Increase Your Win Ratio: Get to the Executive Sponsor

“Great. When do we get started?” are words you love to hear from a customer. But, if you’re not hearing these words often enough or if feedback from customers leaves you shaking your head because you were sure your proposal fully met with the customer’s objectives — at least as you understood them — then it may be time to elevate your customer conversations.

Deals are lost for a variety of reasons: better fit by the competitor’s product, stronger relationships, a more creative solution, cost, customer delays … Customer delays are cropping up more and more often. Certainly the economy is playing a role, but to commit, customers need more information. The problem is that much of the time the executive who will ultimately make the buying decision does not have convincing information because he or she is not involved in the process until decision time. When the executive is invisible or inaccessible until decision time, it is highly probable you won’t have reflected his or her strategic vision and therefore your solution isn’t compelling enough for him/her to commit the budget.

While your line contacts are a tremendous source of information, they often provide a technical vs. strategic perspective. The answer to this problem is to get to executives early in the process. While this is challenging, it is doable.

To Gain Access to the Executive Sponsor
Your daily contact for the opportunity and/or your client coach is most likely the person who can help you get to the executive. Ask them to help you gain access. Build relationships with them and demonstrate how you will create value for the organization. Ask them to help you gain access. Position benefits and how in your experience this kind of meeting has been received favorably by executives as an indication of commitment. Always make it clear to your contact that he or she would be part of the executive meeting.

Maximize Your Meeting with the Executive
To make the absolute most of the meeting, bridge from your meeting with your daily contact:
 Thank the executive for meeting with you, giving credit/showing appreciation to your contact for helping you understand the objectives of the initiative.
 Ask if the executive sponsor if he or she would like a brief background on your organization (and if so, provide a two minute or so overview). Check if he/she has any questions before you begin).
 State that your purpose is to gain a full understanding of the executive’s vision and position your understanding of the objectives (1 minute); for example, “I understand the objectives of the initiative are …”Would you like to add to this or provide any information or background? (They usually do!)“

Ask strategic questions (not rehash the technical information you already have gotten from your contact) and take notes judiciously and spend three quarters of your meeting time here.
 What is driving this initiative at this time?
 What do you see as the current strengths you’re building on?
 What is the end result you’re looking to achieve?
 What are the emerging needs and demands of your customers that are served in this initiative?
 What do you see as the challenge in implementing/reinforcing this initiative?
 What is most important to you?


Begin to Create Value by Positioning/Planting the Seed:
 Show you can help create value by offering relevant industry insight or information on what him/her competitors are doing (without breaching confidentiality).
 Take a few minutes to give an overview of how your organization can meet the objectives. Position broad ideas of your approach and a success story. Check if executive has any questions and for feedback.
 If you think there are additional ideas you’d like the executive to consider that were not mentioned in the RFP or as a part of the initiative, ask about that, but of course have cleared the idea this with your contact.

Follow up:
 Debrief with your contact.
 Send thank you e-mails.
 Enter data into your CRM.
 Use data from your notes to further customize your proposal with the strategic vision.

Executive Dialogue Model
 Introduction
– Thank executive.
– Compliment opportunity contact.
– State purpose.
– Ask if the executive would like a brief overview of your company.
– Briefly summarize your understanding of the objectives/check.

 Strategic Conversation
– Ask if the Executive wants to provide any background or add to the objectives before you ask questions.
– Ask your prepared strategic questions, use acknowledgment, drill down, and take notes judiciously.

 Begin to Create Value — Position an Overview of Your Capabilities
– Show you can help create value. For example, offer relevant industry insight or information on what his/her competitors are doing (without breaching confidentiality).
– Customize your broad ideas to the objectives shored by the executive.
– Ask for feedback.

 Follow up
– Debrief with your contact.
– Send thank you e-mails.
– Enter data into CRM.
– Integrate strategic needs/language into your proposal.

Best Practice Tip
To raise your win ratio, identify and get to executive-level decision makers as early as possible.

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Getting Paid for Out of Control Projects

It could be the result of a miscalculation on your part in pricing the project, a misunderstanding on the part of the customer, etc. but particularly in complex situations, development and delivery costs can spiral out of control exceeding your contractual agreements. Especially when the relationship is new, you may be hesitant to approach your customer to ask for more money than initially agreed. Overruns in scope are common. Getting paid for them is not so common.

