Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
If you do online demonstrations and webinars, you know very well that in spite of your great product offering, superior questioning skills, and good delivery, you sometimes come away with a promise for future business, or a flat “no.” In other words, no order. You can still get a “win” out of it, though.
To preface the rest of this post, ensure that you’ve read my whitepaper on conducting a successful sales webinar, so that you haven’t left any bases uncovered when you did your due diligence and made your presentation. It’s free, and I’ve gotten some very good responses on how it’s helped sales reps to get closer to making a sale.
Today, I’d like you to consider taking one more step after you’ve finished your unsuccessful demo or webinar, a technique that comes right out of my inside sales training courses. Your contact, in most cases, appreciates the time you’ve taken, and knows that because he or she hasn’t given you the business, it’s a loss for you. That’s a great time to invite him or her to be a LinkedIn contact for you. A great way to approach this is to say “John, I’ve had a great time showing you what we can do for you, and even if we can’t move forward today, I’m going to invite you on LinkedIn so we can stay in touch.”
As soon as you’ve gotten off the phone, send the invitation. Don’t wait a day, do it now, and the prospect will probably LinkIn to you. Now you have an additional contact that likes you, appreciated your professionalism, and knows your company. And thus, when you check your new prospects’ LinkedIn profiles before calling them (you do that, right?) you’ll be able to warm up your cold calls by referencing people you both know. Within a relatively short amount of time, you should have a pretty good network of prospect contacts. In a given vertical, the world is very small. These people attend the same conferences, and know each other professionally, and sometimes socially, too.
Here’s a caveat: be sure you know why your webinar or demo prospect didn’t buy. It could be money, timing, changed requirements, anything. But if the prospect didn’t buy because he or she thought your solution offering was decidedly sub-par, he or she is probably not going to want to LinkIn to you. So again, take my approach when your prospect loved you and your solution, but decided not to buy for unrelated reasons.
Some of you may be thinking “why don’t I just ask for a reference to someone at another company that might need my product, instead?” Good question, I’m glad you asked. Many people are reticent to give out names, that’s why, and if you get a “no, I don’t feel comfortable giving you other names” that’s two losses. Asking for other references is always easier after the prospect becomes your customer. On the other hand, using a LinkedIn invitation is easy, especially immediately after you’ve taken the time to work with the prospect.
So go ahead and get yourself a “win,” even when you walk away without an order. And add this technique to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 09, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Lots of people read this blog, including a number of field salespeople who’ve told me that the advice in this blog helps them to better qualify prospects by phone before taking the time to physically visit them. I’ve even built an inside sales techniques training course for field reps that I’ve delivered to the outside reps of a number of companies.
Last week, I received an email from a field rep that presented a dilemma he was facing. The situation affects both inside and outside sales reps. So here’s “Dave’s” question, and my response:
I'm an outside territory manager and a portion of our weekly meetings are scheduled by our Inside reps. From time to time, we get a meeting scheduled that has not been qualified and we have to find a way to back out of the meeting or assign it to another outside rep that handles some of the smaller products. This is an uncomfortable situation and can be challenging while trying not to upset the prospect. What we really want to say is “you're not worthy of my time,” but we can't. Any ideas on how to make this a little easier, while saving face with the customer?
- Dave
Hi Dave, There isn't an easy way to tell an unqualified prospect that "you're not important enough." When this occurs, I'd suggest that you call the unqualified prospect and apologize that you have been accidentally double-booked, but say that the prospect is important enough that the meeting will instead take place by phone, rather than delaying the conversation to a future meeting. This saves face for the prospect, tells the prospect that he or she is important, but saves you from having to meet with an unqualified prospect.
