If you have managed to maintain your sales volume and customer base during the past 14 months, I say well done! If business has been down or you feel like you have taken a beating during a weak economy, make sure you have not weakened your approach to opportunities.
Here are a few reminders to keep you selling from a strength position.
Remember Who You Are - You are not your sales. You are the person who helps customers make quality decisions and push through their uncertainty to act. You can be confident in that fact day in and day out.
Qualify Strong - Don't let yourself fall into the trap of "trying" to win every opportunity that crosses your path. You might need to say "no" to more opportunities today to allow you time to find the customers who prefer to buy from companies like yours. This will also allow you to have more time to do a better job at selling than your competition.
Add and Re-sell Your Value - Add unexpected value to your current customers and make sure they understand that it is why they choose to do business with you. Also, ask them why they continue to do business with you and your company. This will help both you and your customer recommit to what is important to them.
It can be very easy to fall back to order taking and slave selling (doing whatever they ask, good or bad), in hopes of winning a deal. Don't do it. Challenge poor buying practices. Remember, you want to practice consultative selling. Be the consultant your customers rely on.
If you have sales reps spinning their wheels, pumping out proposals but not closing an acceptable percentage of business, they might need some help with qualifying and managing the sales process. In order to manage your sales people easily and effectively, you need to clarify expectations and build in some accountability steps.
Here are five ways to improve sales efforts by improving skills to qualify prospects and build accountability into sales processes.
Clarify and document your qualifiers. Make sure you define and document who a qualified prospect is for your business. As an example, I have listed the following criteria I use to qualify my clients:
• Small privately owned business
• 1-4 sales people
• B2B selling model
• Does not have a dedicated sales manager
• There is a market for the product and services that are being sold
• The company is willing to invest in infrastructure with growth in sales
• Owners are willing to use an outsourced resource
In addition, require your reps to document to their manager how each prospect they pursue meets these requirements before they move forward. You can build the qualifiers into a Discovery Form.
Use a Discovery Form that will outline what a rep needs to know to qualify the prospect and build their Letter of Understanding. To learn more about a Discovery Form and download a sample click here.
Add a Letter of Understanding to your process. The Letter of Understanding will document that the rep understands the prospects current situation, their goals, needs and problems, and what the next steps in the sales process should be. The prospect will confirm that the rep has it right. The manager will now have a tool that lets them know their rep has a viable prospect and is planning the sales process as the company prefers. (Sample Letter of Understanding)
Require completion of Discovery Form and Letter of Understanding before proceeding to a presentation. This step builds in a true accountability step versus leaving it up to the sales reps opinion of when to move things along.
Make sure the reps understand and buy into a consultative sales process. If a rep has a lot of activity and not a lot of results, they may have been taught selling through the "show and tell" method versus a consultative approach. Show and tell reps are always trying to push their ideas, features and benefits onto a customer (anybody and everybody) in hopes of winning them over. The consultative rep understands the value of qualifying and discovery and will be more patient land that will lead to more sales.
The idea is to build real accountability into the sales process and stop reps from showing and telling. Some reps will have a resistance to new processes, but if they understand the value and how it will help them, they will begin to use the tools and the quality of opportunities will be improved.
Business relationships are no different than personal relationships. Things can go awry when we take things for granted, become less appreciative or neglect the details that first built the strong relationship. When a competitive large sales opportunity presents itself with an existing client or customer an easy trap to fall into is, trusting your key contact (the one with the strong relationship) to do your selling for you.
When you are servicing an account, making small or average sales you will tend to work with the same person for all the buying decisions. You build a strong relationship and there is trust being built. When a new system or major purchase is being considered it is easy to continue selling to the same person you always have in the past, trusting them to do your selling up. This usually happens for a couple of reasons. One; you are getting good vibes; they are saying they will recommend you and two; it is sometimes awkward to work around them to their boss and peers.
On the other hand, the competitor is going straight to the top to sell down, instead of up. If they get to the top level and convince them of their value, your years of relationship can be in serious jeopardy. You obviously don't want this to happen, so I recommend the following sales tips to prevent losing what should be yours.
- Do your job. Remember you have a job to do, not just a relationship to build. As a sales professional we are there to help buyers make quality decisions, hopefully in our favor. If there are new buyers with authority to make a larger purchase they deserve to hear from you so they can make a quality decision just as your regular contact has in the past.
