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How to Make Sales a Win-Win Situation 

For years, selling focused on making enthusiastic, detailed presentations. To that end, product knowledge was key. Companies invested heavily in teaching their salespeople product knowledge at the expense of selling skills. Even today, it’s estimated that roughly 80% of the training salespeople receive is about product knowledge. Clearly, sales skills training has taken a back seat to. But at what cost?  

Why the product-first focus fails

Here’s a typical scenario that results from this kind of approach: XZY Software has brought their entire sales force to corporate headquarters for three days of intensive product training on the latest version of their software. The salespeople are shown how to demo the product, and they’re taught all the features, specifications, applications and more. At the end of the three days, they’re product experts.  

Imagine what’s likely to happen on the first sales call they make after training. Unless the prospect beats them to the point by asking about new software features, the salesperson will likely to lead with, “Let me tell you about our newest release. It’s got (feature A, feature B and feature C), and here’s how it can help you solve (problem A, problem B and problem C).”  

The prospect doesn’t even get a chance to talk about their needs. The focus on teaching product knowledge takes the focus off qualifying and asking questions. And this kind of “premature presentation” will hurt you more than it will help you, as it turns prospects off but also backfires.  

When a features focus backfires

When skills training was considered necessary, salespeople learned ways to overcome objections and close deals for a very good reason: Product pushers who overwhelmed prospects with features and benefits desperately needed those skills. However, there’s a flaw in pushing features and benefits that’s often overlooked: Sales pitches sometimes give prospects ammunition they can use for objections. For example, if the salesperson starts discussing features, specifications or pricing, the prospect can find something that compares unfavorably to the product he or she is currently using.  

On the other hand, if the salesperson limits the amount of information given, it’s more difficult for the prospect to find something to object to. Plus this leads to question-asking, not feature-pushing, when the salesperson pulls back and withholds information to focus on learning information instead. Investigative skills are more important than presentation skills in today’s selling environment that rewards the problem solver, not the product pusher. 

Sales should not be adversarial

Another misunderstanding is that the entire selling process has to be adversarial. Both parties seem to think they must gain the upper hand and not let the other take advantage of them. Feeling you have been taken advantage of leads to resentment and possible retribution at some point in the future. This is not a good foundation for a long-term business relationship. Years and years of manipulation by both parties have caused this unfortunate imbalance in the typical sales process. 

Sales should result in a win-win

Selling has to become a cooperative effort. When a sale is made, both parties must win or they shouldn’t do business together. To make this happen, the salesperson should start out by communicating the need to exchange enough information to find out if there is a reason to start a business relationship. If after exchanging information it doesn’t look like a fit, either party has the right to disengage.  

The focus of qualifying should be for the salesperson to ask questions about the business objectives the prospect wants to achieve, not on what the seller has to offer. At the end of the process, the seller will make his or her recommendations based on the answers to the qualifying questions and the prospect will give the seller a decision. No manipulation will be necessary by either party to gain an advantage. 

And we can finally say goodbye to product-focused presentations all about features and benefits too.  

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Having A Trustworthy Attitude

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Your Sales Attitude: Aggressive or Inquisitive? 

Trust is the foundation for success in sales. And the more complex the sale, the higher the dollar value of the sale, the more important trust is. Unfortunately, the general perception of salespeople causes buyers to be wary. As a result, the trust factor is very low initially—if any trust exists at all. Therefore the seller starts out at a distinct disadvantage and faces an uphill battle to earn trust. He or she has to first dispel the idea that their primary goal is to ensnare the buyer.  

To compound the problem, many salespeople show up with a misguided attitude. They come across as saying, “I’ve got the best solution available, and my job is to convince my prospects that I’m right. To do this, I will offer a precise, logical argument supported by as much data as necessary to prove my point. I will become skillful at overcoming their objections and if they don’t buy, I will be persistent and follow up relentlessly until I win their business.”  

This is the “try harder” approach: If you don’t get the sale, just try harder. These aggressive salespeople win points for effort, but not for effectiveness. This attitude just doesn’t fly. And certainly doesn’t build trust! 

