Always be closing (ABC), myth or reality?

Glengarry Glenn Ross, New Line Cinema, 1992“A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing.” - Blake (Glengarry Glen Ross)

Right now many sales trainers, managers and sales people are back to the basics: lets go out and sell, close the deals (no Bull***t), and double the income. I see many seminars with agendas like “sell more to more!”

This approach may result in a seller that tries to close the opportunity too early in the buying process – before the customer has a buying vision and a value of the solution. From a buyer perspective (I am the CEO of our company) I hate this type of sales approach!

My belief (supported by Keith Eades) is that good salesmen don’t have to close. The customer is so convinced that they will benefit from the solution that they volunteer to buy it. Why? They see a solution, not a price tag!

It’s the process of getting to that point that will make the difference, not how you close the deal. That is truly back to basics selling! Don’t close before the buyer is willing to buy!

One salesman asked me the other day a very practical question: How do I avoid the “proposal trap”? I present a proposal, the customer likes it, but needs time to think it over. I think that is a familiar situation to many of us.

I asked him how he could transfer the ownership of the proposal to the client(have the customer write their own proposal)? And he came up with a way to present a draft summary to the client, ask for the changes the client wanted to make, and ask the client if he/she were willing to take a “go” decision if the changes were accepted. He tried this approach for a week and came back with a big smile. It worked well, and added “after the customer made the changes and agreed to buy, I could take the changes and start a negotiation with the client. At last I’m in control!”

Conclusion.
The buyer wants to buy and the seller wants to sell. No news here. But the way the salesmen approaches the client and the buying decision makes all the difference. No one wants to be “sold” but everyone loves to buy!

This blog was originally uploaded to LinkedIn by Jens Edgren on the Friends of Solution Selling & Sales Makeover group page.

What Inside Reps need to Learn from Outside Reps

Wall Street, 20th Century Fox, 1987“It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.” — Gordon Gekko (Wallstreet)

The numbers don’t lie.  According to Anneke Seley, author of Sales 2.0, 15 inside sales reps will be hired for every outside sales rep over the next 20 years.  While this makes all the sense in the world because of the technology advancements such as (@webex, @pgimeettweet, @insideview, @salesforce) these inside reps can and must learn some lessons that outside reps do so well.

1. Understand the prospective client’s business- Outside sales reps get great expose to the company’s culture, business processes, and a visual view of individual players within the business. Buyers must know and feel the rep understands their business to make a purchasing decision.  This isn’t negotiable!  Inside sales reps must use technology and sales tools to gain the situational fluency give buyers the peace of mind to buy.

2. Let the prospective client get to know you- Think of some of the biggest purchases in your personal or professional life, how many times do you make multiple purchases from someone you haven’t shaken hands with?  There is an increased chance to buy multiple times from the same rep if the buyer feels they know what they are getting in terms of values, personality, etc.  A relationship will not in itself bring business in 2012 but a value based personal relationship is tough to beat.

3. Confidence - Think Gordon Gekko.  “It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.”  Outside sales reps need the confidence and swagger to walk into the doctors office, fortune 500 executive office, etc. and deliver the goods.  Inside reps have to approach each call the same way they would if they were walking into that office.

This blog was originally published on John Eades’s personal blog

Getting Back to Fundamentals - No Pain, No Change

Hoosiers, Orion Pictures, 1986“I’ve seen you guys can shoot but there’s more to the game than shooting. There’s fundamentals and defense.” – Coach Norman Dale (Hoosiers)

This is part 1 in the 5 part series “Getting Back to Fundamentals”

No pain, no change. It’s true. In straight vision creation (taking a buyer from Not Looking to Looking), until the buyer admits to a problem, there is little likelihood a strong sale is underway. It’s important that a formula for successful selling measures whether the buyer has admitted a pain – some relevant critical business issue. It’s a key element in successful selling.

Whenever we’re asked to audit a sales force and go out on calls with their salespeople, we listen to the questions asked by the sellers. We quickly discover two things: 1) Business Process questions are the focus of “Journeypeople”, and 2) Business Issues questions are asked more by “Eagles”. It’s hard to ask the right questions!  When asking questions to try and uncover pain, you want to try and pull as much value out of your prospects answers as you can so make sure you focus on these “drill down” questions:

How Much?
How Many?
How Often?

Right questions aim at getting right answers. Right answers, ones that will lead a buyer to wanting your product, are loaded with real reasons for critical business issues (pains), value-justifying numbers and metrics.

If a buyer wants to know about your products and services and doesn’t admit pain (they’re already at vision – usually a competitor’s vision), you’re probably dealing with a buyer who is just shopping you. You are not in first place. Someone else is. And your chances of winning are not great.

Expert forecasts measure whether the buyer has admitted pain. No pain, no change.

Is it time to sharpen your axe?

It’s official! The UK has moved back into recession.  Whilst there is some debate about whether this is a statistical anomaly, what is certain is we are in a period of very slow recovery.  Although forward looking business confidence surveys suggest some ground for optimism,  almost everybody agrees that 2012 will see little growth in the UK economy.  

