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The Sales Version of Chicken or Egg – Sales eXchange 2050

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

For many the age old question continues to be which came first the chicken or the egg, and while some have claimed to have the answer, there is a similar one playing out in B2B sales.

Most agree that you need to develop and maintain relationships with buyers (then clients) to succeed in B2B selling, but there is lot of debate about which comes first the relationship, or the sale?

First thing you have to do is define “relationship”, it is one of those words in sales that people use without often quantifying or defining its meaning. Maybe the assumption is that “everyone knows” the meaning, but that is a false and risky assumption. Some use it to hide their lack of knowledge or understanding of sales, and relationship is one of those sunshine words, if you keep using it, you sound as though you are in the know and good at sales. I see this a lot when I ask sellers I work with to define sales, they’ll talk around the question, and throw in “relationship” at a few critical junctures where their response looks weak.

When you get into more formal definitions, you find two main camps. One basically states that the primary objective is the building of long-term relationships with customers from which repeat business will flow. The other, believes that relationships evolve from good results delivered on sales that were initially made before there was a relationship, based on a positive experience, the interaction continues, relationships build and evolve.

Both agree that relationships are important and make for better and more sustained business, but like the chicken and the egg, they seem to disagree on which comes first, the initial sale or the relationship. For the sake of disclosure, I tend to line up with the “sales comes first, relationships evolve” camp, rather than the camp that feels that sellers need to focus on the relationship first, and then business will flow, a definition borrowed from a popular sales glossary.

Relationship do not ensure sales. I remember having a rep in Ottawa who finally landed a big government department, when asked by her peers how she did it, she told them she established a solid relationship. She failed to mention the 10% discount she negotiated with me to close the deal. A year later, she lost the department, the only one of the many we had as clients, as we were reviewing the deal, I couldn’t help but ask what happened to the relationship?

We have all seen or experienced where buyers, not just new buyers, but established customers, ones sellers thought they had a relationship with, who end up buying from someone else. It usually comes down to either price, the other seller, the one without the relationship, being cheaper. Or even more biting, the other seller was able to convince the buyer that they can move them closer to their objectives than you. In outselling the relationship, they show that attaining objectives will trump relationship for a buyer every time.

We work in a world where companies and reps need sales to thrive, sales in the current month and quarter. This is why companies all pay commissions for sales, not for relationships. This is why it makes more sense to develop a sale, delver to or above expectations and use that as the platform for building a relationship, rather than building relationships with customers from which repeat business will flow. To be clear, I am not saying no relationship, or relationships have no vale, but that there is a sequence that delivers more for both parties, and that sequence is, start building the relationship and the sales as soon as you engage, but get the sale first, it will take time to build a real and worthwhile relationship.

So there, we have solved that one, and if you are interested, and have a sense of humour, the question of which came first the chicken or the egg, has also been answered. Again, if you have a sense of humour, you can learn about it here.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

It Is Personal0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

One questionable piece of advice sellers are given is not to take “things personally”. While I understand the sentiment behind it, encouraging sellers to not go down a dark hole, there is something wrong with telling professional sales people, in fact professionals of any type, not to take it personally. The reality is that part of successful selling is conviction, not just in your ability to add value to the buyer, but and in how you sell. It is hard to have that and not be passionate about selling, and as soon as passion is involved, it also becomes personal.

Certainly there are parts of the sales cycle that you can remove yourself somewhat from the emotions of the sale, usually during the prospecting stage, especially if you are a proactive rather than a passive prospector. When you first reach out to a potential buyer they don’t know you from Adam, and the goal is to get them engaged. Initial rejections are more situational than directed; meaning that they are not rejecting you as an individual, but what you represent, an interruption. But as you get engaged and are working through the sale, you get more emotionally involved, things do become a lot more personal.

It is that emotional involvement that often allows you to go deep with a buyer. Passion and enthusiasm are contagious, and it’s something you want your buyers to catch. After all, we are constantly reminded that people buy on emotion, then rationalize their decision, so it only helps if you are going to connect with the buyer on that level as well.

