SALES ADVICE Archives - Page 5 of 5

Who Leads The Way? The Buyer Or Seller?

If the Buyer Is in the Lead, Your Sales Process Has Fallen Behind

One day a salesman approached me while I was working in my yard. He was selling house painting services and asked me if I was interested in getting my house painted. I said yes. Then he made a mistake that allowed me to take over and lead the conversation. He began to speak to me as if I were ready to sign on the dotted line. I led him on and he was surprised when he couldn’t close the deal. His error? He mistook my curiosity as motivation to buy what he was selling. This stumble on his part allowed me to gather information I wanted without any real intention of buying.

Although this interaction happened in my front yard, this kind of scenario takes places in all sorts of sales situations as buyers take the lead. And when buyers lead, sellers lose.

How can you teach your salespeople to recognize this kind of buyer? Share with them these three ways buyers manipulate the salesperson and then leave them disappointed when they can’t close the deal:

Dangling False Carrots. False carrots are statements like “I’m interested, I’m looking for information, I’m having a problem with,” etc. These declarations draw the seller in. The sales person thinks they have a hot lead, but in reality the buyer may only be looking for information. In my case, I’d thought about painting my house, but I wasn’t ready any time soon. I was just curious. I began asking questions just to get information from the seller. I asked questions like, how long does it take, what should I paint, who does the actual painting. I was asking all the questions and he was doing all the talking. Who was in control of the process? I was.

Asking for Prices First. When the buyer is in control, this question is asked early on. In my example, I was curious how much his great service was going to cost. This guy spent 90 minutes working up a quote. He was satisfying my curiosity. He asked no qualifying questions, and he was giving me information for free. Why wouldn’t I take it? When finished with the quote, he gave me a great presentation as to why I should use his company complete with testimonials from neighbors who’d used their service. It all sounded great and the price seemed fair and reasonable. However, I still wasn’t ready to buy.

Delaying Rejection. Because I wasn’t ready to commit, I ended the conversation with the dreaded “Let me think about it.” Even though I knew there was a slim chance that I was going to purchase, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I thought he was a nice guy and I didn’t want to let him down. Besides, I got what I wanted: a quote. I had something to use as a benchmark for when I would be serious about painting my house, a dollar amount I could use to negotiate a better price with another painter. And he got nothing but a “I’d like to think it over” statement. He wasted a couple of hours chasing a sale that wasn’t going to happen.

He followed up a few days later to be told “no.” I’m sure he was surprised because he didn’t realize his mistake.

Did it have to go this way for him? Not at all. What could he have done differently? He could have managed his defined sales process with checkpoints. A sales process defines what you need to know from the buyer before sharing information or moving to the next step. Without a defined process, the buyer takes over and draws the seller in. The buyer is in the lead and the sales person can’t get that lead back.

If you or your sales people have you ever been told, “I need to think it over,” that’s a sure sign your sales process needs some adjustment.

July 15, 2019/by Malinee

The Art of Making Concessions

SALES ADVICE

We should be trying to create a win/win outcome in every negotiation in order to insure a strong and lasting business relationship. While concessions are an essential element in any negotiation, they can be a threat to maintaining your credibility. The following suggestions will help you improve your results when concessions are necessary.

Make a list of value items.

Prior to the negotiation, identify and list the important items/issues for the other party but which have little value to you. Likewise, make a list of items/services that you want in return (these may be both valuable or small concessions for the other party). Use these items when concessions are brought up. Be prepared!

Never respond immediately to a request for a concession.

Take your time. A pause will add uncertainty to the other party, it will add value to the concession if you do make it and you will have more time to think about a comparable concession to request. All of this raises your credibility.

Never make a concession without asking for one in return.

As previously mentioned, making unilateral concessions is a big mistake. It sends the wrong message and you lose an opportunity to improve your position. Always ask for something of equal or greater value in return. If you are asked for a concession, you can simply respond, “The only way I could do that is if you could do something for me. I’d need you to ____________. How do you feel about that?”

