Accelerating Sales Growth

New Bigger and Better Site & Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:22:00 +0000

We have enjoyed our time with Blogger, but we have now so much content and ideas that we have out-grown it. You can find our new site - packed with 100s of articles, tips and techniques for sellers - at: www.sellerinsights.com.

p.s. Want to see how selling from the buyers point of view - visit www.buyerinsights.com

Buyer turned seller

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:15:00 +0000

I had an interesting conversation last week with a professional sales person who joined a sales team selling into the transportation sector just before the markets went pop. I am recounting part of our discussion because this sales person used to sit on the buying side of the table and secondly because he made some points that we all need to be reminded of from time to time:

Sometime we need to slow down and operate at the client’s pace
Don’t push for a meeting for a meetings sake – meet contacts where there is relevancy based on what has been delivered to other clients
Tell stories, buyers like to hear about other peoples successes and how they have overcome challenges
Access – you earn it and need to explain why it’s needed. Ensure you are heard, don’t rely on others to do it for you
Sell payback & management of risk, its what buyers are measured on at the moment
Know what you don’t know and get others involved.

Here is a bit more detail on the conversation we had.

Q. How has the last 12 months gone?

Response

“We are alive and kicking and most importantly we see opportunities emerging. Our team is making the transition back to solution sellers a place I am most comfortable operating in.

You see when I started selling two years ago, we sold solutions, then we started to compete on price and now we are back selling solutions where we rightly belong. As you know I worked on the other side of the table for close on ten years, (I was the engineering buyer) and I knew solutions only ever get bought or leased if they had a proven payback but we all seemed to forget that fact over the past 12 months.

Proven Payback is that not stating the obvious?

Response

Well you might think so, but over the past 12-16 months, it’s been dog eat dog and as a result our industry and many others reverted to competing based on price. To be frank I think many sales teams have forgotten how to sell benefits and address risks with their customers. Most of the people we have been competing with gladly moved to sell based on price and dragged others with them, not a good thing for any of us as you know.

So what did you do?

Response

Well to be honest we responded to price pressures and we also competed on price. In the past few months we did some sole searching and put ourselves back in the buyer’s shoes and have adopted a new mindset. We have proven our capability time and time again, we deliver and we manage risk, our clients know that too, so we have slowed down and started to question more carefully and input to our clients metrics. I know what they are, so I suppose I have a head start on what you might call the traditional sales person. I don’t know everything, I am out of the engineering space about six years now but I totally understand when a client needs more details on how we have affected other peoples businesses and I always know when to say I don’t know.

What is the major challenge in 2010?

Making the number but you would expect any honest sales man to say that! I would say we have two challenges. Firstly we need to be wiling to operate at the pace of the buyer even when we need the deal and secondly we need to focus on accessing the right people at the appropriate level.

Why is access such a problem?

Response

As you know we are leaders in our field which does help however there are some bigger players who like to keep us at arms length from the operational buyer. They want to sell the total solution which sometimes leaves us at a bit of a loose end in the buying cycle. It’s also worth noting I am finding professional buyers want to limit access to executives in order to ensure the buying process is being adhered to.

So what can you do about this?

Response

I am doing three things; firstly I have some great customers and am asking them to help me with referrals. Secondly I am contacting my target customers and telling them how we are helping others manage risk and insure the highest level of utilisation. I am not pushing them to meet unless they see relevancy. Thirdly I am explaining to the bigger players (most of whom we have some partnership with) why involving me can help them. Most of theses partner’s sales team never occupied a role in a customer buying team, my insight into the buying process helps me help the buyer and helps us sell together.

Conclusion

The fact is we all need to put ourselves in the buyers shoes and we all need to continuously consider the ever changing complexities of buying & selling.

Why Sales People Need to Look Differently at Thier Contacts

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:03:00 +0000

Why Nurturing Contacts Beats Generating Leads

When we tell sales organizations that they must focus on nurturing contacts as opposed to generating leads, it makes immediate sense. That is because the issue of leads is fraught with all types of problems, not least of which is the fact that returns from most traditional methods of lead generation are falling through the floor.

However, after the initial burst of enthusiasm for this exciting new way to look at the problem of lead generation, most sales people and in particular their managers, need a little reassurance that it conforms with their traditional word view. ‘That is sales contacts isn’t it?’ they ask. To their surprise we answer ‘No’ adding that ‘it is buyer contacts not sales contacts that are important!’

To work through the confusion that this Zen-like response often generates, we typically ask salespeople which they would rather have – their organizations sales contacts, or the contacts of the buyer? Which ones would enable them to access and influence those to whom they want to sell?

Focusing on the Buyer’s Network
Then we ask them to imagine if they were given the buyer’s black book of! What would it look like? Whose details would it contain? How would the web of buyer contacts entangle with your own?
The contacts of relevance to the salesperson are not just buyers, but all those that can influence, or access them. Also it is not just today’s buyers, but also the potential buyers of tomorrow that the salesperson must nurture as contacts. Thus the sellers focus must be buyers and their wider community. That is how can you develop more contacts in common with buyers and the buying organizations you want to target?

Don’t Just Focus on ‘Sales Contacts’
When people think ‘sales contacts’ they tend to focus narrowly in terms of those who conform to the target profile provided by marketing, or the prequalification criteria set by sales. However, premature prequalification can be dangerous. This tends to cut the list down considerably with the sales manager, for example, arguing that ‘there is no point wasting time with people who cannot, or will not buy from us.’ In times past this was a logical approach. However, in the new reality, sellers cannot simply focus on those who have a budget and are ready to buy their solution – it simply narrows their potential market too much.

So, while we subscribe to the ideas of precision marketing and targeted sales activity, both must be relaxed somewhat at the contact stage. We all know that sales costs are rising and most of us can quickly calculate the cost of sending a sales person out to meet ‘a potential customer’ for example. We also know the cost of getting into a sales cycle and the investment that is required in order to prepare a bid. This provides a clear rational for strict prequalification.
However, if it is only a conversation, why are sellers applying the same level of prequalification as if it was a sales opportunity?

Pre-qualification must be tailored to each stage of the sales process – with a different level of screening being applied to contacts, than to sales cycles, for example.

Many Conversations Will be Required
Sellers must allow some latitude in terms of the scope of contacts to be nurtured. They must be prepared to have conversations that may never go anywhere. They must be prepared to talk too many in order to get to the vital few that will eventually buy their solutions.

Sales Contacts: Named individuals in Potential Customer organizations. That is those meeting targeting and prequalification criteria.

Buyer Contacts: The list is bigger, including:

All those who make, or influence purchase decisions
All those who can provide access to those who make, or influence purchase decisions
All those who could in the future make or influence buying decision (e.g. a junior person who gets promoted, or moves to another company)
All those sources of information, advice and expertise employed by buyers
Named individuals in the above groups can come from a wide range of sources:

Other suppliers
Industry counterparts
Partners and competitors
Consultants, or advisors
Sources of Information / Referral
Past colleagues/employees
Industry experts / analysts
Industry bodies, or professional associations

Sellers have to start and then maintain lots of conversations if they are to result in a sufficient number of sales cycles. They have to nurture many contacts if they are to end up talking to enough of the right people.

What Contacts Do You Want to Nurture?
Contacts are not just potential customers, but part of the larger community that plays a role in the buyer – seller relationship. So, it not only includes potential customers (present and future), but also those contacts who may represent sources of information, reference or introduction for example.

Contacts are individuals, not organizations. This is important because for each organization there is a diversity of contacts that are important to the seller – reflective of larger buying groups and greater stakeholder involvement in buying decisions. It is also important because contacts are fluid. For example, the contact that today is a senior engineer could be the COO tomorrow, if not in the same organization, then perhaps another.

Contacts are not just leads. They have a value, or relevance beyond this quarter, or the next. Lead generation is focused on identifying potential customers and making the sale, nurturing contacts is aimed at sustaining a conversation, generating demand and building a relationship over time. Leads are generated, but contacts are nurtured.

Sellers cannot only talk to those that are ready to buy their solutions. That means applying the same prequalification criteria to contacts, as to sales opportunities simply makes no sense. If prequalification criteria (e.g. budget, authority, timing and need) are applied too early there is the risk that the majority of potential customers could be isolated. That is because:

Customers reveal themselves slowly – many months can elapse in a buying process before a customer appears on the vendors radar, with buyers increasingly defining requirements, building (or at last scoping) the business case and so on before engaging a vendor.
The potential market for a sellers solution includes a majority of potential customers that either do not have a budget, or perhaps even do not recognize a need for; the solution.
For newer companies in particular some experimentation may be required before the exact target market profile becomes clear – that is before it becomes clear which market is the most attractive and most amenable.

The nurturing of contacts involves a longer term view, one that looks beyond this quarter and the next. For this reason it can present a challenge to salespeople who are focused on meeting this quarter’s target.

Contacts are not just nurtured by sales people, but by the entire organization. However, the sales person’s black book represents only a fraction of the network of contact that an organization must nurture. In an age where buyers are shunning seller’s unsolicited advances and there in effect is no such thing as a good list to be purchased, organizations have an untapped resource in terms of the contacts of all its managers and staff.

Contacts define the relationship between an organization and its marketplace – its industry ecosystem as it were - from suppliers to competitors.

The nurturing of contacts is motivated not just by winning the next customer, but by growing existing customers and successfully delivering present projects.

Contacts are a potent sales tool. They can open doors, accelerate sales cycles and increase conversion rates beyond what is possible from traditional lead generation. That is because they leverage established relationships and good will. Compared to discredited seller marketing, introductions, referrals and contacts confer the advantage of credibility.

