Selling Isn't Debate: Confessions of an Engineer in Sales

The following was written by my good friend Chip Doyle with the Sandler Sales Institute. I think you will enjoy it!

I'm guessing you've heard jokes about engineers in sales. Accountants, contractors, PhD's, and lawyers don't have stellar reputations in sales either. Yet these professions generally are an intelligent lot. They are quite skilled at what they do since our daily lives may depend on their specific calculations and recommendations. I transferred from engineering into sales in 1988...

Here's how I used to sell: 1) Research the prospect and prepare a powerful presentation that applied specifically to them. 2) Provide the prospect with detailed features about the product. 3) Explain how these features worked and the significant benefits they would create. 4) Show the prospect an applicable analysis of return-on-investment and estimate how much money would be saved over time. 5) Ask the prospect how many of my products they would like to purchase.

If the prospect suggested a problem with the analysis or why the features weren't so beneficial, I would use my debate and technical skills to refute their argument and reaffirm my claim. My product knowledge was impeccable and I let no prospect get away until I had supported my argument and convinced them I was correct.

In the spirit of successful engineering, I had created a repeatable and systematic approach to selling. There was only one problem: My prospects rarely bought anything. It was a great way to prove my product knowledge but it wasn't an effective method for closing new business.

Product Knowledge Used at the Wrong Time Can Be Intimidating

In a sales discussion, there is only one person who can "convince" the prospect and it isn't the engineer or salesperson... Prospects base their buying decisions on their own personal and intellectual reasons. Studies show that salespeople who suggest benefits that aren't perceived as valuable or applicable to the prospect are actually undermining the sale...

Debates are useful to convince a third party such as a judge or observer that welcomes all viewpoints. There, the relationship between the two opposing parties is usually adversarial. However, adversarial relationships don't support buying in two party interactions. Words and phrases containing "I disagree," "That's not true" and the infamous "But" can destroy the delicate relationship between buyer and seller in a matter of seconds. While this may be intuitively obvious to most readers, they may be surprised to hear themselves saying something similar on their next challenging sales call.

Successful salespeople spend more time on the "why" questions than a traditional salesperson. They bend over backwards to find ways to agree with their prospects and probe for deeper understanding instead of taking an opposing view. Start using insightful questions to help your prospects "discover" why they should buy and watch your closing ratio improve.

Let us know your thoughts on this!

Why Business Owners Shouldn't Cold Call

by John Dini, President MPN Incorporated

The Owner as Salesperson

If your business employs salespeople, then you’ve probably had them bring an account challenge to you. “You need to talk to this customer, Boss. You can (fill in the blank) better than anyone else.”

The fill-in-the-blank part may be convincing, explaining your product, negotiating or being tough. Whatever is needed, it’s likely that your employees think you do it better than they do. In most small businesses, the owner is the best salesperson. Why is that?

In some companies it’s because the owner started out as a salesperson and built the business that way. But that isn’t true in all cases. Even in situations where the owner is the best technician, the best analyst, or the best designer, he or she is usually still the best salesperson.

That’s because owners have gravitas, the weight of ownership attached to their words. If they promise something, the customer freely (and correctly) assumes that such promises carry the reputation and resources of the company behind them. If the owner says something can’t or won’t be done, there is no court of appeal. The owner’s word is final.

The owner is usually better able to reach an understanding, because the party negotiating for the other side is more accepting of the owner’s positions. There are fewer things to negotiate, and more acceptance of the facts as presented.

So why do owners hate cold calling? I mean, everyone dislikes cold calling, but all the business owners I know hate it with a passion. Even those who grew their business with cold calls (and most did) steadfastly refuse to do it today. What makes it so loathsome?

The Owner’s Sales Identity

The issue lies with the owner’s ego. I don’t mean an ego that says “I’m too good to do this,” but rather the entire sense of self-worth that drives your personality.

When you started out, you didn’t expect new customers to take you at your word. After all, your business had no track record, so why should a stranger believe you when you promised something? You probably weren’t too certain that you could actually deliver everything you promised. But as the business grew, you established your reputation for quality, dependability, integrity, and any other feature you take pride in. You carry that reputation with you as an owner. It is part of you.

It comes along whenever an employee introduces you to a customer. There is always a little bit of pride in hearing “This is my Boss.” or “This is the Owner of our company.” or “This is the President of ABC Corp.” It’s a position you earned- no one bestowed it upon you. It is part of you, of your gravitas.

All of that disappears when you make a cold call. To begin with, you are probably trying to make an entry through a gatekeeper who doesn’t know your company, and doesn’t care what you have to offer. His or her job is to deal with people like you, so that the real decision maker doesn’t have to.

