ARE YOUR SALES CALLS CONVERSATIONS OR INTERROGATIONS?

May 1, 2020

How many sales visits do you make where YOU do all the talking? Especially on a first appointment!

Its back to basics but you may want to take a look at the importance of questioning techniques.  You need to ask open questions (how, what, why, where, when, who) and then listen. There is a time and a place for  closed questions (will you, would you, do you, did you and have you) but as they typically get "yes" or "no" answers if you are not careful and you ask closed questions too early the sales call quickly degenerates into an interrogation. The rapport breaks down, you make your pitch too early and before you really understand the customer's needs.  You lose control of the call,  then you lose the order and the customer misses out on the great benefits you could have delivered.

So let's take an in-depth look at questioning techniques.  But first of all, let's look at why we are, typically, asking questions in the first place - to uncover and develop needs.

WHAT IS A NEED

• A need is any want or concern expressed by the buyer that can be fulfilled by the seller
• Not everyone has a specific want, most people however do have concerns
• You cannot create wants and concerns, but you can uncover them by exploring the prospect's concerns
• In our cartoon - the king does not WANT and machine gun, but he is CONCERNED about winning the battle

 

• The more serious the need (the concerns) the greater the impetus to act upon them
• You need to get the prospect talking to uncover their needs and develop the seriousness of them

 

NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO TALK

• Ask closed questions and you are limiting the information you get
• Open questions make people think
• Open questions get descriptive answers
• Open questions make people talk

OPEN QUESTIONS, CLOSED QUESTIONS

• Not everyone wants to talk
• Give people the opportunity not to talk and they won't talk
• Open questions (sometimes called indirect questions) make people talk
• They are used to get people to "open up" they make people think, they get descriptive answers
• Closed questions (sometimes called direct questions) get yes or no answers
• Analyze your questioning so as to make sure that you ask 80% open and 20% closed questions.
• Unfortunately, closed questions are easier to ask
• The "Compliant Client" helps us out they give open answers to closed questions

THE "KIPLING WORDS"

• Rudyard Kipling was once on one of his many trips in Africa
• A journalist asked him "why is it that you are so worldly wise?"
• Kipling replied, "...I keep 6 honest serving men, they taught me all I knew, their names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN and HOW and WHERE and WHO."

LISTEN 

• Most salespeople talk too much 
• If you are talking you are not listening
• If you do not listen you will never find out enough information about the customer or their needs

RIGHT REASONS, REAL REASONS, LOGIC AND EMOTION

• People make decisions for 2 reasons - right reasons and the real reasons
• Decisions are made on logic and emotion
• Decisions are made on rational grounds and irrational grounds
• We pitch sell to right reasons, but the decision is based on real reasons - we lose the deal

DEVELOPING THE NEED

• The funnel technique will get the customer to really open up and talk
• Get beneath the tip of the iceberg and the customer will talk about their issues, concerns and problems
• They will realize for themselves the seriousness of their problems
• You can get them to tell you the potential outcome of not fixing them
• By getting the customer talking you get them to build up the seriousness of their problem
• The impetus to do something about it becomes greater

SUMMARY

• The funnel technique is one of the most powerful selling tools available to you
• The key to its success is to practice using it
• First of all, work on your open questions
• Then start to consciously differentiate between open neutral and open leading. 
• When you become skillful with this technique selling becomes a lot easier
• You can make the customer ask for the products or services you have on offer!
• You can get beneath the tip of the iceberg and really find out what is going to make the prospect make a decision.
• Just remember WHAT, WHY, WHERE, WHEN, HOW and WHO!

Posted in Weekly Sales Tips.

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SELLING BENEFITS AND VALUE

May 1, 2020

Delivering meaningful value

• Through skillful questioning technique you have uncovered the prospect's needs
• It's very easy to bombard your prospect with the many features that your products offer
• However, not every feature is of benefit to every customer
• Features and USPs are meaningless if they do not deliver value in the customer's eyes

Features, Functions and BENEFITS

• Feature - anything you can touch, feel, see or measure, answers the question "what is it?"
• Function what the feature does, answers the question "what will it do?"
• Benefit gain, save, advantage made from function, answers the question "what will it do for me?"
• Customers buy features, functions and benefits; sales people sell features and at best functions
• Ask yourself "so what?"
• Explain to the customer "And this means to you"
• "Let me show you anyway" means you are telling about features the customer may not have asked for

Questioning Technique

• With skilful questioning (see funnel technique) you can uncover and develop customer needs
• You can guide the customer in the direction of the products that you have on offer
• Ask questions to see if your features and functions are going to be of benefit to this customer
• If they are not - then why waste time and effort explaining them?

