Wednesday 30 October 2013

Which Will You Feed...

Theres are old story that goes:

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’

The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

Have you ever stopped to consider what behaviours you exhibit in sales?  Some are positive behaviours we should promote, others aren't and should be demoted.

Positive behaviours which promote growth include:
  • Positive attitude -staying focused on the successess and win rather than failures.  Visualising success rather than expecting failure
  • Accountability - owning both the successes and failures in sales - being accountable to your outcomes
  • Responsibility - being responsible for deliverables and seeing things through.
  • Honesty - being true to yourself and others. 
  • Respect - treating others appropriately and as you'd like to be treated. 
Behaviours that can create negative and devisive environment include (and are unsurprisingly the opposite of the above):
  • Blame - placing respnsibility for your actions or inactions on others
  • Justification - balancing your actions or inactions against those of others
  • Resistance - fighting back against others and their ideas
  • Denial - refusing to see your part in failures (or successes)
  • Put Down - Either bringing others down to your level to have a group or doing so to seemingly elevate yourself
  • Rejection - dismissing others and their ideas
In sales, these negative behaviours are simple traps and, once the emotions are fed, can quickly become consuming for you and, often, those around you.  For example - you miss a big deal and it can be easy to blame others (including your client), justify why you didn't win (your competitor was cheaper) and a host of the other emotions.

Often it is easier to err towards the negative as sometimes the positive takes more effort

This doesn't just play out in sales either - it's true in life in general

Which Do You Feed? 

Are You Match Fit?

Sports team practice their game plans consistently before a match until they are etched in the players minds and muscle memory. 

They study their opponents to get a gauge on how they can be beat them. 

Then, on the day of the game, all bets are off.  The best laid game plan can quickly be cast aside and opponents may surprise you by deviating from previous form and tactics. 

What saves good teams is being prepared and, more importantly, quickly able to assess that their game plan isn't working and drop it in lieu of a better one mid-game. 

Sales isn't any different.  All the practice and research in the world can mean very little once you're sitting in front of a client.  Each client is different - the people are different, their circumstances are different.  In fact, even working with the same client can be a different experience each time.

There are no silver bullets in sales - no one strategy, process or verbage that works every time.  Working your way through the sales process requires preparation and an ability to talk to, understand and adapt to your client throughout the meeting.

Many let themselves down because they stick unerringly to their game plan - not deviating from it despite a clients non-response (tele-marketing can be a great example of this).

An example - I got called recently from a business trying to sell subscriptions to our local newspaper.  They asked, in a scripted fashion, did I read the paper, how often et al.  They then asked how I read the paper - to which I replied 'online'.  They then tried to sell me a subscription?!?!  My response to them was 'unless you intend to pay me to read the paper, why would I subscribe as it's currently free?' - to which I received silence and, eventually, a disconnected line.  Why did this happen?  Surely in this day and age, that DM firm could reasonably expect online to be a valid channel some would be reading the paper.  What failed them was most likely a pre-determined view that their target market was people who bought the paper casually (ie at the service station) but regularly.  Not those who read online. 

Sales training is just that, training - it doesn't mean you're match fit.  Just like sport, running around on the practice field seems a long way away after you receive the first tackle in a real game.  Selling is the best practice for selling.

Like sport, there's only one real way to get match fit - and that's to start playing.  Also, staying match fit means playing regularly.

Are you match fit for sales?

Monday 7 October 2013

Your Customers' Customer?

Sometimes in sales something unique can happen - you view your customer through the same eyes that they view you.  
Do you think about this when you're talking with a prospect?  You should.

In large companies, your supplier list can be a great source of prospects - have you ever viewed this?  You should

As a relationship manager, do you know if your clients are suppliers to your business?  You should
As a relationship manager, do you know whether your clients views you as a prospect and wants to do business with your business?  You should

As a sales person, do you connect your prospects with your business where appropriate to discuss their products/services?  You should

You should remain open to the thought of whether you prospect/client could do business with you as much as you doing business with them.

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Client/Supplier Relationships - Exploring the Client Side of the Supplier Equation

With experience, broadly speaking there are 5 types of client/supplier relationships:
  1. We Love Each Other
  2. We Love Them
  3. We Don't Love Them, But You're All The Same
  4. We Don't Love Them At All
  5. We Don't Have One
Looking at what each means from a sales perspective:

We Love Each Other

This is a difficult sales road and you'll usually find your most desired prospects in this space (and your top existing clients should sit here as well).  These are customers whose supplier is a partnership - enscounced in their business providing more than just product/services - but helping the business proactively, supporting the business.

Of course, things change, here you spend time trying to get to know them, where they're going and endeavouring to add value on the way waiting for a catalyst to deepen your relationship. 