Further, your aura of ownership is left at the door. Your words carry no more weight than anyone else’s. For all they know, you’re just another lyin’ salesman. It’s hard not to respond to their skepticism with “Do you know who I am? Do you understand the commitment that stands behind what I say?” They don’t, and they won’t.

Negotiation Strategy- Matching Levels

The underlying problem with owners making cold calls isn’t that they are uncomfortable. No one likes making cold calls. It’s not that they result in rejection that bruises the owner’s inflated sense of self, either. It’s that they aren’t an appropriate use of an owner’s time.

A basic tactic of negotiation strategy is that you match levels of negotiators. If their final decision maker isn’t in the room, your final decision maker shouldn’t be there either. Negotiations (and all sales are negotiations) can only take place between equals.

So it is appropriate for someone else to make the cold call. Teach them that it is their job to only put you in front of your opposite number- someone with the same ability to commit as you have. Then the work you put in to earn your stripes brings value into the room with you.

What do you think? Do you still cold call? How do you set up your gravitas before a meeting? Let me know.

Mid Year Sales Planning

The following was written by my good friend Chip Doyle, a Sandler Sales Franchisee.
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He who fails to plan is planning to fail - Winston Churchill

Prospecting plans are more than a necessary part of a salesperson's tool kit. The planning process creates accountability and a sense of teamwork for salespeople. Good plans also improve the salesperson's outlook and motivation. By measuring the results of a plan, salespeople can identify what's working and what isn't and adjust accordingly. And last but not least, planning and accountability insures activities that fill the pipeline are not subordinated to client fulfillment work. This one drives me nuts. As an example, seller-doers (people like CPA's, consultants, architects, engineers, etc) pray for business but as soon as they get some, they complain that they don't have time for business development. This is just a sophisticated way of admitting they don't have a plan.

You can be a part of your own plan or part of someone else's - David Sandler

The year is almost half over and odds are you've made some progress towards your prospecting and sales plan. If you don't have a prospecting plan yet, stop reading here and start planning!

Planning has Pitfalls

Unfortunately there are predictable traps that I see clients fall into related to planning. Occasionally they will use the planning process to procrastinate action. I also see salespeople that fail to adjust plans over time based on new information or tracked results. Planning is not a one-time activity. It's a recurring process. Not every week, but certainly every six months.

More frequently I see plans with no priorities or activity sequences specified. John Argenti, author and founder of the Strategic Planning Society said "A plan is a list of actions arranged in whatever sequence is thought likely to achieve an objective." Make sure you assign priorities or some sequence in your planning process.

"It is almost always the decision maker that makes the decision work, not the choice which makes the decision work." - David Sandler

I also see companies attempt to build consensus around an ideal plan. It never happens. There's no need to try to build the perfect plan. The key is to get your salespeople on the right course so they can realize the benefits of the planning process.

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We are halfway through the year. How are your sales? How are they compared to plan? What are you going to do to modify or create your plan?

Are You Negotiating Away Margins?

I recently met with a business owner who wanted to know how I trained salespeople in “negotiation.” After a little questioning, I was really struck by his misconception that their salespeople SHOULD be negotiating, which in layman’s terms is lowering price or offering some concession in exchange for a promise to buy.

Trusted advisors and top salespeople do everything they can to AVOID negotiating. Their job is to uncover the costs of the prospect’s problem and then to determine what budget is available to solve it BEFORE they propose a solution. The predominant problem many sales people have is that they simply aren’t comfortable talking about budget and cost impacts until the end of the sale. So they are forced to negotiate at the end, attempting to close the sale in spite of inadequate financial information.

Salespeople who rely on negotiation at the end of the sale usually exhibit these symptoms:

• Think that buying is primarily an intellectual process, not an emotional process

• Don’t understand the costs associated with the problem or what’s at stake financially early in the sales process

• Feel the product or service they sell is extremely expensive

• Are uncomfortable talking about other people’s finances

If you have salespeople that regularly require permission for a reduced price to get the sale or blame the competition’s price after losing the deal, look to the symptoms above to gain insight into the attitudes that drive these behaviors and outcomes. Please understand that I’m not saying that top salespeople NEVER need to negotiate. The point is to differentiate the strong salespeople who rarely need to negotiate from the weak ones that must negotiate every time to close a sale.

Examine the beliefs and behaviors of your salespeople when dealing with money issues, so they can minimize the need to negotiate at the end and sell more, more often!

Why Do Most People Buy? Hint: It's One Word

TRUST

According to Charles Green's "Trust-based Selling," in order to build loyal customers for life, you must value the relationship over the transaction. And, I agree. Especially if you are selling complex products or intangible services.