In this environment, from a sales point of view, this can seem very disheartening. We may feel that things are going to be tougher and we will have to work harder to get the same results.  We know that it’s very tempting to increase the activity level and hope that this will bring different results.  This will work as long as it’s the right sort of activity. Hopefully this is the case and now you just need to ensure that this gets done consistently, which is a challenge I hear about often.

Another response I see quite often is to offer buyers more generous pricing or other concessions; in a strange way this can actually work against a supplier as the buyers think that if they wait long enough they will be able to get a better deal.

So what’s the answer?   A radical change in approach is one possibility, although that will certainly have a negative impact in the short-term and may prove costly in the long-term if not managed properly; or could it be something more straightforward and simple to implement?  Most companies I have had the pleasure to work with over the years are already successful and have got to where they are for a reason.  The question they are usually asking themselves is how can we get better?  Sometimes the answer lies not in doing something radically new, but in ensuring that you use your existing capabilities and resources as best you can and ensure they are finely tuned.

This brings to mind a story that a good friend told me about a TV programme he watched about a tree felling competition.  It was the final chop off (Is this the right term?) and the metric was very simple; the team that felled the most trees in the allotted time would be the winner. The two teams went off to their respective patches of the forest and on the signal, started chopping away for all they were worth.  

As this was the final, the duration was much longer than the previous rounds and so it was going to take a mighty effort to be the winning team.   After a while, one of the teams stopped, had a quick talk about what they were doing and sharpened their axes.  The other team continued chopping away and soon pulled ahead.  They were still ahead when then the other team stopped again, had another chat and sharpened their axes again.  The other team pulled even further ahead.  And then things changed;  the team that had stopped to ensure they kept their axes sharp began to catch up and then overtook the other team who were by now very tired and whose axes were now blunted.  The sharp axe team then went on to win by some distance.

So in our low growth economy, are you taking time out to “sharpen your axe” or are you just carrying on with the same approach with ever decreasing rates of return for your efforts?
One thing that I’ve learned through the various downturns that I’ve experienced in the UK is that although businesses will be more cautious about spending, they will still invest on projects they believe will help them keep their own axes sharp.

David Mason is SPI’s Director of Business Development in the UK.  David has over 25 years’ experience in Sales, Account Management and Sales Management, with the last 15 years spent in the area of sales performance improvement. David joined SPI in October 2011 to help UK companies find the best way to apply Solution Selling® in support their own growth objectives.

For direct inquiry with David Mason or other sales professionals please contact us.

Why SMB Clients Choose Solution Selling®

An Interview with Nick Maslanka, SMB Account Executive

What separates SPI and Solution Selling® for SMB from the rest of the sales training industry?

We have put together a world class training program geared specifically to SMB’s. We utilize a tailored training approach based specifically on how our clients are selling and how their buyers are buying. This tailored approach allows SPI to speak to our client’s specific selling situations and the problems they help their clients solve. 

Who is your ideal client?

The clients who have had the most success in working with Solution Selling® for SMB are those that have seen some growth within their industry. While increasing revenue is always welcome, there are some growing pains that come along with that. What SMB’s lack, is the infrastructure as a sales organization to continue that growth. Our typical clients are continuing to add new departments, people, and processes to help cope with strategic progress.

What is the biggest misconception about SMB’s?

People tend to think that SMB’s and enterprise organizations are very different. The fact is the sales issues we encounter are the same if not more pronounced in SMB’s because of the lack of resources and budget at their disposal.

You spoke about SMB’s sales challenges, what are some of the typical challenges you hear from sales leaders you speak with?

Some of the challenges that I hear most often are:

• Low win rates
• Getting qualified opportunities in the pipeline
• Losing to “No Decision”
• Competing on price
• Targeting “high” within a prospective client

Like I mentioned before, SMB’s sales challenges can be magnified due to a lack of resources.

How do you help address these challenges?

We have created a comprehensive program for our SMB clients. We provide them with tools that are beyond just skill and training focused. We start by seeking to understand the best practices they already have in place. This includes their current sales process as well as key terminology. Next we rollout a tailored training approach built upon our findings and the core concepts of Solution Selling®. Our objective coming out of the training is to provide our clients with everything the need to operationalize their tailored sales process as soon they leave the workshop.  Finally, we will create a development strategy for sellers, managers, or an entire sales organization to aid in on going reinforcement.  We are in tune with the fact that it takes more than just a training event to create real change and strategic growth. To that end, we have put together a comprehensive reinforcement program to help with the adoption a retention of the key concepts learned during the workshop. 

You mentioned reinforcement, how important is that for organizations who are trying to implement a fundamental change in their overall sales culture?

It is extremely important! Training cannot be a one-time event. It has to be something that is an ongoing and continuous approach. By learning about our clients business we are able to put together a comprehensive reinforcement program that not only keep the best practices fresh in the sellers minds but also constantly adds new concepts so the seller is constantly improving. A study by Equation Research found that without adequate reinforcement, salespeople (on average) forget half of the content of a sales training event in 5.1 weeks, and 84 percent of content after 90 days. The question this data should raise to our clients or potential clients is how do I protect the investment I am making in my sales organization?