As this is the type of loyalty you wish to engender with your top clients, you need to respect that loyalty and be the top of the list in the event something changes.  Sales here tend to be long term - relationship and trust based.

Success here is getting to talk to them and regular contact.  A very good client won't even let you in the door - seeing you suggests they're open to maintaining a relationship but doesn't give you the right to hard sell.

We Don't Love Them At All

At the other end you have the entirely mobile clients - those who have signalled their desire to move.  Here you need to be careful.  A good client will seldom find themselves in this space unless something has seriously decoupled in their relationship with their supplier.

You need to determine if this is due to an issue with the supplier or the business.  You do run the risk of inheriting another suppliers problem if you don't scope what the dissatisfaction is about.  This process is often compounded by the fact that clients in this type of position typically wish to move quickly.

Sell cautiously here and make sure you understand what is driving the need for change or dissatisfaction.

We Don't Have One

Some sales people have a unique job - selling a process or service to a client where they don't have an incumbent supplier in this space or, while they do, what you offer is a seachange in process/product/service to them.

Here, sales becomes more about education.  People typically like what they know.  Cloud and SaaS are an example where, despite being around for a while now, some clients are only just accepting them as an option for their business. 

This becomes a strong conversation - not just about cost/time savings, but other internal issues and objections like fear of the unknown, business risks etc.  Testimonial clients are an invaluable source of influence here - especially if your testimonial is from a client who was similarly minded.

Now we're in to the last two types.  This client type and the next are by far and away the most enjoyable to work with when you're on the top of your sales game

We Don't Love Them, But You'll All The Same

'Ouch' says the sales person.  Unfortunately as a good sales person or company, you can be measured by a clients poor experience.  Industries where there is a 'neccessary evil' to the relationship (eg Accounting, Insurance, Banking/Finance) lend themselves to this.  A poor experience becomes normal for a client and they learn to accept it - worse, they assume ALL other providers of the same service/product are similar - so why change.

Selling here is about proving them wrong.  Demonstrating to them the relationship they should be getting.  This isn't about saying it - no doubts they're heard all the rhetoric before (which makes things worse!).  It is about doing it - showing them.  Show them your clients who have benefited from your relationship, show them what you can do for them.  Actions, in this case, certainly do speak louder than words.

We Love Them

The subtle difference from the last one and this one, is above the client knew the relationship wasn't special - here the client thinks they have a great relationship with their supplier, but you know it is less than optimal.

How do you tell them they're wrong?  Again, you show them.  For many clients here - the issue is their definition of a 'great relationship'.  Like the above, often this frame of reference is limited by prior experience. 

Take a PowerCo for example and ask a client.  Most people will have an ambivilent relationship with their company.  Good service to them is the power stays on and the bill isn't stupid.  Sound like you?  How many times in the past 5 years has your power company rung you to suggest they could optimise your bill as they think you're on the wrong plan - heck, this now sounds familiar.  Some have started doing this haven't they?

Selling here is about showing them what they don't know they should be getting.  Resetting their expectation of a great relationship - helping them realise the supplier equation was unbalanced and they were being under serviced. 

Questions To Ask Yourself

With Your Prospects - knowing how they think about their current supplier, how should I adapt my sales process?

There is no surprise, how well you like working with a client directly affects the above - so when prospecting ask yourself - will we love working together?

With Your Clients - what do they think about us and is this what we want them to think?

You Sold What? To Who?

Many years ago, I encountered this Dilbert cartoon:

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-01-11/

It constantly reminds us of the continual balancing act that is undertaken in sales.  There is a great need to show good value to a client to both justify their decision to work with you (and overcome inertia where change is needed) and the price you're charging them.  At the same time, you are making promises that set expectations (a rod) that you and/or your company/colleagues need to deliver at some point post sale (your back).

It is important to match a deep understanding of your own capabilities, those of your colleagues/company against a deep understanding of the client.

A deep understanding of the client is important as, whilst your product/service may actually do what you say it does, you client mightn't be in a position to actually use/benefit from it.  In which case, you've still oversold the client and they've potentially paid for value that they can't realise.  An example is providing customers with complex products/services that should benefit their business, but not actually teaching them how to use them properly (a smart competitor can often use this to their benefit!).

Never be fearful of indicating to a client that what they have now is a great offer or that 'we'd love to work with you, but there's certain aspects of your requirements we can't deliver on at the moment'. 

At least, if you didn't win them, but exited graciously, you have a chance to secure them when you can fulfil their needs and your promises.

There is only one thing worse than not winning that client - and that is having to face them every day knowing, as a sales professional, you let them down by over-promising what you could do or failing to deliver that promise.