The Value of Conversations.
Conversations can lead anywhere and so here are some examples of how nurturing contacts can produce unexpected, yet welcome results.

The contact in a competitor’s business who was rated as being of little value to the organization’s sales team suddenly leaves that competitor to take up a position with a buying organization in a new international market.
The buyer who leaves the target customer with little advance warning, only to reappear in a more senior role in another even larger potential customer organization. Having failed to access this organization to date, the door is now open.
The contact within a supplier organization through his contact with both the seller’s competitors and customers is able to advise the seller that a customer is about to make a purchase decision before it becomes generally known.
Because the contact with past employee is nurtured, when he, or she joins a large potential customer in a senior management position the seller has an ally on the inside.

Lead Generation: Struggling to Cope with the Buying Revolution?

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:53:00 +0000

Lead generation is the first causality of the buying revolution. That is because the changed nature of organizational buying presents it with 6 almost insurmountable challenges.

1.Being Heard Over the Noise
Most seller marketing is falling on deaf ears. Yet, buyers are bombarded with a confusing array of similar sounding marketing messages from competing vendors. So here is the test – can your sales and marketing message:
Grab the attention of marketing-weary buyers?
Be heard above the noise of competitors?
Enable you to stand out from the crowd?

2.Reaching Senior Buyers
The majority of purchase decisions rely on the approval of senior managers that are well buffered from unsolicited marketing outreaches. More lead generation methods are being stopped ‘dead in their tracks’ by buyer spam filters, gate keepers and other barriers erected by buyers. So, can your message:
Get through to senior managers?
Resonate with senior managers?
Get them to engage?

3.Providing Information that Buyers Actually Need
Most seller messages elicit a ‘so what?’, or ‘what else would you say!’ response from buyers. Buyers place little, or no value on most seller marketing. So here is the test:
Are you providing buyers with the type of information they want to receive?
Is it is capable of shaping the opinions, or influencing the decisions of modern buyers?

4.Shaping Requirements and Influencing the Buying Process
Buyers often keep sellers at arm’s length until the buying process is well underway. The result is that the seller arrives on the scene after requirements have been set and a competitive bidding situation has arisen. A key challenge is for the seller to become involved earlier in the buying cycle. So how successful are your efforts in:
Shaping the requirements of the buying and otherwise influencing the buying process?
Encouraging the buyer to involve you in the early stages of their buying process?

5.Creating and Sustaining A Dialogue
The ultimate test of the effectiveness of any seller marketing is the buyer engagement. However the response to most marketing is a deafening silence. The challenge is to create a dialogue, to get buyers to opt-in, to participate and to respond. That means sellers have the opportunity to really influence buyers and to be top of mind when the timing is right. So how effective is your marketing at engaging with the buyer:
Is there a reason for buyers to want to opt-in to your marketing?
Are you able to sustain an ongoing dialogue?
Is your message effective at generating a response?

6.Generating Demand
It can be a challenge to get the attention of buyers that are searching for a solution. However, those already shopping are greatly outnumbered by those who do not have a budget, or perhaps are not even aware that they have a problem. Reaching this group presents particular challenges. In particular:
How to identify those with latent needs?
How to generate demand where none already exists?
How to spur those who are not yet in shopping mode into action?

To meet these challenges of the buying revolution nothing short of a complete overhaul of traditional lead generation. That is a transition from Generating Leads to Nurturing Contacts.

Demand Generation in the 21st Century

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Sales teams cannot reliably meet their numbers by simply selling to those who are ready to buy. That is because for every customer shopping for a solution there are 8 or 9 that have could buy, but don’t realize that they have a problem, or if they do don’t yet have a budget. That means sellers must sell to those who are satisfied, in the hope that they can uncover and bring to the fore a latent demand for their solution.

Why Demand Generation is Challenging

The focus on demand generation is one of the most fundamental transformations in the role of the salesperson and the sales organization. There are several reasons:

It requires new levels of confidence, knowledge and skill. That is because the salesperson’s knowledge of features and benefits is not longer sufficient. Instead he, or she must be able to connect with the customer’s business and industry drivers and to shape to the business case.

It requires a new mindset change - one that can be quite a challenge for sales managers and their teams. That is because it requires focusing effort on activities that may not contribute to this year’s target. The payback from demand generation activities, while difficult to measure is long term. So it requires a commitment of time and resources to activities that will not payback this quarter, or perhaps this year.

It requires a revision of traditional approaches to prequalification. Indeed the replacing of prequalification with marketing and nurturing. Leads are generated and prequalified as regards sales readiness. However, contacts are nurtured to sales readiness on an ongoing basis. It means replacing budget, authority, timing and need as the criteria for who to target, with profiling customers based on the basis of sector, size and so on. Of course, it does not mean that prequalification is scrapped; it just means that it is held off until a sales cycles is nascent.

It runs counter to the existing metrics and incentives used by managers and their teams. For example, compared to traditional selling that sells to people who are searching for a solution, it could double, or triple the time from first meeting to sale. It could also likely to cut conversion rate to first meeting dramatically if measured in the short term.

It requires that marketing and sales work well together – the sales person cannot do it all alone. But the marketing required is not that of the glossy brochure. Rather it centers on providing useful, relevant and credible information to the buyer (e.g. whitepapers, case studies, etc.).

Demand generation is expensive. It would be much easier to wait for competitors to generate awareness and demand in the market and then exploit it. However that is not always possible.

What Demand is to be Created?
As a first step in creating demand sellers must decide what they want to create demand for? And what fundamental need that exists in the target market - business drivers, priorities, strategies, events, and so – that can be leveraged to generating demand for the seller’s solution(s). For example:
A supply chain solutions supplier in its efforts to generate demand for its solutions among companies unaware of the need for such a solution, took advantage of a recent food safety scare to highlighted the costs associated with meeting food traceability regulations and how their solutions could reduce them.

An IT supplier surveyed its top customers to predict what their IT priorities for next year would be. With security, cost and compliance emerging as key priorities, the company wrote a series of best practice guides in each area and organized seminars to heighten awareness of these challenges and generate demand for its solutions as a result.

Fundamentally a basic need has to exist (such as the desire to cut costs, save time, ensure compliance, etc.), the objective is to create awareness of it and to bring it to the fore. The challenge of the seller is to show that the performance of the buyer’s business can be improved in a compelling way that he, or she was previously unaware of. As in all aspects of sales and marketing is important to focus demand generation efforts on the right customer and the most appropriate solution.

10 Steps to Generating Demand

1.Help buyers to evaluate and reassess their priorities by comparing them with their counterparts and peers (e.g. ‘We asked IT managers about their priorities for 2011 and here is what they said…’).

2.Quantify the problem / opportunity relating to their industry/business, using 3rd party validation to make it credible (e.g. Industry Analysts Gartner put the cost of unlicensed software at up to 30% of software budgets annually…).

3.Show them the results achieved by their peers with your solutions (e.g. ‘We have helped Company X and Y bring its award winning new products to market in just 21 weeks on a new system…’).

4.Provide useful information not marketing blurb, for example white papers, blog posts, case studies and analysts reports rather than marketing brochures.

5.Talk to those who shape priorities, allocated budgets and make decisions. That means C Level.

6.Run educational events, such as talks, seminars and webinars, where customers and experts can talk about industry challenges and how they can be resolved. Key to the success of these events is that they are focused on providing useful information, as opposed to simply a form to plug your company.

7.Position your company as a though leader, for example; writing posts, or articles, sponsoring research, or speaking at events. Seek the limelight by making the topic controversial, using it to provoke and compel buyers to sit up and take notice. Get people talking about it.

8.Link your solution with a campaign, or a cause that already has momentum. That is with something that the customer is passionate about, something that is topical, or is ‘cool’. It can be easier to rally people around a case than a product, or a service.

9.Enlist the support of others in generating demand, for example industry associations, experts and so on.

10.To be effective it must be sustained over time. It is important to note that effective demand generation is not just one activity; but a programme of activity.

Strategic Inflection: Is Our Strategy Working? Or Is It Too Early to Tell?

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:22:00 +0000

This is a time of inflection for many sales managers. Companies are venturing into new markets, developing new strategies and new sales approaches in response to a changed market. Uncertain times ahead for many.

New Strategies, Uncertain Times

Many companies are innovating in their sales and marketing in response to a changing marketplace. Everything is being considered, the list includes;

Launching new sales drives / initiatives
Improving sales processes
Changing sales structures (including greater team involvement)
Adopting new pricing structures
Developing new business models
Targeting new segments, or even new markets
Offering new products/services, or at least new variations of existing ones
Developing new partner, or channel relationships.

Sales Strategy Questions Abound

For most companies these new strategies represent an increased commitment to sales and marketing. In many cases they entail something of a step into the unknown. So, it is little wonder that we hear sales managers (conscious of the investment of time, effort and money that is being made) asking questions, such as;

1. How quickly before we will see results and even more to the point, how quickly will we know if it is working or not? Are our assumptions regarding how long it will take, the length of sales cycles being borne out?
2. Is the strategy the right one? Is it going to work? Will it deliver the results we expect? Are our expectations regarding results realistic given our experience thus far?
3. Is our sales and marketing working? Is there enough activity? Is it the right activity?
4. Do we need to change, or refine our approach? Have we got the skills to carry this off?
5. Is the market ready, in particular, have our assumptions about the potential been realistic (especially in the context of the slowdown)

Some Observations

Even the self assured sales manager is asking these questions and asking them out loud. It's like a question and answers time in some organisations with some very interesting discussions taking place at the board room table. Listening in on these conversations we have made a few observations:

Increasingly managers are adopting a ‘get it all out in the open’, plain speaking approach to these issues. Indeed, many managers are approaching these issues with ‘brutal honesty’. They are not shying away from any of the issues involved adopting a ‘warts and all’ view of what is and is not working. All options are on the table and there are few ‘sacred cows’’ left, that includes people, or strategies.

