A  week ago, I posted, “I’ve Succumbed–I’m Talking About Sales 2.0.”  Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a webinar hosted by Tom Scontras of Glance Networks on this topic.

We had a great conversation!  In case you missed it, you can still listen to it at Glance. If you missed it, take some time to listen sometime this weekend.  It’s only about 45 minutes long.  I’d love to get your comments and feedback.

Your Help!

If you are a regular reader, you know I have no shortage of opinions about sales, business, and leadership.  However, I want to pause and ask for your input and ideas.  I’d really appreciate it if you would take a moment to comment suggesting topics that I should write about.

In the past year, I’ve written extensively about sales process, value propositions, sales management/leadership, metrics, and customer focus.  I have more that I want to add to those topics.  I also plan to write quite a bit more on coaching and developing sales professionals, channels, collaboration and partnering in sales, funnel and pipeline management, sales on-boarding, and sales strategy development.

What would you like me to be writing about?  Thanks for taking the time to give me your ideas.  I so appreciate your comments and support, either on the blog, through your emails, or at the other sites these articles appear.  Thanks for your continues support, encouragement, and ideas!

I few days ago, I started a discussion with “What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?”  followed by “How Important Are ‘Techniques’ To Sales?”  I hadn’t meant to turn this into a series (or saga), but the discussion has been very interesting.  For me, it has been a bit of a journey of discovery.  I’ve always had an aversion to what I call “techniques”  — those 68 closing techniques, the persuasion technique and so forth. 

At the same time, there are techniques or tools that I have found very helpful, questioning approaches, storytelling as a means of illustrating complex points, using humor to offset my natural clumsiness, and so forth.   Somehow, these techniques have become “a part of me.”  They are natural, I never have to think about them, they seem to flow with what I am trying to achieve in engaging the customer.

Perhaps my aversion to what I view as “the techniques” is that I’ve never been very good at using most of them.  I get too caught up in listening to the customer and having a conversation to remember that I should be “mirroring” them or that I should be using certain neuro linguistic or psychological wording  (Make sure you say their name in every sentence …. or whatever that one is).  Somehow I’m too busy working with the customer defining the next steps and moving forward to remember to ask if they like German Shepherds or Saint Bernards (I think the puppy dog close goes something like that).

I wonder if being yourself counts as a technique?  Somehow, I have found my customers and prospects seem to like having a conversation, they tend to appreciate directness.  I have managed to stop saying “that’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, “  but I chalk that up to politeness.  I tend to handle that with, “Have you ever considered looking at it differently?”  Maybe that’s a technique.

I think of the experiences I’ve had with people selling me something.  I know they are trying to sell me something, I don’t resent it, after all I participating in the discussion.  But the sales calls I appreciate the most are those great directed and focuses conversations.  No pretense, no techniques (I know most of them well enough that I watch for them), just a discussion focused on what I am trying to achieve and how they can help me.

I sit in meetings in large corporations–I see selling going on in every meeting.  People trying to persuade others about an idea or an approach.  People discussing different things, having honest disagreements or differences but working to resolve them.  People aligned to achieving common goals.

Sometimes I think we would be much more effective as sales professionals if we started simplifying things, if we had the courage to be ourselves, if we focused on natural conversations with our customers.  Be sure, these aren’t random or wandering conversations.  Remember, one of the characteristics that I think distinguishes top sales performers is “goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.”  I don’t have a lot of patience (or the requisite social graces) for random conversations.  I’m interested in having great conversations with people who have problems or goals that I can do something about.  I’m interested in learning what they want to achieve and demonstrating how I can help them achieve their goals better than anyone else.  I tend to be very focused and direct about this and they know it.  Somehow, virtually everyone seems to appreciate it—they like getting to the issues without the typical “dancing” we often do.

Let me crawl further out on the limb I’m on.

Sometimes I think we use ” the techniques” for surrogates for being ourselves and being truly engaged in having a conversations with our customers.  When we aren’t curious about the customer and what they are trying to achieve, when we aren’t trying to solve problems, when we really don’t care about them other than convincing them to buy our products, it’s hard to be ourselvesa and be engaged.  Perhaps this is when we use techniques.  Perhaps this is a sweeping generalization and very inaccurate, but it seems those people (I hesitate to call them sales professionals) who use “the-techniques” in the most manipulative ways are those who are more focused on themselves and selling their product and less focused on me and what I need.