Beware of “insignificant” concessions.

Small, “insignificant” concessions can add if up if the other party constantly asks for more. Always read their entire proposal before agreeing to a “small” concession. This gives you more power/credibility and provides chances to ask for more concessions from their side. If this becomes an issue, call them on it: “In addition to that, are there other items that you’re interested in?” This forces the other party to reveal all of their wishes at once so that they don’tcontinue to peck away at you with more requests.

Try to design a system for making concessions.

When necessary, such as negotiating with someone who wants to play hardball, set the tone and the ground rules up front so there is no miscommunication. An easy approach would be to say, “You give me a concession, and I’ll give you one.” This is an honored technique that’s been used cross-culturally for thousands of years and can be used today with anyone in almost any negotiation.

Never say never.

By saying “no” or “we can’t do that,” you limit your own options. Instead, consider saying to the other party, “Hmmm…that may be difficult for us. Can you think of any possible alternatives you may want to consider?” or, “It’s a possibility if you can do ________ for us.” To use this approach effectively, you must know your list of value items well.

Don’t ask for unreasonable concessions.

You want to reach a final agreement by finding mutually agreeable items for both sides. Therefore, don’t ask for concessions you don’t believe you will get. Also, be prudent with any offer because the other party may accept it.

Know your business’ needs and bottom line.

Never give something away or work for a concession if it doesn’t make sense for your business.

The “value” of price.

Price is seldom the real issue. The conviction that a person has that he is receiving overall value in the deal is usually the true issue. Consequently, a good deal results from the belief that the person is receiving a good deal.

Make sure the other party walks away feeling like a winner.

If the other negotiator can go back to their company and say, “This is what I won for us from the deal,” he will feel like he succeeded. Successful negotiators with a win/win philosophy can make this look easy.

June 13, 2019/by John Flannery

Worst Sales Advice from around the Web

SALES ADVICE

We’ve all received questionable sales advice at some point during our careers – some from mentors or managers, some from peers, and sadly some even from training experts and consultants who are paid to know better.

We’ve spent some time scouring the web to uncover some of these pearls so we can share them here with you here. Enjoy!

1. “Here is a script, read it…”

Nothing says “I have no clue what you do” more than using a generic sales script. Reading from a script is impersonal and prevents you from having a genuine two-way conversation and building rapport.

2. Sales is just a numbers game

Sales is not just about numbers, and cold calling alone is not going to drive results. If you’re only relying on cold calls alone and not finding genuine leads who are actually interested in your product, you’re wasting your time and their time.

3. “Selling is telling”

This one made us laugh – it’s got a quite a ring to it, you must admit. Unfortunately, it was actually a common theme to training programs during the early 80’s. How wrong it was, yet, unbelievably, so many “sales professionals” thought it was right!

4. Always be closing (ABC)

This one conjures up an image of the stereotypical used car salesman. Unfortunately, as any good sales professional knows, customers hate being pushed and really hate pushy sellers. Customers want you to have their best interests at heart and to help them make the best decision, even if that decision is to buy elsewhere or not to buy at all. That’s impossible when you’re concentrating exclusively on closing the sale.

5. Mirror and matching

This one has to be our favorite – as if sales people don’t have enough to handle building rapport, adding valuable insights, asking the right questions and taking great notes. Do we really expect them to cross their arms when the prospect crosses their arms? Really?

What is the worst sales advice you’ve ever received? Don’t be shy…chime in! This stuff is too good not to share.

May 31, 2019/by John Flannery

Choose the Right Channel to Please Your Prospects from the Start

SALES ADVICE

Channel surfing used to mean sitting front of a television with a remote in hand, click click clicking away. But these days, with so many ways for salespeople to make contact with prospects, you might describe channel surfing as switching from one means of communication to another as we try to figure out the best way to reach out to potential customers.

As salespeople in the digital age, we all have the channel we’re most comfortable with. Someone older might prefer the phone while someone younger might reach out directly via LinkedIn. And then there’s someone in the middle who is most comfortable with email. But guess what? What we want doesn’t matter. We as the salespeople have to choose the channel that works for our prospects, not for us.

