Posted by Geoff Alexander on Fri, Aug 29, 2008 @ 01:56 AM
I got a call this morning from an inside sales rep seeking advice on a sale she was afraid she might lose. And she might, too, because she didn't begin by calling high. Here's the story, and a recommendation on what you can do to avoid the problem she's run into.
Claire sells educational software, and a couple of months ago, received an inbound lead from a librarian, asking for a quote. The librarian is part of a university system, doesn't have much discretionary budget, but knows she needs the product. Claire dutifully provided a quote, and wants to upsell the librarian to a multi-year contract, not just the one year that the librarian wants. Because territories are shifting, Claire needs to get the deal in before 30 days, or she doesn't get commissioned on anything. She's offered a great discount on the multiyear deal, but the librarian tells her there's not enough money in the budget, and she'll have to discuss it with others. The librarian wouldn't tell her who "the others" were, and Claire doesn't want to go over her head. What went wrong here? How can she ensure this won't happen again with the next client? And how can she save the sale now?
What went wrong? Claire didn't start the sales process by calling high. High in this case means Chancellor, Provost, or President. Although she started with an inbound lead from the librarian, she shouldn't have started there. She should have called the Provost first, mentioning that there appeared to be some interest at the university, and asked if there was an initiative to buy a solution such as the one Claire was offering. Yes or no, it would have prompted a discussion. Claire's second call might have been back to the Provost, to someone else he or she recommended, or to the librarian. If she had begun with the Provost, Claire would have already made a contact at the approval level within the university. That way, when the librarian didn't have the budget for five years, Claire could have said "that's OK, I've already talked to the Provost. I'll call her back and see if we can get some budget freed."
Getting back to Claire's dilemma, why doesn't she want to go over the librarian's head at this point in the sale? This is a psychological barrier that most reps deal with until they realize that calling high initially is the only way out of it. Claire feels --- right or wrong --- that she'll offend the librarian completely by going over her head, and will lose the entire deal. She's stuck. Since she didn't call high initially, how can we unstick her?
One approach is to cold call the Provost now anyway, and without revealing that she's already in discussions, and ask if her product is something that's on the Provost's radar screen. Yes or no, she can discuss her solution. If interested, the Provost may very well refer her to someone else in the university that makes decisions on these products. It may or may not be the librarian. If the Provost isn't interested, then Claire might mention that she's had some discussions with the librarian already, and that she's trying to give a great discount for a five-year commitment, but hasn't been able to get the approval yet. She can then ask for the Provost's recommended next step. The Provost is going to have to sign off on it anyway, if it's accepted, so it's a great idea to present it now. If, in the worst case scenario, the librarian finds out that Claire has talked with the Provost and is upset, Claire can tell her "I wasn't going over your head. It's part of my process to talk with every Provost at all of my schools anyway, so this is just part of what I do every day." But of course, if Claire had started high, then it would have been a moot point.
Claire has already done something well, by the way, in terms of her closing skills. She provided a 20 day "drop dead" date for the discount, in which the special pricing will go away if a PO hasn't been signed in 20 days. She's got a great reason to call the Provost, because she's trying to save the university a significant amount of money. That's compelling.
We've all been in Claire's position, especially early in our sales careers. I spend a lot of time in my inside sales courses discussing why you really must start each sales process by calling as high as possible. I make people do it in actual coaching sessions, too. Telesales reps are always delighted when I show them how easy it really is, and they can do it themselves easily. Most high-level execs are friendly and easy to talk to, once they know why you're calling, and how it will benefit them. She didn't know it, but Claire's still ideally suited to make that exec call now, even though she's later in the sales process. But she might have closed the deal two months ago if she'd started the interaction with the university by calling high.
Calling high initially will always get you the sale faster, and might get you more revenue too, because you can grow the deal up there. I guarantee that you (and Claire) will increase sales dramatically by calling high early. Add it to your best practices notebook.
Posted by Geoff on Wed, Aug 27, 2008 @ 12:40 PM
The initial key to a successful call is a great call opening. Without it, your prospect mentally checks out, and you invariably get the response "would you call me back later?" Much of the time, you'll never successfully reach the prospect again. We all know that opening a cold call with "How are you today" is disastrous. Nearly as bad is asking permission as part of your opener. These openers usually begin with "Is this a good time to talk?" or "Is this a bad time to talk." Both are weak. I'll tell you why, and how to fix it.
Right before your call, you should be in the mental mindset that you're a consultant, and a peer of your prospect. This is particularly critical if you're calling a higher-level exec. His or her peers would never begin a call by asking permission. They'd simply begin with stating who they were and what they wanted. If you begin by asking permission, you carry the yoke of appearing to not have anything important to say. And that's why the prospect often tells you to call back, with no real intention of taking your call again. Fact is, everyone's busy, and it's never a good time for a sales call from a telesales rep that isn't confident enough in the reason for his or her call. Let's rethink this and build some confidence!