Techniques can be important and useful, but I think they have greatest impact when they allow the sales person to be her/himself and enable them to connect more naturally in real conversatons with the customer.

Am I crazy?

The other day, I wrote a piece, What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?  It stimulated quite a reaction as people started suggesting their ideas.  I was surprised by the focus of a number of people on the “right techniques.”  These comments started to make me wonder about my own belief system and biases.

I guess I have a very negative reaction to the concept of sales techniques.  When I think of these techniques, I think of sales tricks and manipulation.  I did a little research:

• Persuasion techniques like, “the art of repetition,” “the foot in the door,” “the bait and switch,” “low-ball,”that’s not all,” and the lists of techniques for persuading people can go on.
• Closing techniques like, “the assumptive close,” “the puppy dog close,” “fire sales close,” “thermometer close”, “the ultimatum close.”  I actually found a site listing 68 closing techniques!
• Objection handling like, “the boomerang,” “pushback,” “deflection.”

I could go on with list after list of techniques I found in researching “sales techniques.”  I went to the dictionary to look up the definition:

tech-nique  [tek-neek]  1.  The manner and ability with which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or the like employs the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavor.  2.  The body of specialized procedures and methods used in any specific field, esp. in the area of applied science.  3.  Method of performance ; way of accomplishing.  4.  Technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result.

After reading the definition, I started to think, much of the “advice” I and others I respect offer are “techniques” — or methods — or processes.  After all, I’ve written a lot about effective questioning, listening, qualification, developing and communicating value.  I present tools (techniques) people can use to make them more effective in connecting with and engaging customers.  Likewise, there are a large number of other consultants and bloggers that offer great approaches that create real value for customers, sales professionals and others.

So why do I have such a negative reaction to “sales techniques?”  I think I my negative reaction to “techniques” is not the techniques themselves (though I saw very little redeeming in the list of 68 closing techniques), but the intent or use of the technique.

So often, underlying the use of technique is an intent to manipulate, trick, or deceive.  Anytime the person(s) on the receiving side of a sales person using “techniques” in these ways, everything sours.  What may have been good suddenly turns distasteful. 

On the other hand, techniques can be important to gaining insight and understanding about the customer.  They can help you engage the customer in a conversation about their problems, dreams and goals.  Techniques can be important in communicating complex ideas.  They can help people understand, they can serve to simplify.  Techniques can be important in helping facilitate the customer’s buying process, in helping present value, in helping manage change.  They provide structure for us to work with customers, improving the way we engage them.

I suppose any tool, tip, process, methodology, and, yes, technique can be abused.  Their use can be manipulative and misleading.  Yet we do need techniques.

I’ll have to mull this over a little while, I’m still uncomfortable.  I’m trying to talk myself into believing that techniques are good.  However, I just can’t help it, whenever I hear the term “sales technique,” I immediately think of scenes from movies like Boiler-room.  I think of sleazy sales people doing the “bait and switch,”  followed by the “boomerang” objection handling technique, capped off by the “puppy dog close.”  They trigger the worst examples of sales I can imagine.

Am I wrong on these sales techniques? Can any of you offer advice that can make me more comfortable?

The other day, I wrote an article, Appointments With Sales People Fall Short Of Executive Expectations.  In it I cited data from a Forrester Research report on executive perspectives of sales people’s ability to understand their business needs, priorities, and issues.  I wanted to extend the discussion, focusing on a topic I’ve found a little nebulous, business acumen.

There are training programs on business acumen, programs that help you understand the structure of business, how they work.  There are MBA programs many sales people take to understand more about how businesses operate.  Those are all great, sales people should seek as much formal training as they can get.  At the same time, I think these programs aren’t enough.  Additionally, many sales people don’t have access to these kinds of formal training.

The best sales professionals I know develop their own “business acumen training.”  It’s simple, it’s ongoing, it’s driven by their natural curiosity and genuine interest in solving customer problems  (Which if you don’t have, no training program will ever give you the business acumen you need to connect with your customers).