There are several reasons for this: One, you’ll make a better impression by using the channel your prospect prefers and they will feel more comfortable with you from the start. Two, they’ll be more responsive because they get to respond using that channel. And three, you’re setting the stage for a better experience from the start by putting their preferences first in this way.

How do you know which channel to use for which prospect? You can’t really, although you can make educated guesses. But what you can do is understand the reasons for and against using the three most common channels for contacting prospects, and when one channel might be preferred over another.

Email—for the coldest of cold calls

Although phone calls used to be the primary prospecting tool, email has replaced the telephone as the most common way to reach out to new prospects. On the plus side, it’s less intrusive when compared to a phone call—especially when they don’t know you—and it gives the prospect an opportunity to respond when the time is right for her (or not at all). For the salesperson, it takes less time than a phone call, allowing for more prospecting in a day. In addition, an email can offer links to a website or other information the prospect might be interested in, and they can act on that interest when they want to.

On the other hand, not knowing if a prospect read or even received your email is one of the downsides to this channel. So is the competition you’ll face in that inbox. It would be wonderful if your email was the only one to pop up, but we both know that’s not the case. Your email could be one of a hundred your prospect receives on any given day.

The phone—for the prospect you’ve met before

Although the phone has really fallen out of favor among salespeople as a way to contact prospects the first time, and Millennials don’t want anything to do with making or taking phone calls, a phone call can be effective when you’ve been introduced to someone or been given their name by a referral. So don’t cross it off your list just yet. Plus a you’ll know when a phone call got through—unlike an email—and you can get to know the person on the other end of the line when you do connect with them in a way you can’t digitally. And that’s true of your voicemail message too: You can convey much more warmth and personality in a voicemail than an email!

Social media—get to know someone before reaching out

Then there’s social media, the new way to contact prospects. Social media might be the best channel if you’re trying to reach someone who is obviously active in that arena, with plenty of followers and a lot of time spent on the platform. In addition, using social media—in particular LinkedIn—gives you a chance to get to know that prospect and even connect with them in advance of reaching out.

With social media, you can comment on a discussion they’re part of or an article they’ve published, join the industry group they’re most active in, and make yourself visible. That way when you reach out the first time, they will already know who you are—and you’ll know about their business and pain points!

On the other hand, social media is probably an ineffective way to contact someone who has never heard of you or your business, because we’ve all been on the receiving end of those messages. And is there anything less “social” than a total stranger messaging you directly in that way?

Keep in mind the context and connection

When choosing a channel, keep in mind the context and the connection you have thus far. Email might be best for the coldest contact, a phone call could work for someone you’ve been introduced to, and a social media connection can work if you’ve built some kind of rapport online already.

Then you can stop surfing, and simply choose the channel that works best for each prospect right from the very start!

January 22, 2019/by Malinee

Help Your Salespeople Hold Pricing

SALES ADVICE

How will you focus your team this month to successfully close business and maximize revenue potential? One key way is to avoid discounting. This may be easier said than done, especially in the fourth quarter when buyers are working hard to get the best deals possible. But, here are two proven skills we teach our clients in every workshop we run.

Prove Value

This is one of the most fundamental and important skills we work on with salespeople, and it is central to any customer-focused selling methodology. In order to avoid heavy discounting at the end of the sales cycle, sellers must thoroughly understand their customers’ primary business objectives, the key challenges they face that prevent them from achieving those objectives, and the financial impact of doing nothing. Then, they must align the specific product/service capabilities with those challenges in the form of a question, such as “if you had a printing service that could turn around jobs in 24 hours and offers free delivery, how would that solve the challenge you’d mentioned related to compressed timelines and skyrocketing costs?”