‘Is it too early to call?’ This is an issue that comes up time and time again, particularly where long sales cycles have been lengthened further by the slowdown. Managers seem to naturally fall into two camps – one adopts the view that ‘we need to give it more time’, the other tends to want to ‘cut their losses and find another way.’ In any respect making u turns, or redirections does not seem to present problems for managers anymore. Perhaps that goes hand in hand with a turbulent market.

‘Is it the market?’ Horror stories of stalled buying decisions and cash strapped buyers are so pervasive that managers struggle to look beyond the market to find other reasons why they are slow to see results. At this point the CEO that intervenes with a ‘there is business out there we just have to work harder to find it’ is very important to the organization.

The CEO is leading the conversation, challenging the performance and challenging the assumptions. This is having a mixed response, with feathers being ruffled in some cases. The CEO who has good coaching and leadership skills is a real asset to the sales manager at this time. More than ever the CEO seems to be the touchstone for organizational confidence at this time. With people looking on, it is vital that he, or she remains un-phased and confident about the future.

In one strategy review session - an appraisal of a campaign to enter a new market segment - the CEO appeared to be distracted. He was writing in a notepad as the conversation went on around him. After a few minutes went by he showed a diagram (as presented below) outlining a process for reviewing the sales strategy, or plan. First he wanted to know how results compared with what was forecast, then whether the plan had been implemented as set out and whether the plan was still valid. It put an interesting steer on the conversation and it might be something that you can use. Food for thought.

Beware of Spreadsheet Forecasts!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:12:00 +0000

10 Reasons Not To Rely on Spreadsheets for Sales Forecasting

1. Forecast accuracy inevitably suffers using a spreadsheet because you have only limited visibility, predictability and control in respect of sales (opportunities, accounts, activity, etc.).

2. It is impossible to keep a spreadsheet based sales forecast or sales campaigns up-to-date. This is compounded with different versions being used across a sales or management team. A spreadsheet only gives a snapshot at a point in time and is quickly gone out of date.

3. Managers who track sales using spreadsheets spend twice as much time in report preparation.

4. Sales Meetings involving the use of spreadsheets are grossly inefficient – with updates being made line by line to different accounts, or opportunities for each rep in turn. That is time that could be spent coaching.

5. Spreadsheet-based analyses are more subjective because they struggle to adequately communicate how, for example, an opportunity is rated. They don’t map opportunities to your sales process – e.g. has the buying group been identified/covered, has a formal needs analysis been undertaken, has budget status been clarified, etc.

6. Spreadsheets don’t trigger actions in a diary where an action is allocated to an account, or an opportunity and they don’t provide a record of the associated actions, emails, meetings and so on.

7. Managers should have dashboards at hand so that they can review at a glance their pipeline, identify priority accounts, and so on.

8. Spreadsheets are of little use if a sales manager or a sales rep leaves. With growing levels of rep turnover, it is vital that all account, contact and opportunity is held in a central repository so that it does not vanish when a rep leaves.

9. A spreadsheet will struggle to give a sales manager the metrics he/she needs, including the ratio of leads to meetings, or the win rate of proposals.

10. A spreadsheet won’t adequately tell a sales manager where his rep was last week, or where he should be next week. It won’t enable him to identify areas where the rep needs coaching either.

How to Find Out What Buyers Really Want

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Here is a statement of the obvious: buyers don’t buy products, or services they buy solutions to problems, or the ability to exploit opportunities. In short they buy them to meet a need. So, why do sellers spend 9 times more time talking about their solutions than the needs of the buyer?

Before a buyer buys he, or she must have a need and that need must have a certain urgency, or priority. If the seller wants to sell his, or her solutions then he, or she must clearly demonstrate how it can solve the buyer’s problem. The problem is that listing product features and benefits is an ineffective way of doing this.

To remedy this problem here is a checklist to guide you in identifying and then meeting the needs of the buyer.:

1. Avoid premature diagnosis of the solution. In other words he, or she must define the problem before prescribing a solution. Don’t make assumptions regarding the customer’s needs, or assume that he, or she needs what you are offering. Ask first and give the customer a chance to say no.

2. The expert may immediately know the problem and perhaps even the solution. However, he, or she must take care to involve the customer in the discovery and build trust along the way. Connecting with buyer’s needs, requires a consultative approach with the salesperson adopting the role of an expert, or trusted advisor.

3. Understand what stage the buyers is at:
- The need is hidden (blissful ignorance)
- The need is recognized
- They are actively looking to resolve the need.

4. Understand the company and its industry, as well as its goals and strategy. Without this the seller will struggle to understand what is motivating the buyer. Understand the tradeoffs, constraints and complicating factors that bear on the needs. Understand needs from the perspective of the different stakeholders.

5. Don’t take the buyers needs on face value. Dig beneath the surface. Look to the implications of the needs. Help the buyer to develop a clearer picture of his/her needs and the advantages of solving them.

6. More questions are not the answer. Ask better questions – those that relate to needs and their implications. Don’t ask situational questions – for example about the size of the company, how long it was established – that is information that is ‘nice to know’ as opposed to ‘need to know’, or can be found from other sources (such as the company’s web site).

7. Buyers can be slow to open up. When they hear questions they fear closing. So the seller must earn the right to ask questions. This is done by showing tact, a willingness and ability to help.

8. Be tactful and sensitive regarding how they unearth the buyer’s needs. Protect the person when identifying the problem and don’t make the buyer feel like a fool!

9. It is not enough just to listen and to understand needs, but to provoke, inspire, enthuse and engage with the seller around the opportunities and challenge facing its business.

10. The sales person must help the buyer envision life after the problem has been solved. No pain, no sale - that was the old sales philosophy, with the job of the salesperson being to find and accentuate points of pain. However, the sales pro moves beyond the pain and the problem to focus on the benefits, the vision, the business impact and the likely risks that will need to be overcome.

11. Sell to those with latent needs. The role of the salesperson now includes demand generation. That means traditional prequalification criteria no longer apply.

12. Selling higher in the organization – where priorities are set and budgets can be set in response to the identification of needs. This will require a new vocabulary and a new message. It also requires confidence and skill.

Questions About Needs:

So with those tips in mind here are some questions to help you address the buyer's needs:
- What does the buyer want to achieve?
- What does the company want to achieve?
- What are the key business drivers in this area?
- What is the underlying opportunity, or challenge facing the business? How big is it? How urgent is it?
- What is the gap between desired and actual performance in the area in question? - How does this compare with internal and external expectations?
- What are the relevant industry drivers, or trends?
- Are there any critical events, or dates?
- Who does it impact on most? How? Who else is affected? In what ways? What are the consequences? What is the cost?
- The impact on the business - has it been quantified? What are the benefits of its resolution? Are they quantified in a credible manner?
- What are the relevant metrics? How will success be measured?
- Is this area a priority? If it is why has it not been addressed to date (constraints)?
- Has the issue been address/discussed in the past? What happened as a result?
- What are the competing priorities and projects?
- How does it fit with existing people and processes?
- What are the barriers to addressing the need / exploiting the opportunity?
- What could prevent it? What constraints?
- What is the context in terms of the organisations history, culture, politics, etc?

Why Sales People Are 9 Time More Likely to Talk About Themselves!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:20:00 +0000

From our experience watching hundreds of sales presentations, pitches and proposals sellers spend 9 times as much time talking about themselves (that is their companies and solutions), as they do about the buyer’s needs. It should be the other way around and if it was, we believe, it could double, or triple the rate of success of the average salesperson.

So, how do you know where the sales person is focused? Well, listen out for the words that are used in sales pitches, presentations and proposals.

Focused on Needs	Focused Elsewhere
Using these words means you are focused on the buyer’s needs: Challenges / Needs Problems / Opportunities Goals / Objectives Strategies Priorities Performance Gaps Metrics Results Impact Risk	Using these words suggests you are focused on your solution: Competitive advantage Benefits Features Technology Unique Selling Point Value Proposition Our company, People, Skills, Capabilities, etc. Our Services, Products, or Systems ‘industry leading’, ‘best in class’, ‘innovative’, etc. Price

To understand this better we have been considering the following questions:

What is so difficult about finding out about the buyer’s needs before arriving at a solution?
Why do sellers feel that they have to convince the buyer that they have the best solution before they have found out what the buyer’s problem is?

Well here are some possible answers:

The buyer is reluctant to reveal his, or her problem to the seller.
The buyer says he, or she knows what is wanted and the seller accepts that this is true.
The salesperson has been trained to talk features and benefits.
The seller believes that his, or her solution is the best regardless of the specific needs of the customer.
The seller assumes he, or she knows what the customer wants, so there is no need to discuss it.
The sales person does not have the knowledge, or skill to be able to uncover the buyer’s needs.
The problem is so obvious to the salesperson that getting straight to the solution makes sense.
Sellers are used to selling to lower level managers, where discussions around features and technologies, can be welcomed. At senior levels they are not
The seller assumes that the buyer can join the dots and link the solution to his, or her problem.
Time with the buyer is limited so communicating key product information is a priority.

All of these are factors.