Here’s what I see top sales professionals doing to better understand their customers’ businesses and more effectively connect with their customers:

1. They read about the industry incessantly.  They devour “trade materials”  and industry publications, whether on-line or in print.  They use these to understand critical issues, trends, players, jargon.
2. They devour their customers’ web sites—looking at the investor materials, downloading and actually reading annual reports, 10K’s , proxy statements, investor presentations.  They do this not only for their customers, but for their customers’ competition.   They look at their customers products and services–reading those marketing materials, understanding how their customers seek to position themselves with their customers.
3. They attend trade shows and events their customers go to.  They attend not only to meet with their customers, but to wander, watch, listen, observe, and learn.
4. They wander around in their customers, they take tours of the customer facilities, they listen to how people describe their jobs, their views of the company, what issues they face.
5. They imagine themselves walking in the shoes of their customers.  They think, What would I do if I were running this company, function, department?  How would I improve this operation?  What are the realities of this business? They explore these ideas in conversations with their customers.
6. They read broader business materials, to learn more about the business of business.  Whether it’s the business magazines and journals, or great blogs on various aspects of business management.  They understand critical issues facing all business professionals, they learn from thought leaders.
7. They read books–not just the latest sales books, but books on other aspects of business, books on economics, current affairs, history….. and a few of the latest great fiction.
8. They do all this critically–not blindly reading and accepting, but challenging the concepts, thinking about the ideas, discovering how they can apply lessons in their own world.

What have I missed–this is a starting point, but I’d like your ideas on how you develop “business acumen.”  What do you do?

There is no excuse for a sales person not to develop business acumen–it’s critical professional success, it’s critical to connecting effectively with your customers.  Don’t wait for your companies to provide a formal program, don’t limit yourself to these programs.  Become a student of your customers’ businesses, become a student of business.

A few years ago, I was talking to a sales manager.  He was expressing some frustration, “I’m doing my job of selling, my customers need to start doing a better job of buying!”  When you think about it, there’s actually a lot of truth to that statement — at least the “doing a better job of buying” part.

Our customers do a bad job of buying because they don’t know how to buy.  With the exception of purchasing professionals, it’s not our customers jobs to buy, they focus on doing their jobs whether it is building products, running an operation, providing IT support, whatever their function is.  They don’t know how to organize their buying effort, they don’t know how to define what they are trying to do, they don’t know how they should look at and evaluate alternatives.  Buying is something is a disruption to their normal work flow–they are already busy, often just trying to survive, now they have this new task — it takes time away from doing their normal job.  They probably recognize they need to change–they need to find a new solution, but they don’t know how to organize themselves to make a decision.  They also have to go through all that awkward stuff of managing a team, each with a different agenda, each with different views on what is needed, each with a different priority.  just coordinating the buying group, requires a lot of skill and time.

Customers worry about making a bad decision.  They are accountable to their management to do the right thing for the company.  They are held accountable for investing company funds well–they need to demonstrate their purchase creates a return for the company.  If they make a mistake, their management will be all over them, they may even lose their jobs.

Customers don’t buy very often.  In complex B2B solutions, they may purchase these once in their careers.  Think of it, a new piece of capital equipment–something that has a life of more than 5 years, a major new software system, outsourcing services, whatever.  Their lack of experience makes them apprehensive–both because of the “long life” of whatever they are buying, but they just haven’t looked at thse solutions very often.  They don’t know what’s out there, what’s good, what they should avoid.  Even if they buy more frequently, things are changing so quickly, it’s difficult for them to keep up.  Think of something that has become commoditized like PC’s.  The product life cycle of a PC is probably around 3-6 months.  So if I looked at PC’s last year, there have been 2-4 generations of new PC’s since then.  Everything that I knew about buying them a year ago has changed.

Procurement professionals help.  Their job is buying, they keep up with the products they are responsible for.  But it’s still difficult for them.  They aren’t making purchasing decisions on their own.  They are acting on behalf of people within the organization.  They have to make sure they understand and are satisfying the needs of their customers.  They face the challenge of helping manage the process, expectations and align the different agendas and priorities of their customers.

Finally, buying is about change—none of us like change, it’s always so difficult, it’s often easier just to keep doing the same old thing.

It’s no wonder that customers do a bad job of buying—after all their jobs aren’t about buying.  So they need help–and that’s where great sales professionals differentiate themselves.

See the peddlers don’t recognize that customers don’t know how to buy.  They blindly assume the customer is expert at this, they never ask questions to determine if they do know how to buy.  All they do is pitch their products hoping to dazzle the customer with Features Advantages Benefits, ghee whiz Technology, and large doses of Charm and Personality.  Peddlers are pitching their products but not solving their customers’ problems–one of which is “How Do I Buy?”