- Don't take anything for granted. Every buying decision must be justified. Never let the past be the justification for a new buying decision. Perform your quality discovery and present a solid ROI. Don't let the "good feeling" from your solid relationship cause you to take a short cut.
- Don't get bogged in technology and features. When you are servicing an account you will tend to discuss features and technology more as the buyer is already sold on the strategic advantage of doing so. When a larger purchase is in play and new buyers are involved, make sure you are talking about their strategic objectives and how your offering will help them solve their high level problems. Talking tech or features to higher level buyers will weaken your sales position.
- Take the lead. You don't need permission from your long term contact to do your job. Lead them in a way that makes them look like a champion for doing business all the years that they have.
When things are comfortable it is easy to fall asleep on the job. If you approach each sale as if you were winning it away from your competitor you will stay sharp, serve your customer and preserve a strong relationship for the future.
Are you building a sales career or living or dying by your next deal? Tiger Woods is working toward a career objective, and as we saw Sunday at the PGA Tournament, things don't always go as planned. In sales we don't close every deal but we do have a response to every outcome.
Your response to your wins and losses will either bring you closer to your career objectives or further away.Your response can be considered part of the career sales process.
Tiger understands winning 19 major PGA tournaments is a career objective. Some years he will win 1-4 and others years none at all. No matter what the result, each year he works to get better. He responds by finding ways to improve and avoids wallowing in his losses or basking in his wins.
During these last 12 months I have not witnessed record selling numbers by my clients, but I have witnessed quality individuals focused on getting better. These sales professionals are building a career, and when the market changes they will be positioned to set records.
Don't let yourself complain when things aren't going your way. Assess how you might do things better, different or more creatively then pick up a club and take your next shot. Sometimes, a change isn't necessary, just simply keep showing up and doing what you need to do, the results will come.
There was a time when leading the sales process was very easy as buyers depended on salespeople to be the expert. Today, buyers are much more educated and informed and will at times tend to lead the sales process themselves, but don't let it happen.
As a Service-Minded salesperson you are there to lead buyers through the sales process and help them make a quality decision related to your offering. Leading does not mean controlling; there is a difference between the two. When leading, you allow the buyer to follow. When controlling you leave them no choice. Buyers like choices.
Here are five key areas you want to lead buyers into discovering or confirming.
- What problem they are solving or goal they are attaining that will support their company initiatives and plans.
- What their decision making criteria is.
- How any solution matches with their goals and criteria.
- They are convinced of the value and return on their investment.
- They are convinced and comfortable working with you.
It is the salespersons responsibility to help them understand these five areas.
So how are you doing at leading? If you want to take a quick look, answer the questions below.
- Are you assuming leadership of the sales process?
- Do you explain your process up front and get the buyers buy-in on following it?
- Are you willing to walk from companies that will not allow you to lead or follow a good process?
- When you receive fluffy, surface answers to tough business questions do you settle or ask a deeper question?
- Do you ever deliver or present your solution without confirming that the buyers understand the value tied to their problems, goals or vision?
- Do you accept when you are told you will not be meeting with decision makers, or do you sell them on why you need to?
- Do you let your good feelings about the deal or conversations cause you to take short cuts in your process?
Being a Service-Minded sales person does not mean you will win every deal you are involved in, but it does mean you will help your buyer be very clear about the value you offer and follow a quality buying process. To do this will require leadership.
We are selling in a different time. In general I have heard these trends. Decisions are being delayed, pricing is more scrutinized and in general decision makers are not as decisive. This all leads to a longer selling cycle. For a Small Business Sales Team this can be an anxious time.
It does not mean you will sell less over time, it does mean you might experience a short term down turn. You probably have time on your hands that used to be filled with closing activity. What should you do?
Lets cover what you should and should not do.
- » Don’t spend all your time trying to close a deal that is on a delay.
- » Do adjust your follow up appropriately to be ready to close when they are ready to buy.
- » Don’t assume people are not interested in buying.
- » Do prospect more than you did last year to find the buyers and be prepared to make up for any current lull.
- » Don’t assume what worked last year will work this year.
- » Make sure you are educating buyers thoroughly and provide your best ROI justifications.
- » Don’t get sucked into negative talk.
- » Be a positive light through this time, people will remember you.
- » Don’t assume your pricing will work.
- » See what your vendors can do for you so you can adjust pricing to clients.
Those who work harder and smarter today will be okay and prepare themselves for a bonanza once things start flowing again.