Once that value has been established, when buyers ask for the discount at the end of the sales cycle (they will ask for some concession), sellers can return to the value they had both agreed their product or service would bring. When asked for the discount, a seller might say, “you agreed that using our printing services would save you an estimated $50,000/yr in rush charges and delivery fees. Has anything changed since our last conversation?” Reminding buyers of the value of your solution and the cost to them of not changing is key to closing business without price concessions.

For more on the questions sellers should ask in order to thoroughly establish value, take a look at our three-part series “Helping Your Customers Achieve Their Objectives”.

Refine Negotiation Skills

Proving value is something all good sellers do at the beginning of the sales cycle, while skillful negotiating happens at all stages. You’ll often hear sellers say, “he’s just a good negotiator,” as if it’s something you’re born with and you either have it, or you don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. All salespeople can be trained to be great negotiators. Here’s what they must know:

Have a negotiation plan – you must be prepared for a negotiation – you can’t just “wing it”. Before walking into any closing meeting, sellers should have a plan in place to respond to pressure.
Know your floor – calculate the lowest price you’ll go to in order to preserve margin and revenue opportunities for you and your company.
Push back – remind your buyer about the agreed-upon value of your product, or if they’re prepared to deal with the cost of not moving forward.
Offer other concessions – be ready to offer your customer other concessions that aren’t related to price, things like extended warranty, training, a dedicated service rep, etc. These offer your customers value without eroding your margins. But…if you do offer something, be sure to ask for something in return. What can your customer give you? Think about things like exclusives, referrals, testimonials, etc.
Be prepared to walk away/Have a full pipeline – there are times when a buyer will not move forward without unreasonable discount requests, and good sellers must be prepared to walk. Tell your buyer, “I’m not going to be able to offer you the discount you’re requesting. But, what I would like to do is take some time to think about our conversation today and get back with you next week.” Sometimes knowing that they’ve pushed you as low as you’ll go is all a buyer needs to move forward.
PRACTICE– as with all skill development, practice is key to mastery. Role-play negotiations to prepare for big meetings. Practice pushing back and offering non-price concessions in exchange for something of value to your organization.

In summary, ensuring your sellers are able to prove value and negotiate effectively is key to helping them avoid the price concessions that customers are sure to request .

November 29, 2016/by Malinee

4 Ways to Get More Active Selling Time From Your Team

SALES ADVICE

Plenty of sales reps think that productivity is the same as staying busy, or at least “looking busy”. Strategy meetings, internet research, emails, social networking, golf dates, and dinners may be keeping reps “busy”, but such activities may be inconsequential to the bottom line. Let’s define sales productivity as the ability to produce. Productivity is measured by yield or throughput.

Here are four tips to help increase the productivity of your sales team giving them more active selling time:

1. Analyze Current Processes

Do a health check on the selling processes currently being followed by your team. Although each sales rep’s process may be unique, consider the following key productivity drains across your team: How much time is spent weekly on administrative tasks? How many calls are being made on qualified vs. unqualified opportunities? How many in-person calls end in a sale? What is the average time of lead to sale? What is the current cost of sale? A good sales process based on the analysis of the data retrieved from these questions will provide guidelines for keeping productivity in check.

2. Define Expectations/Goals

Every team member needs to know what is expected of him/her. Once new expectations are set, look at your team and see who needs help organizing their time and territory. Help reps prioritize which opportunities are worthy of their time and get rid of the ones that are not qualified. Being on qualified sales calls is where results will happen. Once you set expectations, expect them. Set up a streamlined accountability process of reps’ progress toward outlined expectations.

3. Leverage Technology

Reduce the administrative responsibilities required by your reps by providing an electronic format for as many tasks as possible. A good CRM system will automate certain tasks and keep customer data organized. Technology can also aid you in getting quality lead lists. Monitor social channels. Set up alerts on topics of interest and respond to those who show buying signals. Consider timesaving video calls and web conferencing. There are hundreds of time saving sales technology tools out there that can help increase the productivity of your team.