Explaining the Benefits

"So, Mr. Customer, with the new support agreement you can call our help desk day or night (the feature).  This will give you continuous support (the function) when you introduce your 24-hour shift pattern.  This means that should you experience any difficulties, say at the weekend, you will not lose any production capacity (the benefit) as you will get help with any problems straight away".

Adding value up-selling and cross-selling

• Up-selling increasing revenue by selling similar products and services that have a higher price
• Cross-selling (link selling) increasing revenue by selling complementary, additional products
• Must be able to prove to the customer that there is "something in it for the customer" - added value
• Value is "...the worth of something compared to something else......"
• Value could be a high "pay back" for small outlay (also discussed in terms of ROI)
• "Pay back" is the tangible return delivered by the benefits of your products and services
• The greater the pay back the greater the value to your customer
• It is rare that a customer buys just "for the sake of it" they want a return for the outlay

The Value formula

• Value = benefit cost
• The more needs we can uncover, the more benefits we can deliver
• The more benefits the greater the pay back, the greater the pay back the higher the value
• The higher the value the better the chance to up-sell and cross-sell

Proving value, THE VALUE GAP

• Once the need is uncovered there has to be adequate pay back and value in fulfilling the need
• The customer has to understand the implications of not fulfilling the needs (or fixing the problem)
• You need to establish the difference between adopting your solution and not adopting it
• The difference between status quo and adoption is the "value gap"
• Find value gaps to which you can attach a monetary amount
• Then you can justify the benefit in terms of tangible "added value"

 

Value Gap simple example

• Manual sales order processing system
• Company could sell 20% more orders if they could process them
• Annual sales = £1,000,000
• New automated SOP would mean processing the orders
• Value gap = £200,000 per annum
• New SOP system = £50,000, cost of implementing, training, operating = further £50,000
• New SOP pays for itself in 6 months - if you can prove the system WILL process the additional 20%
• Customer will never understand the value gap if they do not see how the features and functions deliver the benefits

Summary

• The best product, at the best price does not always win the order
• Sell benefits, don't simply tell about features
• Look for the value gap and quantify it
• Make the intangible tangible = monetary value
• Do not leave the customers to work the value for themselves - they might not bother!

Posted in Weekly Sales Tips.

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Advancing the Sale - the steps of the [B2B] sales cycle

April 20, 2020

In any sales and business development role one of the biggest traps that salespeople fall into is the confusion between activity and results - the "busy work" syndrome.  They are busy doing sales activity with little regard to effectiveness.  In other words, they are confusing activity with results.  When we run our solution sales courses or during coaching sessions we talk about Advancement versus Continuation where  Advancement = any action you take, or you get the customers to take, that moves you nearer to the order and Continuation = sales activity but no real progress towards the order.  Advancement versus continuation is a real light bulb moment for many of our participants.

What helps is to consider your sales cycle and your sales approach and understand what exactly you have to do to complete a sale.  Here are the steps in a typical solution selling sales cycle where you need to be advancing to the next stage.

SELECTION (TERRITORY PLANNING)

• Selecting where the best potential lies in your territory
• The salesperson identifies / reviews the territory customers, non-users, businesses and industries, market trends, applications, opportunities, competitive installations
• They decide which companies represent potential, how many exist, order they should be tackled
• The salesperson ends up with a list of organizations to target and contact, advancing to:

SUSPECTING (DEMAND CREATION)

• Contacting people, we "suspect" may want to have the need for what you sell
• The salesperson and/or their company make contact
• Cold calling, mailers, e-mailers, seminars, exhibitions, web marketing

• Leads are handled and responded to
• Initial fact-finding calls and low-level contacts are made, the salesperson advances the sales by identifying how to qualify the suspects into prospects:

PROSPECTING (INITIAL PROSPECT QUALIFICATION)

• Initial engagement with the prospect

• Is the company worth spending time with?
• Do they really have a need for our products and services - now?
• Will or does the decision maker recognize that need
• If not, can they be educated?
• Can you identify the people who will influence the decision?
• Have they got; can they find budget?