The Access Rules

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:19:00 +0000

Access to all those stakeholders in the buying decision is a privilege, not a right and if you are fortunate enough to get it, here are the rules you must follow:

Always obey the rules regarding access, don’t go over or around others to get to who you want
In order to ensure you access the right people, map the buying process to the organisational chart to identify you need to meet. Then pair it with your team as appropriate (e.g. CFO to your CFO).
Tell them why you want to meet, ask them what they want to get from it and set a clear agenda in advance.
Take advantage of other forumn for interacting with those managers of interest, for example, industry association events, conferences, etc.
Use access sparingly and plan it to get the most from any time you have with stakeholders. That includes meeting at the right time and when the objectives or value of doing is at its most. For example, make sure you have your initial briefing, or scoping completed first.
Do your homework in advance, make sure you are fully prepared (e.g. don’t waste time gathering information in the meeting that you could have found from the company’s website, or annual report).
Research person you are going to meet, to understand their role, their previous positions, their qualification, any contacts that you have in common, etc.
Consider the use of workshops that have a value to the buyer as a means of making access efficient. For example a workshop on defining requirements, completing the business case, etc.
Make sure meetings and presentations don’t go on for longer than they have to.
Provide the buyer with useful insights, or information to aid the decision making process.
Provide tools and templates that can support eliciting requirements, defining the specification, building the business case and making the business decision.
Be judicious and tactful regarding the questions you ask of the buyer, remember you have to earn the right to ask questions that are invasive, or sensitive.
Always get permission to include them in your marketing in the future.
Always make a point of expressing your gratitude for the time you have been granted by the buyer.
Send a note with a summary of the meeting and some useful piece of follow-up material, or information for the buyer.
Keep your main sponsor, or contact in the loop regarding any meetings you have with his, or her colleagues.

6 Ways Sellers Misjudge The Solution

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:06:00 +0000

Not surprisingly sellers are very good at talking about their solutions, after all they know the features and benefits of their products and services off by heart. However, there can be a surprising difference between the seller’s view of the solution and that of the buyer. This can happen in at least 5 ways:

1. Can’t See The Alternatives

The buyer has a range of alternative solutions beyond that of the seller, including do nothing, do it in-house, adopt another technology, support a competing project, etc.

The salesperson has to consider the full solutions set available to the buyer and place his, or her solution’s advantages in that context.

Increasing the real competition faced by a salesperson is not another vendor, but another project, technology, or strategy. Being aware of these alternatives is important in order to prevent surprises.

2. Confusion About The Source of Value

The buyer and seller can have a different view of the features and benefits that are most important. For example, a market research company may promote the scientific nature of its research techniques as a key selling point, however for the buyer the ability to make decisions based on the information gathered is key. The buyer is likely to want to talk to business analysts and consultants ahead of statisticians.

When sellers list of features and benefits they should stop to ask the buyer how important these are and why. That will enable them to provide the buyer with more of what he, or she is prepared to pay for and less of the rest.

3. Key Success Factors Are Not Clear

The buyer in meeting his business needs knows that the seller’s product, or service is only one element of success. In particular, there is a people and a process dimension to the buyer’s overall solution.
For example, a financial services company purchases the latest back office solution, replete with new features and technologies. However, the impact of this technology is likely to depend less on how good it is and more on how well it is implemented, in particular how it fits with the people and processes within the organisation.

Managing a programme of change around the adoption of the solution, including training and support to users, process re-engineering, etc. will have a major bearing on the seller’s success. These factors can often be overlooked by technology vendors in particular.

The solution is not the product, or the system, it is a mix of product, people and process. So what are the people, product and process dimensions of your total solution?

4. The Total Project View

The seller’s solution is only one element of an overall programme, or investment by the buyer. For example, one of our clients was negotiating the sale of its financial services solution, valued at almost 8 million, as part of a larger 120 million project in the financial institution. Knowing where its solution fits in a complex project resulted in:

• The seller being able to offer lessons from similar large scale projects
• The potential to run certain phases of the project concurrently, eliminate areas of overlap and the potential to share resources (in respect of testing for example) across a number of phases of the project
• A full appreciation of business drivers, constraints and the dependencies for the project overall.
• An understanding of how other aspects of the project could impact on the success of the seller’s implementation
• The identification of a number of project partners (e.g. the consulting house) with whom relationships should be developed.
So, how does your solution fit into the entire budget, programme, or strategy of the buyer? How will it contribute to the success of all these other things.

5. Confusion About Scope

Lately we have been advising clients to include a new section in their prospoal documents. That is a section that clearly spells out how both parties will know when the project is complete. That is the scope of the project.

Solution scope is very important and sometimes overlooked. This is important where:
• The scope of the project has not been clearly defined, or defined properly.
• The buyer’s needs change during the course of the project resulting in scope creep.
• The demands of the project have expanded now that work has started and more information is not to hand.

Agreeing what is inside and outside of the scope is very important, so too is managing scope creep as the project progresses. That is because salespeople can be tempted to promise the world when looking to close a deal. Having said this it can turn out that buyers are sometimes more realistic than sellers. They don’t, for example, expect your product or service to do everything and they do expect that there will be some setbacks involved in most projects.

6. The Underlying Motivation

The first and most common mistake with respect to matching the buyer with a solution, is to fail to fully understand the buyer's needs.

Buyers only want solutions because they fix a problem, or meet a need. In this respect it is not how a solution works, which is where sellers focus most, but the benefits that matter most.

The salesperson may have the ideal solution and may be tempted to immediately present it to the buyer. However, that could seriously hinder the sale. If the seller races ahead of the buyer to sell his, or her solution, then he or she runs the risk of getting the solution wrong, in an of the 5 ways listed above.

Arriving at the Solution

These are important reasons why the speed at which the seller arrives at defining the solution is not an advantage.

Every day sales people are forced to make assumptions regarding what buyers want, this is particularly the case where buyers chose to keep sellers at arms length. When it comes to competitive bidding situations, sellers are forced to take the buyers requirements on face value. Both of these clearly have dangers.

The seller has to arrive at the solution in tandem with the buyer – that is based on a full and thorough exploration of needs and based on a joint process of reviewing alternatives.

It is time to take account reviews out of the dark ages!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

Today I witnessed another example of how the revolution in organisational buying (what we call the buying revolution) is challenging salespeople to their very core.

Another Account Review

I had the opportunity to sit through an internal account review with a highly experienced and professional sales person earlier today. The review process was structured – clearly the person involved had done his preparation in advance of our discussion. First, he detailed the strengths and weaknesses of the seller's position in the account, as per the table below:

Review of our position in Account X

Our Strengths	Our weaknesses
We have the CEO’s ear Our efforts have been showing results – the CEO has recognized this by email They have adopted our methodology in-house The work involved is work we like doing	We are under pressure on day rates The focus of our work is not as strategic as we would like Some of the key areas agreed are not being auctioned by their managers Key managers need to make a mindset shift No contact with other directors / senior managers

Then the salesperson proceeded to outline the opportunities 'pull extra revenue from the account’ in next quarter and any associated risks, as per the table below:

Opportunities

o Process re-engineering in respect of back office, value 20k, 50% probability, qtr 4 this year

o Training programme for managers and staff, value 5k, 40% probability, quarter 4 this year

o Product A pilot 5k, 20% probabilities

o Set the ground for a new implementation in Qtr 3 of next year, value 80k, probability 30%

Risks

o They may start to take us for granted

o Budget – can they afford to keep using us?

o Some comments have been made that call into question whether the project is addressing immediate priorities

o Are expectations clear?

o There is a change of management personnel pending

Finally the sales person applied the PRIME formula. That is prove value, retrieve missing information, minimise weakness and emphasis strengths - listing off some next actions in respect of the account, setting a target for the follow-on revenue and that is it! Account review completed, next account please! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

The Narcissistic Account Review

This is a typically narcissistic account review. It is about Me! Me! Me! There was no mention of the client and his, or her needs. The focus was on how to sell, more rather than how to help more. Now, I know this salesperson well and I know that he does genuinely care about the client and his success. I also know that he is under pressure to meet target in what is a slowing market. The problem is that the latter has overshadowed the former. Perhaps the salesperson was also trying to demonstrate how hard-nosed and sales driven he was, something that would appeal to many sales managers.

But, if an account review does not look for a win-win in terms of looking to help the buyer more and in return sell more, then it is starting from the wrong place and the very health of the client relationship may be under threat.

Buyers are increasingly skeptical of self serving salespeople and their efforts to push new products, or services. This review is a reminder, if one were needed, that the seller is motivated foremost by his, or her own sales target and less by what is best for the buyer.

Throughout the entire review, about 60 minutes in total there was no mention of the buyer’s:

· Changing priorities

· Satisfaction

· Needs and unmet needs

· Expectations and perceptions

· Problems and chalenges

· Opportunities

· Anxieties and concerns

· Metrics

Understanding the Problem

The salesperson’s one-sided view can be explained by the challenge of spending time with the buyer. In particular a number of meetings have been cancelled at the last minute. In any respect the last formal feedback session was all of 10 months ago! Clearly, that makes the need to sit with the buyer and to discuss his needs and the seller’s performance a real priority.

On delving into the opportunities listed above, it became clear that probabilities had been assigned to opportunities that had not been discussed with the client! This clearly indicates fancy-full pipeline forecating processes and procedures.

Our advice is that salespeople should treat existing accounts the same way as they do new accounts. That is with the same attention, drive to understand requirements, focus on developing relationships and so on. This avoids complacency or taking the account for granted. It also prevents making dangerous assumptions – such as that the client’s priorities are the same as they were at the time of the last sale.

Making the Change
As sales people we have been selling things one way for a long time. It is difficult to change our ways. But change is exactly what is required to cope with the new market realities. This account review not only suggested that there were opportunities to improve not just the management of this account, but the very processes and mindset applied to the management of all accounts. At a time when customer poaching is at its height, then this has to be a top priority.

Do you Understand your Buyers Complicating Factors?