Great sales professionals recognize their job is to help their customers solve their problems–both operating their businesses more effectively and efficiently and addressing new opportunities.  Great sellers also recognize that part of solving customers’ problems is helping them understand how to buy–they work with the customer in facilitating their buying process.  They realize, that by helping their buyers buy, they are creating great value for their customers.

Are you helping your customers do a better job of buying?

(As a side note, my friend Sharon Drew Morgen worries about Buying Facilitation (TM) a lot.  I highly recommend looking at her site, and devouring her books and matierials.)

Conventional sales “wisdom” encourages us to “call at the top.”  Sales people constantly seek the “C-Level” executives, looking for anyone that has a “Chief” in their title–surprisingly customers are accommodating us with CMO’s, CIO’s, CFO’s and so forth.  We’re taught to call at the top–things move faster, we don’t have to worry about all the users, just find the top executive, pitch them, and everything will go fast.

I often coach sales people on their deal strategies.  Always, I hear, “We need to figure out a way to get to the CIO,”  or “If only we could get to the CEO, we could push this deal faster.”  When I ask, “Why do you want to do this?”  They look at me as if I had two heads, responding, “We have to call at the top–we want to focus on people with the power.”  To which, I respond, “Why do you want to do this?”  They’re now starting to think, “What’s up with this guy?  He’s supposed to be the guy to coach me?  Doesn’t he get it?”

After an uncomfortable pause, they are trying to figure out how to get out of this meeting, I try to clarify, “Why do they –or should they care about what you do?”  The response is, “Well they are the top guys.  They are important to us?”  I usually am forced to ask, “Why do they — or should they care about what you do?”  And we start that same old cycle over.

What we really need to be focusing on is, “Are we calling on the right levels?”  An old colleague used to call this right-level selling.  Right level selling is about engaging everyone involved in the decision who “cares” about the solutions we represent or the problems we solve. 

Let me give an example. a number of years ago a bright sales manager, I’ll call him Bill, came to me and said, “Dave, I understand you know Frank, the COO of ‘Mega-corporation.  I’d like you to arrange a call we can make on him.’”  I responded, “I do know Frank, he’s a great guy.  Why do you want to do this?”  Bill was ready for me, “Mega-corporation is our larges customer.  We do millions every year with them.  I’d like to understand how we can support them better, how we can grow our relationship, ultimately increasing our sales.?  I said, “But why is it important for us to talk to Frank about this?”  Bill was ready, “Well he’s the top guy.  We really need to reach him if we are going to realize our full potential at the account?”  You can guess my next question, “Why does he care?”  Bill was persistent, “They spend a lot of money with us, we really need to talk to Frank, he’s the top guy.”  I stopped there.

I called Frank asking, “Frank, I think I need your help…..”  I explained to Frank what was happening.  I told him that Bill was a very high potential sales manager, but he needed a “coaching experience.”  I asked Frank if he would mind helping me out.  I really wanted to create a compelling experience for Bill and develop him to his full potential–so that he could develop his people to theirs.  Frank laughed and agreed to a meeting—though he did extract promise for me to take him to a very expensive private dinner on the evening of the appointment.

Now let me explain a moment.  Frank was COO of Mega-corporation.  He had over 75,000 people working for him, was responsible for 10′s of Billions in revenue, and Mega-corporation’s rank in the Fortune 500 was in the low double digits.

The appointed day came.  Bill had researched everything about our current relationship.  He had analyzed the customer.  He had prepared for the call, wanting to make a major step forward with this customer through building a relationship with Frank.  As we got off the elevator on the “executive floor, ” the air was already rarefied.  An assistant met us and escorted us down executive row.  We struggled a little–the carpeting was so thick and plush, we could have used snow shoes.

At the end of executive row, we went into Frank’s office–or I should say suite.  I could tell, Bill was a little overwhelmed–I was too, and I had been there before.

Frank was as gracious as anyone could have expected.  Bill opened the call, he thanked Frank for his time.  He explained to Frank the long history between our organizations and how important his company was to ours.  Bill asked Frank what his priorities were and how we could better support he and the entire organization in achieving their goals. 