• The GO/NO GO decision stage
• GO - the salesperson plans the approach call

• what products, prices, services etc. will most likely satisfy the prospect's needs?
• is the information enough that he/she will want to see me?
• is the information enough that I can justify the time he/she gives me? If the decision is a GO, the salesperson advances to the next stage:

APPROACH (NEEDS DISCOVERY, NEEDS DEVELOPMENT)

• Salesperson opens the sales call and offers a reason to be heard (benefit statement)
• The salesperson uncovers and develops the need
• Buying criteria is identified, decision making processes are defined
• Further qualification is undertaken
• Prospect and salesperson agree what criteria must be met and what other actions must take place
• Products, services, concepts are presented to match the prospect's needs

ADVANCEMENT (NEEDS DEVELOPMENT, PROVING)

• The salesperson together with the customer carry out the agreed actions
• The salesperson continues to qualify the prospect
• They sell to the decision influencers and obtains their commitment
• Information is collated to present a cost/benefit justification
• The sale is advanced by, for example: -

• applications/usage surveys

• identifying critical, time vital information
• determination of whether to offer leasing or outright purchase
• demonstrations
• determining locations for deliveries, use, installations
• proof of concepts
• trials and pilots
• VIP meetings
• top level calls

• The salesperson proves to the individual decision makers and influencers that: -

• There is a real need for the products and services now
• The suggested products, pricing, service etc. will satisfy his/her needs

• The customer can rely on you and your company to implement the proposed solution

• That your products and services are worth the money and that they can afford it

COMMITMENT (CLOSURE)

• The salesperson has done enough justification
• They have sold each individual involved in the decision and satisfied their needs and buying criteria
• Terms are negotiated
• They summarize the solution and the agreements reached previously
• They obtain mutual agreement that the buying criteria have been met
• They ask for the order

ORDER

• The salesperson obtains a signed agreement
• Together with the customer they agree on the implementation plan
• They schedule their own and the customer's personnel required to implement the proposal

IMPLEMENTATION / INSTALLATION

• The salesperson does everything required to get the proposed solution operational
• They stay in contact to ensure delivery of the promised benefits.  
• They ensure

• the physical deliveries take place
• that installations occur on time
• that users are trained as suggested
• that applications are developed and used
• supplies are available
• service requests can be placed
• that the invoice is understood and paid

• The salesperson establishes a smooth customer interface in the areas of:

• sales and sales support
• technical service
• administration
• supplies
• training

PROTECTION (ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT)

• The salesperson re-justifies the installed configuration to the decision makers and influencers.  

• Account management reviews and customer (external) reviews are held
• The salesperson makes it easy for the customer to re-order
• They ensure customer satisfaction with the products, pricing, service, and support

DEVELOPMENT (ACCOUNT DEVELOPMENT)

• The salesperson develops an account plan
• Objective to ensure an on-going mutually beneficial business relationship

• To ensure the customer has the best price and product configuration for their needs based on current and anticipated needs and financial requirements
• To generate a prospect for additional and/or on-going profitable business

Don't fall into the trap of confusing activity for results.  Get into the habit of asking your prospect advancement style questions - "what is the next step?", "what do we need to do to move this forward?", "who else should we involve getting this to the next stage?".   Advancement is as much about attitude as it is technique, you need to be assertively pushing your prospect and moving the sale towards closure.

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Effective business development demands presenting proposals not sending quotes!

April 13, 2020

Are you really presenting proposals or in reality are you sending your prospects and customers a glorified quote that is titled a proposal?

A quote tells the buyer the price.  A proposal sells the benefits, explains you know the prospect's business and details why they should go with your solution, product or service.  A proposal explains the cost as an investment, it details why your prospect can't afford not to do business with you.

So why don't sales people write proposals?  They think they have to be long, fully detailed works of art and they often do not get enough information on the sales call about the prospect's needs,  They probably don't have the facts and figures for a valid ROI argument either.  So a quote gets delivered, but on the front cover it says "A proposal for.........."

A proposal does not have to be a long diatribe, it does not have to be a glossy, four color, spiral bound masterpiece.  In some circumstances even one page will do!

A proposal is about substance not volume and should include:

1.  An introduction
2.  The prospect's needs
3.  Your solution
4.  The investment and ROI
5.  Why your solution
6.  Appendices (terms, specs, warranty etc.)

Frequently a proposal will go on one or two pages and can be a simple Word template (ask for an example).  Don't forget if it is a long proposal then you do need an executive summary and a really usable contents page.

With prospects and sellers alike being so busy these days, we are even using PowerPoint slides with short sharp bullet points to present proposals.  We then export the slides into a .pdf and give it to the customer they love it!

Last point don't forget, if a proposal is worth writing, its worth taking in person.

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