sales Process provides:

  • The specific instructions on what to do with respect to customer interactions
  • A measure of the skill of individual sales reps
  • An opportunity for focused skill coaching of reps by managers
  • A powerful reporting tool for leading KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) on benchmark performance against key outcomes of the Sales Strategy.

When determining your organization’s Sales Strategy, take the time to ensure your understanding of the entire landscape.  Then, implement a Sales Process that allows you to execute toward your objectives, with the ability to gauge your success along the route, and soon, you’ll arrive at your destination:  Success!

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A Global Perspective from European Leaders: The ELIA Conference Recap

 

ELIA Riga Apr 25 2014On April 24 and 25, I attended and delivered a Sales Process Workshop at the European Language Industry Association (ELIA) Conference in Riga, Latvia. ELIA is an international organization of professionals in the translation and location industry, bringing multi-lingual content to the world through the web, printed materials and simultaneous interpretations. There were 36 countries represented at the conference, which always makes for great conversation at the event and at cocktail parties and dinners. Here is a summary of the main topics discussed:

Closing the Digital Divide: Facebook Gives Back

The keynote speaker was Iris Oriss, who is in charge of all Internationalization and Translation efforts for Facebook’s multi-lingual platform. Iris’s keynote focused on Facebook’s dedication to closing the global digital divide, as only 2.7 of the 7 billion people worldwide have access to the Internet.  To close this gap, Facebook is supporting an effort called Internet.org, a consortium of companies who donate time and resources to get the web to the most remote reaches of our population.

The resource-based economy that we grew up with has now been replaced by a knowledge-based environment, and as knowledge spreads to a greater segment of our global population, how will your selling style adapt? Does this open new markets for you? Or perhaps increase the number of competitors in your space? Be prepared to answer the question and react quickly – it is happening now.

“The Who” Said It 1971: “Going Mobile” is the Direction

Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey were prophetic when they wrote and sang the song “Going Mobile” in 1971. Mobile devices have become the desktops of the 80’s. Do you recall the first desktop computer that you had? I felt like I was in the space age. Well today, mobile devices offer us more capabilities than ever before. As a result, our buyers are relying more and more on information that is pushed to them while they are on the go.

Mark Zuckerberg re-iterated Facebook’s commitment to mobile at the recent F8 Conference in San Francisco, saying the company will run mobile promotions on smartphones and tablets as it pushes to drive revenue (we like that phrase/ URL!) from a larger audience. So, as sellers, we must be ready to leverage mobile to deliver key insights and solutions. According to Robert Peck, an industry analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, this market may be worth $3 billion dollars in a few years.

All Customers are Unique (with the Same Challenges and Goals)

The Sales Process Workshop I delivered was attended by 16 professionals representing 7 countries, with at least 10 languages spoken among them (see picture). As you know if you’ve attended one of my programs, the focus is always on the customer. In this workshop, we worked together to determine the best ways to differentiate yourself by the way you sell.

Customers usually claim that they, or their customers/markets, are unique. In our workshop, we determined that business objectives and challenges are actually very similar, regardless of industry. What is not the same is the company’s culture as organizations represent many different countries and languages, and as sellers we must be prepared to address those nuances as we help companies meet their business objectives and improve their bottom line.

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