I received a frustrated email from a colleague the other day. He described a sales situation—he’s selling a solution that creates a tremendous return for this customer. The return is about 4 times the investment – a business case that seems compelling on the surface. But he’s frustrated because he can’t close the deal.
It’s actually a situation B2B sellers encounter quite frequently. We develop great business cases for “The Customer,” a company or an enterprise. But the reality often is, the value or the return accrues to one department or group, and all the cost and risk accrues to another group. For example, in the case of my colleague, all the benefits accrued to an end user group. The solution produced tremendous cost savings for a specific department. The challenge, however, was all the expense, work, and risk was in the IT group — and the IT Vice President simply was deciding not to make the investment.
Frankly, I side with the IT Vice President on this issue, his reluctance to agree to the solution is perfectly rational. There was no value proposition for him, there was only cost, risk, and hassle. One might argue that he should invest in this as a “good corporate citizen.” But it’s a meaningless argument if it puts the attainment of his other goals and objectives at risk. Why should he divert his resources and budget from a set of projects that he has committed to, and for which he and his organization are being measured? Just because it’s a priority for one organization, is it a priority, is it more important than all the other initiatives the IT executive has on his plate.
This is a challenge to every B2B seller. Too often we can create great business value for one group in an organization, but if all the stakeholder invovled aren’t aligned in the priority, if all the stakeholders don’t get value, then our deals get stalled. And we are actually seeing this happening more and more in B2B sales. Deals are getting stalled not because of the business case, but because the customer–the individuals, not the enterprise, aren’t aligned in their priorities.
There are a couple of challenges in these types of deal. Consider:
How does the Vice President of IT get value out of this? There are lots of ways to start addressing this–can the end user, getting all the benefit provide the funding/budget to the IT group so they can invest in this project and still meet their budget goals? Can they get IT projects reprioritized so it is a top priority–by which IT is measured? (Of course then there’s the risk of upsetting all those whose projects were deprioritized)
A great business case is insufficient to win. Great value for the customer is not just value created and delivered to the enterprise, but value created and delivered to each stakeholder in the decision. We can’t just create value for one and ignore the others, we have to have a compelling value proposition for everyone involved in the decision. It’s our responsibility as sales people to make sure we understand what each individual values, and we that we align what we do with what each individual values.
This situation illustrates another major problem. The most important stakeholder is probably the stakeholder who pays the bill—the stakeholder that has the greatest at risk in the decision. The beneficiary of all the benefit — the customer we are selling to, may have only upside in the decision. But the most important people are likely to be those that are paying the bill or have the most at risk. We find this very frequently in IT project. Much of the benefit accrues to the end user organization, all the risk, expense, hassle accrues to IT. IT has to have a win in the decison to move forward.
Often, this problem is made more complex because many customers simply don’t know how to buy. We may be working with a particular department or group of users. We might get them excited and wanting to buy—but if other people need to be involved in the buying decision and aren’t, however much our “customers” want to buy, they just won’t. Often, we have to help our customers know who should be involved in their buying decision and why. Often we have to help them learn how to buy and organize themselves to buy. In every sales situation, we need to assess the customer’s buying process–do they have one? Are the right people involved? Do they know how to buy, do they know how to make a purchase decision, and to they have all the people who are involved in that participating?
There are very few complex B2B sales that don’t cross organizational boundaries. If we are only selling to one buyer, we may win that buyer, but fail to get the order. We have to sell to all the stakeholders.
Finally, things have changed substantially in recent years.It used to be that if you created a compelling business case, the company would find the money to fund the project. That’s no longer true. Companies are being very selective in their investments, they aren’t investing in every project that has a great business case, they are only investing in projects the are aligned and directly contribute to the top 1-2 strategic priorities of the company. Even if you have all the stakeholders aligned–if this specific project isn’t directly tied to the top 1-2 strategic priorities, the project will most likely not go forward regardless of how compelling the business case.
For each of your deals, consider:
- Are you selling to all the stakeholders?
- Is there compelling value to each one?
- Can you clearly state what’s in it for the person paying the bill or incurring the risk?
- Does your customer know how to buy and have they organized themselves to buy?
- Does your initiative directly contribute to the top 1-2 strategic initiatives in the organization?
You have to meet all these criteria to succeed.
A strong sales process is critical to our effectiveness as sales professionals. Without a strong process, it’s comparable to an aimless walk—we may reach our destination, but then again we may not. Or we may reach our destination after an overly long journey.
As much as has been written about sales processes, I am constantly amazed by the number of organization that either have no process in place, their process is hopelessly outdated, or the sales people and managers don’t use the process. We can never achieve the highest levels of performance without a process.