The things you have in your favor are that most customers know when costs are spiraling upwards particularly when the overruns are caused by their changes, delays, or demands and many will try to be fair. But understandably most customers will sit back and wait to see what you will do.

While of course, it is very important to catch the overrun early and to prepare your data for the meeting with your customer, the most important thing you can do to stop scope creep is to address it with your customer as soon as you are aware of it. Earlier is better. Later can take away much of your collection leverage but in reality later is legitimate too.

One thing for sure is that if you don’t ask, you won’t get paid. If you ask, you’ll have a good chance of succeeding. And you can stem the tide of continued overruns.

In seeking payment for out of scope work, you’ll need all of your negotiating skills, starting with your preparation and confidence. Make sure you know the customer’s perception including level of satisfaction and where he/she thinks things stand. If there is new or conflicting information, you may need time to go back and prepare your response. Meet with your customer face-to-face if at all possible. Lay out the situation and cost, make your request, and be silent. If your customer resists, acknowledge neutrally, probe, and make a second effort.

Oh, and don’t be surprised if you don’t need to make a second effort. One salesperson was pleasantly surprised after he set up a meeting to discuss the status of the project. When he met with the customer, the customer preempted him by saying, “OK, Jonathan, I’ve been waiting for this. What’s the number?” It was a big one and the salesperson got paid.

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Learn about Richardson's comprehensive sales training and performance improvement solutions.

Sales Transformation

88% of companies are seeking to transform!

Before you train your sales team - assess your talent and sales process. Determine the strategies and tools to embed into your system to sustain the new learning. Then, customize your training to your business.

Questions to ask:

• Is your sales process clear and effective?



• Are the right people in the right roles?



• Is your training customized to your strategy?



• What sustainment strategies and tools do you have in place to support coaching and embed process and skills into the work stream where it will be used daily?



• What financial and customer metrics do you have in place?



• Is your training preparing your salesforce to execute your new strategy?



• Are your sales managers super salespeople or coaches?

Best Presenters’ Best Practices

Congratulations! You learned you are a finalist! You know with a few real opportunities, it’s important to win every possible deal. Just as the solution you recommend is a critical factor in winning or losing, so is your presentation.

Best Presenters’ Best Practices:

• Don’t wing it! Practice, practice, practice. Ask for feedback from your manager and team members. If it is a team presentation, practice with your team.



• Assign roles and stick to them.
  


• Make it easy for your customer to say yes:

Link your recommendations to your customer’s priority objectives — in priority order.

Incorporate the customer’s language and needs on every slide and page.

Make it a “you” presentation (meaning the customer) vs. “We will do this … we will do that … we offer.” (Meaning your company presentation. Count the you’s when you practice.)

Leverage your internal client coach (hopefully, you have developed one) to validate what you plan to present and tweak before the presentation.

• Schedule yourself for the last presentation slot so your recommendations are fresh in the customer’s minds. By presenting last, you won’t educate your customers for your competitors and you’ll leverage what the customer knows and does not know.
  


• Review a bulleted agenda and check if it meets the customer’s expectations and ask where the customer wants emphasis.



• Create an interactive presentation by checking for questions throughout. Seek a 70% (you) and 30% (customer) mix of dialogue.

Every time you make a major point, ask the customers what questions they have. This will enable you to adjust as you go.

• Pause for a second after you make major points. For example, “Over two years we achieved savings of 35%, which means …” Pause and give your customer time to let the important points sink in! Use the Period Pause by maintaining silence for a second.



• Use concise, impressive examples to bring your ideas to life. Instead of just saying, “Our system allows for X,” give a quick, specific example and check for questions. Examples increase your credibility and make what you say memorable. Without examples, your best selling points can fall flat.
  


• Incoorporate your custom’s logo, color …



• Use your presentation materials to support, not “make,” your presentation

Put a heading on the top of each slide or page, but don’t stop there.

Say “hello” to each new screen/page with a lead-in to help prepare customers. For example, rather than immediately beginning to discuss the content of the screen or page, say something such as, “Let’s now look at impressive results.”

