Posted by Jim Searls on Mon, Jun 14, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
One of the biggest things overlooked by sales people in a sales campaign is the prospect’s relationship with their current provider of products/services you also sell. Even though their business relationship might not be the greatest, it is still easier and less risky to do business with existing providers rather than changing to you. Everyday businesses buy products/services that are not necessarily the best solution, accept inferior service, or pay higher prices because it is “comfortable.”
When you are in a “competitive replacement” sale, you must look beyond the logical reasons the prospect should buy from you and address the emotional and political issues that will keep them from buying from you. You need to be aware from the beginning to the end of the sales process that change is difficult for your prospective buyer, especially since your performance as a provider is basically unknown. Part of your job as a sales person is to help your prospect effectively deal with the perceived risk of changing.
How can you help your prospect deal with the risk of changing to you?
1.
Start with a small sale – encourage the prospect to give you a small opportunity so you can prove your value. This gives them a chance to check you out, but also gives you an opportunity to go through their whole buying process. This will equip you with the information you need to win bigger sales in the future.
2.
Focus on your unique value – create a vision for the prospect of the specific value you will bring their company. Don’t talk about the competitor’s weaknesses. Instead, focus on those things you do well that you know they don’t. When asked, “How are you better than your competition?” say, “Let me tell you how we are different and what that means to you.”
3.
Support your value with relevant success stories – success stories are a great way to give the prospect a vision of the value you can bring them. Format your stories so that they define the business problem the customer needed to address, what specific action you took, and the business value they received. The business value needs to be in terms of money earned, money saved, return on investment, leg up on the competition, etc.
4.
Address the risk of not changing – there is a cost to not changing, whether it is missed opportunity, lack of cost savings, lack of competitiveness, or opportunity to capture market share. Specifically identify what impact it will have on your prospect, and then speak with the executive that has the most to lose by not taking any action.
5.
Sell to everyone impacted by your proposed products/services
– one of the biggest mistakes sales people make is to sell to people who cannot approve a sale. It is important that everyone who benefits from your products/services, from the executive to the end user, is sold on the solution. This keeps any one person from choosing to stay with what is comfortable.
6.
Ask for their business – companies get caught in the “paralysis of analysis” and become reluctant to make a decision. If you have given them everything they need to make a decision and have addressed all of their concerns, just ask them for their business. After all, part of their job is to find solutions to their business problems and yours is to solve business problems.
If you employ these suggestions in your sales campaign instead of just selling your product/service features, you will greatly increase your ability to close sales.
These ideas are to assist you in your sales campaign. If you want more information on effective selling, contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Mon, Jun 14, 2010 @ 02:35 PM
Business people who receive phone calls from sales people have provided me with insight about what gets their attention and what irritates them. In a down economy, fewer businesses are buying products and services and more sales people are competing for those few opportunities. In addition, with all the staff cutbacks the remaining people have little time to speak with sales people.
What sales people do that wastes business people’s time:
§ They all sound alike; talking only about their company and their products
§ Don’t understand my business, or bother to learn about it
§ Think low price alone will motivate me
§ Don’t recognize that low price, high quality, and service just gets them in the game, it’s not a differentiator.
§ When I say I’m not interested, they just keep pushing
§ Send me wordy emails all about them, their company, their
product
The bottom line is that business people need information and solutions to their business problems, not an education on your products.
How do you capture a prospect’s attention?
§ Focus on their business and what impact you can have on it
§ Show them options and solutions, or provide information they may not know that will make their business better
§ Communicate the impact you have had on other businesses
§ Share how other companies are addressing the same challenges
§ If they are interested, don’t slip back into sales talk
§ If they are not interested, don’t keep pushing
Prospecting is about developing sales-ready leads.
This means people have raised their hands and said, “I’m interested in learning more.” If you don’t capture their attention immediately, the timing might not be right or you interrupted them when they were focused on something else. Don’t quit! Instead, think about how you can help their business with problems you know they have and use other methods to get their attention. These methods could include a targeted mail piece with a case study of how you have helped another company, a white paper about your value proposition, a CD with a short presentation on solving their business problems, or a current business book that connects your value to their problem.
These ideas are to assist you in capturing a prospect’s attention.
