The Sales Page

The ABC's of Selling - T (Trust)

In order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy. It is about not only what you do, but who you are.

Trust is built on dependability of a win-win relationship - that you would never do anything to your gain and my loss. Your behavior is driven by your principles - the decision rules you have learned throughout life so far. We learn our principles from family, culture, religion, law, school, teams, and the companies we work for.

We begin a relationship with alignment. The seller must match their body language, loudness, familiarity, humor, and dress to that of the buyer to prevent visual differences from interfering with our messages. The first decision a buyer makes is about the rep.

The ABC's of Selling - S (Strategy)

You can win without a strategy; it's called luck. But we don't pay salespeople a lot to be luck, we can do that on the web cheaper. We pay salespeople to make things happen, to control the opportunity as much as they will allow, to influence the competition, the politics, and the decision process. Some people and sales organizations don't think that way. They quote and hope; price, propose and pray.

Historically a strategy is a plan to apply our strengths to the opponent's weaknesses, creating advantage that results in winning. Strategy fell out of military strategy to business strategy to sales strategy. The ancient military strategies are: Direct, Divisional, Fractional, and Delay.

Not everyone thinks in terms of models. So we at TCS have brought it down to today's relevant language that relates to the deal that they must win tomorrow.

In order to win a complex sale, you need a:

The ABC's of Selling - Q (Questions)

"The answer then, is a question" - Zig Ziglar. Questions are the tools of the trade for salespeople. They gather information like a radar or sonar ping. But consultative selling, whch has been trained since the 70's, stresses asking questions about need well before showing the product and they are right.

But in a complex sale with multiple decision makers a good "hunter" must also ask questions about other areas - Power, who has it? Preference, who is neutral, who like us, who likes them? Process, how will they make a decision? Who will be involved? What roles will each person play? Who will actually have a vote on a vendor?

The ABC's of Selling - P (Personal Agendas)

If you have read my book or been to our class you know that I have more P words than any other letter. I chose Personal Agendas because these are powerful but invisible requirements that impact deals and you may never know it.

Personal Agendas are outcomes that a stakeholder wants out of a project or initiative that benefits them. It may be good for the organization; it may not. These hidden needs won't come out in a discovery session with anyone else around. They are personal and political. You have to build a strong enough relationship in order for a prospect to share them with you. You may have to ask about them when you have the prospect alone at lunch or outside the office.

The ABC's of Selling - O (Over? Over?)

O - Over? Over?

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?  Oops, wrong movie! No actually the word today is Optimism and Over-Optimism. As salespeople we have all been raised to being optimistic about life. Otherwise you woudn't get up and do this job every day. And most have heard every motivational speaker talk about optimism. My father-in-law would come to breakfast every day and yell "I feel great!" and make us yell it too. The curious thing is that after you yelled it, you did feel great!

Positive mental attitude is important for salespeople and entrepreneurs. But in a complex sale with multiple decision makers, politics and competition can cause some disappointing surprises. In research of over 1800 companies by CSO Insights this year, they report that only 46.3% of forecasted deals actually close.  Forecasted deals! Roughly a quarter of the lost pipeline is to competitors and the rest to no action with anybody.

The ABC's of Selling - N (Needs)

N - Needs

Selling didn't change much from the industrial revolution to the 1970's. Then consultative, or need-based selling was introduced by Neil Rackham who conducted the first scientific research on sales effectiveness funded by Xerox and IBM.

They found out that the best salespeople listen first and actually hold back the product or solution until they have thoroughly heard the buyer's needs. It doesn't matter that you call on this industry every day and know most of their issues; they have to confess, and thereby start building a relationship. These findings changed the listen-to-talk ratio for good salespeople.

The ABC's of Selling - M (Management)

M - Management

Management, sales management that is. It is one of the hardest and most underperforming jobs in business.  In its annual survey of sales benchmarks, CSO Insights found in 2010 that of forecasted deals only 46.3% actually close. Deals that stall and don't buy anything from anyone are 23.6% and deals lost to competition are now 30.3%.  This is an incrediby high rate of failure unequalled in ay other area of business. This explains why the average life span of sales managers is not 19 months and falling.

Here are the reasons that I see:

Tribute - Joe Terry

One of the best salespeople on the planet has gone.  Joe Terry, a Senior Principal with The Complex Sale for almost 15 yeas and a VP at MSA Software prior, passed away in November 2010.

We worked together for over 25 years.  What made this man a great salesman is that he was first a great person. The two things are inseparable. Trust is built on character and assurance that a salesperson will never do something for themselves that is not in the customers best interest. Joe always said that if he wouldn't take an offer himself, he wouldn't offer it to a prospect.

The ABC's of Selling - L

L - Learning

We learned years ago that adults learn differently than children. And salespeople learn differently than adults - other adults, that is. Many salespeople have high energy and short attention spans. Many, like me, have ADHD. Many great salespeople I know were not very good students because our education systems are designed for left-brain learning in a structured, linear fashion. And our schools don't teach interpersonal skills vital for building business relationships.

The ABC's of Selling - K

K - Knowledge

There are four kinds of knowledge you need to be a successful salesperson today.  Obviously you need to know your product and company. But you also need indepth knowledge of:

1. your client
2. the industry
3. your competitors

The reason that knowledge about the client is important is so that you can be a consultative salesperson and can connect your benefits with their problem or opportunities - by individual. Otherwise, the linkage or connection of your solution to their needs will be done by the client who often gets it wrong or misses the benefits of your solutions. Or worse, the competitor links into a pain you weren't aware of to close the deal.