ummm…. so March sales?

Please stop telling me about your stupid pipeline.  I know you have all the answers teed up for me.  I don’t give a @#$%…

I’m not your mom or you sales manager so stop pitching me on how amazing your three month selling cycle is.  Frankly I don’t care.

I am sure your pipeline is magical.

By the way, can I go back to that word “pipeline”?  Of all the major “P” words that play into a selling discussion:

…..Presentation

……….Pitch

……………Practice

………………..Process

…………………….”Pain” points

…………………………Professionalism

……………………………..Poise

There is a word that I don’t often hear — people.

In case you are not quite sure what I am getting at, take a look at your rolodex.  It’s all those dudes…

Sadly, your sales force automation platform screaming at you in your local web browser doesn’t give a crap either.  Sure there are a nice couple of fields there to put in first and last names and possibly a birth date.  (oooh…. maybe you can even put in a Twitter name)/

<whatever…..>

But your platform (which by the way, I understand your sales manager is stalkerishly addicted to) isn’t the road map to predictably building a kick-ass solution in March right now pre-Christmas.

It’s people…  You. Them. Us.

People relate.  People object.  People buy.

It’s people that we need to focus on.

The mathematics of making sure you maximize your time and attention are givens.  I am guessing that if you have read this far that you have mastered the art of engineering your schedule to predict your sales in March.

If that’s not you, go read some of the content that the other blokes on this blog write about (some of these dudes are pretty witty).

Know the formula of prospects to leads to contacts to buyers to repeat customers…

Know it and then improve it.  That’s your homework to do.

What I want to inspire you about is your focus on the person.

…..The other side of the sales contract.

……….The line item in your CRM with a price tag attached.

……………The entity “cutting the check” to you when you close the deal.

The person you are trying to seduce with your sweet sales love story.

Those persons generally:

1. Want to be appreciated
2. Enjoy funny, witty messaging
3. Hate to feel abused
4. Want to help others
5. Hurt
6. Think about what’s in it for them
7. Will invest in you if you ask them to
8. Want to believe in something bigger than themselves
9. Fear change
10. Worry about paying the bills
11. Want to feel like they make a difference
12. Need money to survive
13. Live pretty stressed out
14. Tend to tell you the truth if you ask the right questions
15. Lie to protect their own best interests
16. Believe in karma
17. Like being appreciated
18. Know when you really care
19. Decide if they like you pretty fast
20. Will give you second chances if you ask

And a bunch of other drama that you learned in Sunday School.

Fall in love with people — the people spending money with you preferably — and watch as you close deals faster than ever.

Forget about  your sales numbers in March.  Hit your quota by February and take the whole damn month of March off…

Popularity: 6% [?]

Everyone wants to differentiate themselves in the eyes of buyers. Yet they often pick the most conventional, beige, bland and predictable ways of demonstrating it. They pick the latest fads or are forced to do something that once worked, 15 years ago, for their manager and is now labelled as a “methodology”.

There are some great suggestions out there, for example sending hand written notes to prospects and clients as a means of standing out in the digital age. Another maybe connecting with all your prospects and clients on LinkedIn. There so many great things one can do, but I think the real differentiator is not what you do, but how consistently you do it.

What happens with a lot of these initiatives, is sales people see an idea or a practice, they say “Wow, I’m gonna do that and make some more money.”  For the next two three weeks or so they stick with it, then the newness fades, it’s another thing to do, it becomes work, and they stop doing it.  What also fades along with the new habit, is the enthusiasm you had, the spark that something new brings, and the way you look at your work, customers, and selling.

So while you try something new every couple of months, your customers see another sales rep who moves from one trend to another, and just as he is getting hand written thank you cards from everyone all of a sudden, they all or most seem to stop at the same time.  The one that gets noticed as being different is the one that sticks with it.

So if you want to be different focus on two things.   The first is to be selective and thoughtful about the things you do that are visible to the buyer or impacts them.  While shock and awe have their place in sales, their impact is temporary, like a sugar high, clients will not remember or take into account at the time of decision.  However something as mundane as a pre-planned call schedule for the year, say a regiment of calling your top 20 clients at least once every six weeks, and then actually sticking with it and not using everyday things that should be anticipated as an excuse as to why it didn’t get done, gets noticed.  The goal is to have buyers say “Now, I don’t see others do it like that”.

Second, once you have selected these things, the real differentiator comes by sticking with it, do it as planned consistently and across the board.  Again, I want to stress, this is not doing things for the sake of doing them, they should add to the sale, but if you focus on the right things and keep doing them, you will be seen as different.  As you may have read in my other postings I have a clearly laid out contact strategy for prospects; a combination of touch-points that include e-mail, calls, voice mail, and now a few other medium for messaging prospects.  Based on predetermined rules and factor, they get a regularly scheduled contact from Renbor in the process of nurturing.  I regularly get feedback that one of the reasons I finally get the appointment and subsequent deal, is that I was consistent, respected the buyers timeline, but did go away like my competitors; not only do clients like that, they want their teams doing that.

If you start a blog or other interaction with the market, stick with it.  I see a lot of people start a blog, at first posting a couple of times a week, once a month, every six weeks, last May,…  So what ever it is you are going to do, the real difference is are you going to do it consistently and long enough to matter to the buyer.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The challenge with talking about sales presentations is that it immediately invokes an image of a one way conversation. The only thing that can be worse is if it included a PowerPoint presentation read by the presenter. To me selling and presenting are two different things that only on occasion and under specific circumstances go well together.

Selling should be a conversation, a dialogue that leads to a conclusion that makes sense for both participants. The art and science of selling is the ability of the seller to steer the conversation on pre-planned path that involves and challenges the buyer to think.  By thinking you can encourage them to look beyond the status quo, and begin to explore potential solutions or alternative ways to doing things.

