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If your sales conversations with buyers seem too focused on price, they probably are. Why is that happening? Because the buyer only sees what you’re selling as a commodity, meaning interchangeable goods indistinguishable from the competition’s.

In a buyer-seller relationship, the verb commoditize often applies. It’s what the buyer tries to do to you during a sales cycle, to make you think that your product or service is interchangeable with other brands so they can beat you up on price.

Does that sound familiar? Probably! No matter what you’re selling, at some point in the sales cycle, usually near the end after the deal is forecast to close at “the end of this quarter,” the buyer starts treating your product or service and even YOU as a commodity. You will suddenly hear them say things like, “I can get the same thing elsewhere for a lower price.” They would happily replace you too as well with a different salesperson. That is unless, of course, you’ll admit that they are right by discounting the price.

How Buyers Get the Seller to Only Talk About Price

You know that your products or services aren’t the same as the competition’s, but you probably find yourself in this price-focused situation more often than you would like. And now you’re “buying in” to the idea that yes, it is just a commodity you’re selling. Buyers repeatedly tell you that the criterion for product or service selection in your industry is based on “best price,” so you’ve become convinced that you have to discount in order to win business. And now you too are price-focused.

Here’s what typically happens: You meet with a potential customer, anxious to describe or demonstrate the high-quality, amazing, customer-friendly, popular, easy-to-use, etc. capabilities and benefits of your offering. The customer seems interested and asks you for a price quote. Back at the office, you convince your manager that you could “win this” if she’d just discount a little bit.

What has happened? You let the buyer make it about price and you fell for the idea that you’re only selling a commodity. You were guilty of prescribing your products or services without first diagnosing the unique needs of the person you were talking to. And that’s a form of selling malpractice. You accepted the product or service and even yourself as a “me-too” solution, allowing commoditization to occur.nAt Flannery Sales Systems, we’ve heard stories like these for years, in every industry we have worked in.

You set yourself up as a commodity by failing to position the unique capabilities of your offering in order to differentiate your product or service within a competitive environment. Your customers didn’t have the experience to know what separated you from your competitor. It was your job to assist them in making a valuable connection between their needs and your unique selling proposition so they could see that your organization could provide them with something that the competition couldn’t. You missed the opportunity to win.

Differentiation Takes the Conversation Away from Price

Flannery Sales Systems helps organizations develop a process for diagnosing the potential needs and objectives of target customers, and providing those customers with specific objectives that they should be focused on in their industry. In doing so, we can help you position your unique products or services in a way that a potential customer will see your differentiator as a “must have,” avoiding the “It’s all the same to me” scenario. You have the option: position your own goods, or your competition will do it for you, and you’ll end up with the limited options of discount or be dismissed.

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If you ask just about anybody, “What makes a good salesperson?,” you’ll probably get similar answers across the board. People will usually tell you a good salesperson is energetic and driven with good communication skills. But they will rarely mention that how one sells matters too. And it does.

Here’s a story to illustrate our point…

A salesperson was in the lobby with other salespeople from competing companies, waiting for her first meeting with a buyer who represented a very large piece of revenue. This was the biggest “fish” our salesperson had ever tried to catch and her meeting was scheduled for only 30 minutes. Time was short. Nerves were high. You could feel the tension in the room among the salespeople.

Finally, it was our salesperson’s turn to meet with the buyer.

When she got into her 30-miute meeting, she began to ask questions. She didn’t start with a sales pitch. She didn’t start out by pointing out how her company differed from those represented by the other salespeople who were waiting. Instead, she started out by asking questions. She asked business questions and questions about how the buyer operated and ran his business. Her questions engaged the buyer, but they were also strategic: She knew the questions to ask to position her product properly.

However, the buyer was surprised by her approach. After answering the first few questions, he stopped her and said, “Why are you asking me these questions? No salesperson has ever asked me these questions.” Our salesperson was standing out. The way she was selling was differentiating her not just from the other salespeople in the lobby, but also from all the salespeople this buyer was used to.

When she explained why the answers to her questions were important for them to discuss, his whole demeanor towards her changed. He settled into his chair and started taking her questions seriously, giving them thoughtful answers. He spent an hour and 15 minutes with her, going well over the allotted 30 minutes.

When our salesperson walked out at the end of the meeting, some of her competitors who had been waiting were rescheduling their appointments because the buyer had spent so much time with her. And because she had the extra time with the buyer and therefore extra insight, she had a definite competitive edge over her competition.