An alternative approach: Ask questions

Contrast that attitude with an entirely different one, such as, “I firmly believe in my product or service. But I also realize not everyone is a prospect for what I sell. And I realize that the harder I try to sell, the less receptive my prospect will be. Therefore, my best strategy is an inquisitive approach, to ask questions and encourage the prospect to tell me about his/her situation without fear that I might take advantage of them. Coming to a point of understanding without the pressure of trying to sell will meet both the prospect’s needs and my company’s needs most effectively.”  

Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. Which salesperson would you prefer to deal with, the aggressive one or the inquisitive one? Which person would you trust the most? Which attitude takes the pressure off? Most people would prefer—and be more likely to trust—the inquisitive salesperson. 

What kind of attitude are your salespeople taking? How’s that working for you?  

 

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Understanding the 3 Phases of the Buyer’s Journey

Each of the engagements we have with our customers begins with a thorough understanding of their business objectives. We then back up and attempt to help our customers to identify how their customers get to them or if they initiate the contact. We delve into questions such as, what steps did the prospects that looked at their organization go through to get from interest to on–boarding?  

The concept of the buyer’s journey
There is a lot of noise in the sales enablement space today about mapping “the customer’s journey” and then aligning it to the sales process. This is hardly a new approach. It is a dust–off of a three–decade–old concept, decked out with fresh wrapping paper, buzzwords and a shiny bow to get companies to think more about customers than themselves and the products they sell. A dust-off yes, but still a useful approach if it helps sales teams to understand the phases of the buyer’s journey. 

In order to help our customers understand what is important to their customers, we rely on the research done by Neil Rackham. Rackham is the author of SPIN Selling. Rackham’s research yielded a chart that documents the three phases a buyer goes through, as well as what is important to the buyer in each of the phases. Much has been written about this research, and the use of the model has gone through adaptations when major innovative and market forces, such as the Internet, have entered the environment. But in general, the phases hold true.  

  • Phase 1 is called Solution Development. At this time, the main concern of the buyer is their needs, although we often replace the word “needs” with “business objectives.”  
  • Phase 2 is called the Evaluation. During this phase, the most important component to the buyer is proof: proof that your organization’s services and capabilities can match the buyer’s business objectives.  
  • Phase 3 is called Commitment. The most important component to the buyer when they are ready to commit, or make a decision, is risk. The risk comes from the uncertainty of knowing if their selection will do what was promised. This is especially true when moving from one competitor and another in the same industry.   

Note that price and cost are of course concerns for the buyer, but never are they the most important concern at any point in the sales cycle. Despite what you have heard about phrases like “sharpen your pencil,” or “give me your best and final,” price is rarely the final factor, and you’ll see it’s conspicuously absent from the three phases described above.    

Do you know which phase your buyer is in? 
It’s important to understand what phase your customer is in when you engage with them and make sure you identify what’s important to them. You also must recognize when different buyers are in different phases. For example, you could have three different buyers in an organization at different places along the buying phases spectrum.  

It is the sales person job to make sure that they cover all three of the buyers’ phases, regardless of where the buyer is on the initial contact. This is one of the reasons that proactive new business development is critical for sales people. If they can initiate the identification of a business objective, they will be in the driver’s seat to shape how that gets addressed, preferably in a specified solution that your competition can’t offer.    

An engaged sales process means knowing your buyer’s business objectives, offering them proof, and getting them to commit.  

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Strategic Selling: How effective is your Value Message?

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Value proposition is a phrase that became ubiquitous during the 90’s dot.com (dot bomb?) era. You may still encounter this, or the “value messaging” term on a regular basis in the business world. Buzz word or not, value messaging will help quickly convey the value of your product or service without overwhelming or boring potential customers away in a landslide of features and benefits dumping.

Based on the research performed by Sirius Decisions, communication plays the biggest role in sales failures. The number one inhibitor to achieving your sales quota is the inability to communicate value messages, followed closely by an information gap, and then by having too many products to know.