Frank responded, “Let me think about that a moment.”  He paused—I’m sure to Bill it seemed like hours passed, it was only about 10 seconds.  Frank went on, “These are the things I spend my time on……..  This is what keeps me awake at night……”  To Bill, who was focused on our products, I’m sure it sounded as though Frank was describing how to achieve world peace or solve world hunger.  Frank asked, “How can you help me do this?”

Bill’s face turned white.  He didn’t know what to say.  The truth was, the problems we solved were important to people somewhere in Frank’s organization, but they weren’t important to Frank.  They weren’t anywhere on his radar screen.

Mega-corporation was an important account for us–they were our largest customer.  I jumped in and asked Frank to help us understand his organization and who we should be working with  (fortunately, Frank and I had talked about this beforehand).  We went into the conference room, on one wall was the organization chart.  Frank went on to explain, “This vice president—five levels below me— is the highest level person that cares about the problems you solve.  You need to really be focusing on him and the people in his organization that are impacted by what you do.  While, what you do is important to our company–it isn’t important to me because I count on these people to do their jobs and to do the best thing for our organization.”  Frank continued, “We spend a good amount of money on you.  I’ve checked with our people, you have supported us well, they like your solutions and service.  I’m happy about that.  However, I have no reason to get involved in what they do, they do their jobs well and I’ll support them.  I really don’t have the time or care to be involved in what you are doing because it doesn’t have a direct impact on what I worry about.”

Frank was (and still is) a very gracious executive.  He gave Bill one of the greatest development opportunities possible.  Bill had the opportunity to “call at the top,” and learned–a little painfully–that calling at the top is not what is needed. 

Right-Level Selling is critical to our success as sales professionals.  We need to call on the people who are responsible for the problems we solve.  We need to focus on those people who “care” or have a vested interest in what we can do for them.  We need to call on the users, problem owners, recommenders and influencers.  Yes, we should call high–but only as high as the problem is important.  If we cannot answer the questions “Why should they care about us” in a compelling manner, they aren’t the right people for us to call on.  If the problems that we solve aren’t their top priorities, then we are wasting their and our time.

Are you calling at the Right Level, or are you trying to call at the top?  Are you investing your time in the people that really care about what you can do, or are you just following “traditional wisdom?”

My friend, Ardath Albee, and I were commiserating the other day.  We see so many misguided approaches, whether they are sales people, marketers, individuals.  They know the theory–yes, they’re supposed to be customer focused.  They know they are supposed to talk about customer needs, problems, goals.  They know they should focus on solving customer problems by proposing great solutions.  But, to often it’s not like that.  Just after the words, “how can I help you,” or “what are your needs,”  leave their mouths — before we have a chance to respond — they go on and say, “but let me tell you about our products,”  or “let me tell you about me,”  or “can you help me?”  The focus shifts immediately back to them and what they want.

Hmmm….. is this what we mean by customer focus?  I thought the way it’s supposed to work is that after we ask the question, “what are your problems/needs,” or “how can I help you,” we were supposed to pause and give the customer a chance to talk.  I thought we were supposed to listen, probe, understand.

Too often, our real motives are so transparent.  We really want to talk about ourselves, we want to pitch our products.  We’re just going through the motions of asking the questions or expressing our concern because that’s what we’re supposed to do.  Or we listen long enough until we hear the key word, which causes us to interrupt and leap into our pitch, or as I’ve said in other posts, we jump to solutions.

We say it all the time, effective sales and marketing is all about the customer!  The customer has to be the center of our focus.  Understanding what the customer needs and wants to achieve is our priority.  Only after we have questioned, probed, challenged, explored alternative ideas can we start talking about what we can do for them.  If we do this, we maximize our engagement and alignment with the customer and maximize our likelihood of earning their business.

Don’t get me wrong, we want to be talking to customers that have problems we can solve, customers that intend to do something, and who want to consider us as a solution provider.  That’s why vicious disqualification of anything that doesn’t fit is critical.  But as we do this and move forward, it’s all about the customer, not us.

Sales people are trained to be problem solvers — we ask questions, probe — once we find a problem we attack like a pit bull and don’t let go until we’ve wrestled the problem to the ground and gotten the order.

So what’s the problem with that?  Too often we leap to solutions before we understand what the “real problem” is.  It’s a real problem, I wrote about it in a post almost a year ago: “The Evolving Role Of The Sales Person–The Sales Person As Diagnostician”  It addresses the issue of sales people leaping to solutions and not solving the right problem.  Customers get frustrated with this approach, they complain, “they aren’t listening, they don’t understand my real issues.”

