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Shock Treatment – Sales eXchange 1922

by Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Last Monday I posted about the overlooked opportunity in that segment of buyers know as Status Quo, pundits and sellers alike commiserating each other about the difficulty of selling to a ready group of buyers, vs. taking orders from self-declared buyers.

I’ll be the first to admit change is hard, especially for business buyers who have their handful, trying to make headway in a competitive market. Change is time consuming, a drain on resources, creates upheaval, usually expensive, and fraught with risk, for the organization and the individual at the centre of the decision. Moving the dial with these types of buyers requires more than a bit of effort, which is why change is also hard for sellers; it is much easier and safer to rationalize, and wait for a referral.

This is why there is a healthy and growing industry of sages ready to sell indisposed sellers every mean of just waiting at the edge of the forest, encouraging them to wait for something to come out to them, rather than entering the fray and winning business most sellers seem reluctant to peruse.

How much effort does it take? Well take a minute, step back and look around you and study what it takes for people to make critical changes in key their lives. Frighteningly, you discover that people don’t often make big changes, right changes, preferring to avoid and live with the consequences of the Status Quo. Even when they know that the new state is preferable to their existing one. The naive notion which many buy into that people will move to a better mouse trap has cost both sellers and buyers much time and money. You can build the better mouse trap, Trap 2.0, and people will rodent infestation will maybe look your way, then rationalize why they shouldn’t beat a path to your door.

Don’t believe me, how many people do you know who continue to smoke, even after their father expired due to lung cancer; how many people do you know who continue to biggie size it, despite the fact that they have to buy a new wardrobe every six months? People can change these with a effort if they wanted to, but it takes effort. How many times have you watched companies go to the brink or beyond because the devil they knew was a better alternative to the one they didn’t know?

The answer is not offering the “right” or “better” solution, or in becoming their friend. It is about penetrating the barriers the buyers have erected to protect their current state. Your only choice is to shock them, shock your way past their fortress of hope. Hope it will work out, hope it will last, and hope no one will notice. For the “be found crowd”, this is not an issue, the buyer has dismantled the barriers, and are ready to change, but for the Status Quo, intervention time.

Now I am not talking about clamping a couple of electrodes to your buyer’s temples (or elsewhere); but I am talking about asking hard and very direct questions, which at best could be called provocative, at worst a punch below their reality belt. One does not have to be rude, but one does have to shake things up, which means the ultimate relationship you have starts out a bit rough, but ends up being a solid one, built on being a reliable resource, not a cuddly friend.

There is plenty of writing and thinking out there about how to succeed with the Status Quo, mine, others who provide means and questions you can use. But the first step is for you as a seller to recognize and decide how you want to deliver value to your buyer. Once you decide that you can do more than just take orders from ready buyers, and win more business who may not think they need you or your offering, there are plenty of resources to help you, but as with other changes, you need to first admit that you are a card carrying member of the Status Quo.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Guest Post – Michael Ashford

Selling to business can be a great profession for talented sales people who want to work in ‘big time’ sales. Especially as you work with medium and large size companies, B2B sales can mean large transactions and more opportunity to showcase advanced selling skills.

But B2B selling, especially to large corporations has evolved into a complicated process. This is no more true when selling technology to business – software, hardware, telecommunications, infrastructure, etc. Companies spend massive amounts of capital on technology, and as the technology has advanced, so too has their buying process.

In this post, we’ll discuss some of the reasons technology sales to business is so complex. … Read more →

One of the greatest things invented by the financial service industry was “Compound Interest“. Save for the fact that no one is paying much interest on money these days, the reality of Compound Interest still holds and delivers added gain regardless of how low of high rates are. I was watching a teacher explain the concept to a grade 5 class, and he brought it down to “a little to start, a little from here, a little from there, and over time you end up with more than straight interest”.

As you assess your plan for sales success in 2013, you can take advantage of “Compounding” to achieve greater success. Rather than resolving to do new things in new ways in 2013, why not resolve to improve a little here and a little there with things you already do or need to do; but do it in a way that ends up being greater than the individual gains on your efforts.

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What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Every morning the financial pundits stick their finger in the air, and tell us how things are looking in Europe, and the Greek crisis, then they parade a series of talking heads to support the daily view. Things look good, markets rally; things look bad, markets tank. Many sales people start their day watching these pundits on say CNBC, or on their favourite app, but fail to take away the clear and real lesson that could help them sell better and more. As a result, they end up selling like Greece.

When you boil it down, the “crisis” (real, manufactured, or imagined), boils down to a simple thing, exemplified best, (or worst) by Greece, a country that simply does not have enough money to deliver against their obligations. Yes I know this may terribly over simplify things but after all I am a pundit of sorts, and as such at the very least I have an agenda to promote; Greece just does not produce enough revenue to meet their obligation; add the contagion factor, and you have a snap shot of Europe and their crisis.

