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!)
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 20, 2009 @ 02:03 AM
One of the things I preach --- and I really mean preach in my telesales training classes is you've only got one call to qualify your prospect. Just one. And when you get that person on the phone, that may be the only time you ever talk. Ever. We all know the frustration of calling back the same prospect that asked us to call back, and never being able to reach that person again. And all the voicemails and emails won't help, either, a vast majority of the time. So today I'm going to discuss a great sales tip to fix this, that works especially well if you're in the lead generation or lead qualification business.
Today's post is about prospects that try to get you off the phone as soon as you begin your opening. They're just going into a meeting. They were expecting another call. They're dealing with an emergency. They have dyspepsia or catarrh. Sometimes it's true, and sometimes it isn't. But you have to absolutely find out whether that prospect you're calling for the first time has a need for your offering. If he or she doesn't, that person is disqualified, and you don't have to call again. But he or she may, and that's what you absolutely have to discover before dropping this type of call.
So here's what you do. When the first-time prospect tell you he or she can't take your call, do the following:
1) Ask "Before I let you go, let me ask you this:"
2) Tell him or her in 5 seconds or fewer who you are and what you do.
3) Reference something that indicates that he or she might be interested. This could be that he or she attended a trade show, seminar, downloaded a whitepaper, or even something you saw on his or her company's website.
4) Ask if he or she will be looking into solutions like yours anytime within the "next few months."
This 4 step process works almost 100% of the time, because it's quick, gets you what you need, and often the prospect will actually have a conversation with you, provided there is an initiative to look into an offering like yours. Why does it work? Because you're honoring the "contract" that the prospect gave you at the beginning of the call. And that contract was "I'm busy, bug off." By responding with "Before I let you go, let me ask you this", you're telling the prospect that yes, you'll bug off, after one quick question. Even if the prospect is busy, that's a pretty good trade. So let me set this out in actual dialogue form, so you can see what it looks like. And let's say you sell in-circuit emulators, for example's sake:
Prospect: "Hi, this is Sandra Bannerjee"
You: "Hi Sandra, this is Geoff Alexander from Atron, and..."
Prospect: "I'm sorry, this is a really bad time to talk, can you call me next week?"
You: "I'd be happy to, Sandra, but before I go, let me ask you this. You attended our seminar on debugging the 680X0 series of processors, and I'm wondering if you'll be looking at buying emulators for those processors any time within the next several months?"
Prospect: "Yes we will."
You: "When do you have to have them on board?"
Prospect: "Real soon, but I can't talk right now."
You: "OK, Sandra, who can I talk with right now that can discuss some of the specs of the project?"
Prospect: "Lee Kiley is the Project Manager, go ahead and give Lee a call."
I could go on ad infinitum about where I'd take the conversation from here, but bottom line, you took a call that was going to be worthless, and turned it into something. You found an opportunity, and got a referral. And if you do this on every one of these types of calls, you'll be spinning your wheels less, generating more leads, selling faster, and be spending less time calling the same prospect over and over. But do remember "the contract." Add "Before I let you go, let me ask you this" to your sales vocabulary and highlight it in your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 @ 12:38 AM
How's your lead generation situation going these days? Lots of companies are scratching their heads nowadays to figure out how to do it better, so Bob Lederman from AG SalesWorks and I are presenting a free webinar on how to avoid some all-too-common pitfalls this Tuesday April 14 at 11 am PDT/2 pm EDT. You can register at www.agsalesworks.com/webinar-avoid-biz-dev-pitfalls Here's a quick blurb on what we'll be discussing:
Business Development Teams are critically important to ensuring the health and growth of today's B2B companies.
Presenters Geoff Alexander, Founder of Geoff Alexander & Company, and Bob Lederman, VP of Sales at AG Salesworks will discuss the common pitfalls to successful training and execution of Business Development teams. Both Geoff and Bob have worked alongside dozens of Business Development teams, within companies of all sizes and product offerings.
What you will learn in this webinar:
- The importance of cold calling
- Common strategic pitfalls
- Common execution pitfalls
- Structuring your team for success
- Best practices you can implement TODAY
I hope you can attend. There will be a Q&A session afterward, and Bob and I are both pretty opinionated, so it should be fun. Our goal is to provide you with lead generation tips you can implement right away, with the ultimate goal to increase sales at your company. Please sign up today, and we'll see you on Thursday!
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 06, 2009 @ 01:32 AM
Even on bad days when prospects weren't buying, internal systems were failing, and management was having fits because the numbers were down, I was still really glad to be an inside salesperson. When you're having a really bad day (and there have been a few over the last couple of quarters), it might be a great idea to think about a terrible job you had in the past, and compare it with the one you've got now. It provides perspective. I was just telling a lawyer friend about one of mine, and now I'm going to tell you. And you might think about yours, and tell us all about it on the blog. Warning: I'm setting the bar pretty high (or low) with this one. Here it is.
At one point in my life, I served court summons in East Side San Jose to people that were being sued. As a process server, my job was to go to an address, ring the doorbell, ask for John Doe, then hand him a court summons. You then log their physical descriptions in a book in case they deny they were served. The East Side was - and still is - known by the moniker Sal Si Puedes, which means "Get out if you Can." It's still a rough area that has a lot of police activity. People are angry when they're handed a summons, and few visitors are less welcome than Process Servers. I was threatened, insulted, and berated on a daily basis. A standard technique was to throw the summons through the door before it was slammed in your face. I developed a thick skin and fast legs, as the best policy was to run to the car as fast as possible and drive off before trouble occurred.
This was a commission-only job, and I got paid for every served document. After my first two weeks, I went to collect my paycheck. It wasn't there. And it wasn't there because the owner of the Process Serving company was in jail himself! The fellow that hired me was being stiffed, too. He hadn't been paid for a month, and was throwing good money after bad by staying there, believing all the promises that his check would arrive. I quit on the spot, and told a Sheriff's deputy the story, and he agreed to serve MY summons the owner right in his jail cell.
So why am I telling this story? In all of my
telesales training courses, there's usually some stuff that comes up regarding not enough leads, poorly functioning internal systems, or internal policies that could be improved upon. I tell my reps that all companies have these problems, especially ones that are so successful that internal systems and policies are constantly being stressed. "Welcome to high tech" is how I usually put it. It goes with the job. So next time you're exasperated with something at work that's just not right, why not think about a job you had in the past that was a whole lot worse. It can be pretty motivating. So now I've told you my story about a really bad job. What's yours?