When it comes to sales, it’s about how you sell too.

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If you’re investing in sales training, make sure your time and money are well spent. Plenty of service providers promise to take your team to the next level and hey, they’re in sales so they’re convincing. But you don’t have time to waste. So use the criteria below when choosing a service provider, to make sure you’ll get training that’s comprehensive, actionable and long-lasting. 

  1. Instruction: Look for sales training that includes stages, tools, skills, and how the sales process is reflected in the CRM. Try to avoid sales training that relies on an instructor doing all the talking and instead look for training that is interactive. Training that includes role playing and a participative format will help attendees learn, practice and share with one another before deployment in the field.   
  2. Accountability: For success, there needs to be clear direction from the managers to the reps on what’s expected, what’s to be accomplished, and the metrics that will be the window into achievement. If this is lacking in your organization, look for a service provider that can provide training in accountability.  
  3. Measurement/Metrics: What are the reportable pieces of data that will help in the new commercial strategy to get the most qualified customers into the pipeline? Training should also teach that the metrics must be clearly defined and realistic to achieving goals—as well as how to make that happen.  
  4. Reinforce and Reassess Through Coaching: Rather than send your sales team through training and leave it at that, look for a service provider that offers follow-up coaching to make sure lessons stick and to answer any questions that come up later when the sales team is implementing the new process and training. 
  5.  Online Learning Platform (OLP): Repetition is the key to success in learning new skills and modifying sales behavior. An OLP gives your team the opportunity to revisit lessons as needed after the training is over. 
  6. Sales Managers’ Development and Accountability: Sales managers should also receive training to prepare them to act as coaches for the sales team members.  

A lot depends on the effectiveness of your sales team. Make sure the training they get is effective too by using these criteria when choosing a service provider.  

Negotiating Know-Hows

Negotiations are part of the sales process, but we all know they aren’t necessarily straightforward. There is a buyer on the other end with his or her own motivations and needs. And sometimes that buyer has done some homework and is ready to make your job harder. But you can go into a negotiation with an upper hand simply by preparing ahead of time using these tips to turn the tide.  

 

  1. Do your research. Know as much information about the company as well as the individuals involved. Information is power. Know what’s at stake for all parties. In fact, you’re not prepared to negotiate until you thoroughly understand the other side and why they’re “in it.” Do your research ahead of time to learn: 
  • The company’s goals, pressures, options during negotiations 
  • The negotiators’ personal goals, pressures, options 
  • Their bottom line 
  • What will happen if they decide to walk away from the negotiations? 
  • What are they willing to concede? 

 

  1. Know your position. In addition to understandingthe buyer, understand where you’re coming from. Why are you involved in the negotiation and what do you expect to achieve? Be absolutely certain what your stance would be in the following scenarios:
  • Best-case scenario. What does your ideal outcome look like? Is it acceptable to the other parties involved? This may be a pipedream, but you could also get lucky. 
  • Worstcase scenario. What is the worst possible circumstance in which you will still sign the deal and do business? In other words, what is your bottom line? 
  • Anticipated/expected scenario. What is the most probable result? What conditions/concessions might be involved to achieve this result? 
  • Break point. At what point will you get up and leave the negotiations? This point is important because it distinguishes what is a good deal vs. a bad deal for your organization. It is an absolute limit on what you’re willing to accept as a reasonable deal. 
  • Backup plan. What’s your alternative to signing a deal? What will you do if you can’t reach an agreement? Having a backup plan is a powerful mechanism that will alleviate the pressure to make a deal. 

 

  1. Set the tone of the negotiation by speaking first. You can set the tone for the meeting even before it happens by using a meeting agreement to establish the structure for the meeting. The meeting agreement should include the time, the agenda and the outcome that you want to manage the meeting to. Then when the meeting starts,make sure tospeak first. A good question to start with is when we’re done with our meeting today, what would be a great result for you?”  

 

  1. Ask more questions. By asking the more questions than the buyer, you’ll determine the content and direction of the negotiation.Try to get the prospect to complete ashopping list of his or her personal and organizational needs and wants. Remember that information is power. 

 

  1. Don’t argue. Even when you believe you are right, it’s not appropriate to argue with the other players. An argument will hurt any rapport you might have developed and sow the seeds for failure. Negotiating successfully depends on a collaborative effort to share information, not on trying to prove who is right or wrong. 

