Sales Process Workshop
- Buying Cycle
- Time Management
- Getting to the Need
- Building Trust
- Managing Expectations
- Negotiate and Close
Contact if your interested in this location this month
Career transition is a part of the inevitable growth in an individual’s personal path through life. On April 26, John will be participating in an event at San Diego State University to help graduating Seniors to take the leap into their first professional role. Microsoft, Qualcomm, American Mobile Healthcare and Flannery Sales Systems will all contribute to this seminar designed to help prepare for some of the exciting challenges these students will face in just a few months. Please click on this link to learn more about this event.
Are you currently transitioning in your role? We are not recruiters or headhunters, but do have a close pulse on the marketplace for jobs through interaction with our customers and business development efforts. If you are currently looking, feel free to drop John a note (john@drive-revenue.com) to describe what you are looking for in your next opportunity. We are pleased to help others out, and wish you well in your adventures.
On a recent field trip to the San Diego Zoo with my daughter Hannah (on my knee in the photo), the students, parent-chaperones and teachers went through an introductory one hour interactive session called the “Life Cycles Program”. We were all entertained by a great speaker who took us through the Four Steps in the Life Cycle ( birth, growth, maturity and decline), and the children were then allowed to pet a blue skink lizard that was shedding his skin as part of the phase 2 growth step that he was going through.
Shortly after this, we went on with our excursion through the magnificent park, and happened upon one of the displays where the giraffes live. Several of the zoo employees were corralling us to the side to let us know that an amazing event was unfolding: a mother giraffe was in the midst of giving birth to her calf! Alas, the first step of the Life Cycle was upon us. We were all excited, and asked to keep as quiet as possible as to not disturb this process (good luck on that with a group of 36 eight year olds!).
Cycles are also prevalent in business. There’s the product cycle, the sales cycle, buying cycle, etc. One of the most rewarding components in my career is watching a sales person, Manager, VP of Sales or Executive “get it” when I am bringing a new perspective to them and their team. With the “birth” of a new idea, many see an enhanced way of representing their organization to prospects and existing customers, and the results do follow. And the primary vantage point that we strive to help our customers to adopt is one from the perspective of their customers. It is not, and never has been about the seller and/or his product, service or organization. It is about the customer, and if you do not understand what motivates them to want to use what you are selling, very little will ultimately happen.
We discuss the importance of matching your sales process with your customer’s buying cycle, as many leaders of Sales organizations confuse the term sales cycle with the important steps they go through during opportunity development. Be careful; it’s not about you as mentioned above! It is important to take the step back and identify if your customer or prospect is in the Solution Development, Evaluation or Commitment phase of their buying cycle. Only then can you determine how to match up your sales process to facilitate the buying process.
The skink sheds his skin as a natural part of its growth phase. How have you and your sales team adapted to the ever changing landscape between buyers and sellers? Mother Nature will move us along in the Life Cycle, whether we like it or not. Be sure to make sure that your buyer’s cycle is one that you are a part of, not one that you are on the outside looking in. Oh, and yes, the mother giraffe gave birth to a healthy calf, and both are doing well. Some of the questions by the 2nd graders on the bus ride back to school still have me perplexed, but that’s alright.
Flannery Sales Systems – We help you drive revenue through sales process.
SDSU just announced the addition of a series of Sales courses to the College of Business’s Marketing Department. John (above) was pleased to participate with Dean Michael Cunningham as a speaker at the Kickoff event held on campus on May 8, 2012. John, an active SDSU alumnus, was a recognized for his leadership in the field of sales and building enhanced sales competencies for his customers.
“Business and industry has a steady demand for qualified sales professionals and San Diego State University is one of the few major universities that has stepped up to educate our students to fill this critical corporate need,” said Dr. Michael R. Cunningham, dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University. “The contemporary sales professional requires the ability and competencies needed to develop networking skills, relationship building and analytical proficiencies which are primary elements in the College’s sales educational initiative.”
The technical sale requires people who can grasp the intricate (or scientific, medical, etc) nuances of a product and are smart enough to articulate them in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. These sales people are amazing to me. Many times they are recruited to change seats from the buyer’s seat to the seller’s role. This seller may be an electrical engineer in the computer hardware industry or the chemist in the life sciences industry (to name two) who are recruited to sell those types of products. They are geniuses in their perspective fields, but have some deal killing tendencies that need adjustment.
The first step to making a shift is awareness. Here are 4 ways for sales people to better align their time to work on the most qualified opportunities.
- Begin with the right person. Entering the sales process at the user level almost guarantees a long selling cycle. Ideally, you start with the ultimate decision maker. Remember in the beginning you are referred to whom you sound like. You’re smart and you’re enthusiastic about science. You will be referred to the person inside the organization that sounds like you. You may have found someone that shares your passion, but they may not be the decision maker.