So since our goal is to develop the sales process that maximizes our personal effectiveness as sales professional, I thought it useful to outline five conditions your sales process must satisfy to enable you to be best in class. I’ve restricted this to five, I’m interested in differing views. Have I chosen the right five or should a different five be selected? (Please, out of pure arbitrariness I’m restricting this to five. So if you have a sixth or seventh, you have to eliminate some of the original items.)
Condition 1: Your sales process must not only be aligned with the customers buying process, but it must enable you to help lead and facilitate the customer’s buying process. Too often we’re glib in talking about the customer buying process, when we really are talking about our sales process. But buyers rule. Buying is very complex. They have to organize themselves to recgnize a problem or opportunity. They have to get people invovled, define their goals, define how they will make a decision, align themselves internally, and do all sorts of other things. In the world of complex B2B solutions, customers don’t know how to buy, they may not know they should buy (that is they have an opportunity or a problem). Sales demonstrates it’s leadership and creates great value by aligning everything they do with the customer buying process. If your sales process doesn’t drive this kind of behavior in your sales people, go back to Go, do not collect $200 and start all over again.
Condition 2: The sales process is for the sales people, not anyone else. The sales process is focused on helping sales people develop and execute high impact sales strategies. It focuses on deals and how sales people win deals. The sales process is not for sales managers—though managers must use the process in coaching their people, and can get tremendous insight into deals, pipelines, and performance; but all of that is icing on the cake. Sales people have to be involved in the design and development of the sales process, after all it’s for them and they must own and execute it. There is no reason to have a sales process other than making sales people more effective. If your sales people aren’t the center of your focus in your sales process, Go To Jail!
Condition 3: The sales process must help your sales people improve their ability to win. It has to be based on your best experience–things your best sales people consistently do to win. It is unique to your organization, not something generic to all sales people. You win and lose for specific reasons, there are uniqe trigger events or activities, that dramatically improve your ability to win. If your sales process is not based on your sales people’s own experience, deep analysis of why you win, why you lose, what events amplify your ability to win, tear it up and start all over again.
Condition 4: Your sales process should help your sales people compress the sales cycle. We know that wandering aimlessly through the sale results in sales cycles that never end. The sales process provides structure and focus to the activities sales people undertake. Sales people should constantly be looking at each opportunity, identifying where they are in the sales process and seeking to compress the process as much as possible. The salles process provides a framework for the sales person to look at the next steps or critical activities, they can analyze them, they can consider “How many can I accomplish in my next step with the customer?” Managers in coaching sales people on their deals should look at this, helping the sales person understand where the cycle can be compressed.
Condition 5: Your sales process must maximize your deal value or profitability. I know those sales people and organizations whose sole strategy is to win on price don’t read my blogs. There’s no skill in winning by price, there’s no value creation if you compete by being the lowest cost supplier (all other things equal). So if you are reading this, you are interested in maximizing your deal value or profitability. This means how you create value, how you communicate it, how you deliver it needs to be integral to your sales process. It requires that your process focuses you on customers in your sweet spot, who demand and appreciate the value you create. It demands that you can differentiate that value from the alternatives the customer is considering–if you can’t your only option is to win by price.
Does your sales process match all these criteria? If it doesn’t, then you have a bad process. You will never be able to maxmize the performance of each sales person, you will never maximize the performance of your team or organization. It isn’t tough to design, your top performers already know it, though they may execute it unconsciously.
Does your sales process match some of the criteria? Reassess it, tune it, improve it. No sales process is forever. How customers buy evolves, your value proposition and value creation evolves, competitors and customers raise the bar. What worked a few years ago, may not be the most effective now?
If you don’t have a sales process, then you already know you aren’t performing at the highest levels possible. In fact there is huge room for improvement! Put together a team of your highest performers, lock them in a room for a couple of days, do some analysis. develop an initial cut of your process–making sure it satisfies all five conditions. Roll it out, use it for six months, then tune it based on your experience.
If you have a good sales process in place and you aren’t using it, shame on you! If you want to be a top performer, you have to use everything you can, you have to maximize your performance. The sales process is the biggest lever a sales professional has to improving performance.
Do I have the right five? I think so, but I’d love your views. Remember, I’m arbitrary, I’m not interested in six, seven or more condition, I am only interested in the top five. What are your thoughts?
Learning From Our Subordinates
One of the key roles of any leader or executive is to teach, coach, develop our people. Our people are all too eager to learn from our experience, to learn what we did to be successful, as well as to learn what mistakes we may have made, so they can avoid them.