A more workable and realistic goal is to understand that you do need to get involved on a number of levels, that it does get personal, and that you need to be able to deal with and manage the outcomes whether they go your way or not. The ability to step back, assess the circumstance, and move on to the next sale. No different than the expectation and practice in professional sport.

By assessing the outcome you achieve a number of positives that help with the personal aspect. First you can evaluate how well you did execute you plan and process and understand why perhaps you lost the deal. I say perhaps, because there isn’t always a clear answer all nicely wrapped, if the result of the assessment is ambiguous, you will still have to deal with the outcome and move on.

But if the analysis of the deal and outcome are not ambiguous, then you are in a great position to learn, both what you want to repeat and to accentuate moving forward, and what to avoid and improve. While this may not take away the sting of a lost deal, it does help you benefit in some way, cope, and have a reason to give it another go with your new insight.

It is very much the emotion we bring at sellers that helps us win deals where most all other things are equal. It is precisely then that you need to go deep, and leave yourself open to disappointment, and yes it does become personal precisely because of that; and given the opportunity I would advise you to get emotionally involved and deal with the outcome win or lose. After all, they only give you the advice about it not being personal when you lose, it seems they are OK with it being personal when you win.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Why Waste Time Waiting for Events – Trigger The Reaction – Sales eXchange 197 (#video)0

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to sit down with Ago Cluytens, for one his Coaching Masters Series interviews. All this week, the posts will feature snippets of the interview, below we will also tell you where you can find the whole interview, but now let’s go to the first extract.

Trigger Events are fine, but there is no escaping that you have to wait for the “event”. But here’s the deal, what you are leveraging is not the event, but the buyer’s reaction to the event. So why not take the training wheels off, forget the “event”, and learn to trigger the reaction without having to wait, with the others looking for the same sign.

Take a look at what I mean.

If you would like to see the entire discussion you can either visit my You Tube channel, or go the Ago’ site by clicking here. Always open to comments and views.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

What’s Improving – Your Sales OR Orders?2

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

As the economy continues to show hints of progress, and business picks up, it is important to understand the nature of the improvements in sales you and your company experience. Taking into account the old adage “all boats rise with the tide”, you need to be able to discern where your growth is coming from. Is it from increased sales, or just an increase in orders due to an improving economic environment; and yes Sunshine, there is a difference, much like the difference between sales professionals and order takers.

More than ever, having a defined sales process, with supporting metrics is a must. Without that, you may easily mistake increased revenues with improved sales or selling, when in reality the improvement may be organic. Increased demand, leading to an uptick in orders or improved selling, the two are very different, but often mistaken.

In fact, this is one of the risks of relying strictly on a single lagging indicator – Revenues, rather than a mix of leading and lagging indicators. In many ways you can look at it the way investors look at interest rates paid on fixed income instruments, where they back out the rate of inflation from the total rate they receive from an instrument to arrive at the real rate. Think of the organic increase in orders as inflation, and the real rate as YOUR ability to sell more or better in a given market. All sellers benefit from a rise in demand, only those who focus on selling will grow sales beyond the herd, and get more than their share of growth. Increased market share is always a good thing.

To avoid being caught, you need understand your intra-sale conversion rates, understanding if in fact you are doing a better job of converting leads to prospects, prospects to proposals and proposals to wins. By measuring these and other critical points you will know if you are just benefiting from an increase in demand – more leads, or ability to convert those leads. If you have a 4:1 lead to prospect rate, then it goes without saying that you’ll have more sales from six leads than 4, 1.5 sales vs. 1. But if your sales and selling skills improve, and you can move to a 3:1 ratio, you’ll sell proportionally more. This is important in down markets too, but people get fooled in up markets when the wind is in their sails.

Once you understand these measures, you can set goals for theses (or other) conversions from stage to stage, and benefit from the compounding effect, and increase both real and organic sales. With goals and metrics in place, it is much easier to develop and Execute a tactical plan, you will be in a position to adjust or change your model to ensure continuous growth and skills improvements.