- Focus on usage instead of technical aspects of product. The focus of our selling process is to have buyers focus on how to use your product or service, not what the features of product are in an unknown environment. Technical information too early (we realize that you know the product inside and out) can kill the deal. Success stories are a better approach and they also reassure the buyer that others have successfully used your product.
- Talk Less. By not making the buyer feel like he is in control of the conversation, you are likely to stimulate objections. Being patient and asking good questions around business issues will provide greater insight in what the buyer needs and the value you can provide. Recently, when training medical devices sales people we covered the list of questions they could be asking the buyers that would properly position their product’s capabilities. They all responded that they already knew the answers to these questions so why ask them? The answer is: artificial patience. You may know the answers, but the idea is to get the buyer involved. Buyers are best convinced by reasons they discover.
- Close when buyer is ready. Understanding the buyer’s needs and the ideal time to close are keys to success. As sellers become more experienced, they run the risk of moving the buying process along too quickly. Buyers must be allowed to arrive at a buying decision and the seller needs to facilitate the process. A sequence of events will help everyone see the steps to the process and understand the logical deal flow to closing.
Understanding deal killing/impatient behaviors will help the technical seller become the business partner the buyer is looking for and, if mastered, close ratios and revenue will increase.
Flannery Sales Systems helps companies to define (or refine) and implement a repeatable sales process. Increasing revenue through the sales process is the ultimate goal. We work with a broad cross section of industries with a specialty in life science and medical device companies. We are confident that we can enhance your results.
On Tuesday, March 6, join John Flannery at the Philadelphia Country Club for a round table discussion about generating revenue through sales process.
John will share insights into how to define (or refine) your sales process. This approach has helped his customers to:
- Use objective criteria to improve predictable revenue streams.
- Allocate human and technological resources efficiently .
- Increase visibility into new areas for growth.
Successful strategies used by top performing companies will be shared during this lively 60 minute session.
There is no fee to attend. Seating is limited.
Please email: mindy@drive-revenue.com or call (866)518-7039 to reserve your seat.
Continental Breakfast will be served.
March 6 from 7:30 – 9:30 a.m.
Philadelphia Country Club
1601 Spring Mill Road
Gladwyne, PA 19035
It's the time of year for reflection and goal making for the next year. Here are some resolutions, some for business and some more personal. Maybe it will help in developing your own list.
- Use a more targeted social media strategy to pad the pipeline. “Adapt or die” is what they say. You can't get anywhere without taking a step.
- Getting more business without involvement of booze or golf. – See number one as a way to possibly do that.
- Manage Stress More Effectively – Play more basketball and do more yoga.
- Qualify (and disqualify) prospects more quickly; we have 2 new customers for 2012, but could have weeded the suspects out sooner.
- Give back more to the community.
- Visit Mongolia – one more place off my bucket list.
- What is on your Resolutions list ?
On Thursday, March 17, join John Flannery for an executive briefing that will explore how to turn the cost cutting of 2010 to revenue building in 2011.
Over the past few years buying behavior has changed. This has had an impact on many companies’ ability to generate revenue. He will share insights into key revenue drivers and techniques for jump-starting your sales process. Successful strategies used by top performing companies will be shared.
Topics to be addressed:
- How do I focus our company’s sales resources to get the maximum ROI?
- How can marketing and sales work together more effectively?
- How do I improve the performance of the bottom half of my sales organization?
- How do I improve accuracy of my sales forecast?
Seating is limited. Please email mindy@drive-revenue.com or call (858) 350-6223 to reserve your seat.
March 17, 2011 from 7:30 – 9:30 a.m. A light breakfast will be served.
AMN Healthcare Boardroom
12400 High Bluff Drive
San Diego, CA 92130
We recently worked with a sales team to turn around a stalled opportunity that represented $150,000 in new revenue. We helped to apply the tools from our sales process workshops to first decide whether the opportunity was a fit with our customer's capabilities. The tools provide an objective framework to help accurately assess the opportunity. The framework helps answer the questions: Is it a fit with our product/service offering? And does it match the prospect's goals? This review helped to advance a “go/no go” decision point into a go.
We then coached our customer through the opportunity development that resulted in three key player/champion letters. When crafted properly, the champion letter is the most powerful tool to give momentum to a deal. Our customer saw the tools as “simple, yet extremely effective”. This sales rep had natural talent in his skill set. Now he had simple tools to improve his craft; he took an opportunity that had been stalled for 5 months and applied 3 simple, yet powerful tools and closed it in 4 weeks. Bring us your stalled opportunities and let us help your organization learn and apply simple principles that will drive your revenue in 2011.