“Teaching,” whether formally or through coaching or mentoring is a privilege for any executive. It’s a powerful way, not only to work on specific skills development, but to pass along values, to build the culture, to provide our people a broader context in which to position their contributions. In growing our people, it’s our number one responsibility.
But often, we forget another key component of teaching/coaching/mentoring our people. We forget the tremendous value we get in learning from them.
Today, I’ve been carrying on a couple of email conversations. One with a sales manager in the Far East, another with a sales person in the Midwest. With each, it became clear a telephone conversation would be valuable. But each was reluctant to ask me to invest some time in it–not sure if there was a “business outcome” for me. While I appreciate their sensitivity to my revenue generation, I told each, that I really value these conversations and learn a lot from them. Each was overly humble in replying, “I can’t possibly imagine what you can learn from me.”
Learning–whether it is formal or through coaching or mentoring is really two ways. I know what I can share as a sales executive or consultant — what people, whether they are sales people in my organization or clients, can learn from me. But the value we get from them teaching us can never be over-stated.
It’s an opportunity for any executive to learn what’s really happening in the organization and the world. We get the privilege to talk to people who are struggling to implement our strategies, to achieve the goals we have set, and who help make us successful. We get an unfiltered view of what’s really happening–not the sterile numbers or text that may be in a report, but the context, emotions, and color commentary on what’s really happening.
We get much more than that. For example, in the email conversations I was having with these two individuals, they were asking questions differently than had been posed before. Each was asking about prospecting, demand generation, and sales process, but they expressed the questions a little differently–the questions were challenging and caused me to really think about my response. They gave me the opportunity to look at what I thought I already knew, but to look at it a little differently.
The questions didn’t cause me to change my mind or point of view. They didn’t create an “A-HA” moment, but they caused me to reflect and think about the appropriate response. They forced me to consider something I thought I knew, but from a slightly different point of view. It was something I could learn from.
Often, it’s the naive questions we may get from our subordinates. We tend to think everyone understands things the same way we do, that just because it’s something we “get,” that everyone else does as well. Then you encounter a sincere, but naive question, that causes you to sit back and realize you’ve been alone, that others simply may not get it.
Or, like any human being, we beome blind. We don’t see what everyone else sees, we become a little disconnected from what’s really happening. The questions and discussions with our subordinates or people deep in our organization are often a giant wake up call–but only if we are open to learning.
I, along with others, write often about how critical it is for executives and leaders to teach, coach, and mentor their people. Almost always, we focus on the importance of it in developing our people and helping them perform at the highest levels.
One of the greatest values of teaching, coaching, and mentoring is what we learn from the person we are coaching. It helps us grow and to perform at even higher levels. When you are coaching, don’t cheat yourself of the opportunity to learn from those who you are coaching—that may be where the greatest value lies.
Before You Pick Up The Phone!
I’m constantly amazed at the calls I get. People calling me, with little idea about who I am, what I do, what my company does. I see this from sophisticated people in large organizations to those people dialing for dollars.
Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not my ego speaking, but I’m a really easy person to research. Do a Google query, a lot of stuff about me pops up to the top or near the top. In LinkedIn, there’s a complete profile with links to my blog, my company’s web site, and twitter. So it’s really easy to find out about me and to be prepared to engage me in a conversation.
I’m not alone. It’s easy to get insight for virtually everyone — or at least their company. A Google query, LinkedIn, Facebook–these are just starting points.
If we are trying to connect with our prospects, if we are trying to engage them or maximize the impact of each call we make, before you pick up the phone, do some basic research. On every call I make, even to people I know very well, I have at least two screens open on my computer, the person’s LinkedIn profile and their company’s website. With some, I may have other information available. Having that insight at my fingertips enables me to accomplish more in each call.
The reverse works, as well. When I get a call from someone I don’t know, I do two things–I bring up their LinkedIn profile and their company’s website. I quickly skim them to get some measure of them and what they do. It’s important to understand how credible they are.
Realize, the people you are calling are doing this with you. If you don’t have a current LinkedIn profile, you are immediately disadvantaged. If your company doesn’t have a web presence, you may be discounted as not credible.
Selling is tough! It’s incumbent on every sales professional to be as prepared as possible. When we get through to a prospect, we want to maximize our impact. The more we know about the individuals and companies we call, the more effective we can be. We want to be as credible as possible when we reach our prospects. Our “social” presence and that of our prospects are critical tools to enhance our productivity and impact.
Before you pick up the phone, make sure you have your prospect’s LinkedIn profile and website in front of you.
When you get a call, immediately bring up the profile of the person who is calling and their company’s website.