If you want more information on effective lead generation, contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Tue, May 18, 2010 @ 08:34 AM
In a down economy, the power in negotiating price moves to the buyer. It is typically called a “buyer’s market.” In a buyer’s market, sales people need to be experts in executing early sales cycle discovery to effectively negotiate a favorable price at the end of the sale.
Additional challenges in a down economy include:
§ Many hungry sellers trying to make a living creating more competition on price
§ The internet gives buyers access to information which gives them an advantage in the negotiation
§ Even if you have done all the work answering the buyer’s questions, giving them advice, and developing their solution, they will still shop
price with your competitors
When you think about it, you do the same thing when you buy something. How do you overcome these challenges to get a fair price?
- Negotiation Begins with the First Sales Call. Sales people end up giving too much away in negotiation because they did not gather enough information in the early sales cycle discovery to arm them for a successful negotiation. They focus on their product and proposal, and not enough on why the buyer should do business with you.
- Know Your Unique Value. Ask your current customers why they chose you over your competitors, and why they continue to do business with you. This will tell you your unique value from your customer’s perspective. If they say price, then ask what other criteria they used to choose you.
- Understand the Problem the Buyer Wants to Solve. During your discovery process, find out: why it is a problem; why do they want to solve it; and, why would they choose you?
- Find Out the Buyer’s Deadlines. Deadlines are important because they minimize the amount of time available to negotiate. If they do not have a deadline, you could create one by identifying how much it is costing them by not solving the problem now. You may have more power in the negotiation than you perceive because of these deadlines.
- Negotiate with the Right People. There are people in companies who are assigned to evaluate solutions to problems, but they are not responsible to fix them and they are not the ones feeling the pain. Negotiate with the person who has the pain and is responsible for fixing it.
- Learn the Buyer’s Evaluation Process. Every purchase in a company has to go through a process. Find out how they will be evaluating possible solutions to their problem, including their evaluation criteria; who will make the decision; price; what purchasing will need from you to finalize the sale; delivery expectations; and, implementation process. Do not just focus on your product/service evaluation. You could win the product/service evaluation, but lose the sale because you did not learn that there were other criteria they were also evaluating.
7.
Ask for the Business. When you have met all of the buyer’s evaluation criteria, ask for the business. Present your business case, their cost of delaying a decision, and the advantage of implementing the solution now. By asking for the business you motivate the decision maker to decide to bypass other options because of the cost and time involved.
The most important thing to remember about successful negotiations is to solve the buyer’s problem, not just sell your product. Motivational speaker, Zig Zigler, says it best,” You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”
These ideas are to assist you in negotiating a favorable price. If you want more information or help for your team on negotiating a favorable price, contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Tue, May 18, 2010 @ 08:28 AM
Over the years I’ve had an opportunity
to work for, and now coach, many sales managers. Most of them were great sales
people that were promoted to sales managers based on their sales success, not because
they would be good leaders. As you might already suspect, many were not
successful leaders in spite of their desire to be one. In this article I will
address the biggest reason for lack of success and how to overcome it.
What
is the most common problem you address in developing sales leaders?
The
most common problem is the difficulty transitioning from a doer to a leader and
coach. When you become a sales leader your job changes from getting results
yourself to getting results from other people. This requires a different set of
skills than those that made them successful sales people.
Why
is it so difficult to make the transition?
- Successful sales
people are competitors who like to win. They want to be number one and to
have the recognition that goes with winning. As a leader it’s about other
people winning.
- Successful sales
people operate mainly on instinct and habit. They have a difficult time
breaking their process into steps that can be used to coach others.
- Successful sales
people have limited patience for people who are learning. They want to
take over the situation rather than letting others learn from the process.
- Successful sales
people enter their new job with little or no training on how to be a
successful leader and coach.
How
do you help sales people make the transition?
- Training – Teach sales
people the skills of successful leadership and coaching. They are unique
and it is unreasonable and expensive to have your leaders learn by trial
and error.
- Coaching – Training is
not enough because it has a low retention rate unless it is put into
practice immediately. It is important to coach the new sales leader until
they have demonstrated success. Make sure the person you use for a coach
knows how to be a good leader themselves and knows how to coach. The sales
profession has been notorious for bad leaders reproducing bad leaders.
- Criteria for Measuring
Success
– You must have a way to measure the growth of sales people other than revenue.