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

There is a word we find ourselves using more and more in respect of managing sales cycles and that seems to keep coming up again in reviewing pipeline opportunities and accounts. That is COMPLICATING FACTORS.

When it comes to the complex sale, things are never straightforward. There are certain to be complicating factors. Understanding what exactly these are is essential to the seller’s role in successfully matching a solution to the complex needs of the buyer. If unaddressed these have the potential to scupper the sale.

The number of complicating factors involved in the typical sales is on the rise in response to the following trends in respect of today’s buying decisions:

Slower Buying Decisions– the longer a decision takes the more complex it is inevitably going to be. Against the backdrop of changing market conditions and business priorities, decisions can quickly be overtaken by events. It also means that the people involved in the decision can change during the process and this can have a major factor in derailing a potential sale. Try though as you may most sales people will struggle to accelerate the sale/buying cycle. A word of caution you run the risk of impeding the buyers buying process ever time you run ahead of them.

More People Are Involved – the more people that are involved the more complex the sale is likely to be, different stakeholders can have different, perhaps competing requirements and motivations. Getting a consensus can be a challenge as more people means more politics and it also means a greater risk of misunderstanding. Gaining access to and engaging in a meaningful way with all those now involved in making, or shaping the decision is a real challenge for the salesperson.

More sophisticated. Today’s important buying decisions are more carefully made than ever before. They are attributed by all the complexity of an important business strategy decision. That means more rigor, more information, more documentation, more oversight and so on. Buyer autonomy has been greatly restricted, with decisions being made at increasingly senior levels.

The issues of impact on the bottom line, cash flow and the balance sheet are key. More robust financial analysis is required, together with a more sophisticated investment appraisal. More feasibility type information is required, more external validation, and a robust business case. Issues of strategic fit, risk and implementation are at the top of the agenda. The discussions on these complex issues often takes place behind closed doors (a point we sales people sometimes forget).

More Risky. Today’s buying decisions are taking place in the context of greater market turbulence. In an environment of greater risk and uncertainty managers are tempted to play it safe and to delay, or postpone difficult decisions. With pressure on budgets projects are being stalled, shelved, or scrapped. Meanwhile organizational priorities have changed, with a focus on cutting costs, regaining competitiveness, managing cash and so on.

Spotting complicating factors in respect of the sale is vital to the success of the sale. Trying to close a sale when there are complicating factors that have not been resolved is not only foolish, but dangerous. It can call into question the sellers very commitment, or expertise.

This however can pose challenges for the salesperson, particularly in the context of the increasingly hands-off approach being adopted by buyers. This is certainly the case in respect of competitive tenders, for example.

The sales person must get close to the sale and more to the point the buyer if he, or she is to really understand and appreciate the full range of factors impacting on the buying decision. The seller must develop a deeper understanding of the buyer's business in order to understand his, or her impending business decision.

Is Your Sales System, or Database Working?

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:04:00 +0000

A checklist for getting the most from your most vital Sales & Marketing Tool.

There is one essential ingredient of effective sales and marketing in all companies - that is an up-to-date and easy to use database. It drives the sales process – from sales prospecting to account management – making the contribution of all those in sales and marketing focused, efficient and clear.

Here is a checklist to help you examine how effectively your company is using, what is potentially at least, it’s most important sales and marketing tool:

1. How widely used is the database?

· Do the user logs show regular use by key people?

· How up to date is the information?

· How thoroughly used is it (e.g. prospecting, nurturing, tasks completed, etc.)?

· Do key accounts have next actions assigned to various people and dates for completion?

· Do all priority account have an owner?

2. How easy to use is the database?

· Have users received training?

· Is good documentation available?

· Is support available? Has it been taken advantage of?

· Are key features being used?

· Is there a consistent approach to how information is updated across all users?

3. How much information does it contain?

· Number of accounts (clients, past clients, prospects, etc.), opportunities, contacts and leads?

· By sector/market?

· How representative are accounts of your company’s:

o ideal customer base/target market?

o the companies sales and marketing activity for this year?

4. How up to date is the information?

· How recent are the last modified date on key accounts, last date on actions, cases, etc.

· Is contact information on the accounts and contacts up to date?

· How much screening / cleansing of the data is undertaken?

5. How thorough/detailed is the information?

· How well kept are records, for example are there web and address details, company description, contact information, notes of actions/meetings, accurate ratings, etc.

6. How does the database comply with best practice and the law?

· Does it comply with any legal requirements re direct and database marketing (e.g. TPS (Telephone Preference Service) in the UK)

· Are opt-outs offered on any emails sent

· Does your company have a privacy policy (is it on emails, web sign-ups, etc.)

7. How well it is managed

· Does one person have responsibility for it?

· Who is responsible for keeping the information cleansed and up-to-date?

· Is administrative support available for users in such time consuming tasks as finding telephone numbers, entering new companies, mail-shots, etc?

· When is the last time there was a discussion on how the database was to be used, or developed?

· Are campaigns using the database measured for their effectiveness?

· How customised is the database to your company’s needs? Are there redundant fields? Are there important fields missing? Have drop down menus been customised?

8. How effectively is it guiding sales activity?

· How regularly do sales people log into it?

· Can the company’s present sales and marketing targets be readily identified from the database?

· Is it used as part of sales campaigns?

· Does it have up to date opportunity/forecast information?

· Are top ranked accounts easy to find and do they have next actions allocated to them?

· Can the activity level of sales people been seen from the database?

· Is it used to trigger next actions in respect of advancing sales cycles, progressing opportunities, nurturing prospects, etc.

9. How effectively is it employed:

· As a marketing tool (mail-outs, email campaigns, etc.)?

· How easy is it to use in monitoring and reporting on the success of campaigns, reporting on activity, etc.

· How effectively is it employed as a sales pipeline forecasting and management tool?

· For customer relationship management, fulfillment and other purposes?

· How well does it integrate with other systems, e.g. accounting systems?

10. How effectively is it being use in account management?

· Are customer accounts prioritised or categories in the database?

· Does it have details of account revenue targets and plans?

· Does it record notes of meetings, cases, etc.

· Does each account have an owner?

· Are the names of all decision makers, influencers in the account company identified?

· Are there a list of tasks completed and next actions in respect of managing and servicing the account?

11. How does the database perform in terms of:

· Accessibility?

· Security?

· Back-ups?

· Availability (e.g. down time, remote access, etc.)?

· Service/support?

· Does it integrate email, document storage, calendar, etc.?

· How good is the reporting function?

· What degree of customisation is available (e.g. customisable down menus, etc.)

12. Cost and payback

· What is the annual cost? Licence costs and software (if used) together with time spent gathering and updating information, undertaking mail-outs, set-up and customisation, etc.

· What is potential value of this information?

· What would the cost be if purchased, or gathered in other ways?

· Does it save people time, or make them more efficient?

9 Ways To Turn Your Sales Database into a Powerful Sales Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:56:00 +0000

Want to get more from your Sales Database or CRM system? Here are 9 ways you can transform it into a powerful sales and marketing tool:

1. Purge your database!

A database with a well-used 200 entries can be much better than a database with 4000 names that is disorganised and out-of-date.

So screen all those contacts, accounts and opportunities in your database, re-classifying them as appropriate (based on relevance and potential). Do a random spot check – taking 20 or so entries to see where contact information (e.g. contact name, address, etc.) is out of date, or where the last contact is dated.

This will help you set the criteria for cleansing the database – for example identify those past customers who have not purchased in the past year and mark as priority, eliminate those that have been dormant for than 5 years and so on. Then allocate those that have a priority to an owner and assign an action or next step to it.

2. If its not working, scrap it

If your existing database is difficult to use, cannot be accessed remote and do not provide basic functionality such as dairying next actions, sending emails, capturing web enquiries directly, or providing real time management reports, then scrap it.

From as little as $9 per user per month you can provide your sales team with access to the most sophisticated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SFA (Sales Force Automation / Administration system).

Take out a demo account on Appshore.net, Salesforce.com, Sugar CRM or Sage CRM to see what your sales database can and should look like.

3. Use it for pipeline mgt and forecasting

Transform your sales database into a powerful management tool, by using it to track leads all the way through to orders. That begins with leads and enquiries, the meetings, opportunities, deals won. Track progress at each stage, generating metrics to enable you to identify salespeople who may be under performing, or areas of the sales process that require attention.

4. Organise training

One of the key barriers to the more widespread, expert and consistent use of a sales database is the level of skill and support available to users. So classify users into basic, intermediate and advanced user skills, in terms of their present skills levels and what their jobs require. Then organise a programme of training, supported by the necessary manuals, or documentation. Certification may be important to encourage extra there is a quick test of user skills levels before and after.

5. Incorporate Sales process and a common sales language

Getting the most out of your sales system will depend on having a consistent definition of sales process and sales language across your sales team. That means ensuring the way sales opportunities are ranked is consistent, with the associated probability of closing relating to some agreed and hopefully objective standard. This curbs the natural optimism of the sales person.

Defining your organisations sales progress takes forecasting another step further. For example, if a deal is forecast for January and given a 90% probability, the sales manager can assess the validity of this assessment by reviewing if key aspects of the sales process have been satisfactorily completed, such as:

identifying and covering the buying group
formal needs analysis completed
notes of meeting in the database
client feedback on draft proposal, etc.

6. Put it in people’s job descriptions

Encourage people to use the sales database, providing them with the training and support requirement required. But don’t stop there. Make it mandatory. Write it into people’s job descriptions and job reviews. Calculate commissions and other payments based on sales data as presented in the system.