What is the one thing you absolutely have to find out after your call is finished? You've got to know whether the prospect needs your product or service. Let's say you sell oscilloscopes for the medical profession. Try a real "closing" question for your opening, such as "Hi John, this is Beth Stephens from ABC Medical, and we specialize in oscilloscopes for the medical profession. John, will you be buying oscilloscopes within the next 12 months?" If it's "yes", you're off to the races. Questions here start with what do you need and when do you need it. If the answer to your initial question was "no," there are lots of other ways to go, from "who else there might have an initiative to buy oscilloscopes?" to "what occurrence might change your need for oscilloscopes?" Either way, you've gotten valuable information immediately, and your prospect never had the opportunity to tell you to call back. And yes, this is what we teach in our telesales training courses, and in our classes we'll give you lots of ways to go on the "no" too. Best practices for inside sales calls include disqualifying quickly as well as qualifying quickly. I've always said that a great disqualification call is just about as good as a great call to a qualified prospect. Too many reps spend too much time calling people over and over again that wouldn't take their first calls. Doing it this way, you can get valuable information first time, every time. Remember: Greater rapport is gained by respecting the prospect's time and getting right to the point than by obfuscating the issue and trying to be overly polite and deferential in your introduction.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Aug 26, 2008 @ 01:45 PM
Within the last several years, several of the finest Inside Sales managers I know of lost their departments, either because field people needed to gain revenue by having additional product transferred to them, or the field was successful in convincing upper management that prospects and customers were getting "confused" by all the attention they were getting in receiving calls from different salespeople in the company. Bruised field sales egos seem funny until someone gets handed the pink slip. I think it's important to recognize this as an important issue. If you're an Inside Sales Manager, you may want to take steps to pre-empt these types of difficulties in the following ways:
1) Strive to let the field know the value your team adds to their sales process. Do you sell products that your outside people don't? Why not ask your inside team to ask at least one additional field-product related question to each of your prospects in order to feed a few good leads to the field?
2) Always make the field look good. That doesn't mean taking the blame for their foul-ups, but it does mean offering to make a few calls for them when their travels present difficulties that your team could help solve. One or two of these calls can dramatically improve the in-house PR your inside team needs to continually have a high profile within the corporate sales matrix.
3) Poll the field. At least every quarter, poll either the entire field or, if you're part of a large company, the most influential regional sales managers. Ask them honestly what they think of the value your inside team brings to both them and the company as a whole. If you detect any negativity at all, understand that you are operating at risk until you've taken steps to solve the problem.
As the manager of an Inside group, you've got to make allies out of the field so when issues arise that could result in cuts in head-count, training budget, or marketing resources, they'll be on your side. This is more than just a CYA exercise; it calls for some strategizing within your department so that all your inside people realize that revenue generation is only part of the picture. Your department must be positioned within the company --- just as your product must be positioned in the mind of the prospect --- as a maximum-value entity that presents the best possible solution to a critical business problem. In short, superior team communication covers the entire sales force.
There's also a message here for you VPs of Sales whose primary focus is the field, but have an inside group working for you as well. When I sold in the field, I found my most pressing problem was getting maximum coverage to all my prospects while at the same time making enough face-to-face calls to generate sales for our IBM Series/1 communications solution (yep, this was a while back.) When I began using the phone effectively to better cover my territory, I dramatically increased my sales (today, I can train your field team to do it.)
I soon became a real believer of superior territory coverage by telephone. If I had had the luxury of an inside team to work along with me, I could (and would) have leveraged them to further increase my sales, even if they had their own revenue responsibility. Some of you field sales managers are fortunate enough to have an inside group in place right now, but may be wrestling with communication issues between your field team and the inside team. Good solutions don't include firing their well-liked manager or lowering their revenue, but they do include team training courses as well as your continued personal emphasis on the value of the inside group as a necessary and vital strategic and tactical component to closing sales and the revenue generation process.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Aug 26, 2008 @ 12:44 PM
Although many companies are demonstrating products through webinars, a significant number still send out evaluation software or hardware. If your company does, you can save a significant amount of time and close sales faster by adopting some best practices for evaluations. The process I'm going to describe could generate dozens of new sales leads for you, too.
Selling by evaluation and on-site demonstration are two great ways of giving prospects necessary "hands-on" experience with your product before purchase. Yet many companies are thoroughly frustrated with the poor evaluation-to-sale ratio, to the extent that they are considering stopping the program altogether. Big mistake. If your team takes the approach I'm going to describe in a second, your ratio will skyrocket and you'll close sales faster, although the number of evals you actually send out may actually decrease.