There are many things that impact sales numbers that are outside of the
sales people’s control. How do you know if you are developing a great
sales person? You have to break down the skills, habits, and behaviors of
great sales people into measurable components that can be observed and corrected.
Otherwise, your measurement and coaching are subjectively based on the sales
leaders’ own experience - good or bad.
Learning
how to develop people into great sales people is the most critical skill for
sales leaders. If they can’t make the transition, they may as well go back to
being great sales people. You will have a better return on your investment.
These
ideas are to assist you in evaluating your sales leadership. If you want more
information or help developing your sales leadership, contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web
site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 07:49 AM
Most people agree that if you want to accomplish something in life, it’s best to have a plan. When you are attending college for a degree, you plan how many credits you need and what classes you need to take. You plan vacations, birthday celebrations, weddings, buying a house, and many other “life events.” It only makes sense that you should plan how to grow your sales.
Problem:
Even though planning makes sense, very few companies actually plan for sales growth other than setting a target income goal. In fact, many companies spend more time planning sales outings than planning their sales goals. Setting an income goal is not the same as planning how to reach that goal. Additionally, other things need to be considered:
- Are we growing our business beyond our existing accounts?
- Are we growing market share?
- What competitive accounts do we want to obtain as customers?
- Are we growing by acquiring and developing customers that fit our ideal customer profile?
Without a clear plan you become driven by circumstances. More often than not, you will not achieve the business you set out to accomplish.
How to Develop Your Sales Plan
- Keep it simple-An effective plan does not need to be a book. A plan longer than four pages is too long. If it is too long most sales people won’t look at it again. The goal of plan is to have a working document.
- Clearly define the kind of business you want at the end of the year. Making $100,000 is different than having a $100,000 business. Having a $100,000 business means that it is sustainable. Making $100,000 means you did it once. An effective business plan defines:
- What your sweet spot is for your products/services
- A definition of your ideal customer
- Which customers to grow, which to let go, and prospects to gain as customers
- Targeted sales number and acceptable margin
- What you need to do to be competitive in the future
- Develop specific, measurable steps that are needed to build the business you want. (Most sales people I work with need help developing these steps because they lack training and experience in business planning.)
- Make monthly corrections- Things are constantly changing in the market and your plan needs to do the same. In the Apollo missions to the moon, astronauts constantly made mid-flight corrections to ensure they reached the moon. Without corrections, they would have missed it by hundreds of miles. As the market place changes we need to make corrections to ensure we hit our targets.
- Accountability- Enlist your sales manager, another sales person, a mentor, or someone else that has successfully built a sales business and whom you trust to help you stay accountable to your plan. Use your monthly correction time to meet and review your progress, address obstacles, and adjust your plan accordingly.
There is no doubt that planning takes time, but the investment in time will help you develop a sales business that is sustainable and meets your goals.
These ideas are to assist you in starting your sales planning process. If you want more information about sales planning, contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 07:43 AM
Lead generation makes most people think of spending hours on the phone convincing people to talk to you, and schedule an appointment to meet with you to hear about your products and services. It is a labor intensive numbers game that sales people hate doing, and prospects hate the interruption.
Goal of Lead Generation:
The goal of lead generation is to identify ideal prospects for our products and services then develop them into sales-ready leads.
Challenge:
Traditional cold calling is more difficult now do to electronic phone systems, Caller ID, and voice mail which helps prospects screen calls. Ironically managers who prod us to make more calls screen cold callers from reaching them.
Early on, email gave us better access to prospects because they were not screened. Today with spam filters and decision makers’ receiving 100-300 emails a day, our message gets lost in the mix.
How to find and develop sales ready leads:
- Develop an ideal prospect profile based on your best and most profitable customers. Determine the business problems you solved for them and why they chose you over other options.
- Identify which decision maker is responsible for fixing those problems. Ask current customers the best way to get these people to take your call.
- Use a multiple tactic approach to reach your prospect.
I never start with a cold call to a prospect. The return on your investment of your time is low. Instead, send an introduction packet. Include a white paper, or a current business book, or a DVD about how to solve the business problems you can address. Additionally, include a brief marketing piece or letter about your company which includes your web site and contact information.
After five work days, follow up with a phone call. Make your first call after hours to leave a voice mail about the packet, and indicate you I will be calling them to discuss it further. In the voice mail give a brief case study giving them an idea of the value you have given others in their industry.