Top Inhibitors to Achieving Sales Quotas
Insufficient leads: 13.3%
Poor sales skills: 16%
Too many products to know: 21.4%
Information gap: 24.3%
Inability to communicate value message: 26%

If you can’t articulate what your product is in a simple manner that is easy to digest, how do you expect customers to understand why they should choose you over the competition? To get you on the right track, here are three strategy development tips to work against these statistics and help you develop and convey a powerful value message:

    1. Learn about your customers – Develop an ideal customer persona.  First, from a demographic or “firmographic” perspective, do your research.  Learn about their market, what they sell, how much they sell, the organization size and the roles involved in the decision making process.  Next, conduct informational interviews within your network.  Talk to anyone in the industry who has been exposed to your ideal customer.  Even third hand knowledge can be valuable in preparing for the next step – which is to talk to your customers and/or prospects.  Find out about their goals, how they measure and track their success, and ask about their pain points.  Once you have a solid definition of your ideal customer persona, you’re equipped with the knowledge to successfully position yourself to appeal to your target audience.
    2. Demonstrate value – Take what you’ve learned about your customer; their pain points, needs and goals to start crafting a message that demonstrates the value of your product from their perspective. How will your product eliminate pain points and help them achieve daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly goals? Messaging that shows that you, the seller, understands the customer’s view point will make your message much more powerful than an organization that suffers from “Me Syndrome” and constantly talks about themselves and product capabilities.  Here are two examples of how you can paint a picture for the customer:
        • “Imagine a day without the stress of x, y, and z. With the time you save you’ll be able to accomplish twice as much of what you need to do.”
        • “Whether it’s daily, weekly or yearly we understand that goals are always top of mind. Let (product X) help reduce the time it takes to meet those goals by taking advantage of x and y capabilities.”
    3. Position and differentiate –What makes you different from your competitors? Is it your exceptional customer service, large number of capabilities, or the price of your product? Whatever it is, be sure to reiterate the difference across all sales and marketing channels, and especially when you’re physically speaking with a prospect or customer. Proper positioning involves being able to identify who you, as an organization are, and consistently demonstrate that to prospects and customers. A mistake some companies make is forgetting to consistently use the same positioning statements and language in sales and marketing when speaking about how they help your customers create value. Make sure what you’re saying on your website is demonstrated similarly on your social channels, in your marketing materials and through the words that sales reps use with customers. It sounds obvious, but unfortunately many organizations fail to do this.

Successful sales strategies are all about the creativity and adaptability that your sales management can create in conjunction with Marketing. Understanding your customer, demonstrating value and positioning yourself are all simple strategies to help streamline the sales process. Don’t fall into the 26% that are unable to communicate value messages about their product consistently and effectively.

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Establishing Value Around Your Product or Service

John recently addressed the Association of Language Companies (ALC) at their annual conference held in San Diego. The ALC is a professional organization of commercial translation and interpretation companies who operate in a global capacity.

The following video is a five minute outtake of the dialogue conducted. Listen in for the framework on how to help your customers and prospects understand the value that you provide. If you would like the tools that are mentioned, simply e mail to john@drive-revenue and they will be forwarded to you.

 

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Reinforcing Sales Skills: Try Our Online Learning Portal (OLP) for FREE

The Flannery Sales Systems’ OLP is another tool we created to:

  1. Enable our customers to understand buyer behavior
  2. Reinforce the core concepts and selling skills of Sales Process for all individuals in customer facing roles.
  3. Provide practice and repetition of skills in a self-paced, ongoing basis.
  4. Help Managers to understand where their sellers are competent, where they need coaching, and how to improve results.

The web based portal (view screen shot here) includes:`

  • Six reinforcement videos by sales stage and skill; each are 5 to 7 minutes long (click here to view a sample)
  • e-Toolkits that support each stage
  • A reinforcement quiz for each stage
  • The Manager’s Coaching Room
  • Support with live phone coaching sessions

In a previous article (How To Make Learning Stick), one of the key tenets of Adult Learning Theory emphasized a need for a learner (salesperson) to use repetition as a way to embed additional skills into their everyday routine.

Coaching is a major component to reinforce the use of enhanced skills, but until the new skills are entrenched, coaching will be difficult. The portal is designed to provide the repetition, and then offers the visibility for a specific skill that needs improvement (i.e. qualification, establishing value, negotiation, etc.).

Once the salespeople go through all six modules, Managers will be able to see the results of the scores on the quizzes completed. This provides the Managers with the objectivity needed to pinpoint coaching efforts.