Here are some ideas that can benefit you immediately:
1) Always ask for the sale with 30 day right-of-return prior to suggesting an evaluation. The number of prospects that will actually place an order when you ask the question may surprise you... if your accountants can't figure out how to handle the occasional charge-back, invest in a college-level accounting course for them.
2) Send out an evaluation only to those who will buy if their requirements criteria are met. Note their requirements, use the "if we could, would you?" question, and set the expectation for purchase if the eval fits their pre-stated needs.
3) Call the day after the expected arrival of the evaluation. Make sure it got there, and help him or her with the installation process if necessary.
4) Call a week later. If their expectations have been met, ask if you can "wrap up the paperwork" right then and there. If not, get tech support involved proactively to get the prospect's requirements taken care of.
5) Follow up after tech support has called them. Repeat step 4.
6) If the prospect wants an eval to continue beyond 30 days, negotiate! Here are some ideas I've used successfully:
a) explain that your evals are on allocation. Ask if he or she would be willing to make the decision in two more working days, provided you'll agree to putting the full force of your tech support group behind getting it to perform to their expectations. That way, your prospects can be productive right away, and they'll be doing a favor as well for other prospects in the same situation by freeing an eval slot for another company (stated professionally, this type of statement will build value for your product).
b) if he or she simply can't get around to installing it, ask if the prospect can allocate another person to look it over. Work with that new person. If you're convinced your eval is going to sit on the shelf, ask the prospect to send it back. Convincing the prospect that you (and, by extension, other customers) consider your product to be a valuable item will assist in building the value you'll need to get in the door again. In addition, if your eval gathers dust on someone's shelf, it sends a signal to the entire prospect department that something must not have been up to snuff.
7) Don't call the enterprise while the eval process is underway. It's OK to get the rest of the prospect's department involved, but don't tell the whole corporate entity about it until the evaluation has turned into a sale. Here are a couple of problems that could occur should you broadcast it too early:
a) a Detroit associate of your Cleveland prospect calls to ask how the eval is coming... right when Cleveland's discovered a frustrating bug that only 1% of the customers ever see. Problem is, tech support hasn't gotten back to him yet, so Cleveland tells Detroit about the buggy software and lousy tech support. An hour later when the patch arrives, Detroit has already called your competitor for an eval of his product.
b) MIS in Philadelphia gets mad that Cleveland is trying to evaluate a solution without Philly's blessing! Result: eval on hold and Philly wants to make a point with Cleveland by forcing a competitive product on them ... and you lose the sale!
8) After the eval is successful, leverage it by calling every single same-company prospect in your database and telling the user story. These are people who, at one time, were interested. Maybe they'll have renewed interest when they find out someone at their company is using your product successfully!
OK, now you have a template for selling by evaluation that should improve your sales performance dramatically. This is what I teach in my inside sales courses, and it works. Give it a try, and let me know what you think.
Posted by Geoff on Mon, Aug 25, 2008 @ 05:16 PM
You can increase sales pretty dramatically by getting more information earlier from your prospects. Those of you who've taken my classes know I'm a big believer in asking lots of good questions. I spend a lot of time discussing the value of asking open questions beginning with phrases such as "would you explain?", "tell me about", and "would you describe?" These open questions are powerful, because the prospect tells you information you need to know, as opposed to you crafting your questions based on your own assumptions about what you think he or she really needs. Leading questions are questions that start with an assumption that you already have, and are a good way to get nowhere fast on a sales call. They almost always begin with the words "Is" or "Are," and successful salespeople avoid them. Leading questions can cost you a sale. Let's identify what they sound like and look at a solution that you can begin implementing today.
Let's say you're selling software development tools, and the prospect tells you that her current tools are so poor that her team tends to complain a lot. If you ask a leading question, such as "Is that impacting their schedules?" gets you nowhere, because it only prompts a "yes" or "no" answer. You'll still need more information. A better way to do it is to ask an open question, such as "would you explain how the quality of your current tools is impacting your development schedule?" If it is, she'll tell you a story from her real world, give you loads of data, and provide clues that you can use as an ROI datapoint when you later discuss the benefits of using your tools.
Most leading questions can be easily reworked to become open questions, so "is that costing you sales?" easily becomes "tell me how that impacts your sales numbers." The key here is continually practicing this until it becomes second nature.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 25, 2008 @ 01:55 AM
As lots of you know, we help great inside sales candidates to find wonderful jobs. We know they're great candidates, because we trained and coached them. Hiring managers trust us, because we don't take money to help place great telesales reps, we do it free, provided we believe in the candidate. We're not recruiters, so let's just say it's a gratis part of our sales consulting business. I want to tell you a quick story about how you might miss on a candidate that has a history of terrific sales performance. I'll call him Ken, but he's a real person. Here's his story.
