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, 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, Jan 18, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
Today's post is for sales executives and managers and those who wish to become them. A sales executive I know just went through one of the worst interviewing experiences of his life, and asked what he could have done to change the outcome. In today's hiring market, every one of you reading this post could run into the same thing. My solution touches on a closing technique I use in my telesales training courses, too. So let me tell you the story, and what you can do to turn a similar situation that you might face into your advantage.
Robert interviewed for a sales exec position at a medium-sized company that had a sales situation that needed to be turned around. As part of his interview, they asked him to present a sales plan for the upcoming year, based on what he knew about the company. He spent quite a few hours designing it and writing it out. He told me about it, and it was a brilliant plan. The interview took three hours, in front of the company's executive board, and he outlined it all out. They told him they liked the plan, would discuss it, and call back. They did, and invited him for another interview to discuss the plan, as they had questions. He did, addressed all the issues, and they told him they'd call him back. They did, and said they were moving in another direction. He didn't get the job.
All in all, Robert spent many hours designing and interviewing for a job he was probably never going to get. They just needed some free consulting. So I suggested that since this was becoming an all-too-common experience these days, he turn it around to his advantage the next time this happens by following the following steps:
1) When a prospective interviewer asks for a business plan, walk in with an outline, not a whitepaper.
2) Answer any questions, but keep the interview to two hours or fewer.
3) If the interviewer wants a more detailed plan for the next interview, tell the company that the detailed plan is what you'd be implementing at the company. Suggest that the company hire you to build a sales plan for a consulting fee. When you present the plan, the company will have four options:
a) hiring you (the candidate) to implement the plan
b) hiring someone else to implement the plan
c) doing the plan in-house with current personnel
d) not doing anything at all
This is an approach I've used successfully when a prospect company wants me to do a lot of front-end work with no guarantee of a contract. About 50% of the time, I get a consulting contract, and eventually get their follow-on business, too.
Prospect companies aren't always disingenuous when they ask for a lot up front. Many times they are disorganized, have political issues, or internal disagreements about candidates and processes. But taking my approach does force them to come to the table with something in return for the time you (the candidate) spend on diagnosing their sales process. My friend and colleague Barry Mainz would refer to this approach as quid pro quo, and it's a closing technique that works just as well with prospective employers as it does for closing sales prospects on business.
It's an employer's market these days, but you'll gain a lot of respect by taking this approach, and you may get paid for your time, too. And it's is a good start to getting hired by that company. If they don't agree that you have a point, you may have what we call a "walk-away." You won't have lost anything, and will have gained some professional respect. Add this technique to your Best Management Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jan 04, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
Last week I provided 5 great tips for closing year-end business, from a list of my own favorite blog posts. But you voted on yours, too, and that's what today's post is about.
When I launched this blog in 2008, I did it with two objectives in mind. For one, I wanted to convey valuable elements of my telesales training curriculum to my subscribers, a good number of whom work for companies that would love to hire us to train their inside sales teams, but can't find the budget to do it in these tough times. My other objective was to help to elevate ethics and best practices within the high tech inside sales business, posts that are pertinent to sales management as well as sales reps. Particularly in the latter category, I've ruffled a few feathers, but that gets dialogue going and brings issues up that frankly need to be addressed in order for our industry to continue evolving. The blog's successful. It's been picked up on a bunch of other websites, and loads of people are using the material (even my competitors!)
Reflecting on 2009, I thought it would be of value to tell you what your colleagues were prioritizing when they read the posts that were written in 2009. Here are the top five, in order of page views. If you haven't read them in awhile, why not pick out the ones you feel might help you get a great start to the new year? Numbers 3 and 5 deal specifically with Management issues, while #s 1, 2, and 4 reflect techniques that can increase sales, starting this week:
- 20 Characteristics of a Superior Inside Salesperson
- 5 Most Common Price Negotiation Mistakes
- Increase sales through improved Daily Call Metrics
- 4 Common weak phrases that erode telesales success
- Increase sales by conducting an effective Telesales Employee Performance Appraisal
I'll keep blogging on techniques and issues I feel are critical as the new year unfolds. These are wonderful, exciting times to be in Inside Sales, and each new leap in the technologies we use presents new opportunities and challenges. Believe me, I'll write about them. I hope you'll add the techniques in the posts above to your Best Practices Playbook... and let's get started having a great year!