Just as you’re entering the negotiations with a set goal, so is the buyer. The more you can know about that buyer and your own motivations, the stronger your position. And you can maintain that upper hand by setting the tone and asking the questions. 

 

Lack of Preparation, aka “Winging It”

A few years ago my family and I experienced an amazing day snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia. It ended as a day we will never forget, but it did not start out that way. We took a day trip out to The Reef from Cairns.  Anxious to get away from the other people on the catamaran, we hurried off to find our own “secret spot”.

There was no real preparation on our part.  We didn’t ask any of the crew where we should go.  We decided to literally  “dive into it”…. but what a mistake!  We snorkeled for a while on what was largely a sandy, barren bottom beach.  About an hour into it, a wild rain storm forced us out of the water, and scrambling for cover.  This was not what we had hoped for, but that’s what happened without proper planning.

When developing your own selling skills, or coaching the skills of those who work for you, do you have a plan going in to make sure you’re working on the right skills?  Is your coaching regiment one that allows the seller to self-discover where they need to improve, and understand HOW to do so?  Jumping right in without a plan may leave both your seller and you with a washed out feeling that not much was accomplished in your coaching session.

 

A Good Plan and the Right Coach Makes All the Difference

Walking back to the boat on the pontoon pier where we started from, my 12 year old son, at the time, said dejectedly, “so much for snorkeling on the GBR”. I didn’t want to say it, but I was disappointed too, and said to Shane “We will get some ideas from the crew on where to go, and hopefully the weather will clear”.

We did. And it did.

During the busy lunch rush on the ship, I sought out  the Captain who was greeting the guests. I told him the challenges we faced on our morning snorkeling experience.  As all good coaches would do, he asked some diagnostic questions before suggesting a recommendation for our next dive.   He asked about our experience with snorkeling and what type of things we were looking to see.  Captain Peter said something that later made all the difference; he said “look for the small things and then the larger ones will appear”.

How do you or your sales manager pinpoint the skills needed to further develop your effectiveness? And once challenges are identified, is there a plan in place to advance those skills?  Having a specific plan, practiced on a regular basis, is the key to any skill development. Try to keep the development focused on one skill at a time, building on the “small things” that will then allow “the big things to appear”.

Here is a quick checklist to use when coaching selling skills:

  1. Identify what skill(s) you want to improve.
  2. Get the help of a Coach (Peter the Captain), and put a plan in place.
  3. Focus on the smaller items, THEN the big ones will appear.
  4. Breathe slowly, pause as needed and generally slow down.
  5. Document your success for others on the team to learn from.

It’s amazing what one can learn on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia!  Preparation is key to success!

You just wrapped up the first half of 2019. In the next week or so, you’ll have a full tally of how your sales teams did with top and bottom-line results. For many, the Summer comes in fast and furious as you recover from the mid-year push and assemble your teams to plan for the rest of the year. 

So, exhale for a moment and breathe deeply; now is the time to take a good, hard look at your opportunity pipeline for the balance of 2019. Are there enough qualified opportunities in development to enable you to exceed your revenue plans? Ignore the old adage that you need to have “three times” the revenue in your pipeline to hit your annual plan – it’s not only a bad guess for how to hit your number, but it’s also a dangerous precedent for sellers who aren’t sure what a healthy pipeline actually looks like. 

Here is what your sales leaders need to do NOW to make sure there is enough revenue working: 

  • Establish Qualified Opportunity Criteria: this should have been done by January 1, but if you haven’t done it yet, it’s not too late. Make sure each member of your team knows the criteria required to categorize an opportunity as qualified. (We have done this with our customers, and can send anonymous examples to you by request to john@drive-revenue.com
  • Coach Opportunity Development EARLY: don’t wait until the negotiation is coming to a head to parachute in and close the deal for the seller. Salespeople learn nothing from this, except perhaps how you close, which won’t help them when you aren’t there. Set a schedule with each of your reps to coach them on how to successfully navigate their open opportunities, and make sure a complete job is done in early stages. 
  • Practice Skill Conversations: from prospecting to qualification and all the way through negotiation, make sure your team members are fluent in all aspects of the conversations they will have with customers and prospects. Not all sellers need every skill improved; a good benchmark is to pick one skill per rep per month and ensure that it is really mastered. 

Once you have these basics in place, we can look at how to build the right opportunity mix for a healthy, balanced revenue pipeline. But without doing the work to establish opportunity criteria, coaching opportunity development and practicing skill conversations, you’re sure to have some gaps in your pipeline that will make it very difficult to achieve your annual plan. If you do the heavy lifting now, you will avoid the year-end fire drills that many organizations go through to hit their numbers in Q4. 