As Green points out, and my own experience shows, most sales and marketing people either ignore the trust factor altogether, or simply believe the act of building trust is telling their prospective customer all about their expertise, experience, reputation, etc. While this does build credibility, it does not build trust. And with all things seeming equal, the buyer will always choose trust.

So, what's the acid test for "selling from trust?" It's simple. Would you ever be willing to recommend a key competitor to a significant client? Be honest. This is not the time to live in denial. If you answer no, you are not selling from trust. In "Trust-Based Selling," Green identifies four values that a trust-based seller must hold and act from consistently:

1. True customer focus, which means treating customers as ends, not as means, and cultivating a habit of noticing and paying attention.
   
   
2. A collaborative style and willingness to involve the buyer in the sales process, going way beyond customer satisfaction surveys or client dinners.
   
   
3. A medium-to-long term perspective, which involves focusing on multiple transactions and interactions over time, as opposed to the particular sale at hand.
   
   
4. A habit of transparency, the best guarantor that motive will be understood. Secrets break down trust, while being transparent means being willing to let the client into the seller's business by sharing information that sellers might normally consider proprietary.
   

There are a lot of great nuggets in "Trust-Based Selling," but the biggest take-away is self awareness. Ask yourself, "do I really have my customer's best interests at heart?" Did you pass the acid test? But be honest with yourself!

Going International: What You Need to Know

Many small business owners are considering entering international markets to expand their business. Regardless of the economic climate, there are several things you need to know first.

Entering international markets is a logical growth step for many companies. Selling products beyond your borders, however, is not a trivial matter. Here are a few questions to make sure you ask before entering an international market.

1. Have you researched your new target markets to make sure that the product is really needed? Does your business plan show revenue growth and is the ROI higher than taking your product into additional vertical markets domestically?
   
   
2. What is the competition like in your new target markets? Competition outside of domestic markets can be vastly different.
   
   
3. How will you distribute your product?
   
   
4. Are there any laws and regulations that determine how the product is built, sold, or used?
   
   
5. Will an American English version of the product work or do you need to have a localized version of the product?
   

The quickest way to learn about your new target market(s) is to partner with a local distributor. A good distributor will be able to help you answer the questions above and will help you determine if there is a solid business opportunity. If there is a significant market the distributor can be your local operation for sales, marketing, installation, support and services.

The advantage to using a local distributor is that they will help you learn about business, cultural and language issues that you may not be aware of and may not be equipped to handle on your own. It is not uncommon for companies to start their international operations using distributors and then add their own direct operations over time.

Once you’ve decided that going global is right for your company be aware that the internal changes will be significant for your company. Here are a few challenging opportunities that will present themselves:

• Time differences – 5, 8, 10 … hour differences make scheduling meetings difficult.

• Communications: face-to-face communications will be rare given the cost of international travel, so most of your communications will be done via e-mail and conference calls. This can be a challenge especially when you are dealing with controversial issues.

• Marketing, sales and support will need to be visited to determine what services are needed and how they can be provided.

• Multiple product versions – For hardware products, in order to comply with laws and regulations it may be necessary to have international versions of certain components of your product. If you have a software product, it is recommended that you internationalize your product so that it can support multiple languages.

• Cultural differences: language differences and business styles may take some getting used to when dealing with other countries.

Going international is a great way to grow your company! Just make sure that you do the appropriate due diligence before entering new markets.

Customer Advisory Board

Regardless of the economic climate, it is always easier and cheaper to keep customers rather than go find new ones! If you are a “market-driven” company, then you will want regular feedback from your customers. One way to solicit input and have an on-going dialog from your customers is to have a Customer Advisory Board. A Customer Advisory Board is typically made up of “strategic” customers and/or partners and key members from your staff. You will want to have a set of customers that represents a broad segment of your market – different industries, segments/markets and user types. Establish a meeting on a regular basis (perhaps quarterly or twice a year – depending on your business). Ideally you want to be face-to-face. If that isn’t possible there are a number of technologies that you can use. Consider mixing it up –maybe face-to-face meetings twice a year and then video, conference calls, webinars, etc. for other dialogs.

Topics for your Customer Advisory Board can include product direction (new markets, products or features), getting feedback on marketing messages, documenting service/support requirements, or testing out new pricing and/or packaging ideas to name a few. Another key topic will be to continue to keep your pulse on your customers business and how the economic and political climate is impacting them. These can be some important early indicators for your business, especially to gage when they feel that they are heading out of the recession.