- Geoff
Today’s topic isn’t merely a tip. It also underscores the value of completely qualifying every lead on every call. If you end the call prematurely, call right back and get the answer to the question you forgot to ask. There’s no crime in forgetting to ask something, but there is a crime in not calling right back to fix it. Add qualifying on very call to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Today's post wasn't written by me. It was written by an individual that has just landed herself an outstanding six-figure inside sales job. I know her, because she took one of my inside sales training courses. More than one company was bidding for her, so she was able to choose from among several. How was she able to accomplish this? She gave outstanding employment interviews, and I know, because I got feedback from more than one company. She "wowed" everyone, so I asked her what the heck she did to gain all this traction. She told me, and I asked her to put it in writing for the blog. She wants to remain anonymous, but we'll call her Allison for the record. What she says below should be adopted by everyone looking for an inside sales or qualification job, and most of it actually applies to just about any job. It's 4 pages long, but trust me, it's worth it.
Here's what Allison says:
How to Prepare for a Sales Job Interview – Not exactly like a date, but close!
When you get asked out for a date, wouldn’t you want to know who you’re dating, what the person is like and how much fun you think you’ll have? With the internet as your tool, you can easily find the answers to these questions on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Podcasts and Google searches. It is no different for a job interview. You can use these sites to mine company and personnel information. Knowing the answers to these questions about a company and the people you will be interviewing with will have you prepared and possibly close the interview as well. Do your homework!
When I receive that wonderful call about scheduling an interview, there are several steps I take to prepare. Most importantly, I treat my interview from my first point of contact to the last as a sales call which has a beginning, middle and end structure to it. I also set my intention of getting the close (the job) by being prepared with the knowledge of “who, what and how” (homework).
In the Beginning - Before the Interview
Before I find the office on MapQuest and park my car to get to the interview on time, I need to know “who am I talking to?” The company’s website has loads of information to answer this question. Most company websites have an “about us” tab. This information will tell you what the company does and usually has a marketing tag line in the likes of answering “…we create an efficient way to save money and time with our software product…” It’s a compelling, succinct and simple message that the company wants its potential customers to understand and is known as “branding.” Knowing a company’s branding message is very important in understanding the product and what problems it can solve for their client. If you get the job, you will need to know this to meet your quota.
In addition to knowing a company’s branding message, it’s important to know about the company in its competitive market. Who are their competitors? What is the differentiation of their product in comparison? It’s good to know whether the company has recently been acquired, are currently active in acquiring other companies, its financial strength and whether it is a national or global company. I use Hoovers.com to get a brief overview of the company. You don’t need to pay for their in-depth service. If the company is a publicly traded company, information about the company is readily available. You can also search for a company in LinkedIn.com for the same purpose.
Another component to “who am I talking to?” Are the Executive Team (E.T.) and most importantly, whom you will be interviewing with. Again, the company website will have a tab to view the E.T. with their previous job experiences, which will tell you if you have any connections to their past companies. Most of the time, the people you will interview with, although important enough to hire you, will not be on the website under the E.T. and you will have to dig further. It is why it is critical to know the correct spelling of the names of the people and their job titles of whom you will be meeting so that you can review their profiles on LinkedIn.com. I use LinkedIn.com to get a sense of the person/people I will be talking to in an effort to create a connection in the interview. If you find an interesting tidbit about the person, he/she will recognize that you searched their profile in LinkedIn. This information alone, can give you a lead in building rapport during the interview (more on that later). In addition, you should have your own LinkedIn profile as it is now the business standard.
What does the company do? Read the “Press Releases.” Press Releases are a company’s pitch of putting their best foot forward. Select one or two that peak your interest. It will give you something you can talk about during the interview. Knowing whether the company has received recent venture capital support, current business partnerships, won industry awards, or launched a new product or version. This information will ignite your enthusiasm and ability to articulate that you did your homework about the company. This will also tell you if you like the company, where it’s going and answer if you want to work for them.
How does the product solve a client’s problem? Read a “Success Story.” You’ll need to know this to meet your sales quota. Does this solve a problem for one person, SMB (small/medium businesses), Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 or other? Does this solve a problem on a national or global scale? You’ll need to know this if you have a geographic territory and whether or not you have the experience to call a variety of markets. This will also tell you about the vertical markets the company is attempting to reach.
Review the job description. This will tell you how the company believes the client’s problems will be solved. The job description will tell you what you will be responsible for and what type of work experience they are looking for. You will need this information to build your compelling stories of WHY you are the right person for the job.