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 @ 07:00 AM
OK, we've got only 3 1/2 days this week to close business for the year end. In our
telesales training courses we cover a number of sales techniques to remember when we need to close business. The following techniques appeared in my blog articles this year, and all of them can be put to great use this week. Here they are in synopsis form, along with the blog article that explains each of them in greater detail:
1) Negotiate intelligently and portray price drops --- if you use them --- wisely. There's a reason my post on price negotiation techniques is the best-read on my blog. Too many reps don't use intelligent price negotiation strategies and leave money on the table, or don't get the order at all:
www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/7413/5-Most-Common-Price-Negotiation-Mistakes2) Close on the first call, budget money may get re-allocated this week. Many prospects have year-end money to spend, but they won't necessarily tell you that unless you ask. When I was a purchasing agent years ago, I always had year-end money that had been re-allocated from another budget source. Be sure to call back folks that didn'y buy earlier in the year. They may have additional budget this week:
http://www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/9840/One-call-close-on-the-first-call-if-you-don-t-the-prospect-may-not-return-your-second-call3) Drill down to uncover the financial reasons it makes sense for your prospect to buy now. You can use a quick financial model to prove that delaying the order will cost your prospect in financial terms:
www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/10732/How-do-I-get-my-PO-in-faster4) Ask for additional needs through upselling. Don't shortchange yourself just because you're happy to get a small order. Tell your prospects about "the next best thing and they may increase the size of your order:
www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/9101/Upselling-Don-t-forget-to-ask-for-The-Next-Best-Thing 5) Be careful that you're not being "shopped" by savvy buyers, and remember to "call high." OK, I know you don't view your unique high-tech solution as a commodity, but probably your buyer does, and has more than one solution in mind. On inbound calls, be wary that a decision may have already been made to go with a competitor. But that doesn't mean you can't unlock it and get the business:
www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/5564/RFP-Hazards-Are-you-being-shopped-by-Purchasing-Agents-Here-s-how-to-fix-it Today's post is short because you've got to be out there selling, but these are 5 powerful tools that you can --- and should --- use this week. Add them to your Best Practices Playbook and have a great year-end.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Nov 02, 2009 @ 01:15 AM
In addition to writing my weekly blog posts on telesales training topics, I monitor a few other blogs in which sales questions arise. A few weeks ago, the following question popped up about getting POs in faster. We're closing in on year-end now, so I think it's topical to repeat the question in today's post, as well as my answer. Have a look:
Question: What methods do you use to put a time limit on a quote without exposing yourself to pressure? Let's say it is two weeks before the end of the quarter. You want to get a sale before the end of the quarter. What methods do you find effective to get the PO in the time you need it? I find that discounting does not contribute to that and that I am not able to back up from the discount even after the time limit. In other words, the discount is gone forever, even if the Purchase Order was not submitted on time. Please assume the customer is ready to decide, that is all other conditions for the purchase are already met.
(Geoff's answer) "You did the right thing by not further lowering the price. But you have to determine how the prospect perceives that your solution will either help him or her make money, or stop losing money. 99% of the time, companies buy for these reasons. This is always best done early in the sales process, but you can still do it now. Call the prospect and ask, and then try to quantify it. For example, let's say the prospect tells you that she will be using your solution to get her product to market faster. You can then ask how much faster she perceives your product will get it to market. Once you find that out, ask how much revenue is projected for that product in the next 12 months. Once you get that figure, divide by 52 (weeks), and you will know how much his or her company is losing based on lost opportunity costs, per week. Then you can tell her that for each week the decision is delayed, his or her company will be losing that much money. Those are real numbers, based on what she just told you, and you've given her a compelling reason to get the PO to you now. In addition, you'll have given her a good, financially sound argument she may have to take to her CFO. I've probably got a dozen examples of how to build an ROI model like this, but this one's one of the most common (for more on "Selling by ROI," read my whitepaper).
"This technique works equally well if your target company is building an external project (for use by their customers) or an internal project (for use by themselves). Ultimately, people buy solutions because they make financial sense, and sometimes the finances are based on projections. But you do have to ask what their thoughts are as to how the implementation of your solution will pass muster on both the technology and the financial sides of the fence. It sounds like you've won the technology battle. Now you've got to tackle the financial element."