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What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

By the time you know if you had made your quarter or year, it is too late. If you made it great, if you didn’t, too bad, it’s too late to do anything about it. So to succeed in sales, forget the revenue, it is a lagging indicator, focus on what really matters, the activities and elements that lead to a sale, the leading indicators.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

In previous posts I shared how time and your treatment of it have a direct impact on your selling results and success. How allocating time is a much more productive than efforts invested in trying to manage it; shifting time to help you and your buyer do more with a finite and non-renewable resource.

Since time is constant, and always a key part of the success equation, there are other ways for sellers to leverage time for success. One is the use of deadlines and critical milestones. A specific point in time creates focus all around. Once firmed up it can help the buyer prioritize their actions, resources and decisions in order to deliver by the given date. One of the most important components of an effective and successful Discovery stage and process, is understanding and confirming the buyer’s decision/process. Core to this, is the buyer’s timelines and most importantly, deadlines. Remember, gaining efficiencies and advantages by shifting time, is one of the key drivers for people making purchase decisions. To add impact, drive to establish and confirm not only when they need to make decision by, but when they expect the benefit of the purchase to materialize.

The purchase is an incidental piece of a bigger thing unfolding. Whatever you’re selling, the important time for the buyer is when they will get material benefit from using what you are selling, not the actual purchase of your offering. If putting your machine on the floor will:

Reduce errors in production by 5%
Which in turn means lower cost of production
Which leads to improved margins (don’t forget sometimes improved margins may be a direct objective for the director you are dealing with, which leads to a direct financial bonus for the buyer)
And the buying organization has set a margin target for end of next quarter

The end of the next quarter is a more prevailing a deadline than the slated purchase date. You can leverage both to create focus, having both “project” deadline and expected benefit deadline. Even when they may not have a formal buying/decision making process, having a timeline can be very powerful focal point; and most have a sense of time. Of course if they don’t it is a powerful clue that you may not be dealing with a serious prospect, even when they may have a decision process, but seems no need to make a decision now!

It is also important when you run into reluctance to change; having the deadline will help you accentuate the risk of inaction. This may not be that important to “be found” sellers, but for real sales people, it can help you calm a client by focusing on the upside of the projected benefit, and the risk associated with standing still; not easy, but if it was they wouldn’t need us. Having that point in time, helps you work backwards to where they are now, and create urgency and more importantly action – execution. Once you develop this skill, you’ll be able to work backwards in very effective way, most specifically in “if you don’t act by this date, you will miss”.

And let’s not forget the importance of deadlines you create efficiencies in the way you sell and manage your pipeline. Deadlines help you prioritize execution. They also help you time sales out, if your average sales cycle is 6 weeks, you can set a deadline for expected close, and measure you execution against that, and if need be disqualify opportunities that are beyond deadline.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Prospecting is a unique skill set, this is why hunters are always in greater demand and earn more than people who can sell but can’t prospect. One quality is knowing when and what to bring to bear to move the sale forward, what resources you really need and which are superfluous or a distraction.

A common killer is research. Stay with me a few more lines before you completely frank out, I am talking about the degree/level of research and when you do it.

Doing research on a prospect is a must, you need to know the facts, their potential objectives, opportunities, etc. But that’s for a prospect, implication being that they have agreed to engage and initiate the sales cycle with, no promises, no guarantees, but a solid start. And yes, you need to know your stuff inside out going into that scenario, which means spending time in advance of the meeting/call. The key being that you have a willing participant.

It important to remember that time is a precious non-renewable resource, you need to seriously consider where you are spending it, or as is often the case, wasting it. I n light of that, what I find odd, and a great waste of time, is how much time and effort people put into research before they even pick up the phone to get a potential buyer to commit to engaging.

Since the prospecting call is an exercise solely meant to get that first meeting/sales call, it does not call for the level of research many inexperienced prospectors put into it. You need to have prior knowledge and understanding, issues facing your target and how you can contribute, but you don’t the type of encyclopedic knowledge some sellers seem to want before you pick up the phone.

For example my prospecting numbers are 12 dials > 6 right prospect conversations > 1 solid engagement. Now many sellers argue that they need to spend 20 – 30 minutes researching each company/individual before dialing the phone. Even at the low end, 20 x 12 would mean an investment of 240 minutes FOUR HOURS for one appointment. I don’t know what your time is worth, but you can buy an appointment for a lot less. At $500 per hour, that’s $2,000!