In the Middle - During the Interview
In real estate, the mantra is “location, location, location.” Location is all that matters. The best locations are usually where the best deals are to be had. In sales, whether it is doing your job or going on an interview for a job, my mantra is “connect, connect, connect.” In sales, if you cannot quickly connect with the prospect be it a warm or cold lead, you won’t have a close. People buy from people. In the case of job interviews, the interviewers are the “buyers.” You are the “seller,” selling the goods i.e. YOU.
You must have compelling stories to tell aside from your resume about how you are the perfect person to fill their needs in the job opportunity available. Understand that your resume gets you to the interview or in some cases; helps recruiters get you in the door. Your connection of stories between what you (the seller) can do for them (the buyer) is what is critical to a successful interview.
Actively listen. There is a saying in sales, that “the first person to speak loses the sale.” When you are actively listening, you are taking mental notes on how to respond to the interviewer’s interest in you and how you can help the company with your skill set. You will spend a good amount of time listening to the interviewers talk about the company, where it’s going and what they would like to accomplish with filling in this job. This is a good time to ask each interviewer’s job title and responsibilities so that you can understand the reporting relationship and what’s at stake for hiring you, a highly qualified sales person.
Build a rapport. Remember, this interview is a two-way street. Build a rapport with each person interviewing you. You need to create dialog to show interest and ability to articulate that you can do the job. Asking questions is the best way to create conversation. Sometimes you will meet on a one-to-one basis and other times the interview is a group interview. The sole purpose for you in an interview is to build a relationship (connect, connect, connect) to create a dialog (compelling stories) about how you can solve their need to increase sales. It’s up to you to create an on-going articulate conversation.
Some questions to ask:
What is the most challenging objection to purchasing this product? How do you overcome the objection? What do you like about the company? Where do you see yourself and the company in 5 years? Who are your competitors? How do you differentiate your product?
You’ll need to know this if you get the job. Why not know what’s in store for selling the product? Know the hurdles the company is against in improving sales growth.
Know your numbers. In sales, it’s a numbers game. All sales people know their numbers: quotas, KPI’s (e.g. 40-60 calls a day) and percent of outcomes of prospects to close. You should be able to quote from memory what you have accomplished in numbers.
Top Skills. Have a list of your Top 20 Skills (I got this great recommendation from a VP of Sales) and another list of five specific skills in detail related to the job to have for yourself in the interview to remember and discuss while in conversation. You can craft a generic list of your own or use the job description for listing necessary skills. At the end of the interview hand this copy to your interviewer. Handing this list to the interviewer shows that you have confidence in yourself and helps the interviewer position you in the company’s organizational chart. The fact that you crafted a list and gave it to the interviewer will leave a lasting impression.
Be positive. Nobody wants to work with a stick in the mud. How would you feel if your date was negative and complained about past relationships? What would you think if you had to listen to boring stories? Wouldn’t that tell you that this date isn’t going to work? All your worries about not having a job, needing money, the “what ifs” about not getting this job, etc, leave these at home before you drive in the car to the interview. Be positive about your compelling stories, your abilities, your past work experience, people that you have worked with and other hobbies you might have.
Be passionate. Have a passion that has nothing to do with work. I’m a baseball fan and I am passionate about the game, the score and the players. For others, cooking, art, sailing, collecting and traveling are other passions. Wouldn’t you rather work with someone who has a passion than not?
The end - The Close of the Interview
When you sense that the interview is coming to a close, you can ask:
What is your time frame for hiring? In your opinion, how do I (you) rate against the other candidates at this time? What are the next steps?
Be thankful. Make sure you get a business card of those you meet. It will give you their email addresses. Thank all the interviewers with a strong handshake and nice smile. Write an email within 24 hours to thank them for their time. Understand that you both spent time out of your day to meet while other things were boiling on the stove. As long as you can show respect for them it shows that you have respect for yourself as well. Look at this as a possible beginning rather than a means to an end. Your paths might cross again.