(Back in the present again) The technique of drilling down on the financial reasons people perceive a need for your solution is critical to accelerating the sales process, and it's most effective when you're early in the sales cycle (I encourage you to do it on the very first call) because the prospect is not yet in price negotiation mode, and much of the time will be fairly comfortable giving you some hard numbers. Add this technique to your Best Practices Playbook, and you'll be getting those POs in a lot faster, and with less resistance.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 @ 01:20 AM
I don't care how smart or seasoned a sales exec --- or sales trainer --- is, sometimes he or she will fail to bring in a big deal. Today, it's true confession time.
I'm going to tell you about a deal I lost this year, then tell you a question I could have asked that might have saved it for me. I don't want you to lose the deal like I did, so listen up!
First, a little background. My sales training company has had another great year this year. We're unique, totally customized, and my customers will tell you I'm the hardest working classroom trainer in the biz. We don't have trouble convincing prospects that we're the best. But even when they know we're the best, we still have to negotiate the price. Sometimes they can't afford it. And lots of times, if that's the case, they won't tell you. They just won't answer your calls (sound familiar? It should. It happens to all of us.)
This particular prospect was a really huge company that I'd guess most of you had heard of. They'd had a bad experience with their prior training company. I spent an hour on the phone with their sales exec, and he liked what we had to say, and how we'd solve the problem. He had loads of telesales reps, and it was going to require about 6 weeks of my time as well as the resources of an additional person from my company. As the call was about to end, I asked "price issues aside, are you convinced this is the training solution you want?" He replied that it was, and asked for a proposal. I said I'd get it to him within 24 hours, and did.
But after receiving my proposal, he never returned my calls, and totally went dark. I'd lost the business, and guessed that it was probably sticker shock. I always tell the people I train that you're gonna lose some, but the greats in this business learn from the losses, and don't replicate them. So in retrospect, what I should have done right after I asked that earlier question, was ask the following:
"Now that you've told me that this is the course you want, what are your expectations in terms of the investment required to move forward with it?"
In other words, tell me what you think you're going to pay. This is a really huge question, particularly important if you're located in a part of the country where folks are used to paying top dollar for high-end solutions (think SF, Boston, New York), and you're selling into geographical areas that may have lower expectations in terms of pricing. In my business, there are loads of people selling sales training for $100 per person per day, and most of them are located away from the geographical areas mentioned above. I put way too much time into customization and delivery to compete in that price space. And just about every one of you reading this post will have a similar sales situation in terms of price expectations based on geography as well.
So let's distill two great questions from this experience of mine, so you can learn from my experience. You'll want to use these questions when the prospect loves your solution, but doesn't yet know what your pricing will be. Be sure to ask the following:
1) "Price issues aside, are you convinced this is the [solution] you want?" (and the prospect answers affirmatively)
2) "Now that you've told me that this is the [solution] you want, what are your expectations in terms of the investment required to move forward with it?"
The prospect's answer to your second question will tell you whether you've got an instant go, you need to negotiate a bit, or you need to walk away. The best sales people always want to know why they've lost a transaction, but if a disgruntled prospect doesn't return your calls, you'll never know why.
When you've got a prospect that just loves your solution, be forewarned: if you don't ask the above two questions, you could lose the deal. Add those questions to your Best Practices playbook, and you'll do a superb job at price negotiation.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 10, 2009 @ 01:05 AM
Later this week, I'm giving a presentation in front of some very savvy high tech inside sales executives and managers. They've heard just about everything about telesales courses you can imagine, and I've been asked to tell them --- among other things --- why my sales training is different. Those of you who subscribe to my blog know I stay away from actively promoting my training classes on it. Instead, I provide inside sales tips that you can use right now, today, to make more money. But in that presentation this week, I'm going to give them the differentiator that I'm blogging about today, because it's important, and most inside sales reps aren't doing it. And the bigger the deal, the larger the enterprise prospect is, its importance becomes greater. It's the one-call, 8 minute close. And it's got to be done on the first call.