The Advisory Board will often have topics for you too! When I ran Customer Advisory Board’s, customers always came up with new ideas that hadn’t been thought of. The Customer Advisory Board is there to provide you with inputs, ideas and validation. Your customers will benefit as they often get to see/hear about what is coming next before everyone else and you are continuing to build a strong relationship with them by making them an integral part of your business. Make sure you have an agreed upon agenda prior to each meeting that states what you will cover and what you want to accomplish during the meeting so that everyone walks away with value. Your customer’s time is valuable (as is yours) so make sure there is something in it for them too (WIIFM – what’s in it for me).

When you are selling your product/service, you can tout that you value the inputs of your customers so much that you have a Customer Advisory Board to provide on-going feedback to the organization. Be prepared to be amazed at what you will learn from your customers, not to mention that they will be feeling your “love” knowing that you pay attention to them.

Dealing with Budget

It seems like every salesperson I run into lately asks me how to handle budget objections. Creating a sense of value with your customer is indeed an art form, but here are a few tips to help you tighten up your discussion about money.

1) You MUST determine if it makes financial sense for your prospect to purchase what you sell before you submit a proposal. Prospects are smart. When they see an opportunity to invest intelligently, they often do. But they hate to be sold when an investment doesn't make sense. If you can't figure out if it makes financial sense for a prospect to purchase your product, then they probably won't either.

2) Clearly you need the prospect to share a range that they are willing to spend. But you also need to understand their ability to spend. Gone are the days of a quick bank loan or VC funding to obtain some spending money. It's the salesperson's responsibility to understand how the purchase will be financed and where the funds are coming from. Salespeople look at me cross-eyed when I tell them this for the first time. However, it just takes one deal when the bank or board "didn’t approve us" to make a salesperson realize they just wasted hours (or days) on a proposal that should have been structured differently or discussed with different key decision influencers.

3) Have a specific place in your selling system to discuss money. It's certainly not at the beginning but don't wait until the proposal to disclose fees. The proposal should be anticlimactic, not a time to disclose surprises. A systematic process takes a lot of pressure off the salesperson too.

Unfortunately, selling isn't like tennis. You only get one chance to get it right. Once the prospect gets your proposal, the selling is over. Sophisticated buyers will give salespeople a second chance but even they do that to squeeze the seller on price. In this economic environment, it makes sense to handle the money issues up-front and only submit proposals that will win the business.

This article was contributed by Chip Doyle of the Sandler Sales Institute.

How to Generate Buzz

If you’re like most organizations, the sales team is on your back. Or you are part of the sales team. They—or you—need more customers. You feel like you are being stretched in 10 different directions. On top of everything, your budget just got slashed and your team is dwindling.

Through years of experimentation, testing and evaluating results, here is a methodology that absolutely works. The methodology is designed to increase customer acquisition quickly while minimizing the cost. The great thing about this system is that it is a system. It really isn’t voodoo rocket science but sometimes common sense approaches are overlooked in favor of the latest quick fix elixir.

Here’s the Five Step Process

1. Understanding Your Customer

In this all-important first step the goal is understanding. To persuade someone, to motivate someone, to sell someone something, you really need to understand that person and their point of view. You need to begin to understand the people you are trying to communicate with by creating a profile that will help you gain a “feeling” for them.

2. Defining the Offer

Now, you must communicate the features and benefits of your product or service to the customers. Most people overdo the feature part instead of emphasizing the benefits. Remember, people do not buy things for what they are; they buy things for what they do for them. How the offer is delivered is part of the system. A dedicated area on your website can be created to describe the offer. The offer can be a quick tour of your product/service, a web event or webinar, white paper, special pricing or information. These components are relatively inexpensive to produce and can be leveraged in a variety of ways.

3. Setting Up the Processes

This is the nuts and bolts phase of the system. When a prospect registers to attend an event or receive one of your offers, they are entered into the sales cycle. It is very important that a system be put in place to capture the prospect’s contact information and to understand their level of qualification and buying interest. The more information you can gather, the better targeted a marketer you can be. The system can be a complex database or a simple word document—most importantly it should be a system that works easily for you.

4. Go to Market Plan

Here is the heart and soul of the program. It is where the rubber meets the road. Once you understand your customer, have a good offer and processes in place, you must develop a plan. The plan includes the strategies and various tactics targeted to the appropriate audience. Among the most effective marketing tools available today are direct mail, email, newsletters, social marketing (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) collateral, user conferences, partnership marketing, public relations and last but certainly not least referral marketing. You must plan those tactics to work together as a campaign and then execute, execute, execute.

5. Measuring Marketing Results, Increasing Sales

Tracking your lead generation campaigns and seeing the results for yourself is the real power of this methodology. You’re building a bridge between your marketing campaigns and your sales efforts. You have a system set up with your processes, but the real trick is to analyze and measure the results to see what works and doesn’t work and then only repeat the successes.