 

 

Every sales leader knows that recruiting and hiring high performing sales reps is a key driver for meeting and exceeding revenue goals. But bringing in top talent is not as easy as it may seem.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet – no simple formula that will guarantee you great results every time. But the following is a proven process the sales leaders at Flannery Sales Systems have implemented to effectively double sales rep retention and performance.

The key is to identify which qualities your top performing reps have, and then develop an interview questionnaire and hiring process that ensures you are only bringing on salespeople that exhibit those qualities.

Interested in implementing this kind of process in your organization? Read on for a step-by-step guide:

  1. Interview front-line managers. The first step is to talk to your sales leadership, and especially the managers directly overseeing your sales team. Your goal is to have them identify the skills, relationships and personality traits shared by their top performing reps. This conversation is best handled as a group via a meeting or conference call.
  2. Create a list of required attributes. Tape your meeting or call above so you can go back and pull out the key characteristics discussed during the session. The goal here is to create a laundry list of all traits identified during your interviews. These need not be prioritized – yet. That comes next.
  3. Rank the list. Print out your list of sales rep attributes and ask front-line managers and sales leaders to rank the attributes in order of importance. This exercise should be done independently and each attribute should receive some number ranking.
  4. Identify attributes that can’t be learned. In addition to ranking the attributes, sales leadership should also identify any attributes that can’t be easily learned (this often includes personality traits such as hard working or charismatic but can also include things like existing relationships or a book of business).
  5. Summarize results. Once your sales leaders have individually ranked the attributes and identified any that they don’t believe can be learned on the job, you need to compile the information. Take the average of each manager’s rankings to create an overall ranking of sales attributes. Mark the ones that can’t be taught as “required” competencies.
  6. Develop an interview questionnaire. From the document above, which could be entitled “Required Competencies for Sales Reps,” create a set of two to three questions designed to uncover whether or not the rep possesses each key competency. For example, if the competency is being a self-starter, a corresponding question might be “tell me about a time when you built something from scratch and how you were successful.” There should be a few questions for each competency from which the interviewer can choose.
  7. Set the interviewing protocol. Now that you’ve created an interview questionnaire, you need to establish a protocol or process for your organization. We recommend strongly that at least two people interview each candidate using the questions you’ve developed. Interviewers should not speak to each other about the candidate before interviewing. During or immediately after the interview, they should complete a feedback form indicating whether or not they feel the candidate possessed each required competency.
  8. Conduct a post-interview huddle. Once all interviewers have had a chance to talk with the candidate, they should get together to discuss interview feedback. Discuss each competency one by one. If any of the interviewers felt a candidate didn’t exhibit a required competency, it should be flagged and one of the interviewers (most often the hiring manager) will have a follow-up conversation with the candidate.
  9. Call out missing competencies. As mentioned above, if any of the interviewers felt a candidate didn’t exhibit the required competencies, a follow up conversation with the candidate will need to take place. The recommended approach is for the interviewer to let the candidate know there was some concern over their ability to demonstrate a certain competency and wait for the candidates to react. If they become defensive and aren’t open to receiving the feedback, they are likely not a person who you’d want on your team. If they welcome the feedback and provide a good response demonstrating that they do in fact have that competency or the ability and desire to develop it, then that’s the sign of a great team member.
  10. Make a final go/no go decision. The final step is to reconvene your interview team to discuss how the candidate handled feedback on the required competencies the team had called into question. Based on how the candidate reacted, each interviewer should individually express a “go” or “no go” recommendation. The hiring manager will make the final hiring decision based on the group’s recommendation.

And, that’s it – a solid process your organization can rely on to ensure you are bringing in top sales talent. As with all processes, this one should be re-assessed periodically to ensure the required competencies are still relevant and the interview process is working.

Additionally, we recommend that you record baseline metrics before implementation so you can measure change and improvement. Some metrics that would be particularly applicable here would be average sales per rep, average sales rep retention, and percentage of monthly goal achieved. Then make sure you continue to measure these metrics once the process has been implemented to ensure it’s working for your organization.

There’s no set formula or silver bullet for sales success. If there were, sales would be a lot easier! But neither should sales be attempted in a haphazard manner. A set sales process can help to shorten sales cycles and improve productivity, while also giving managers insight into their salespeople’s performance.  