7. Stop relying on spreadsheets

Stop relying on spreadsheets and make your sales database do the work of managing sales opportunities and forecasting sales revenues. This is a real test of the degree to which you are using your system. If your team is putting in the right information and keeping it up to date, you should be able to view an up-to-date dashboard of sales KPIs every time you log in.

8. Put somebody in charge of it

Give somebody overall responsibility for managing the sales database, that includes organisation of the training, reviewing data quality, cleaning out the system, tracking usage levels, managing compliance, etc.

9. Run campaigns using it

If you are having problems adopting your sales database, then put some new leads into it and use them to run a campaign. Allocate them to various reps and direct them there to find them. Use the system to send a campaign email as well as to automatically capture enquiries made from your web site..

Sales Systems: a framework for developing user skills

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:51:00 +0000

The functionality of today’s Sales and CRM systems is impressive, however that means they require higher levels of training and skill on the part of users. Insufficient, or inadequate training of users is a key factor explaining why the fact that most organizations have not reaped the benefits of their systems. It directly translates into low levels of usage, sales productivity and sales effectiveness.

So, how many users are at advanced, expert, or just foundation level? What level do they need to be at, given their various roles? The following checklist will help you assess and develop the CRM/SFA skills levels of your team. It is also an ideal structure for planning user training in respect of new systems implementations.

Put a tick in the box beside each activity users are able to complete. Those activities un-ticked then represent the ideal starting point for further training.

Level 1: Developing Foundation Skills

Here are the key tasks, or foundation skills, you will need to successfully use the CRM / sales automation tool:

1. Can you create an account and set Type, Source, Industry and Rating as appropriate, or to default? 

2. Can you create a contact in a specific account, add notes of a conversation to it, schedule a call with the contact and send an email to the contact person? 

3. Can you change your password? 

4. Can you search for a company or a person in the database and view their information? 

5. Can you edit a contact and an account and save the changes? 

6. Can you order accounts in alphabetical order, both in ascending and descending order? 

7. Can you order accounts by a specific category in rating, type, or source to show only a list of the ones in the category you have chosen? Can you see the number in the category without counting them? 

8. Can you enlarge the number of accounts shown at any one time to 50? 

9. Can you send and email with an attachment to yourself and check that it arrives correctly? Can you view the sent email in your sent folder? 

Level 2: Becoming an Advanced User

Here are the key tasks, or advanced skills, that will demonstrate your proficiency in the use of the CRM/sales automation tool:

1. Can you create opportunity, setting probability, start and end dates, etc., and assign follow-up call to it? 

2. Can you view opportunity created in Forecast tab, viewing under quarter and year tabs? 

3. Can you assign an account to another user, view accounts and contacts owner by other users? 

4. Can you open accounts, or contacts, in edit and in view mode? 

5. Can you change dashboard layout? Putting neglected accounts in the right panel, top activities by priority and by date in the centre column and open cases in the right panel of the screen? 

6. Can you send test email using a template & change if required? 

7. Can you export a file containing account details for backup? 

8. Can you upload a document to the database and rename it? 

Level 3: Becoming An Expert User

If you can complete the following tasks they you will have reached an expert level of proficiency in using the CRM/sales management tool, and managing or administrating the system for your company:

1. Can you import a list of companies or contacts from an excel spreadsheet, then set rating, type, source and industry as appropriate to the records entered en masse? 

2. Can you review a selection of 6 accounts (randomly chosen) in the database? Are they completed correctly? Is each one assigned, is there a next action, is there a type, rating, source and industry rating? Are notes kept of meetings and conversations? Are emails and documents present? 

3. Can you quantify & compare activity and progress by 2 users, in terms of number of accounts\contacts, level of activity & effectiveness? 

4. Can you generate a report? 

5. Can you create an email template, using different typefaces and colours. Send a test email using the template and make changes as required? 

6. Can you add a category to the ‘type’ drop down menu? Then update an account – changing type to the new category you have added. 

7. Can you add a new user, reset a user password, reset roles, or priviledges, change the order in which different applications (e.g. accounts, contacts, etc.) are displayed? 

8. Can you customise the database to company standards: Dashboard, Drop down menus, User set up, etc. 

Sales Systems: Why People Don’t Use Them & What To Do About It

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:46:00 +0000

Most companies have implemented some form of sales system (CRM or SFA system). However, few have achieved the promised payback on their investment. One of the key reasons is patchy use of the systems implemented. Indeed, our experience shows that such systems are under-used, or not used at all, by a majority of sales reps, sales support and sales administration staff.

Our clients point to 7 reasons why people don’t use (or at least don’t use properly) their sales / CRM systems. They represent real barriers to achieving the expected sales effectiveness and customer relationship management benefits. These reasons and what to do about them are examined overleaf.

Reason # 1: The wrong system has been implemented / inherited – the system in place does not meet user needs. Typically that means it is:

Cumbersome, unsteady/unreliable, or slow
Difficult to use (rather than being intuitive and easy to follow)
Inadequate in terms of help/instructions
Lacks key functionality (e.g. does not have a diary function, no remote access, or does not allow you to enter 8 digit product codes)
Does not integrate with other applications that staff must already use (resulting in duplication of effort)
Not tailored to the needs of users (e.g. drop down menus, field names, etc. do not correspond to the business in question)

What to do about it: Management should review if the existing system can be improved, or should be replaced.

Reason # 2: The information contained in the system is of poor value – the company and contact information in the system is incomplete, out of date, or not relevant. The system is not being purged, or updated on a regular basis.

What to do about it: Management should institute periodic reviews of the quality of the information in the database. Then provide the administrative resource to purge the data, replacing redundant information with new target lists and contact information, and importing for reps information that is kept in other locations (spreadsheets, outlook address books, etc.).

In addition the automatic capture and assignment to users within the system of web, or email enquiries should be set up.

Reason # 3: The system has been implemented without sufficient user buy-in, or understanding of the benefits (both to users and to the company overall).

What to do about it: Re-launch the system, starting with one small group of users who can most immediately benefit from using the system (or are suffering as a result of not being able to use it) and provide the support to enable them to reap the benefits for themselves. With this group as advocates spread news of the benefits to others.

Reason # 4: A lack of leadership - the system is not being used, or aggressively promoted by senior management (e.g. sales managers, or directors).

What to do about it: If the sales manager is not using the sales database, then he is not in a position to expect anything different from others. He/she has to demonstrate a commitment / competency in respect of using the system. That includes moving from spreadsheet based forecasting and paper-based sales reports, to conducting every conversation with reps or the team by reviewing the relevant account, opportunity or lead in the database.

Reason # 5: Lack of appropriate incentives, where the proper usage of the system is not written into job descriptions, staff and team performance reviews, or linked into the receipt of bonus and commission payments.

What to do about it: Increasingly job descriptions stipulate that keeping sales records, account and contact information up to date in the sales system (including notes of meetings, telephone conversation, etc.) is mandatory. This aspect of job related performance is formally reviewed at staff reviews and moreover payments of bonuses or commissions are linked to the same.

Reason # 6: Inadequate system administration and support to users, including help in terms of lost passwords, user problems, importing lists, organizing mail outs, etc.

What to do about it: Every database or CRM system requires an administrator. But that is not just somebody who can, when requested, set up a user, or change a password.

It is a more active role of reviewing usage levels on an ongoing basis to ensure users have the skills required, that data is being entered in the correct/uniform manner, that neglected leads, accounts, or opportunities are being followed up, etc.

It is also a resource that can pro-actively anticipate and meet the needs or users and teams, such as assisting in the creation of new lists for entry to the database, input of sales letters, proposal and other templates, etc. – all designed to ensure that users can gain the maximum benefit from the system.

Reason # 7: Insufficient, or inadequate training of users. That means not just an intensive one day training session, but periodic training in line with a progressive building of skills, from foundation to expert levels (depending on the specific role and requirements of the user).

What to do about it: The functionality of today’s Sales and CRM systems is impressive, however that means they require higher levels of training and skill on the part of users.

Although salespeople in particular may have little time, or patience for office based training, or indeed may not even admit that it is needed, it is clear that one of the key reasons why sales systems are not used is the frustration experienced by users who have inadequate systems familiarity, or skill.

Office based staff tend to fare best in terms of the training traditionally provided for CRM and sales systems implementation and much of that training tends to be provided up front.

Greater care is needed in terms of providing training to non-office-based staff. Training participation must be mandatory, with certification and providing access to ongoing training and intensive support provided, based on scheduled follow-up between each rep and the system administrator.

When it comes to user training we recommend a 3 steps process to building user skills, including establishing foundation, advanced and expert levels of skills depending on users requirements (see related article/checklist).

10 Reasons Why You Need A Sales System

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:39:00 +0000

Imagine an accountant without an accounts package, or an architect without a CAD programme! Well, most sales organisations do not have a widely used and effective sales system. That is costing them in terms of lost sales, as well as lost time and effort.

Here is a list of the compelling reasons why you need a good sales system and the benefits it will deliver.

Increase conversion rates at all stages of the sales cycle. A sales system enables sales opportunities, or leads can be managed more effectively, including the universal application of a more consistent and effective sales process.

A system enables a more systematic, structured and managed approach to the management of sales; leads, opportunities, etc. Nothing is left to chance as salespeople and their managers can, for example, immediately identify neglected accounts, leads that need to be followed up and opportunities that require more work before closing.

Provide increased visibility, predictability and control in respect of sales. That means managers can see what is happening, they can use this information to predict what is going to happen (including inbuilt forecasting tools) and can take action, without waiting until the quarters results are in, or the next sales meeting takes place.

