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Giving Buyers Permission to Buy

What does it mean to giver buyers permission to buy? Dictionary.com defines permission as “authorization granted to do something; formal consent.”

As a salesperson, you might not think you need to give buyers permission to buy. They are free to do what they want: buy or not buy, buy from you or buy from your competitor. Where does the concept of permission come in?

It’s not actually permission from you. It’s you as the salesperson helping the buyer to give themselves permission to make the purchase.

Buyers are often more sophisticated than sellers give them credit for. They are also more risk adverse and they will second guess their decisions. Simply stated, buyers are not going to buy until they are comfortable that they have all the information they need to make a good decision.

You as the salesperson can help them get to that point. Here are five ways you can help the buyer give themselves permission to buy from you by ensuring they believe they have all the information they need:

  1. Understand their needs. As you get to know the buyer, ask targeted questions that will help you really understand their needs and the problem they are trying to solve. Use active listening skills and repeat back to the buyer what you think they are saying so they know they are heard.
  1. Build trust. Buyers won’t buy from a salesperson they don’t trust. If a buyer senses the seller is genuinely interested in helping them address a need, he or she is much more receptive to sharing information when asked questions, as well as more likely to trust the salesperson. When a seller appears to be pressuring the buyer to make a decision, the buyer becomes wary of the seller’s intentions and may defer the decision or say no.
  1. Help buyer discover the solution themselves. By building trust and asking the right questions, you will be able to paint an accurate picture of how the buyer will use your product to solve their problem. They need to get to the “aha” moment when they can actually picture who will use the product and how.
  1. Establish value to overcome barriers. Buyers will have barriers based on value. They will do research online on their own to overcome enough of these barriers to be willing to engage in a conversation with a seller—and this conversation is critical. According to an article at com, “Forrester research indicates that the conversation with sales reps is still a strong source of buyer influence.” Once in the conversation, the seller must understand what the buyer perceives as value of the product and build more value on that basis to overcome additional barriers.
  1. The cost of NOT doing business today. There was a time when sellers were encouraged to close early and often. In today’s tight market place, this approach no longer works. Buyers are increasingly risk adverse and decision making has expanded to include a larger group of people. When a salesperson can help the buyer calculate how much waiting will cost them in a week’s time, a month’s time or a year’s time, that dollar value will help underscore the need to close quickly.

As a seller, you’re not the one granting permission to the buyer to buy. But you can help the buyer to give themselves this permission with these five tips.

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On The Road Again: New York City

Our team was in New York recently meeting with The Board of a prospect organization. Winter has arrived, and we send our holiday greetings from the 60th floor overlooking the Hudson River and Central Park.

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Does Your Sales Team Deliver? A Quantitative Look

As we approach the end of 2019, it’s time to look forward to the year ahead—starting with an assessment of your sales team’s performance over the past year. How did they do? Where do the need to improve?

More importantly, how do you measure their performance so you can answer those questions?

To remove the subjectivity and help you take a quantitative approach in evaluating your team, we’ve developed a list of questions that get at the answers. Use the questions to distinguish the producers from the laggards. And use these questions to determine which skills your salespeople need to improve on in order to meet and exceed goals.

Also see if you can match the question posed with the corresponding sales skill. (You’ll find the answers at the end of this article.)

Questions for quantitatively measuring sales performance:

  1. How many of the qualified opportunities in your current sales pipeline were initiated by the seller?
  2. What title(s) most commonly appears in the field for primary point of contact? Is that a decision maker’s title?
  3. How well matched are your company’s product or service capabilities with the prospect’s business objectives?
  4. What value (outside of product/price) will the prospect’s organization be able to identify while working with your company?
  5. How much research does a prospect do before engaging with a salesperson?
  6. Who on your sales team held the margin line in the negotiations, and who caved to the buyer’s pressure?

In addition to answering these questions, also evaluate your team individually. How well can the individuals on your teams execute each skill? By using the questions above, managers can identify who has which skills and where improvement is needed. This is how your qualitative analysis of skills can be analyzed in relation to the quantitative assessment.

Here’s an example of the kind of insight you can gain: We worked with a company that calculated the cost of every sales call to be $400.00. They discovered that many of the calls were to prospects who would never produce enough revenue to cover the cost of the calls made. The managers were then tasked to analyze how well the reps could execute each step, and then identify where coaching was needed. As a result, the reps’ overall skills improved, the amount of time spent on the wrong prospects was reduced, and revenue results increased with fewer overall calls being made. In essence, the focus is on the quality of the calls versus the quantity of calls conducted. All because they took a quantitative approach using these questions.