There’s another aspect of this problem — often, our customers leap to solutions.  Like sales people, business people are trained problem solvers–that’s what we learn in the university, and every aspect of our jobs reinforce that.  Customer are often certain they know their problems and tell the sales person, “this is what I need.”  And we tend to accept that and sell to that need.  The problem is they aren’t solving the right problem.

A friend of mine, Steve Bowles, had a great example of this.  He was meeting with the CEO of a small company, and the CEO said, “This is the issue I’m having with the sales organization and this is what I need you to do…”  And as CEO’s are prone to do, he said it with great authority and certainty.  Steve could have done what the CEO asked and gotten the order.  Instead, Steve did something else, he asked the question, “What do you think is causing this issue to happen with the sales organization?”  Steve resisted the temptation to take the leap with his customer, get the order, and provide the right solution to the wrong problem.  Instead, Steve decided to probe.  He wanted to understand if the CEO was describing the real problem or if there was an underlying issue.  He got to the underlying issues — it wasn’t pleasant, in fact to a large degree the CEO was creating the problem himself.  Steve politely pointed that out and suggested a different solution.  Oh by the way, Steve got the order.

Mediocre sales people let the customer dictate the solution, only responding the the needs the customer outlines and the solution they want.  That’s often why it’s difficult to differentiate.  The customer has determined the solution and everyone is fundamentally providing the same thing.

Great sales professionals–those that create real value for their customers and stand out are those that find and solve the right problems.  They take the time to probe and understand.  They care enough about doing the right thing for the customer that they challenge the customer’s preconceived notions about the problem and solution.  They get the customer to think differently, to see and solve the real problem.

It takes great knowledge of your customer’s business, it takes great knowledge of your solutions, it takes the patience and diligence to probe and understand.  Finally, it takes great courage to suggest to the customer that there might be a better way.

Too often, inertia, time pressures, the push to do a deal quickly, or simply our conditioning as problem solvers push us to leap to solutions.  We as sales people do this, our customers do this. 

Our greatest value add as sales professionals is to help our customers solve the right problems.  Are you taking the time to work with your customers to do this or are you leaping to solutions?

Customer Centricity is a hot topic these days.  I get on my soapbox on Customer Focus, Customer Experience, How Buying Is Changing, and various aspects of being Customer Centric.  As a result, I get a lot of calls and queries about being Customer Centric.  To tell you the truth, many of them are very disturbing.  They often go something like this (this composite, actually understates what I’ve experienced).

Caller:  My organization has to be more customer centric.

Dave:  Cool, what’s driving this initiative?

Caller:  My boss has told us we have to do this.

Dave:  OK, that’s interesting.  Why does he say that you need to be more customer centric?

Caller:  I don’t know, he just told us to figure it out and to become more customer centric.

Dave:  Hmmm….. What do your customers think about their experience with you?

Caller:  I don’t know, we don’t have the time to talk to them.  Maybe you can do that for us.

Dave:  Well, we can certainly survey your customers and get their views, but part of customer centricity is connecting with your customers better—engaging them—-listening to them.  Do you have any sense of what they are saying?

Caller :  (I start hearing some frustration in his voice)  I understand what you say, but we’re just too busy.  I need to respond to my boss, can you help us?

Dave:  Well, can you tell me what you are looking for?

Caller:  Well we just need to know how to be more customer centric.  Can you tell us what programs we need to put in place and what the investment would be.  It’s important that we measure how we are doing, perhaps you can design a customer centricity dashboard for us?  Could you tell us what others are doing so we can copy them?  Maybe you can give us a short seminar?

I’ll stop here.

On the one hand, I like the calls, they represent great opportunities for us.  On the other hand, I worry about these calls. 

There are many things we do to help organizations understand their customers, better focus on their customers, engage their customers, and the list can go on.  But customer centricity is not a set of programs and initiatives an organization implements.   It is not a new set of metrics.  Customer centricity is a state of mind, it’s a set of values, it’s a culture all focused on serving the customer.

When I look at truly customer centric companies, the programs, initiatives and metrics are not that different from those organizations that are not customer centric.  But what makes them different is how they embed the “voice of the customer” into everything they do.