You can do it differently, first start by complying your lists based on verticals, and roles within verticals. This allows you to do research you can stretch and recycle across a list of targets, even if you research issues for an hour, and use it while pursuing 40 target, that less than 90 seconds per, add to that a few minutes for company specific data, and you have a manageable time-frame. Again remember you are trying to engage, get an appointment or a commitment for a call, not sell them. When you set out for the appointment, do the deep dive.

One other reason you don’t want to do the deep dive before the prospecting call. It makes sellers want to show all the great knowledge they accumulated during their research, showing off all they know, after all look at the time and energy you out in. But in the process you turn off the buyer, leading many to believe they need to do even more research rather than less.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Most sales people will tell me “get me on front of the right prospect, and I’ll close them every time”, OK, but getting in front of the right prospect is part of the job. Maybe not the most fun part, but one that has to be executed regularly and consistently.

In addition to learning the skills it takes to engage someone, overcome their initial objections, and get them focused on the issue at hand, sales people also need to become better at being persistent and creative in how they approach people. Too many give up to soon and too easily, and many limit the channels of communication. While social media has changed some of this, at a core level, sellers need to be more persistent and more creative in engaging potential prospects.

Here are some means and reason to focus on this end of the sale as much as the other stages.

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Sometimes pipeline reviews can be more of a bother than they need be, both for reps and managers. The nature of the reviews that we do are part of a multi-touch approach to understanding what’s in the pipe, what needs to happen (be done) next either to move the deal forward, or replace with an opportunity that will move forward. Looking at the upside, downside, and planned next step if, the next meeting goes as planned. To further simplify it and keep it clean, we only want to look at meetings in the immediate week, with many clients requiring a minimum number per week.

Simple straight forward, and most importantly no room or time for stories. Assuming you have everything required, it takes about five minutes per rep, even with a team of eight reps, in – out and done in less than 45 minutes.

Unfortunately the assumption is not always correct. Mostly it falls down in two areas, first, having the required number of opportunities. Some don’t like this, but it is simple, if your closing ratio is 5 to 1, and you need to deliver 5 deals a month, you are going to need to either improve your closing ratio, or engage with 25 potential prospects. Even if you focus on improving your close ratio to say 3 to 1, still need 15 opportunities. A simple question of working backwards from your goal to understand the activity level you need through the cycle and in each stage.

Second, is a lack of a real next step. As discussed in previous posts, a next step needs to have a couple of basic but non-negotiable elements. They need to be agreed on by both the buyer and you, and they need to have a time frame. “We will meet to review this on Tuesday at 11:00 in order to finalize the floor plan and order the braces”, or “”we will have a conference call Friday at 2:00, with you and the engineer to finalize the specs for…”, or as simple as “we will meet Wednesday at 10:00 to present final proposal”. Concrete, clear, and MUTUALLY AGREED ON. But often what you get is what people think they should do next, things they have yet to present to buyer. Remember a plan is great, action is even better.

When you have the two above, the reviews are quick and productive. When you don’t, it becomes long, winding and unproductive, especially for those who do have their act together.

The ones who don’t, know they are fooling no one, least of all themselves, they have nothing or little to fill the pipe. And in trying to fill the void, they try to fill it with words, stories. Stories that meander everywhere but to a point or opportunity. This stretches the time, and makes the meeting longer again.

A pipeline review is just that, what’s in the pipeline, not a never ending story going back to Adam and Eve. There are other opportunities to do a deep dive deal by deal, I think they call that a deal review. If you don’t have the requisite opportunities to discuss, there is no need to make up for it with unrelated words, just stick to what you have, just the facts.

Execution – Everything Else is Just Talk!
Tibor Shanto

Effective communication is crucial to sales success, understanding what the client wants, how they prefer those wants addressed, and understanding what they mean, can tilt things for you or against you. But communication is way more than the words exchanged between buyer and seller, as we all have been told communication is 60% body language, 30% intonation and tone, and only 10% verbal or words. Yet many sales people rely too much on strictly words, both in conveying their message, and taking input from potential buyers, almost completely ignoring the other aspects of communication.

This has obvious repercussions when it comes to effective selling, and ensuring you are getting the right message to the listener in the right way. Borrowing from the work relating to how people learn, because getting someone to change and buy from us is an exercise in educating the buyer; there are three types of learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (or tactile). Buyers tend to fall into one of three groups when they take in, understand and absorb your message. If you do not take steps to ensure you are incorporating all three types, you risk not fully communicating to many buyers even as you speak to them.

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What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

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What's In Your Pipeline?

Shock Treatment – Sales eXchange 1922

The Complexities of Selling Technology to Business0

Compounding Your Sales Successes40

Read On…

Selling Like Greece!30

Read On…

Forget The Revenue115

Deadlines – Your Sales Trump – Sales eXchange 16546

Are You Too Smart for Prospecting?113

Just The Facts!38

Not Only Is Talk Cheap But Misleading32

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