Reply and Stay Active. Once you have sent your thank you email, return any emails and calls from them as promptly as you would any sales call. Your response shows how you are an active sales person by treating the interviewer as a prospect.
In summary
Preparing for a Sales Job Interview is not exactly like a date, but close in knowing the “who, what and how” elements it takes to understand why you are there in the first place. It has been my experience that no interviewer wants to see a candidate fail. For some interviewers, it’s just as uncomfortable for them to interview you as it is for you to be interviewed. As long as you know that you have done your best in doing your homework and creating a connection, it is the most you can ask of yourself.
- Warm regards, and Play Ball!
Geoff here again: I can't add anything, except take Allison's great advice whenever you're applying for an inside sales or qualification job, and add it to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Jul 06, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
I got a call this past week from a prospect that wants us to deliver an inside sales training course, and one of his main challenges is that his reps aren’t always asking a closing questions when they have the opportunity, and he’s convinced that sales are being lost because of it. And they probably are, because if his reps aren’t asking closing questions, his competitors’ reps probably will.
I’ve always believed that you have to fully qualify on the first call, and close on the next step, too. I learned this technique from Bob Tumbleson, so was my boss during the first sales job I ever had. This was an outside sales position, something of a misnomer, because we were at a sales office, and our prospects came in to see us. They visited us because we had a service that interested them. Bob always said that we had to close them on an order when they came in, because they’d never be back. “There are no be-backs,” Bob used to say. My first week on the job, I let a prospect leave who promised to return, and Bob told me that he would use that instance to prove his point.
And sure enough, the prospect never returned. So I made it a point after that to close every prospect. Sometimes they’d want to go out to the car “to get the checkbook.” I told them that was great, because “I need to get some fresh air, too,” and walked out with them, just in case they decided to drive away without signing up, like they told us they would. This tended to really flesh out price objections, and we did have some leeway, so I had an 80% close rate. I had no “drive-offs.” Our service was great, too, and just about every prospect became an enthusiastic customer.
One of my most popular posts is on the subject of the one-call close, and it’s worth reading if you haven’t done so, because it describes how to do this effectively in an 8 minute telephone call. What I learned from Bob Tumbleson years ago, I still believe today. There are no be-backs. You've only got one shot at a conversation, because the prospect may never ever take your call again. This is an extremely important concept for enterprise sales, and it goes without saying that this is critical for transcational sales as well. If you adopt this philosophy and act on it, you’ll close more business faster, and your sales pipeline will be more meaningful, too. Now that you’re starting a new month/quarter, it’s worth kicking it off by seriously considering this strategy. Add it to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
I got a call this week from a blog subscriber that desperately needed some tips for selling in a "down" economy. Now that summer's here, his prospects are ramping down in terms of their purchases. He's really feeling it at the end of the quarter, and wants to ensure he doesn't have the same situation at the end of the upcoming quarter as well.
The philosophy I teach in my inside sales training courses has always been that you sell all year ‘round just the same as you would when things are tough. Great sales practices should be in place all the time. So here are four tips that are critically important right now. And once you do them consistently, you shouldn't have too many under-quota months:
1) Upsell and cross-sell to your current customers. Your customers already know you. You've done a great job for them, your solutions are working, and they're happy. But if you're ignoring them, you're not only leaving the door open for the competition, but you're missing out on additional sales, I'll bet. Why don't you call to introduce a solution that your customer might not have acquired yet? Even if he or she said "no" in the past, it doesn't mean things haven't changed.
2) In terms of cross-selling, make sure that you are in contact with all corporate entities under your customers' umbrella. You've got a same-enterprise reference, so call all of those other companies. Call high into those companies, tell the exec what you've been doing for his or her colleagues, then get engaged in an initiative at a new same-enterprise company for which your offering is a solution.
3) Know why every company in your territory is not doing business with you. My old boss Perry Lynne had us keep a record of what he called "lost sales," which told him not only who wasn't buying, but why. And what was surprising was that when we asked, we found a lot of great data, and it opened the door for us at numerous companies. Parenthetically, it was also a great CYA tool if we ever got asked why a company wasn't our customer. If asked, I could simply go to the database, and prove that there was a valid reason. And if there hadn't been a valid reason in the first place, I often had a conversation about it, and that prospect then became my customer.