Ken was one of the higher performing reps I trained at a fast-paced high tech company, and regularly exceeded his sales numbers. Like many a sales rep in the SF Bay Area, he eventually decided to join a startup company. That company failed, so he tried another startup. That failed too. After four years, Ken had worked at four failed startups! Pretty typical for the high tech Bay Area, where fortunes are made and lost in seconds, and companies come and go just about as fast. After the last one, Ken decided that he wanted to get back to work for a more stable company. But no one would talk to him!
The fact that Ken had four companies in four years scared the living daylights out of hiring managers, who felt that Ken was an unstable worker, willing to leave at the drop of the hat. The opposite was, in fact, true. Ken was loyal to each of those startups, sticking it out until there was nothing left to sell. The trick was now to get hiring managers to talk to him. I found a savvy recruiter willing to work with Ken, and she and I marketed Ken all over the place and did some serious lobbying. Ken finally landed an interview with a company that understood the fact that change is the only constant in high tech. And this past week, he received an offer letter.
This is more than just a feel-good story. If you're a hiring manger, I'd like you to seriously reconsider some of the résumés that you may have dropped because you though the candidate "jumped around" too much. In these cases, references are critical, and superior candidates will have good ones. If you're in the Silicon Valley, or some other place with lots of startup companies and their resultant successes and failures, dozens of candidates like Ken may have slipped through your fingers. Ken's going to increase sales at his new company, I predict dramatically. Please consider his story when you begin your next process of hiring inside sales reps. There's no sense in letting your competitor land a great sales rep like Ken when you could have hired him first.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Thu, Aug 21, 2008 @ 06:29 PM
Barely a week goes by that I don't get asked how to get inside sales people motivated. This is a toughie, because we're all motivated by different things, some of them extrinsic (money), others intrinsic (a desire to succeed.) But one motivational challenge I myself dealt with was during the time I drove a taxi cab to put myself through college. My mom and dad were good people, but didn't have the money to put me through college. I wanted to go to college in Boston, got a school grant, and moved to Boston. I went to school full time, but needed to work my way through school. I got a job driving for Town Taxi. It wasn't easy at first, because the veteran drivers seemingly knew all the good spots. But I was extremely motivated to finish school, and failure wasn't an option. I simply had to develop a plan for success.
I actually developed two plans, and cab driving soon became quite successful for me. Let me tell you about the first one. I'd pick up a lot of out of town businesspeople from out of town, generally at hotels or the airport. Most of them were fascinated by Boston. I began offering personalized tours for two or three hours, perfect for businesspeople on a schedule. Of course, I'd have to handle sales objections and use closing skills. I was motivated not just by the money, but by the sheer joy of driving fascinating people to places they loved. We all had fun.
The other idea came when I was driving down Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury one Saturday morning. In those days, most white drivers didn't work the African-American areas of town. I did, though, and had a drop off in Roxbury one morning. On Blue Hill Avenue that day, there were dozens of moms lined up with their weekend shopping, all standing on the sidewalk, and no cabs to take them home! They rarely were going more than 5 blocks or so, always tipped a quarter, and the flag dropped with every pick up, so just through churn, I made a small fortune that day, working a route that many others wouldn't touch. And these were the most thoughtful, polite, and gracious customers a taxi driver could hope for. Every Saturday became my Roxbury day, and my motivation came from having loads of great conversations with wonderful people. They were very happy that I was there, and I was honored to be their driver, a real win-win. Many other drivers --- had they worked in Roxbury --- would have refused these short rides, looking for a bigger fare. But I had figured out a way to make big money from volume, and had developed a sales lead generation program that really worked! Those moms on Blue Hill made my day a lot of fun. True, I didn't have to handle sales objections. But I did have the satisfaction of providing good service to people who needed it. 25 cents wasn't much of a tip, but it was what they had, and they were proud to tip me. And this later served me well when I made Sales my profession. I remembered the value of not being afraid to take a small profit for doing great work. The appreciation of your customers is a great motivator!
Truthfully, it was during my days with Town Taxi in Boston that I learned to hustle for work, sell, and handle objections. The motivational factors for me in those days weren't too hard to figure out, but it did require thinking out of the box, and thinking of others. Putting smiles on their faces was a reward all in itself, and maybe that's a good lesson for inside sales people, too. Make your customers totally happy with you and what you're offering, and you may have the motivation problem licked.