It's my firm belief that on the first call to a prospect, you've got to get everything done in 8 minutes or fewer. That means opening the call well, asking your qualification questions, finding out about the prospect's business, determining how ROI fits into the equation, then closing on the next step. Most of the time, about 8 minutes is all the prospect will give you. Your delivery is a lot like show biz. It has to be interesting, concise, entertaining, and leave the prospect wanting more. And if you've done your job well, but forgotten to get the ROI data you need, the prospect is likely never to return your subsequent calls, even though he or she is interested. Why? Because the prospect has gotten a lot of data from you, and feel he or she now "owns" the sales process.
If you are fortunate enough to have a second conversation, the prospect will almost never tell you how much it's costing his or her company not to have a solution, although he or she would have on that first call. That's because he or she may be seriously thinking about buying your solution, and is already thinking about price negotiation. Giving you ROI data in this phase of the sales process puts your prospect at a competitive disadvantage, doesn't it? He or she knows it, too.
There's lots out there in the sales training world focusing on "charting," personality types, New-Age mysticism, psedo-psychology, pseudo-science, and communication styles. I think it's all junk, and lots of it's there to sell books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and audio courses. It's not that complicated. You don't have to be a mind-reader to be a great sales person, but you do have to have a sense of urgency. You need to ask great questions, get elaboration on the answers, and find the ROI hole on that first call. And you'll need a call for action within a specific timeframe, too. It's a one-call close, and I recommend doing it in 8 minutes. Plenty of times, the prospect will give you more time or a few more phone calls. But don't bet on it. If you add this one-call technique to your Best Practices playbook, you'll improve call metrics, increase sales, and be better at price negotiation.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 27, 2009 @ 01:29 AM
I regularly monitor a few sales websites, and a good question was posed the other day about whether to openly discuss the competitor's solution, or totally avoid mentioning the competition. I'm pretty opinionated on this. Here's my answer, followed by a brief explanation:
"I will never be the first to bring up the name of a competitor. But I will always ask "What other solutions are you considering?" I not only want to find out who is competing with me, but also want to get a sense of the prospect's global ideas about solving the problem. Also, be wary that your prospect may have already made a decision to go with the competition, but is "shopping" you to get price data to use to lower the price of the already-chosen solution. When I was purchasing solutions myself, I did this to salespeople all the time. I've blogged on this shopping practice, and what to do about it at http://www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/bid/5564/RFP-Hazards-Are-you-being-shopped-by-Purchasing-Agents-Here-s-how-to-fix-it "
I'm a real believer in never bringing up the name of a competitor before the prospect does, and it's just one of the things I teach in my telesales training courses. When you do that, you place the competitor on a peer level with you, and I can almost guarantee that if your prospect hasn't talked with your competition, he or she almost certainly will right after you've hung up the phone. In one fell swoop, you've brought your competition into the sales picture.
Occasionally, the prospect will ask who you compete with. I hope you've already asked great qualification questions that will uncover reasons that your solution is the best in the marketplace for the prospect, and you'll have a unique value proposition that argues that you have the best solution. So my response to the question about my competitors goes something like this: "There are a number of companies competing in this space, Jerry. Based on what you've told me, we're the one that is by far your best solution, for the following reasons [name them]. The reason I work for [my company] is that we provide the best solution in the marketplace, and my customers get exceptional support and get taken care of really well. If I thought any of the companies that compete with us were better, I'd be working for them."
Savvy prospects (and they're all savvy) hunt around the web for different solutions, and mostly they're testing you to see how you'll respond to the "competition" question. Going back to the days long ago when I was a purchasing agent myself, I'd always ask every vendor salesperson who he or she competed with. Many of the salespeople weren't sophisticated enough to provide an answer like I gave in the paragraph above. So I'd call 5 or so vendors, get the names of the competitors from them, then rank those competitors based on the number of times they got mentioned. Much of the time, I'd choose a vendor based on that ranking, then negotiate a lower price based on the price data I'd gotten from the others. Don't you fall into this trap!
So now you've got a great way to handle the "competition question" and ensure that you're dealing with future price negotiation issues at the same time. Add it to your Best Practices Playbook. And if you have another way of dealing with the question that's been effective for you, tell us about it!
Next week's blog post: What to do when your competition is cheaper (and maybe better!)