Say “goodbye” to each slide to help your customers keep track with you with a quick benefit summary.

Although you should invite questions throughout, after your final summary, check for remaining questions. “The bottom line is, within six months you would benefit by …” “What questions do you have …”

Use and refer to sections and page numbers.

In preparing your materials, look at your material to make sure it is not crowded. Leave space and use bullets. Count your slides — one every three minutes is the maximum for most presentations.

Visit Richardson at http://www.richardson.com/ to learn more about Richardson's comprehensive sales training and performance improvement solutions.

Coaching Best Practices and Tips

You are likely out in the field more often with your salespeople. Here are some coaching best practices and tips to help you make the most of your team calls and use even limited post sales call time as a learning lab through coaching. After each call, along with discussing next steps and strategy, select one area of the call and coach to it.

Preparation: How prepared was the salesperson? How well did he or she prepare you?
- Briefed you for the call.
- Provided a copy of the sales call plan/agenda at least a day before the call to you.
- Requested a copy of sale call plan/agenda at least a day before the call.
- Used Social Media tools to research customers/prospects to help connect?
- Developed rapport topics/questions based on previous call notes and research.
- Included personal information in CRM along with business information?
- Use contacts such as receptionists, assistants, colleagues to gain personal insight to customer.

Opening
- Built rapport.
- Leveraged preparation.
- Recapped agenda and checked if it met client's expectations.
- Transition to Need Dialogue.

Need Dialogue
- Started with broader need questions - Why is customer doing X vs. getting details on X.
- Prefaced questions with reason/benefit to customer to encourage more open responses.
- Listened for and probed vague words, and picked up on words underscored to probe further.
- Took notes of key words, ideas, concerns, and personal data.
- Probed needs fully before asking about competitors, decision process, compelling event, time frame, and budget.


Solution Dialogue
- Customized your capabilities/solution to the customer's needs - addressed customer's priorities.
- Tied solution to the customer's business objectives/demonstrate measurable value.
-Provided success story/example to bring to life.
- Added value through insights/new ideas.
- Positioned alternatives when needed.
- Used customer's language.
- Clearly presented the solution/recommendation.
- Checked for customer feedback.

Objections
- Acknowledged concerns.
- Expressed empathy when customer's feelings were involved.
- Clarified the objective by asking for specifics. Didn't make assumptions.
- Customized capabilities/benefits to resolve the specific objection.
- Checked for agreement or understanding.

Action Close
- Summarized with benefits.
- Asked for action step that is tied to your call objective.
- Made a Second Effort by acknowledging and probing.
- Reinforced rapport to end on a personal note.

Follow-up
- Sent follow-up thank-you/recap e-mail.
- Entered data to CRM.
- Debriefed with team.
- Planned steps to maintain momentum.
- Followed up promptly.

Remember when you coach:


Coaching vs. Telling
- Ask for salesperson's perceptions before you give your feedback.
- Drill down and probe to help salespeople analyze their performance and take responsibility.
- Don't just talk about what to do differently - practice!
- Balance your feedback with strengths and areas for improvement.

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To learn more about Richardson's comprehensive sales training, consulting and sales coaching solutions, please visit us on the web at www.richardson.com

10 Ways to Increase Your Close Ratio — Now

Start by knowing your personal close ratio and that of your organization:

 Top performing companies — 46% average close ratio
 Average — 29% average close ratio
 Lagging — 19% average close ratio

1) Spend more time probing and less time pitching.
 Focus on the “why” questions, not just the “what.”
 If the customer wants to streamline systems, ask WHY before what to find the business driver.

2) Identify the decision criteria and don’t stop there – probe who developed it and why it’s important.

3)Ask who the competitors are, what their solutions include, and then ask the tough questions to find out how the customer feels you compare to the competitor.

4) Be more responsive than ever before — when a client asks for something, find out when he or she needs it and beat that time frame.

5) Find ways to take the load off the customer. For example, if he or she says “Let’s set a phone call to…” not only set the phone call but have a document ready to e-mail during the call to advance the discussion. Take an extra two steps.

6) Get coaching. Discuss the deal with your sales manager or a top performing colleague. Do this early in the deal. Mid to late in the deal will likely be too late.

7) Review your needs analysis and proposal with your manager.