4) Ask your customers what project they're using your solution on. Customers want to talk about their business more than yours, and if they love your product, they'll tell you how they use it to make their area work more efficiently and effectively. If you do ask this question, I guarantee this: at least once every few conversations, you'll be lead down a path that will open the door to another of your solutions that the customer doesn't yet own. All you have to do is listen.
It's the nature of salespeople to forget about a customer once he or she has placed the order, because money is already "in the bank." If your company is like most, you have a product or engineering team coming up with new exciting stuff that appears once every quarter or so, but you might be so focused on new business that you forget about the people that have already given you their business.
Upselling, cross-selling, knowing why people aren't buying, and asking about your customers' business never go out of style, and using these techniques constantly will keep you out of the sales doldrums, especially in tough times. Add them to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jun 14, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
One of my most popular blog posts is the one dealing with getting "shopped" by purchasing folks that ask you to bid on a project that you've already lost. Now that the economy is nicely rebounding, my inside sales training customers are telling me that unsolicited RFPs (requests for proposals) and RFQs (requests for quotes) are starting to come in over the transom, from telephone and email from prospects to whom they've never spoken.
Answering these blindly without talking to someone first is always a mistake, because in all probability, some competitor of yours has already gotten there, the decision has been made against you, and the person that contacted you did so to do some price comparison for the purpose of grinding your competitor's price down a bit.
So you've really got to have a telephone conversation with the individual requesting the RFP or RFQ. And when you do, you'll always want to ask this great question:
"What other solutions are you considering?"
The answer to this question should tell you where you are in the sales process. It will tell you who got there first, and your follow-on questions will tell you if you have a ghost of a chance to get the business. If a known competitor is involved, I always ask what the prospect likes about the competitor, and if he or she could "wave the magic wand," how could the competitor be better? I'm looking for holes in my competitor's offering that will open the business for me. If I hear a lot of good about the competitor and no negatives, I'll ask the following tricky question:
"It sounds like you like [competitor] really well. Is there anything preventing you from just going with them?"
And one of two things will happen. The prospect will come clean and tell you he or she is doing "due diligence," another term for "you lose." Or, as has happened a few times in my own sales world, the contact will tell me that there are some perceived issues with the competitor that weren't flushed out earlier. Now we've got something going!
Of course there are other factors of importance, too. What is the title of the individual that is asking for the RFQ? If he or she is in Purchasing or HR, it's far enough away from your technology focus area that you're probably being shopped. In this case, I'd recommend calling high into your product solution area, and talk to an exec that can tell you if an initiative is on the table. If so, you may be able to break into the sales process and get some real traction.
Unless you're dealing in commodities, unsolicited RFPs and RFQs are always a red flag. And even in commodities sales, you do want to have a conversation before you take the time to craft a proposal and put it in your sales pipeline. It's always worth doing a check up to ensure that your company is the front-runner. Add those all-important front-end conversations to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, May 03, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Marianne is an inside sales rep who's just landed a telesales job selling high-end graphics tools to developers. Many of these folks are already customers, and her job is to upsell and cross sell. And she's dealing with people that really need those upgrades, but can't find the budget. So they tell her to call back next quarter. Today's post is about how to deal effectively with that issue.
When I mentioned Marianne's dilemma to a friend, he told me that one of his sales colleagues from years past had countered the "I can't afford it" sales objection with "You know what, Bob? You can't afford NOT to have it." Then the sales rep would discuss the reasons why. My initial reaction was that this was just another cheesy closing line from the past, hackneyed enough that you wouldn't use it today. But then I thought, with a modification or two, it would work. Here's how:
Marianne's new company never lowers it prices. It's an engineering-intensive company with a huge R&D budget. They're always introducing new upgrades, too. Fact is, Marianne's pricing will never go down. Her products will always be increasingly more expensive. So she should use the following model:
1) Build value by understanding the customer's business. Determine if the upgrade she's selling can be used to help her customer to make more money, or prevent it from losing money. Don't even discuss pricing until your customer agrees that it makes business sense to acquire the upgrade.
