John Hirth's commentary on sales...

"History repeats itself..." does this old adage apply to sales??

2009-06-30T07:39:00-05:00

History repeats itself and those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them! You've heard that one before, yet may not have thought about that old history lesson in relation to your selling career. Well, the value of this lesson has a lot more to do with sales than you might think... let's take a look.

There are great lessons to learn and strategies to build when you understand the conditions under which you win and those under which you lose. Regularly going through a "win, loss" review will allow you to understand where you typically succeed and where you typically fail and why. Once you understand the conditions that drive the outcome of your selling activities you'll know better how to respond to any given situation. You can build new strategies to support your efforts and increase your percentages!

A company we work with did a six month "win, loss" review (history) on price quotes issued to prospects who they had not previously done business with. They believed that quickly responding to requests for price quotes demonstrated a high degree of responsiveness and would win them business. They knew they were not winning often, but were shocked when they found out their efforts had only gotten a 4% return (4% of quotes yielding orders). By looking at history it became quite apparent that they needed to change their strategy of "demonstrating responsiveness". Not only was it not working but it was costing a lot of staff time and resources.

The new strategy, based on what they learned from looking at their history, was to call every request for pricing first and ask questions about the request. They found that most of the time it ended up being a "price check", but also found that through making a personal contact they actually got information and ended up closing 15% of the opportunities instead of 4%. They also were able to identify that most of the "wins" were not being serviced by one vendor exclusively. So, learning from this historical record drove them to ask the question "how many vendors are you currently buying from?" When they got the answer "one" they knew it was unlikely they would win and drove them to ask more questions to qualify the opportunity better.

This ends up being a clear example of "learning from history and not repeating the mistakes of the past!" Learn from history and you'll be winning more of your opportunities. We'll cover some other "history lessons" in upcoming posts... happy hunting!

"Dealing with information seeking questions..."

2009-06-22T07:00:00-05:00

Not the ones you ask... but the ones your prospects/customers ask! You know how it usually goes... you're on a call and the customer asks you about a product or service that you provide. Of course you see this as the opening you've been waiting for. (salivating) You get out the feature benefit machine gun, cock it and load it and engage in a quick round of "pray and spray", dumping all your best stuff and thinking there is no way they can resist buying. Unfortunately, it just doesn't go that way and instead of saying "I'll take two" they say "can you send me some literature"? Dumbfounded, you walk out in disbelief wondering what went wrong??

Information seeking questions are usually driven by hidden agenda's, or have multiple answers with only one being the winner. Your zeal to answer and provide knowledge is often a mistake and can end up costing you a lot of money. You may be better off not answering but finding out why the questions were asked in the first place.

Information seeking questions are often best handled with a communication strategy called "reflecting". Reflecting involves simply "asking a question about the question" that reflects the original question back to the prospect to get more information. Some types of information seeking questions you need to be cautious of and that need to be reflected are:

1. Questions about your products or services.

2. Questions that ask you to compare your product against another.

3. Questions about your competition.

4. Questions about delivery, price, quality, service, etc.

All of these questions are asked in context with additional information that you are not aware of. Your ability to understand the context within which they are asked will give you a higher percentage chance of providing an answer that will benefit you.

Think about a questions that revolves around product. "Tell me a little about your "knutten valve"?" Now, if you had a "knutten valve" instead of telling them about it, you might be better served by saying "I'd be happy to... was there a reason that you have an interest in our "knutten valve"?" There is always a reason and your ability to find out what it is will put you in a much better position to give an answer that will benefit you.

"What/or who's knutten valve are you currently using and is there something that you would like to change about what you are using now?" If they are not happy with what they currently have how could you possibly solve a problem that you are not fully aware of? Not knowing what the problem is might get you to make a suggestion on a feature they have already tried and didn't work!

We'll expand on this concept called "reflecting" in upcoming posts but for now ask your self "should I answer or should I ask?" I think you'll find out "not answering" will be your best strategy and have you on the way to making more sales!

Action Step: Write down five questions that you regularly get on sales calls. Then write down the answer you are currently giving. think of what a good questions about the questions would be and plan to use your new "reflectors" on your next sales call.

Selling is all about "lowering risk"...

2009-06-15T07:19:00-05:00

Selling is all about getting people to change and change always involves risk. Generally, when given a choice, most people will always choose to not change. People are creatures of habit and change requires them to break old habits and create new ones. What makes selling difficult is the fact that it requires you to work against human nature by getting people to change (and you thought this was going to be easy!).

If you think about it, much of the resistance (objections, stalls) you will encounter in sales is a function of risk. Most people will resist change if they believe that the risk they take to change is greater than the risk they will experience by deciding to not change. The old belief "better to live with the devil you know, than the devil you don't know" is what makes it difficult to create the inertia you need to get people to change. It is a powerful force that we will all have to deal with.

So, how do we lower risk, or at least lower the perception of risk, to get more people to take the risks they need in order for us to sell. Two critical strategies come to mind for us to consider:

Identifying and clearly understanding your prospects problems will lead them to believe that through your understanding, it is less likely that you will sell them a solution that will not work. Asking questions that give you a full understanding of their situation will help to alleviate their fear of risk.
Helping them to understand that the "discomfort" that exists now (consequences, circumstances of staying the same) will be diminished by their willingness to go through the "discomfort" of change. Again helping them to overcome the perceived risk.

The first strategy requires us to be good at "information gathering" questions. Questions like:

Tell me more about the problems that you are experiencing?
How long have you had this these problems?
What have you done to try to solve them?
How did that work?
Specifically, what impact or consequences do they have on you and your company?
Do the problems cost you/your company any money?
What happens if you don't fix them?

As you gain information you create the belief that through the information you have gained it is more likely that you will deliver a recommendation that will work...hence, lowering risk (you may also find this is a good strategy that helps to differentiate you from your competition).

The second strategy requires us to ask "consequence" questions. Questions like:

What happens if this doesn't get fixed?
Is this something you can live with?
How would not being able to solve the problems affect you personally?
Who else is affected by these problems?
Maybe it's something you really don't need to worry about?

These questions help the prospect understand that not solving the problem may actually be a bigger risk then the risk they will need to take to change. They are often exactly the questions that you need to create the inertia for change.

Your ability to ask both of these types of questions will help you and your prospect understand and limit the risks involved in changing. Lowering risk is one of the keys to being successful in sales!