All companies have new product development processes.  Customer centric companies embed customers into the development—whether it’s customer councils, customer participation in phase reviews, customers participating in the development—the footprints of customers are all over the development process.

All companies have customer problem resolutions processes.  Customer centric companies worry about “what’s best for the customer,” others worry about “what’s best for the company.”  Customer centric companies actually listen to what comes up and change policies, practices, processes to reduce problems.  Others “manage the issue.”

All companies have websites, they all talk about their customers at the web site.  Customer centric companies celebrate their customers at the web site, they talk about their success, they congratulate them.   Their annual reports are filled with stories of customer successes.

Stories about customers abound in customer centric companies.  In meetings, when they talk about customers, they use actual customer names—individuals, companies.  In companies that are not customer centric, they talk about the customer in abstract terms—they call them “the customer,” not Jill Smith at XYZ company.  Sometimes they don’t even talk about the customer, but focus on themselves, their products, their operations.

Customer centric companies sometimes make customers unhappy—as do others.  But customer centric companies always embed a customer perspective in every decision.  Customer centric companies communicate to the customers the rationale behind the decisions, recognizing that some won’t like the decision.

Metrics are important in customer centric companies—just as they are in every organization.  Customer focused metrics are things like:  Sales, profitability, growth, customer share, market share, customer retention, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, warranty returns, days outstanding/age on receivables, employee satisfaction and the list goes on.  Other organizations measure the same things.

But why aren’t the measures different?  The answer is simple, Customer Centricity is good business!  Let’s just use good business metrics to determine how we are performing.

Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new programs and initiatives.  Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new metrics.

Companies become customer centric by embedding the customer perspective—the voice of the customer—into everything they do, every day.  Customer centricity is a set of values, a frame of mind.  Within an organization, it is embodied by a culture focused on listening to the customer, engaging the customer, considering the customer in everything they do.

In Tom Peters’ The Little BIG Things, on Item #46, he makes the point that  “Everything Passes Through Finance.”  It’s such a important, yet too often ignored critical success factor for sales people.  In virtually every situation, Finance is always somehow involved in the sale.  Sometimes, it’s just paying the invoice; other times it’s issuing the PO; and very often, it’s approving the budget and providing the funding.

We all know this, but I am continually astounded by the sales people that neither know the key people in their customers’ Finance organizations, nor do they “speak the language.”  It seems if finance plays such a critical role in most purchases, it would be critical for sales people to be “wired” into the organizations.  Sales people should:

• Know the key people that may be involved in reviewing, approving, funding, writing checks for the things we sell.  Develop relationships with these people, learn their hot buttons, how they perceive value, how you can help them.  Likewise they should know the seller so that if they have any questions they know where to turn.
• Know the language of the finance people.  For example, they talk in terms of income statements, balance sheets, cashflow, assets, liabilities, profit, loss, ROI, Payback, IRR and a whole variety of other terms.  Great sales people understand how to read financial reports and analyze them, they understand how to determine the ROI or Payback of a proposal–they know which approach their customer prefers.  As a side note, nothing drives me crazier than talking to a sales person who says, “Our proposal has a ROI of X years.”  I’m sorry, ROI is expressed in percent and Payback is expressed in time.  While it may seem picky, using the term incorrectly destroys your credibility with finance types.
• Know how they evaluate spending or investments in your types of products/services.  For example do they have certain ROI or Payback targets, do they expense or capitalize certain capital equipment purchases, do they consider off balance sheet financing, and the list can go on.  The more familiar the sales person is with the way they evaluate, justify, approve, and handle your types of transactions, the better you will be equipped to present the information important in getting their buy in and approval for acquiring what you are selling.
• Know whether they favor certain kinds of terms?  Those can impact your pricing and/or how you might help them do a deal.  If you are willing to offer more flexible payment terms, you might make it easier for them to buy from you.
• Know the mechanics of how they issue orders  (sometimes this is a procurement function which in some organizations falls outside finance).  Many of my customers don’t know the mechanics of actually “ordering” what I am selling.   They will eventually stumble through the organization to figure it out, but if the sales person knows this process, they can help the customer accelerate getting the PO through.  (This process also applies to the legal function for getting contracts approved quickly.)

In every organization, at some point in time, everything passes through Finance.  As sales professionals, if you don’t “know” finance, your effectiveness, value, and impact is much lower than the competitor who does.