2) If the customer then balks at the price and wants you to call back next quarter, let's say, then mention to the customer that a very good reason to acquire the product today is that the price might actually increase again before the next call. Here's how her response could be crafted:
"[First name], I'd be happy to call next quarter, but let me tell you why I'd recommend that you move forward today instead. You've already told me that this upgrade is going to save you a significant amount of time, so you know it has value. What our company tends to do is raise prices over time to reflect the additional engineering we put into the product, and when those price increases come, they tell me in a moment's notice, and I can't do a thing to roll back the prices. I can't tell you when our prices are increasing, but I'd hate to call you next quarter and have to tell you that the pricing is even higher than it is today." [Now just be quiet, and let the prospect/customer respond]
I've personally used this effectively over the years when I've sold high-end products. It not only increases the perceived value of your product, but gets the prospect thinking that the pricing that he or she initially perceived as being high, might actually, in fact, be low. You can use this rebuttal with any high-end product or service that does have an R& D design and development component that's significant. This is a technique that I teach in my inside sales training courses, and I've witnessed its effectiveness in numerous coaching calls. Add it to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Mar 29, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
This past week I met with a prospect that had a fairly common sales dilemma. His telesales team sells both directly and through a reseller channel. They are compensated on both types of sales. Channel sales had been subpar, and in our discussions about our inside sales training courses, he wanted some ideas on improving the way his inside sales team works with the Channel. Being an "out of the box" thinker is always helpful in sales, and you have to be that way with the Channel, too. By doing so, you can get a jump on your competitors, and they may never figure out how you did it.
I probably got the "out of the box" concept from my grandfather. He came out of Russia after the revolution, through Siberia, to Harbin, China, onward to Mexico, and then up to the U.S. Some of the creative ways he survived aren't fit to convey in a business blog. But when he came to San Francisco, he bought a house, and one of my earliest memories if of his kitchen. He painted a beautiful Chinese landscape on the entire eastern wall of the kitchen, because he wanted it decorative, and he wanted it to be his (it may still be there, if you know the person who lives on the corner of Hugo and Arguello streets in the Golden Gate Park panhandle, and they've been wondering about their kitchen mural, let me know). He did things his way, rarely listened to anyone about anything, but continually found new ways to solve old problems. In business, I believe that creative thinkers are that way because they want to develop something new, and there's a certain pride of ownership in knowing they got there first. The annals of American entrepreneurship are loaded with tales of the successes of people that made a creative 180 and "accidentally on purpose" made a lot of money and changed an industry.
Many salespeople don't think creatively enough when they work with channel sales partners. They hand them leads, forget about them, and wonder why channel sales numbers are down. Here are some tips for turning this around and getting your channel to increase sales for your product or solution.
1) Call the CEO of your channel company and ask what you can do to help him or her drive more business. Notice I didn't say "ask what you can do to sell more of my product." Your channel company cares more about overall profitability than in just selling your product, because they often have a bunch of other products, too. You need mindshare more than anything else, and in discussing his or her business, you'll probably be the one principal sales rep this year that will show genuine concern for his or her profitability. When I was in sales, one of my channel principals, whose business was partly based on providing engineering consultants as an outsource solution, told me that his outsource business had been crummy. I told him that since I was making tons of calls into his territory, I could ask a question to each of my prospects as to whether they ever used contract programmers. I got my channel partner some business that way, and guess what? My product sales through that channel partner grew exponentially in the ensuing months. Calling high and taking my channel partner's interests to heart were the two keys to getting my channel partner to sell more of my products.
2) Call each of your channel partner sales reps on a regular basis to help him or her make a sale. If you've got a handful, there's no reason you can't call them all once a week. Maybe a call to one of his or her prospects from the manufacturer will make a sale, so why not ask if you can call that prospect and help out. Ensure the rep that you won't let the prospect "go direct" and buy from the manufacturer, and you'll help close the sale for him or her. Sometimes channel partners are unwilling to do this because they're afraid the principal will steal the sale from them. Convince them you won't take away their business, and build trust. I guarantee that you'll be brought into more of their deals, and each of you will have better sales numbers as a result.