4. Increase your Team’s Skills and Knowledge

Sales training, and coaching are important for every salesperson, no matter how experienced they are. There are always new skill sets to learn and new tools to master. Analyze deficient sales skills in the individuals on your team and coach to those needs. These skills may include phone etiquette, product knowledge, industry knowledge, customer engagements and rapport, presentations, and everyone’s favorite topic: negotiation. Look for a training company that will offer a customized approach to developing specific relevant skills for your team.

Try these tips and you will see increased productivity in your team. The measure of success will be evident in a yield to be enjoyed: More revenue!

February 22, 2014/by John Flannery

The 3 M’s: Getting Buyers to Change

SALES ADVICE

It seems ridiculous to think that change from a typewriter to a computer was anything but a “no brainer”. It wasn’t. In fact, there are still published authors, John Irving to name one, that write entire novels in long hand or on typewriters. Without the vision of how a change will provide benefits, very little may occur.

Getting a prospect to adopt your product or service and make a fundamental change in how they do business is hard, yet sometimes necessary. The best way I know to get a prospect from no to “Yes, I’ll consider making a change”, is mastering the 3 M’s of establishing value. If they can’t see any value or in other words a compelling reason to make a change, then they will stay firmly in the no column.

Measurement. – find out how the buyer measures value. What we want to measure is something that gets a number in dollars. The best numbers are not based on opinion or conjecture. Asking questions helps determine what numbers the buyer values most. With medical devices, value dollars are measured by recovery times and reimbursements; with fleet management it’s fuel efficiency and driver safety, and in the food business it’s waste and storage costs. These are all costs, costs that you can help them reduce with your product. How much can you help to reduce their costs? This is establishing value with monetary results. Dollar savings is a powerful value illustrator.
Mechanism – What’s the mechanism you use to calculate the value? In the food industry it’s cost to store food per square foot, in fleet management it’s miles per gallon. Does your client have one? If not, co-create it. To have an effective mechanism the prospect needs to agree on the way the value is measured.
Meaning – How do you analyze the data you created or co created with the buyer in step 2? These numbers should be analyzed to improve the bottom line. For example, a driver in a truck’s fleet reduces the average driving speed from 65 to 64 miles per hour; the driver will realize $100 savings from increased fuel efficiency per month, thereby, saving $1200 per year per vehicle in fuel. That alone has meaning to the buyer. To provide greater meaning and more value as a sales partner, the seller should also provide context. Give them context as to what you’ve seen in your industry or with other clients. This is what context sounds like, “Mr. Buyer the other companies in your industry that has adopted this fuel efficiency strategy, and they realized on average a savings of $ 1200 per year per vehicle.”

The 3 M’s are measurement, the mechanism by which value is measured and meaning (dollars) to the measurement. When value is established, the risk of changing is diminished. If there is still hesitancy, start again at step one because you never found out the measurement that the buyer valued most. We help clients frame the conversation with their buyers to include value in their conversations. These tools, if used properly, will help buyers change from their old ways to your new ways.

Let Flannery Sales Systems help your sales staff sharpen their skills in establishing value.

October 22, 2012/by John Flannery

The Top 3 Milestones for Sales Success

SALES ADVICE

Over the past few years, the majority of the work that we have done with customers is on defining (or refining) their sales process. This was necessitated by the dramatic changes exhibited in buying behavior during the pandemic. And indeed, the most important aspect of our customer’s sales processes is that it mirrors how their customers buy from them. During conversations in both a formal and informal settings, we are asked “how many steps should there be in the sales process?” If we knew that exact answer for each of our customers, we would be retired and they would have Instagram-like success!

So instead of trying to pinpoint the exact number of steps in a sales process, here are the must have, Top Three milestones that each team/seller must have in place to assure success. Please note that very few of our B to B customers have only 3 milestones (or stages), but when pushed to the wall, here are the 3 you can’t live (or sell) without:

1- Access to the Key Players (Decision Maker): there is nothing new to the notion that you must get access to all of the key players, but the budget scrutiny that many organizations have placed on all expenditures since 2008 has made this step even more difficult. A clear articulation on how all important titles would benefit from the usage of your product/service is a mandatory requirement for completing this stage.