A sales process does more than help salespeople work leads through the buying cycle, however. It helps sales managers make informed decisions too. Specifically, here are five ways a manager can use the sales process to generate revenue more effectively: 

  1. Use objective criteria. Once defined, a sales process provides objective criteria and the framework to make decisions. Say a sales group is underperforming. What numbers or facts are available through the lens of the sales process to pinpoint the problem? From the pipeline or opportunity review standpoint, there are specific data points you can rely on for analysis. Is it in the types of clients they are calling on? Are your sellers getting stuck in prolonged evaluations that never yield a decision? Or is it in the close ratio? It doesn’t matter where the problem is. What matters is that you are able to look at each problem objectively with certain criteria and then correct the course. 
  2. Allocate human and technological resources. How much should you spend to hire and train people? Or how much should be invested in CRM or other sophisticated software tailored to your business? As you pinpoint where bottlenecks exist, the lens you look through will help to determine whether you need people or technology to improve.  
  3. Spot the need for sales training. On the front end of the process, many solid lead generation services exist to help identify qualified opportunities. Usually the challenges that happen toward the end of the selling process stem from the skills of the seller—or lack thereof. With a sales process in place, you can identify weaknesses in your sales team’s skills. Is the problem how they qualify an opportunity and create value on the solution? Do they struggle to effectively negotiate and close? Once you’ve realized the weak areas, you can provide training to overcome them.  
  4. Increase visibility into new areas for growth. This may be viewed as a decision based on gut feel and economic trends, but hard data is needed as well. A sales process delivers the hard data you need about what types of customers are attracted to your product (prospect profile) and why they are attracted (which capabilities and related value). If this data is not captured in a consistent way, then the top management loses connectivity and an ability to analyze trends with proper perspective—leading to poor and costly decisions. 
  5. Lose quickly. This is not a popular topic, but it’s a reality: There are two winners in sales, the vendor who gets the business and the vendor who withdraws quickest from the competition. When you have the necessary insight, you’ll know when to withdraw and get your sales team focused elsewhere. 

This is only a partial list, but it demonstrates that a sales process does more than guide your salespeople to closing. It helps drive revenue in a number of key ways! 

concessions-3We 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.

If you’re in sales, you need to read “Redefining the Elevator Pitch” before you pick up the phone to make yet another cold call. You’ll quickly realize that there is a better way to approach those people who haven’t yet expressed an interest in your service or product. And then your next step? Refine your approach using the advice below.  

Your first step: Review your current approach 

First, think about how you currently approach your cold calls. Consider the following: 

  • What do you currently say to prospects? 
  • How effective has your approach been in getting them interested in talking to you further? 
  • Do you try to keep a prospect talking using typical telemarketer “tricks” only to find yourself wasting your time in the end? 
  • Do you quickly get off the phone or out of the conversation if the prospect doesn’t seem interested vs. trying to spend more time getting them to buy? 

Be honest in your feedback to yourself, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Your goal is to improve, and that makes the discomfort worthwhile.  

Your second step: Refine your approach 

After you’ve objectively considered your existing approach, look for way to improve. Here’s an exercise for you to try: 

  • Before you even pick up the phone, do some prep work. Identify one or two business capabilities that your product or solution has helped customers solve in the top three industries where your products and solutions sell.  
  • For each one, write an interest generating statement, using this formula: 
  • “Typically our customers find that X problem is causing them Y pain. We’ve been able to help them solve this problem by providing Z solution capabilities. This has resulted in (list benefits, ROI, measurable outcomes, etc.) for our other customers.”   
  • End the interest generating statement with the following question: “Are any of these issues for you?” 
  • Once you’re on the phone with a prospect, use the appropriate interest-generating statement. Then ask for permission to speak with them further about how your products or solutions can help them.  
  • End the call with a clear action or next step that is designed to lead to additional discussion. For example, request a follow-up meeting or phone call and schedule it on the spot.  
  • Follow up the call with an email confirming the conversation and the action item/next step, plus any information you promised them. Send the email within 24 hours of the phone call. 

After a few weeks of trying this refined approach to your cold calling, do another review and consider how it is working for you. Do you see increased interest by prospects to learn more? Are you more quickly getting off calls and on to other business if the prospect isn’t interested? Are you seeing more prospects in the sales funnel? The answers to all these questions should be yes. If not, refine your approach yet again using this advice.  

Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. And you don’t have time for that.