And as promised, here are the skills that match each question above: 1) New Business Development 2) Accessing Key Players 3) Qualification and Positioning 4) Establishing Value 5) Opportunity Management/Forecasting 6) Negotiation.

As we approach the end of 2019, it’s time to look forward to the year ahead—starting with an assessment of your sales team’s performance over the past year. How did they do? Where do the need to improve?

More importantly, how do you measure their performance so you can answer those questions?

To remove the subjectivity and help you take a quantitative approach in evaluating your team, we’ve developed a list of questions that get at the answers. Use the questions to distinguish the producers from the laggards. And use these questions to determine which skills your salespeople need to improve on in order to meet and exceed goals.

Also see if you can match the question posed with the corresponding sales skill. (You’ll find the answers at the end of this article.)

Questions for quantitatively measuring sales performance:

  1. How many of the qualified opportunities in your current sales pipeline were initiated by the seller?
  2. What title(s) most commonly appears in the field for primary point of contact? Is that a decision maker’s title?
  3. How well matched are your company’s product or service capabilities with the prospect’s business objectives?
  4. What value (outside of product/price) will the prospect’s organization be able to identify while working with your company?
  5. How much research does a prospect do before engaging with a salesperson?
  6. Who on your sales team held the margin line in the negotiations, and who caved to the buyer’s pressure?

In addition to answering these questions, also evaluate your team individually. How well can the individuals on your teams execute each skill? By using the questions above, managers can identify who has which skills and where improvement is needed. This is how your qualitative analysis of skills can be analyzed in relation to the quantitative assessment.

Here’s an example of the kind of insight you can gain: We worked with a company that calculated the cost of every sales call to be $400.00. They discovered that many of the calls were to prospects who would never produce enough revenue to cover the cost of the calls made. The managers were then tasked to analyze how well the reps could execute each step, and then identify where coaching was needed. As a result, the reps’ overall skills improved, the amount of time spent on the wrong prospects was reduced, and revenue results increased with fewer overall calls being made. In essence, the focus is on the quality of the calls versus the quantity of calls conducted. All because they took a quantitative approach using these questions.

And as promised, here are the skills that match each question above: 1) New Business Development 2) Accessing Key Players 3) Qualification and Positioning 4) Establishing Value 5) Opportunity Management/Forecasting 6) Negotiation.

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7 Ways to Build Trust in a Cynical World

 

We live in a cynical world. Americans trust government and politicians less and less, but it’s not just Washington D.C. that has shaken our confidence. American trust in the media has declined, and even our trust in each other. A study done in 2013 found that almost two-thirds of Americans trusted each other, and we can safely assume our trust levels have declined since then given the political climate of recent years.

The reasons behind that decreasing level of trust in institutions and each other are complicated and sometimes unclear. But the result is the same: People trust less and that makes your job harder, because you need trust to sell.

Sales Requires Trust

Although you didn’t do anything to make the prospect not trust you, it’s still your job to earn that trust. Yes, it seems unfair, but consider this: If you take the time to earn that prospect’s trust and your competitor doesn’t, who will get the sale when that prospect is ready to buy? The person they trust. So be that person.

It’s easier than it sounds because trust is not to be taken lightly. In order for someone to trust you, they must take a risk. And once trust is violated, it’s that much harder to re-establish the trust you’ve lost. You no doubt recognize this to be true in your personal relationships where trust is vital, but it is true in your professional relationships too—especially when you’re in sales.

7 Ways to Earn Trust in a Cynical World

So what are you to do when you’re the victim of a societal drop in trust that’s affecting your ability to sell? Takes steps to be a trustworthy person in the eyes of your prospects. Below are seven ways you can easily do so:

  1. Be genuine. Our days are full of fakes, from the staged images on Instagram to the phony posts on Facebook. Although we’re immersed in social media which in theory means we’re connected to all kinds of people, most of what we see is misleading because people are rarely authentic in such a public arena. The last thing your prospect wants to deal with is yet another poser. So be yourself. Authenticity can’t be faked.
  2. Be a person of integrity. Follow the rules. Be polite to strangers. Say please and thank you. Respect your prospect’s time. Don’t bad mouth other people or companies. Be someone above reproach.
  3. Keep your word and do what you say you’ll do…even if it’s a little thing. If you schedule a phone call for 10:00 a.m., don’t call in at 10:03. If you say you’ll email a document by the end of the day, get it sent, even if you have to stay late to keep your promise.
  4. Ask questions. Ask what you can do for the other person. Ask about their jobs and what they struggle with and wish they could do better or differently. Show a genuine interest in the other person as a person, not a potential sale.
  5. Keep people informed. Let’s say they have placed an order and there is some kind of delay. Let them know about the delay, even if you think it won’t really matter in the long run or the delay seems like a minor issue. It will mean a lot to the customer that you kept them in the loop.
  6. Be kind. This world is sadly short on kindness these days. Be kind even if you get nothing in return for it.
  7. Trust first. Trust requires risk and vulnerability. If you trust first and open yourself up in that way, it will be easier for your prospect to trust you in return.