Then, begin your phone campaign to your prospect. In your call, make sure you focus on the business value others have received from your product or service and the purpose of your call is to discuss further how you might help them. You goal here is to schedule a phone or in person appointment.
These ideas are to get you start in your lead generation program. If you want more information lead generation contact: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Web site: www.commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Mon, May 17, 2010 @ 07:32 AM
Our job as leaders is to accomplish our goals and objectives by developing other people. This requires coaching them until they are able to stand on their own. Every time there is a change in the world, economy, or the company you are required to coach your team until the new skills needed for success are part of their everyday behavior.
Here are three tips for effective coaching:
1.
Invest the majority of your coaching time with your “B” players.
Why not the “A” or “C” players? Because “B” players have the greatest potential for growth. Most of the leaders that I coach spend an unbelievable amount of time trying to make “C” players into “B” players. That’s like a head football coach spending all his time coaching the 3rd string quarterback. I have not yet seen that as a successful strategy. At best the “C” player becomes a “C+” player.
So what do you do with your “A” players?
2.
Use your “A” players as mentors for your “B” players.
Coaching is the most important activity for leaders. Even so, there are many other demands on a leader’s time. Additionally, many people work remotely these days which makes it difficult for leaders to coach their teams. “A” players are a good source of support to you because they have already demonstrated that they excel at their job. Mentoring helps them grow in their coaching skills and prepares them for future leadership roles.
3.
Know your stuff.
When I conduct workshops with leaders on this topic, many comment, “This has been a good refresher.” Yet, when I coach them individually, it’s a whole different story. Here are some of the most common leadership mistakes I see:
- Little or no coaching
- Unclear expectations or direction
- Failure to address poor performance
- Expecting people know what to do even though they have not demonstrated mastery to you
- Poor interviewing and hiring practices
Let’s face it, the business world has changed and is changing every day. It’s changing at a pace faster than anyone has ever experienced. My question to you is, “Are you changing?” I continue to see people using outdated leadership methods, outdated sales methods and expecting the same results as in the past. They are surprised when the results aren’t there. Continuous learning is a must in our business world today.
For more information visit: www.commonsensesales.com
Or email Jim Searls at: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com
Posted by Jim Searls on Wed, May 12, 2010 @ 01:15 PM
Tough economic times tend to reveal weaknesses in our businesses. Successful companies take this opportunity to identify and address barriers that affect their business growth.
In my consulting with clients I have identified seven barriers that most impact your sales growth:
- Unclear business value
Communicating your business value to your customers is top priority. Customers want to know, “What value will I gain by using your company vs. your competition?” If you can’t communicate value, then the only thing to compete on is price.
- No plan
Many businesses spend more time planning sales events than they do planning their business. No sports team would go into a game without a detailed game plan but businesses routinely send their sales teams out without a plan.
- No emphasis on training and coaching
Things change in the economy, technology, etc. and people need to learn new skills. Yet many companies have cut out training and coaching. Ongoing coaching is a must for a successful team. Think of spring training for baseball players. The players work on the fundamentals, then have constant coaching throughout the season.
- Ineffective lead generation
Lead generation was about cold calling, an unpleasant situation for both sales people and prospects. It is much easier to prospect when you have a referral from a satisfied customer or when someone calls you with an interest in what you do. The key is to develop a lead generation plan that accomplishes these two objectives.
- Outdated sales and leadership skills
Times have changed and that will impact how business gets done in the future. My question is, “Have you and your company changed the way you lead and sell?” Albert Einstein defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Don’t expect outdated sales and leadership skills to produce the same results they once did.
- Focusing on activity vs. results
Activity metrics have been a part of sales for many years, yet they don’t tell the whole story. What really matters is results! I know people who work hard everyday, but the results are not there. It is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We are really busy, but the ship is still going down.
- Poor recruiting and hiring practices
Many of my clients hire experienced sales people from their same industry in hopes of gaining success faster, yet qualifications for good sales people are different today than they have been in the past. Qualifications for today’s sales people include: problem solving, knowledge of how business gets done, curiosity, listening skills, intuition, and consulting skills. Your interviewing and selection process must identify mastery of these skills.
Addressing these seven barriers by implementing sound business and sales practices allows you to grow your sales today and into the future.
For more information visit: www.commonsensesales.com
Or email Jim Searls at: jimsearls@commonsensesales.com