The danger with presentations is that they are open to a lot of presupposition on the part of the seller, and can turn into a spray and pray session, or worse.  Now I know some of you are thinking “well but what if I have done my research, and am presenting relevant and viable things to the buyer?”  I think research is good, but should be used to formulate to stimulate discussion, the conversation that sales is.  All too many sales people use research to show how much they know, how smart they are and why the buyer should buy from them for those reasons.  Don’t forget the old truism “knowledge is the biggest barrier to learning.”  This coupled with the fact that buying is very much an emotional event, you know people buy on emotion and then spend time rationalizing their decision.  Hard to get people excited talking at them rather than with them.

I know some say that at one point, when you have uncovered everything it is then time to present the solution, which is a form of presenting.  Maybe?  Why not deliver a “discussion document”, review it with the buyer, and have him make his mark on it, taking pride of creation and ownership.  When I sell the first thing I deliver is a document like this, and what really drives home that this is an interactive process, is that this document has no place for a signature like most conventional proposals presented; but it has all the elements, pricing, terms, date, etc. and it has all the emotional steps leading to a crescendo where no immediate signature is needed to lock them in.  They are so involved, they feel the pride of ownership, they ask for the contract because they can’t wait, they want it, they are like kids on Christmas eve just chomping at the bit to get started.

There are two situations where you may have to present, but even there, I think you can try something different.  One is in an RFP situation, where you have completed a response and now have to present.  The other is similar where a company uses the “swimsuit in a beauty contest” approach to making a decision, (boy there is a whole other post there, ha), the expectation is that you will come in and do your song and dance in 30 minutes and convince them why your dance is better than the other three vendors, because they always call you vendor, not potential partner, or potential trusted advisor, which are all the labels you want to wear, but you’ll never be anything other than vendor 3 of 4.  Unless you change the premise, instead of having dancing PowerPoint, ask them questions.  They haven’t thought it through as much as you think.  The other vendors go in and dance to a pre-selected song, tired and predictable, so you need to stand out, change the tune, and ask them questions.  What are they hoping to achieve, how will the measure success, how will it impact one department vs. another (it’s great when they are both at the table, the sparks just fly), what’s the impact of not doing anything, why now….  Most often you see a change of mood, after sitting through one “polished’ presentation after the other, they actually get to participate.  They usually see that there is more to it then they thought, they see that one vendor is genuine.  Because at the end you intentions not your presentation drive the discussion.

Again I understand and respect the need for proper appearance, stance, language, a little drama, intonation, and all the other things, but if you don’t engage and capture you can be Fred Astaire (or Michael Jackson), you’ll never go as far as a good question between the eyes.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Qualify is one of those buzz words in sales, you “know” it, you “use” it; you can smell like a sales person and play with the other dogs in the yard, and you get a seat on the bus. What the list above excludes is doing it well which many sales people don’t.

As with many things in sales, it is about the execution; to execute you need to have an objective, the skills and the tools.

Most sales people have an objective, some more short sighted than others: “I wanna close”, (down Fido), but usually they have an objective even if they didn’t have a hand in developing it.   The skills and tools is where the usually can use improvement.

The main problem with the way most reps “qualify” is that they seem to be looking at the wrong end of the telescope. As a result, qualifying ends up being too seller centric and ineffective. It turns into a selection process that eliminates viable prospects, rather than engaging them and bring them to view your offering and you as a value add to their objectives. 

In order to qualify an opportunity it has to be quantified, and to do that you have to be able to ask the right questions. Questions that help drive the value and impact you offering for the prospect in very specific terms.  

Most products (including mine and yours) are not an end to themselves, they do not on their own provide a complete answer, the ones that do are usually commodities and transactional.  Most products/services are usually a part of a broader process, flow or chain; as result it is much more effective to ask discovery questions and impact questions around the desired results of the complete project or process; then quantify the impact of having or not having your offering as part of the entire solution, and in the process validate the value your product brings.

Qualifying stops short of that, a byer may qualify, but not be moved to act, this at times causes reps to spend time with the wrong prospects.  Don’t get me wrong, those of you who have read my stuff in the past, know that I am all about the deal (yes mutual value, keeping the customers need front and centre), but I like the payoff, which means doing things right and efficiently. Sadly the way most reps qualify is not efficient.

To do this and achieve the results you want you have to have the ability to ask very direct, sometimes hard questions. A hard thing if you come from the touchy feely, Cumbaia or Barney school of selling.

You need to ask question that will establish the impact in real and measurable terms, then follow up with questions that capture the full scope of the impact. This will help the buyer understand the impact of both acting: realized returns, and not acting: tangible risk of staying the course.  Once the buyers understand things in a measurable way, it will create urgency, which reduces the cycle.  The discussion will not come down to price only, as through quantifying you will have helped grasp and take ownership of the value.  Let’s not forget, at one point you are going to ask for money, and I for one don’t want to work hard on price, I want to work hard on having established the scope and size of the the opportunity and the impact of the value they are about to receive by signing.

Qualifying is the how and why they may need to listen to you, quantifying is what’s going to make them want to act, buy, and with urgency, involve the right people and share their buying process with you to make it happen, because they want it, they know why they want it and how much it means to them.  This is because you quantified it with them, rather than just qualifying them.  A quantified prospect will be qualified, but many qualified prospects will not act because the possibilities have not been quantified.  That is why Quantifying is Qualifying 2.0 for the 21st century.

For more on the subject visit www.salesopedia.com, where you can read my article “Quantify – don’t Qualify”, and listen to the accompanying podcast interview with me on the subject with specific examples.

Popularity: 13% [?]