Sales skills is often one of the last things to be addressed in the overscheduled world of most Sales Managers. The OLP provides Managers with an objective way to assess skills, as well as a platform to create skill related topics for sales team meetings.

Marketing, Customer Service and Inside Sales personnel can also benefit from the use of this valuable tool, as the OLP provides a window into the buyer’s world, the sales process that is being used in the field, and how other customer facing roles can use it in their respective roles.

For your FREE 30 DAY TRIAL, please contact John Flannery at john@drive-revenue.com or call 858-518-7039.

 

 

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Flannery Sales Systems at ProMat Show in Chicago this week

John will join his long-time customer ID Systems  at ProMat in Chicago this week. Mark Stanton, GM of IDSY has invited John to the show to speak with the ISDY Dealers, and see how they can benefit from the use of the IDSY Sales Process.

We know how strong the Dealer network is for IDSY, and look forward to exploring additional ways we can help them to grow their revenue in 2019 through the usage and deeper connections in the sales process.

If you are attending ProMat, or are in Chicago this week and would like to meet up with John, text or call him at 858 518-7039.

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Sales Pros Must Attend Continuing Education: Sales 3.0 Conference in SFO

 

John is attending the Selling Power 3.0 Conference in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday of this week. The purpose for spending 2 full days out of the field is to gather information that will help Flannery Sales Systems’ customers to drive revenue.

As a great Sales Manager once said “If you are coasting (in your career), you are usually going downhill.” Don’t let that happen to you!  We are committed to learning and sharing important new information from Sales 3.0 with individuals in all customer facing roles, not just sales.

 

 

 

Here are two thought provoking concepts from the conference:

  • Relationship sellers are 63% less likely to ask tough questions of customers and prospects because they have an overriding need to be liked
  • Growth and comfort never co-exist

If you’re attending this conference, or in the Bay Area and would like to speak to John about how to improve your revenue generation, give him a text or call at 858-518-7039    #salestraining #salesconference #salesleadership #S30C

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Stop Presenting

In three separate conversations, I was contacted by 2 sales representatives and one entrepreneur who asked to provide a critique of a presentation that they were taking to a prospect. While the circumstances around each were different, there was one common challenge I identified following each conversation-information around a solution, product, or service was being presented way too soon! None of the three understood how the prospect ran their business without the recommendation that they would prescribe. And only one realized how this approach would lower their chances of a successful outcome, even if they did (for some strange reason) win the business.

A sales presentation is often the prelude to closing the sale.  Stop for a minute to think that the sales presentation is more like third base.  Understanding how a prospect would use your product or service, what their title was, what the decision making process is, what problem is solved by buying from you are all the issues that will get you to first or second base.  Jumping right to the boilerplate sales presentation is one sure way to be knocked out of the game.

Today’s marketplace is very unforgiving.  Buyers have more information and less time than ever before.   Asking the right questions and taking the time to listen and learn about how to help solve a buyer’s problem is the road to success.  Sellers will have fewer opportunities to be “at bat” so make sure that your presentations count.  Make sure your sales organization is not squandering those opportunities by practicing “spray & pray”.

Flannery Sales Systems helps organizations develop and implement a repeatable sales process.  Improving the effectiveness of your sales organization is a key success strategy for the coming year.  We would welcome an opportunity to explore your needs and understand where you could benefit from an improved skills and processes.  Only then would we consider making you a presentation!  Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident that we can enhance your results.

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Flannery Sales Systems to attend PITTCON Conference

Flannery Sales Systems to attend PITTCON Conference

We are  pleased to be participating in PITTCON,  the world’s leading annual conference and exposition on laboratory science. Pittcon attracts attendees from industry, academia and government from over 90 countries worldwide. We will be attending the conference this Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19 and 20 in Philadelphia. John E. Flannery, President of FSS will be on hand to speak with Sales and Marketing leaders about fine-tuning their efforts to drive revenue.

“We help all individuals in customer facing roles with the tactical execution of their GoTo Market strategy, which equates to one effective customer conversation at a time” says Flannery, who has worked for customers within the laboratory science sector. The inclusion of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Technical Expertise in the execution of sales process has proven invaluable in meeting and exceeding revenue objectives.

For an individual conversation with John, contact him at 858 518-7039 or john@drive-revenue.com

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