3) Create a "virtual channel" by developing your own personal sales channel, right from your desk. Let me give you a "tecchie" example from my own world to explain this concept. I used to sell a software debugger for programmers writing in C language. Before my prospects bought a debugger, they had to have a C complier. There was one C compiler vendor that had bought some of our debuggers for their own use. So I called the sales director of that company, and suggested that I could help them sell compilers to companies that were in Analysis phase, and hadn't bought any software development tools yet. They'd need both compilers and debuggers. The director and I reached a gentleman's agreement that we'd help each other out, and he'd ask his own reps to chat up our debugger. This turned out to be a great relationship. It wasn't formal, wasn't written on paper, but forged a great relationship that was profitable for each of us, and helped my sales territory tremendously. So if you know of a non-competitive vendor that sells to the same people you do, and he or she makes a great product, why not turn that vendor into an ally? This will give you additional "feet on the street," and increase your sales.
So there are three great ways to work with the Channel. Far too many reps view the channel as competition, which is absurd when they're getting comped on both types of sales. It's all about team communication, and in such cases, the Channel is part of your team. I've given you some doable ways to solidify important business contacts within your channel structure. If you sell directly and through a Channel as well, add these ideas to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
One of my mantras when I teach my sales training courses is that you've got to quickly determine how your solution is either going to make your prospects money, or stop them from losing money. Then tell them. That's all about ROI. But pumping up the enthusiasm is really important as well, and I witnessed this concept first hand recently when someone sold me a whole bunch of stuff I never intended to buy when I walked in the door. I was happy with my purchase too, and follow-on sales resulted. We can all learn a lot from this story, so here's what happened:
There's a company called Rosenblum Cellars that makes Zinfandel wines, and they're located way at the northern tip of Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. I'm not a big zin drinker, but Alameda's a great town, and I was curious about this winery that's located on an old naval air base, so one Sunday a friend and I drove out there. We paid a small tasting fee, and began sampling. And that's when we ran into Kenny Goodman. He asked immediately what we thought of the first glass, and I told him it didn't have enough "pop" for me, because typically I like cabernets. Then he really went into action. "Look," he said, "I'm not supposed to do this, but I'm gonna pour one of best zins that usually I'm supposed to charge for, but I won't charge you. This stuff is really fantastic!" And it was pretty good! "I knew you'd love it, I just bought a whole case last week myself. And if you think that was great, getta load of this one!" He poured another glass from another hidden bottle, and in an animated fashion jumped all over the place, raving about those two new bottles.
We weren't his only customers, but he treated us like we were the only ones in the place. We walked around the tasting room a bit, and I noticed he was going into his performance with all the other customers, too. He wasn't pouring from the same bottles, but made everyone feel like they were special, and he was going to do something special for them. I just loved Kenny's enthusiasm for his product, and it was infectious. My friend and I loaded our trunk with bottles we hadn't intended to buy, and joined the wine club, too. My friend standardized on one of their zins, and serves it as her wine of choice at home. Kenny made a lot of money for the winery that day, and pumped follow-on sales for months to come, too.
My sister Vickie works in the wine industry in the Napa Valley, and I told her the story. She said everyone in the industry knows Kenny, and his enthusiasm is legendary.
So what can we in inside sales learn from Kenny? Two important things:
1) Enthusiasm. We deal with the same products every day, and to us they're old hat. But they're new to the prospect. Try to talk about your solution the same way you did when you found out how great it was. Rave about how it's helping other customers, and tell each prospect about how you just can't wait for him or her to get it on board so you can hear about their success stories, too. And don't be afraid to put yourself in the story, either. Kenny was a such a big fan of his product that it made us want to try everything, and we felt that if he liked it so much, we would, too.