Not knowing can create more than false comfort, it could lead you to make wrong decisions, and by the time you realize, you may be left too far behind the competition.

What’s In Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

While I have always supported the concept and the focus behind the three R’s of academics; although I never understood why the academic community would go for the label, given that only on of the three words in question start with an R.

We in sales hold to a higher standard, and therefore the three words that make up the three R’s of Sales, all do indeed start with the letter R!

Reciprocate – It should not be news that the most successful sales people look at sales from a giving standpoint, rather than a what can I get standpoint. Unfortunately, the latter makes up the majority of the sales population, often this is a result of the “message” and “motivation” they get from their management. While I do not shy away from the sales rep as a “hunter”, the prey is not the buyer.

While most of think of reciprocating as giving back, you can also think of is as just giving; specifically giving to you buyers and prospects. The notion of giving is not new, but often sellers give in return for something they “have gotten”, like a next step, an introduction to a decision maker, or an order.

But if you can think of it in that if you give value to buyers in any number of ways right through the process, the buyer will reciprocate. At time this may be in the form of a referral, next step, or the order. Reciprocate forward as it were.

Reinvent – This may seem straight forward, but is probably the most difficult for many sellers. It involves two disciplines, one is reviewing sales to see what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be done to change that. The second is change itself, sellers find it hard to change, even though they spend their time and effort trying to get buyers to change in a number of ways.

The need to review every or a significant sample of your transactions is crucial. I have spoken about it extensively on this blog, the need to review all sales initiated, win – lose – draw. You can still download the 360 Deal Review tool, and start what is an easy but valuable exercise. The key is what you identify as working, what is not, and more importantly, what you are prepared to do about it.

There a many teams I see who review, note, but do not implement change. Without the last step, it’s just a validation exercise with little or no value.

Change is an interesting thing, it does not have to be wholesale or instantaneous, and it is exponential, sometimes it is the smallest things that have the biggest impact. Meaning you can start small, limited risk, and tangible benefits. The hardest is always the first step; so pick something easy, develop an action plan, a period of review, and do it a bit at a time.

Reputation – There is one thing you have to hold on to throughout your career, that is your reputation. Skills, clients, successes come and go, they can all be rebuilt or reinvented, reputations are a bit more delicate. They can be rebuilt, but there is always a cost. Reputation not only precedes you, which is crucial to success, but it also lags, people have a way to remember more of the bad than the good. Of the three R’s this is fundamental, and without which the other two R’s are difficult to execute.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Hanging Out with @GlobeSmallBiz: How to develop a Winning Sales strategy

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business’ Small Business interview series on Google+ Hangout. As the title suggests, we discussed a number of topics relating to sales, and sales challenges important for small business owners.

This was not only a great use of the technology, but we covered a number of key issues potential pitfalls, and opportunities for small business owners.

Take a look, comment, enjoy, and profit.

httpvh://youtu.be/A3FEyN2B4dE

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

A reminder that there is a class this afternoon, 4:00 pm Eastern

GAP Selling – Leveraging Process and Execution

GAP Selling – Looks at how to deliver value to buyers across the entire sales cycle.
Almost every sales conversation starts or ends with the concept of value; at the same time there are as many different understandings and definitions of value as there are sellers and buyers.

This course delivers clear and actionable definition of value. Starting with that definition of value, participants will learn the five step platform to leveraging that value right through the sale, from the initial engagement to winning the client. The overarching goal of the platform is to focus on the buyer’s objectives, and delivering specific means of helping them achieve those objectives.