None of these is an overnight solution to your (and our) trust problem. Rather these are seven “ways of being,” if you will, that you must make daily habits so you’re seen as a trustworthy salesperson all the time, not just when it matters most because money is at stake.

But it’s worth the time and effort, because people buy from people they trust. So be that person…and help to make the world a better, less cynical, place at the same time.

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How Sales Process Generates Revenue

By one definition, process is “a series of steps with input and output.” Whether you are aware of it or not, process impacts our lives from the moment we are born. My kids go through a process to get out the door to school every morning. The orange juice they drank also went through a process to get to the table. Their teachers go through the process to advance their learning over a year’s time. All these processes are designed to get a predictable outcome.

In business, a well-defined sales process can lead to year in, year out predictable revenue. Wall Street rewards public companies based on their ability to annually predict their earnings. Some miss wildly and some are spot on. How can this be achieved? Look to the sales process, the organizational engine that generates the revenue. Here are few ways that sales process can help 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 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 you are calling on? Are your sellers getting stuck in prolonged evaluations that never yield a decision? Or is it in the close ratio? It may not matter where the problem is, what really 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 we spend to hire and train people? Or how much should be invested in CRM or other sophisticated software tailored to my business? As you pinpoint where bottlenecks exist, the lens you look through will help to determine if people or technology is needed to help improve. On the front end of the process, many solid lead generation services exist to help identify qualified opportunities. It’s my experience that the challenges towards the end of the selling process come in the form of the skills of the seller, or ability to effectively negotiate and close.

3. Increase visibility into new areas for growth – This may be viewed as an ethereal, strategic choice based on gut feel and economic trends, but hard data is needed for this process as well. Sales process delivers the hard data on what types of customers are attracted to your product, and why they are attracted. If this data not captured in a consistent way, then the top management loses connectivity and an ability to analyze trends with proper perspective.

Agree or not, process is King. I have this discussion with sales professionals from all industries . We learn how each person implements process in their industry, what’s working and what’s not. Broaden your understanding, challenge your thinking and, hopefully, define or refine your sales process. Tonight at home, however, I’ll be taking my queues from the process Queen. When the process Queen is happy we are all happy. It’s also my home recipe for predictable success.

Flannery Sales Systems (www.drive-revenue.com) helps organizations define or refine and implement a repeatable sales process. Increasing revenue through sales process is the ultimate goal. Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident we can enhance your results.

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When Price Comes Up Early & Often

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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How You Sell Is The Differentiator

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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The 4 Most Important Hours of Your Business Week

Workers in the developed nations of the world spend anywhere from 35 to 60 hours per week at their jobs. Of the time spent, there are many different components that comprise the total work week. For the companies that we work with, the 4 most important hours in each week are the sacred hours spent developing new customers (four is a minimum; startup companies and new reps will need more).

Many organizations do not have the correct structure, process or tools in place to facilitate new business development efforts. And while almost all companies will commit extensive resources to attract and keep new customers, some fail to get their customer facing representatives to commit to a set standard of time, with procedures and tools, for new business development every week. Call reluctance, or the fear of making contact with prospects is one of the many reasons that some shy away. In reality, that fear can be mitigated with the tools and skills to maximize the time spent.

We have helped hundreds of salespeople to develop and execute new business development campaigns. The key tool that we build with our clients is designed to conduct targeted conversations. This allows the seller to pinpoint goals and relevant business issues of a specific title in a prospect organization through diagnostic questions in a conversational format. The skills needed to execute the tool are also honed in our engagements, and first line managers are given coaching sessions to reinforce and correct selling behavior.

The American Marketing Association stated that “The conversations field salespeople have with prospects and customers may be the last bastion of competitive differentiation in today’s rapidly commoditizing markets.” To get your organization in the right environment to grow requires that customer facing representatives commit to new business development activities, and have a platform to work from that helps them to get into a relevant conversation as quickly as possible.

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Choosing a Sales Training Service Provider? Use These Criteria to Make the Best Choice

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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.  

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Negotiating Know-Hows

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. 
  • Worst–case 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. 

 

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