2) Treat each prospect as if he or she is special. We talk to sometimes dozens of prospects every day, and it's easy to go into the same old rap. Take a look at your prospects' websites. Get really enthusiastic about what they're making, and talk about their products. Change your conversation to reflect what's going on at your prospect's company. Ask how their own products are making their customers' lives better. If you're one of their customers yourself, talk about how much you love their product or solution. Make each prospect feel as though he or she is the most important person you've talked to that month.
If you take Kenny Goodman's approach, prospects will want to buy from you, and sometimes that's what will drive the business to you, and not to a comparable competitor. Selling over the phone is a tough job, and some days are tougher than others. I'm sure it's like that in the wine room, too. But if you pump up the enthusiasm and make each prospect feel unique and special, you'll have more fun, your day will go faster, and you'll write more business. Sales managers and execs ask me every week how to better motivate their teams. Self-motivation is the best answer, and if we all think of our prospects as being unique people working in fascinating environments, the enthusiasm can be infectious. While you're on your way to work tomorrow, seriously think about how you'll go about re-crafting your rap to add more "pop" to your conversation. And consider adding Kenny's techniques to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Feb 16, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Particularly if you're selling a technically sophisticated solution, you may, as an inside salesperson, be called on to make a product/solution presentation to your own in-house sales or engineering team, as proof that you know your product. Such a presentation can be fraught with pitfalls, as more than occasionally you'll be expected to provide a product feature dump, particularly if your engineers are the intended audience. While we touch on presentation skills as part of our telesales training courses, it's worth reading this blog post if this presentation task is coming up for you.
The worst mistake you can make is trying to make sense out of a 400 page technical manual, then trying to craft the data into a presentation. This happened to me one time, and I made a really great presentation because I distilled three concepts before I started to craft my presentation to the brain trust. These three concepts are:
1) What customer problem does my solution solve?
2) What do I need to know about my solution in order to sell it?
3) What do I not need to know in order to sell it?
Presenting these three concepts will not only provide a "wow" factor for your in-house folks, but it provides a distillation that you can use effectively on the phone with prospects. It will also help you to avoid "feature dumping," or reading a list of features, a practice that bores colleagues and prospects alike.
Example: a software debugger
In an example from my own sales world, I sold a product called an Atron AT Probe, which was a hardware-based software debugger, a really techie product. Here's how I used the model.
1) The problem it solved was engineers spending long hours debugging software problems by manually debugging. Our solution saved dozens, occasionally hundreds of hours of engineering time. With the debugging time reduced, engineers could be put on new projects, reducing design and development schedules all over the company. The ROI could be put in engineering hours multiplied by the hourly engineering rate, or in getting the prospect's product to market faster.
2) What I needed to know: I needed to know that my debugger worked each time, every time. And I needed a pre-sales tech support person if there were technical specs I couldn't fathom. I needed to know what product my prospect was building, so I could talk about increased time-to-market, and how my solution could accelerate that, so my prospects could make money faster. I also wanted to know my prospect's anticipated release date of the finished product. This way I could use a "fear of loss" closing approach. I needed to know the decision process, because I might have to call others on the team (often, my engineer contacts would encourage me to "call high" to a director or VP to make a case). And I needed to know the meaning of commonly used technical acronyms and jargon.
3) I didn't need to know exactly how the solution worked, or go deep into the technology. Concepts like "sticky breakpoints" were commonly brought up. I knew we did that, but didn't know exactly how we did it. That's what pre-sales tech support was all about. We had a great pre-sales engineer that loved to talk tech. My technical expertise was limited to about ½ page of tech specs. The term I used to describe my approach was to be "intelligently ignorant."
Bottom line, my job was to make lots of good calls and move product. By having a clear understanding of how much I didn't need to know, I could flood my market with calls and make my company profitable.
So circling back to you, try using this technique next time you're asked to make an in-house presentation. You can even use something that, in the education biz, is called an "advance organizer," developed by an educator named David Ausubel. You begin your presentation by saying: "I'm going to tell you the major problem this product solves. Then I'm going to tell you what I need to know to sell it. Then I'm going to tell you what I don't need to know to sell it." Add this presentation skill to your Best Practices playbook, and I'll bet your presentations will be a lot more fun, effective and to the point.