These include:

Identifying and validating buyer’s objectives
Understanding why buyers really buy
Why Buyers buy and don’t buy from you and your company
Converting the above to impact questions and quality conversation
A structured follow-through approach to maximize impact and progress Participants will learn how to use the above to create alignment with the buyer, their objectives and buying process

Join us at 4:00 pm Eastern today

Prerequisite – An open mind to learning and selling better

Test – Your weekly Pipeline Review

Last week I was working with a team getting ready for a frontal attack on the second half of the year. One of the reps, Henry, a capable fellow, been plying his craft for a number of years, a type of rep I call the “Eighty Percenters”. Some years he exceeded quota, some years he missed, when he missed it was not by much but still a miss, then he would refocus, and put together a few successful quarters. Interestingly enough he had exceeded plan during 2010 and 2011, when others didn’t; but had run into a rough patch thus far this year.

As we began our review he said something typical for reps in a slump or behind target, he asked out loud “Why me?”. As the sales equivalent of Zeus or some sales oracle and their council, high on Mount Revenue, had decided that this was not the quarter Henry was going to make his number; they plotted and placed obstacles no mortal sales person could overcome thus assuring his failure.

While I understand the frustration, and empathise with Henry, the reality is that the only answer to Henry’s question was Henry.

Rather than asking why me, it is a much better use of time to understand what Henry did, did not do, did well, and frankly what he messed up on. Assuming there was a level playing field in each of the sales Henry was involved in, it is clear that someone else did a better job, or more accurately, took the right steps to understand and satisfy the needs of the buyers involved.

These could be factors directly related to how Henry executes his company’s sales process. For instance, after looking at how a couple of deals he lost unfolded, it was clear that Henry had skipped a couple of critical steps here, and got ahead of the buyer at times, making assumptions where validation and next steps would have served him better.

It was also clear that he did not take the time to learn from each sale. Henry was happy to celebrate deals he won, but did not take the time to see if the underlying factors were still valid, had changed, or why he was winning the deal. I can relate, what’s the old saying about when it’s not broken why fix it. But sales is about leading the process, not just responding/reacting to things, especially since wins were not as abundant as the plan called for.

While Henry did do the obligatory review of lost deals, much of what surfaced was not changing the way he approached his next deal. Sure he could point to a few small steps here and there, but some bigger changes were still “gonna be next week”, before they became part of his routine.

To be fair, his manager should have been more proactive, and accountable for some of the things Henry was or was not doing, but in the end it is Henry’s territory, income and professional success. He needs to get involved in his success, not ask, “oh why me?” The only answers is that is “who else should suffer the outcome of your execution, or lack thereof?”

So next time you are tempted to ask “why me?”, first ask, based on your actions, who else?

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

One common objection sales people face when making prospecting calls, is when the potentially prospect says “now is not the right time”. While timing is important, and understanding how specific triggers can help improve your timing, the fact remains that perfecting your timing will only help you in a very (very very) small way, in a very narrow part of you potential prospect segment. Here is why.

Timing is only important with two buyer groups, Passive, those who have realized the Status Quo no longer meets their requirements, and have decided to learn or check out “what’s out there”. Not actively looking, but getting feelers out, looking at some web sites, information, getting acclimatized, hence Passive. The other group are those Active buyers who have decided to buy, even what to buy, is now just down to where and from whom; this is where the order takers thrive. But together these two groups are a small part of the market, maybe 30%, but the remaining 70%, the Status Quo, timing, will by definition always be off. As a result, you have two choices, the popular choice for many whose business cards say Sales Representative, is to avoid prospecting and fully engaging with these potential buyers; taking the advice of some questionable experts who will encourage them to “nurture”. “After some nurturing, when they are ready, they will call you, since you stuck with them.” OK

So if you want to really change the outcome, read make more sales and generate more revenue, you need to work on the Status Quo, the 70% where you will always be too early, the 70% where other fear to tread.

The reality of timing is it will ALWAYS be either too Late or too Soon. If they are Passive or Active buyers, it will always be too late, and if they are in Status Quo, it will always be too early, because they do not perceive a “need”, until something changes and it needs to be NOW.

That being said, it is not as difficult to overcome the challenge as some will make you believe. First resolve to engage the entire market, including those currently removed from the market. Because you not only know that their circumstance will change, and what may seem too early becomes, “I need it now”, but given your experience you know what is likely to be the catalyst for that change, the challenges they will face and the solution they will need to resolve it.