More accurate and reliable sales pipeline forecasts. This is because more information is available and that information is more up to date. In addition the use of a system applies more rigor and consistency to how information is stored, including

Sales people are by nature optimistic, however a sales system tapers optimism with reality providing for a common sales language (e.g. when is a hot prospect ’hot’?) and relating opportunity ratings and close dates to the more objective standard of work done (e.g needs analysis completed) and progress made (contact with 3 senior managers in the buying group) in respect of each account, or opportunity.

See ‘Don’t Rely on Spreadsheets’ for details of the limitations of the traditional spreadsheet based approach to sales forecasting.

A sales system can reduce reporting time by up to 50%, eliminating the frustrating work of manually compiling written call sheets, cross checking spreadsheets, requests for updates, etc. With a sales system that is being implemented consistently all the information required by managers should be available through dashboards, or easily accessible reports.

Enables a more sales-led approach to marketing, facilitating a switch from expensive mass marketing (e.g. advertising and events) to on more measurable direct, or one to one contact with target customers. In this way it aligns sales and marketing more closely. Other benefits to marketing include, the automation of tasks such as capturing web generated leads, mailing of electronic newsletters, tracking of opt-outs, etc.

Makes people more productive and efficient, reducing time spend on paperwork, information search, personal organization (e.g. route planning and time management), meeting preparation, and, of course reporting. Functions such as diary reminders of scheduled tasks, integrated email and document storage (such as proposals) are particularly beneficial to busy reps.

Maximizes collaboration across sales teams and between sales and marketing by ensuring access to shared information and tracking of requests/activities/cases across different members of the team.

Enables managers to tracks and manage levels of sales activity and effectiveness across the sales cycle. It provides mangers with key metrics and KPIs in respect of sales and marketing, including number of leads generated, number of sales meetings, or conversion rates at different stages, for example from lead to meeting, or from cycle to close.

Makes leading and managing a sales force easier. This works in a lot of ways, here are just some examples:

A system makes sales meetings – managers have all the information (result of meetings, status with opportunities, etc.) from the system, so meetings can focus on a transfer of enthusiasm, knowledge and insights, rather than a role call of opportunities.
Managers get to do more coaching thanks to a sales system, which identifies what sales people, markets or products may be struggling.
What gets measured gets done, thus a sales system generally results in an increase in the levels of sales activity (initially at least).
As sales people are motivated by their performance relative to their peers, the introduction of a system that provides greater visibility of comparative performance, can when handled correctly, spur individual sales people to ‘up their game’.

More and better information is available to the people who need it. Such improved openness and communication, generally enhances levels of trust and respect and in turn performance. It also enables managers and their people to make better decisions, for example where to focus limited sales resources, what areas will delivery greatest results, etc.

In so many organizations the second-guessing by managers of the activities and progress of salespeople because they do not have accurate information available is unhelpful and can be demotivating. A sales system ensures that a sales person and his or her manager are constantly on the same page. It results in clarity of expectations and reduces the likelihood of suprises.

Customer relationship management. Sales databases began as a central repository for customer information and as their functionality expanded, they became effective tools for managing customer relationships. This is still a vital role for any sales database to perform, enabling managers and their teams to engage in more co-ordinated, systematic and proactive customer contact, resulting in more effective account management, increased customer loyalty and growing customer revenues.

The 9 Deadly Sales Prospecting Sins

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:26:00 +0000

The slowdown has accentuated the underlying problems that exist with respect to sales prospecting in many organisations. We call them the 9 deadly sins of sales prospecting.

1. Sales leads appear as much by accident as by design, leaving the company is vulnerable to a slowdown in enquiries, prospects, or sales, or to the loss of a major customer, or prospect. Where there is active prospecting it is sporadic, triggered by an imminent sales need, or crisis.

2. Salespeople regularly complain about the shortage of leads and time spent cold calling. From time to time management expresses concern about the conversion rate of sales to leads and proposals.

3. Poor quality leads waste a lot of time for salespeople, with regular complaints about ‘tire kickers’ and a desire to only meet people who are interested in and able to buy.

4. There is over-optimism regarding the status and prospects of sales leads, while patchy sales prospect information, makes accurate sales forecasting difficult.

5. The names on target and prospect lists roll over from month to month, with little cleansing of old names, or elimination of cold leads.

6. If a sales person leaves his prospects and leads are lost and there is an over-reliance on enquiries, personal contacts, or some primary source of leads.

7. There is an over reliance on cold calling is, but results are patchy and the burden is still with salespeople who complain about the challenge of balancing prospecting with selling.

8. Leads are seen as the responsibility of sales, while the role of marketing is not clear. Where there is marketing, it is a set of discrete and sporadic activities (trade shows, ad campaigns, etc.) isolated from prospecting.
‘The slowdown has accentuated underlying problems with respect to sales prospecting.’

9. Systems, including databases, contact management, or sales automation tools, are lacking, or under-used. One of the implications is that the follow-up of leads by sales people is not systematically tracked, with some leads just disappearing ‘off the radar’ without explanation.

Rolling Out A Sales System

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Managers often complain about the difficulty of accurately forecasting sales and objectively rating opportunities. In addition they often lack the information to monitor and control sales team, or campaign effectiveness.

Meanwhile as organisations involve more people in selling, often from outside the sales team, the issue of co-ordinating activity and preventing overlap or duplication becomes important. The answer to these issues is a sales system.

From our experience successfully moving a sales team from paper to a sales database, or CRM system, can boost efficiency by between of 30 – 40%. However, this advantage will not be easily won.

Why You Need A System

SFA (Sales Force Automation), or CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Systems solve these problems by providing:

A central repository for customer, prospect & marketing information
Real time reporting & tracking of activity and effectiveness in terms of; leads, opportunities, accounts, etc.
Sales productivity tools in terms of reporting, scheduling, dairying, etc.
Marketing campaign management (including newsletters and mail outs)
Customer relationship management

How to Spot A Good System

Easy to use: intuitive enough to learn quickly and fast enough to save time.
Add value to the user, help them sell and deliver
Are flexible and display meaningful results within a mouse click
Able to solve day to day problems for the user and is consistent with the way they sell
User led not management led.

Are you Ready for a System

Although the sophistication of even the on demand or hosted systems is impressive, the reality is that there is no turnkey database solution.

So, beware it will take quite an effort to get a database up and running, even the most ‘user friendly’ systems, so it is important to get the timing right. The reality is that you need to double your estimate of the time and effort it will take to get the system up and running and then most crucially get users using it.

Overcoming the Adoption Hurdle

The adoption of sales systems is a major challenge. In short, most users don't use them faithfully. There are lots of reasons for this, but much of it comes down to the failures of planning and implementation, particularly around adoption. Here are some tips:

Ensure people see their own activity and accounts when they log in, not someone else’s
Deploy sales tools gradually, invest time in winning buy-in. Start with a small pioneer group
Pick a sales champion / project manager
Communicate the benefits clearly (less paperwork, more sales opportunities, better time mgt etc.)
Provide lots of training
Heavy on the admin support to start with at least (i.e. import contacts for users, be available to answer queries, put various documents into the system, customize the fields, etc.)
Develop a cheat sheet for training. Highlight why the system will help people and key functions they should use initially
Ensure people at the top are using it (leadership)
Review progress, learn from it
Roll it out in groups
Certify and reward users for using it
Make it part of sales meetings and sales reviews. Ensure it is forward looking
Put it in people’s job descriptions

Sales People: stick to the truth, regardless of the consequences

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Salespeople are often caught in a difficult position when it comes to being completely honest with the customer. For example, the buyer asks about certain product functionality, that is not yet available.

Now the functionality is under development, or that it will be developed if the customer signs the order. However, the buyer has asked a straight-forward question: ‘does the product do A?’ Just how should the sales person answer? He could tell the truth and potentially sabotage the sale, or he could lie and say simply answer ‘yes it does’. I would argue that 9 out of 10 sales people will answer ‘yes it does’.

Sales people don’t like to lie any more than anybody else, but faced with the prospect of alienating they buyer they are often called upon to fudge the truth. The only problem is that fudging the truth is something that buyers are increasingly unwilling to accept. Having been sold a ‘pig in a poke’ too many times before they know how to catch sales people out and indeed revel in doing so.

Sales people should stop taking chances on being found out. They should stick to the truth, regardless of the consequences. They should surprise the buyer with refreshing honesty – an honesty that the buyer is likely to repay in spades with trust and respect.

We saw just how powerful this can be in a presentation by one of our clients recently. The prospect had set out a list of requirements and asked competing vendors to present its response. Our client’s sales director listed not just the requirements that could be met immediately (some 60% of the total), the requirements that would require minor customization (a further 25%) and the requirements that would require software code development (the remaining 15%). He also listed the dependencies, addressing upfront the key project risks (such as integration with 3rd party systems), the steps to mediate risk, examples of how this had been achieved in previous projects, and so on. What a breath of fresh air! It immediately indicated trustworthiness and credibility.

Don't Rely on Spreadsheet Forecasts!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:45:00 +0000

10 reasons to ditch your spreadsheets and employ a SFA/CRM system

Increasingly managers complain about the difficulty of accurately predicting what deals will close and when. However in spite of a more complex sales environment, most organisations still rely on spreadsheets to manage opportunities and forecast sales.

This short article outlines 10 reasons why a more sophisticated approach is required.

1. Forecast accuracy inevitably suffers using a spreadsheet because you have only limited visibility, predictability and control in respect of sales (opportunities, accounts, activity, etc.).

A few columns on a spreadsheet are inadequate to describe today’s complex sales.

2. Spreadsheet-based analyses are more subjective because they struggle to adequately communicate how, for example, an opportunity is rated.

Moreover, they don’t map opportunities to your sales process – e.g. has the buying group been identified/covered, has a formal needs analysis been undertaken, has budget status been clarified, etc.