2- Clear Understanding of Value: once you have the access as described in #1, can the individuals understand the value that your offering provides. Without this, you will be dancing in the dark when it comes time to go into the evaluation phase.

3- An Approved Implementation Plan: approved as you co-develop the opportunity with your customer/prospect, not after the deal is signed. This sole step can help you to determine your “pole position” deep into opportunity development, and the seriousness of the participant’s gauges how “sticky” your solution will be thereafter.

One of our customers in the Medical Device industry was struggling to get into conversations with the key players in their existing customer base on a new offering they had obtained through an acquisition. The offering was an existing diagnostic test with a new enhanced feature. The challenge was that the enhanced feature provided a benefit that had never been completely commercialized. We sat down with a cross functional team from their organization and built a pro-forma model of what impact the solution had on the existing practices in the testing environment, and who would benefit from this. They went searching for data to substantiate their assertions of what value this add-on widget could provide. They found a reputable research company that had done a study that provided the information they were looking for. We were able to help build a dollar value and a testing value into a pro-forma model (Benefit Summary). The Benefit Summary provided all involved with a complete understanding of the value of their new enhanced feature.

Next, we helped them to create a prototype of an Implementation Plan that correlated with how they could roll this out to their customers. Once completed, the sales process plan was delivered and executed with their main customers. As a result, they have successfully sold an additional 12% in total revenue on this product alone in an $80 million dollar division.

What are you or your organization waiting for to drive more revenue? Let us help you to define (or refine) these steps and start picking up incremental revenue now!

May 4, 2012/by John Flannery

Maintaining Momentum In Quarter Four

SALES ADVICE, SALES COACHING, SALES LEADERSHIP

This time of year brings thoughts of Thanksgiving, Christmas and 2024. For some sales organizations it brings a number of worried thoughts and concerns as well. Will we hit quota, is the pipeline as strong as it needs to be, and do we have the right players in place? Are our buyers as committed to us as the information reflected in our recent correspondence? Or have they slowed the communication down?

For some, the pressure is mounting to close the year out in a strong capacity and it seems like requests are coming from every direction – senior management, buyers and the sales team. Don’t panic. There is time to assess the situation and make some course corrections. Here are some solid steps you can take to bring in the 4th Quarter business:

Grade your Pipeline. Do it early in the quarter (aka NOW) and often if the opportunities don’t seem as solid as desired. Lower probability opportunities should be re-qualified and moved to 2024 if a Q4 close doesn’t seem to be realistic.
Manage your Buyers. Some buyers will let the clock tick to the end of the year for concessions. If a buyer senses that a seller is too desperate, too needy or tips his hand that he is behind budget, prepare to have your margin eroded. Seek to establish milestones early in the quarter so buyers don’t feel like they are being pressured at Quarter’s end. Negotiate from a position of strength. If a seller reviews milestones with a buyer and offers Quarter 1 target dates, the buyer will believe that you have a full pipeline and may communicate a commitment to close earlier. The seller must be strategic about allocation of time and resources. If a buyer is not ready to move, adding them to the 2024 pipeline may be the smartest move.
Maintain Business Development Activities. Start to identify opportunities for 2024. Too often sales teams have moved from crisis to crisis and fail to understand that insufficient business development activities are the cause of the reoccurring nightmare. Don’t buy the argument that sales staff can only step up their game under pressure. Every major league coach knows that games are won on the practice fields and that good behaviors and performance are exhibited on game day only after detailed preparation. Early business development activities insure that sufficient time is available for the lead to be nurtured.
Assess your bench. Do you have the right people on the team? What resources do you need to deploy to close the deals you need to hit quota? Are additional skills and practice needed to increase your close rate? What approaches are going to be the most effective with your buyers? Is there an opportunity to improve the skill set of the sales team? Can you role play the critical opportunities to maximize the potential for a successful outcome? Is there a development plan for 2024 that you should be budgeting for now based on the assessments and opportunities for improved performance?

October 24, 2011/by John Flannery