How? By studying and understanding what led to that moment in the past with existing clients, prospects, and deals that did not go your way. Once you know this, by tracking deals you’ve won, lost and those that ended in no decision. You will understand what events led up to and caused the change, with that you can prepare, position and act. It takes work, sometimes boring work, but with the right tools, and right approach, you can take timing and turn it your way.

By studying past outcomes and inputs, you can take proactive steps to ensure that you don’t enter the fray too late, and always capitalize on opportunities other sales people and prospects will say is too soon.

It is never the right time if you relinquish control, and always the right time if you are willing to put in the work, and ask, “is it ever the right time?”

Next Step

Call everyone, not just the easy targets
Understand where they may be based on experience
You dictate the time

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

As you know, I have always encouraged sellers to review all sales in which they chose to invest time and resources. Whether you win the deal, lose it, or if it ends in “no decision”, it makes sense to understand why for all the obvious reasons. The latter group, “no decision”, is more important than many give it credit. Depending on your source for data, this “no decision” group makes up a significant number of deals, and therefore consumes a significant amount time, resources, and costs related to sales. While most stats indicate that anywhere from 28% to over 35% of B2B sales end in “no decision”, I recently saw a presentation where a credible individual stated that some 60% of deals end with the buyer taking no action at all. Quite an bit of time and resources spent on something with no return.

Well to be accurate, no immediate return, as “no decision” outcomes can, and should be, revisited and re-engaged. That’s the good news, the ability to learn what led to the lack of decision, how that differs from deals you lose or win, and what might it take to change the outcome.

The bad news is that many sellers mistakenly look at a “no decision” the wrong way, they see these deals as a “draw” rather than a “type” of loss, I hear things like “we didn’t win, it but we did not lose.” But let’s be clear, if you didn’t win – you lost! You may not have lost to a competitor, but you did lose, time, resources and most importantly lost opportunities that came and went (to other vendors) while you chased the one that didn’t happen.

One way to leverage the “no decision” deals, is to review them along with the wins and losses. Few review all three, some review losses only, and some review wins. By digging into all three, you will learn not just why you win or not, but specific key differences, some you can address, some like price, you really don’t want to. BTW, if you are going to consistently review outcomes, you should assign it to someone other than the sales person who was involved in the deal. Through no fault of their own, they never seem to get as good a response as a detached third party. For example, if you lost the deal, the easiest and most time efficient response by the buyer is to say it was lost due to price, sales people say to themselves, “I knew it”, lick their wounds and move on without much learned.

As you look at wins and losses, you can begin to see trends and the shades of difference between wins and “no decision”, and the same with losses. In most cases it is easier to focus on and address the increments than the big picture. As you identify and address these things, you have the opportunity, or obligation to revisit deals that went nowhere. The reality is that there are some cases where you and your offer were nothing more than column fodder, with the buyer having made up their mind to stay with the incumbent before the cycle even began, but need to rationalize that decision. But there are also a good number of buyers, who can be re-engaged, resold with the new element in play, and taken to a win. They know you, they have engaged with you, and if you demonstrate a new understanding of their situation, and demonstrate that you and your company listen and act, you can win those the second time around. Beats feeling sorry or chalking it up as a draw!

Next Step

Commit to knowing and using facts to decide
Download our 360 Degree Deal View
Find someone in sales ops to take ownership of review process, if you do not have the sales op, don’t use it as an excuse, do it yourself.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

The Sales Version of Chicken or Egg – Sales eXchange 2050

It Is Personal0

Why Waste Time Waiting for Events – Trigger The Reaction – Sales eXchange 197 (#video)0

What’s Improving – Your Sales OR Orders?2

The Three Rs of Sales – Sales eXchange 18243

Hanging Out with @GlobeSmallBiz: How to develop a Winning Sales strategy45

School Is In53

Why Me? – Sales eXchange 15773

Is It Ever A Good Time? – Sales eXchange – 14957

Win, Lose or Draw?42