3. Have you got the latest version? It is impossible to keep a spreadsheet based sales forecast or sales campaigns up-to-date. This is compounded with different versions being used across a sales team.

A spreadsheet only gives a snapshot at a point in time and is quickly gone out of date. It is not a collaborative working tool.

4. Spending too much time on reports? Managers who track sales using spreadsheets spend twice as much time in report preparation, so to do their sales teams. This is an inefficient use of time, given that most sales systems will produce reports at the press of a button.

Furthermore, it means that most face to face time between sales managers and their people is spent information gathering and reporting, as opposed to coaching.

5. Sales Meetings involving the use of spreadsheets are grossly inefficient – with updates being made line by line to different accounts, or opportunities for each sales in turn.

That means the sales meeting is caught up with detail that is irrelevant to most of the team and this distracts from the more strategic elements of a sales meeting.

While I am interested in talking about my own opportunities and how they are progressing, I don’t really need to know that the buyer in my colleagues number one account is away on holidays, or his main contact has just returned from a golfing holiday and that the results of the pilot project are being reviewed Thursday week. While it may be interesting to my manager, I would rather be out selling that listening to all that unnecessary detail.

No wonder that meeting involving such protracted opportunity reviews don’t finish on time!

6. Spreadsheets don’t trigger actions in a diary where an action is allocated to an account, or an opportunity and they don’t provide a record of the associated actions, emails, meetings and so on.

7. Managers should have dashboards at hand so that they can review at a glance their pipeline, identify priority accounts, and so on.

8. Too much information in people's heads. Spreadsheets are of little use if a sales manager or a sales person leaves as the understanding behind them is lost.

With growing levels of sales person turnover, it is vital that detailed account, contact and opportunity info is held in a central repository (a sales system, or database), so that it does not vanish when a rep leaves.

9. What does all the information mean? A spreadsheet will struggle to give a sales manager the metrics he/she needs, including the ratio of leads to meetings, or the win rate of proposals.

10. Who is doing what? A spreadsheet won’t adequately tell a sales manager where his sales people were, or should have been was last week, or where he should be next week. It won’t enable him to identify areas where the rep needs coaching either.

Conclusion

Managers want increased visibility, predictability and control in respect of sales. That requires a more systematic approach to leads, meetings, cycles and orders which has outgrown the capabilities of spreadsheet based sales forecasting, or reporting.

Thankfully, this is made possible by a wide variety of sophisticated tools, called Sales Force Automation, or Customer Relationship Management systems. Spreadsheets are not the answer.

Think Cost of Buying, Not Cost of Selling!

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:27:00 +0000

The cost of selling to an organization is only a fraction of the cost of that organisation’s buying decision. For example where a major buying decision involves 3 competing suppliers, the time that the seller spends with the buyer has to be multiplied by 3, with the buyer allocating time to each of the suppliers involved.

With lengthening and more complex sales cycles, sellers are sensitive to the rising cost of making a sale. However, they don’t give much thought to the costs for the buyer. That is the cost for the buyer of making the purchase decision.

Calculating the Cost of the Buying Process

The table below suggests that the buying decision in respect of a complex sale can easily range between 45,000 and 135,000 depending on the number of managers involved and the length of the buying process. Buying decision C for example takes 6 months for completion, involving 5 managers on the basis of an average of 1 hour per week over that period. The cost of that buying decision could be estimated at 45,000, based on an annual salary cost (including some overhead allocation) of 110,000 per manager.

	A	B	C
number of months	6	6	6

number of weeks	24	24	24

number of managers	5	5	5

number of hours pw	3	2	1

total	2160	1440	720

Days	270	180	90

cost per day	500	500	500

total cost	135000	90000	45000

What are the implications of costly buying processes?

Complex buying decisions cost more. This has a number of implications for buyer and seller alike, including:

The decision to fully engage in the buying process, is in itself a significant commitment of resources. For this reason it is generally made in stages, with the sponsor in the buying organization first being required to present a justification for a buying decision business case being prepared.

Only a limited number of projects can be evaluated at any one time. This can mean that although a project is of interest, the timing may not presently be right. Vendors must demonstrate to vendors how their projects can impact on the buyer’s immediate business priorities.

Given the cost and time required organisations will want to ‘kill off’ poor projects as early as possible. The vendor may have to do the initial running for a project to gain a sufficient ‘head of steam’.

Organisations are standardizing the approach to the making of buying decisions, including standard steps to be followed, templates for documents to be prepared, etc. This serves to makes the process more repeatable and consistent, thereby saving time.

Involving another supplier in the process costs money, after all 3 suppliers means 3 briefings, 3 presentations, 3 proposals, etc. So involving a supplier does represent a real commitment of time and effort. Of course there is also the potential embarrassment cost if including a particular supplier proves a mistake.

Buyers will inevitably want to limit the time / cost of the buying process, that means being judicious about time spent with sellers. When sellers want access to all the stakeholders they need to be conscious of the fact that this represents an additional draw on their time and adds to the cost of the decision.

Buyers want to get something back for the time spent with vendors. OK they may need to meet with vendor C because their internal process requires 3 vendor quotes, but if each vendor required 20-40 hours of time (including the briefings, the presentations, the proposals, the ongoing communication, etc.).

Once a vendor has been selected, it makes sense for the buyer to want to develop and deepen that relationship, as opposed to going through the entire process again. When customer defect to another supplier they face real switching costs related to the process of evaluating, educating and learning to trust another vendor.

How to save the buyer’s time?

Sellers often express concern about buyers placing ‘unreasonable’ demands on them during the sales process. That is expecting the seller to spend lots of up front time without any commitment on the buyer’s part. This is a valid concern. However, to be fair sellers must also consider the burden that they place on buyers.

The salesperson in helping the buyer to buy, seeks not only to help the buyer make the right decision, but also to cut the cost, or burden of making the decision in itself. He, or she has the potential to free up, as opposed to tying-up the buyer’s time. So here are the rules to follow:

Always obey the rules regarding access, don’t go over or around others to get to who you want
In order to ensure you access the right people, map the buying process to the organisational chart to identify you need to meet.
Tell them why you want to meet, ask them what they want to get from it and set a clear agenda in advance.
Take advantage of other forum for interacting with those managers of interest, for example, industry association events, conferences, etc.
Use access sparingly and plan it to get the most from any time you have with stakeholders. That includes meeting at the right time and when the objectives or value of doing is at its most. For example, make sure you have your initial briefing, or scoping completed first.
Click here for the rest of the rules for access.

So, the salesperson must minimize the draw on the buyers time, while at the same time maximizing the buyer’s return on each sales encounter.

How Are You Going to Pay The Buyer For His, or Her Time?

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:22:00 +0000

How are you going to pay the buyer for his or her time in meeting with you? Just what will the reward be?

What is Your Return On Sales Encounter

The challenge is not just to demonstrate the benefits of your products and services, but also the benefits for the buyer of even meeting with you. After all, the meeting has not been free!

Calculating the Cost of the Sales Meeting
Many sales managers have calculated the cost of a sales call and even a sales cycle. The figures can be frightening. However, few have stopped to consider the buyer’s costs and what he or she is getting in return! We call it the Return On Sales Encounter.

Return on Sales Encounter

Imagine the buyer took a calculator in hand and calculated the return on an encounter with a salesperson, starting with the cost of a meeting in the first instance and the inevitable follow up emails and calls that will result!

Buyer's Direct Cost of

Salary Cost 1 Hour

60,000 47

80,000 63

100,000 78

150,000 117

So, you have just cost the buyer anywhere between 47 and 117 euro, dollars, or pounds depending on how senior he, or she is. But of course that has just covered his direct salary cost, so his, or her encounter with you has to be worth a lot more than that!

Have you been worth it?

Now of course, very few buyers will do the maths, but that does not suggest that they are not acutely aware of the value of their time. There are not enough hours in the day and there are lots of other things that the buyer could have been doing instead of meeting with you. Not least of which is dealing with the many emails and voice mails that are now waiting.

How to Buy Yourself More Time?

It is time to show your value, to demonstrate your worth. So, tell the buyer something that he, or she did not know, or knew but had forgotten about. Instead of delivering your features and benefits pitch, share an insight that is relevant to the performance of his, or her business. Tell him, or her what his competitors and peers are doing and the implications, or lessons to learned.

What else is required? Well, recognize the value of his, or her time. Don’t take up an more of it than is necessary. That includes not calling, or emailing unless you have some value to offer, that is something interesting and useful to say. It means that if you say your meeting is going to last for 40 minutes, keep it to 40 minutes.

If that is too difficult, then just write the buyer a check for him, or her time instead!

Buyers Cringe as Telemarketing Numbers Rise

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Collis & John O Gorman) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:17:00 +0000

I talked to a manager in one of the leading telemarketing agencies today. He told me of new offices opening worldwide and the addition of hundreds of new telemarketers. Needless I wished him and his team well. It was the only polite thing to do. However, privately I shuddered. Here is what I was really thinking – 'great another couple of hundred cold calling telemarketers is exactly what the world’s buyer DON'T need!'

At the same time many of our clients have been very slow to wean away from their dependence on traditional lead generation methods and in particular cold calling. That is in spite of the fact that response rates for the past 12 months have been falling beneath the floor.

The reality is that those who are depending on cold calling and telemarketing to generate new prospects and new customers are in for a world of pain. To those managers we say ‘take the next cold call that comes into your business and see how you like it!’

Like it, or not the telemarketer is the first causality of the buying revolution. The good news is that there are lots of alternatives that are much more effective and much more buyer friendly. Also there are a great number of ways to warm up even the coldest of calls.