8) Connect personally. The #1 reason a customer buys is the relationship with the salesperson. What do you know about your customers? How do you feel about them? It’s likely reciprocated.

9)Identify your customer’s quantifiable goals and provide solutions that show value. Show customers how your solution will help them achieve their goals.

10) Supplement your understanding of why you lost a deal or won it by asking your manager to have a win-loss debriefing after the customer tells you about his/her decision. Then be open to specific feedback your manager shares with you and use it to win your next deal.

Set a reasonable goal with a time frame for increasing your close ratio by putting these ten practices to work.

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Learn more about Richardson's sales training and perofrmance improvement solutions by visiting us on the web at http://www.richardson.com

Richardson's SalesCallPlanner Nominated for Best Sales Tool

Richardson's SalesCallPlanner has been nominated for a 2010 Sales Award as best Sales Tool. Gaining votes has been an interesting exercise in leveraging Social Media.

Hope you can vote for us. Please click here to vote for the "SalesCallPlanner"

Being Invincible

This past Wednesday and Thursday, October 13-14, 2010 Richardson held our 4th annual Client Forum the Sofitel Hotel in Philadelphia. It was an exciting day with over 75 clients, partners and staff in attendance. The primary theme was how a high impact learning culture is a proven business driver in today's changed business environment. David Mallon of Bersin & Associates and Peter Ostraw of Aberdeen Group were the key note presenters. Both David and Peter shared insights, data and practices that support the notion of how an organization's culture impacts business results in a direct and predictable manner. Numerous clients, including Mary Slaughter, CLO of Sun Trust Bank shared best practices and success stories of how they transformed their sales cultures to positively impact results and differentiate their organizations from the competition. On Wednesday evening our dinner reception at Amada was a great time, with our guest speaker Vince Papale, former Philadelphia Eagle and subject of Disney's movie "Invincible," inspiring the group with his heart felt and brutally honest words. His authenticity was evident to all. Vince spoke of his incredible million to one odds of making the NFL team's roster as a 30 year old unemployed school teacher who had played only one year of high school football.

I was particularly moved when Vince spoke of the moment he was standing on the field in Veteran's Stadium in 1976 for the "open to the public" try out with hundreds of others, all with the dream to be a Philadelphia Eagle. He shared with us that he wanted when given this opportunity, he wasn't going to waste it. He certainly didn't! What struck me was how relevant Vince's comment was to those of us in business today - when given the opportunity to succeed, be sure you seize it!

I believe that in order to seize your opportunity in today's environment, you must extensively prepare to succeed and when your chance to shine arrives, be sure you remain authentic (i.e be yourself), demonstrate your knowledge of your client's needs, show your conviction to your client's success and let none of your competition stop you. In other words, be Invincible.

I'd like to thank each of our clients and prospects for your commitment to Richardson, your attendance at this year's event and for your participation and contribution. Hope to see you all again in Philadlephia again next year.

Transforming Sales Organizations: Complimentary Webinar

Improvement happens...when the right changes are made. Please join presenter David DiStefano, President & CEO of Richardson, during this interactive, 60-minute webinar in which you will learn:
- the meaning of "sales transformation"
- why there is a need for transformation
- why transforming NOW will set you up for success
- the "what, where, and how" of successful transformations
- best practices that Senior Executives of industry-leading organizations have implemented to transform their teams.

Date: June 22, 2010
Time: 11:00 am eastern time

Click the following to register today: https://richardson.webex.com/richardson/onstage/g.php?p=3&t=m

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Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions by visiting our web site at www.richardson.com

Sales Training Resolving Objections

Transforming the Sales Organization

Richardson President and CEO David DiStefano will be moderating a session entitled Transforming the Sales Organization at Selling Power's Sales Leadership Conference on April 19, 2010 at the Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas.

The past 18 months have uncovered significant sales performance challenges that were previously overlooked — from ineffective sales processes and lack of operational efficiencies to the skills and talent required to be successful. David DiStefano will be moderating an interactive panel discussion with Larissa Chaikowsky of BMO, Jennifer Hammonds of WellPoint, Allison Kerska of Kelly Services, Matthew Serynek of SunGard, and Tim Weyland of Trinet. David will lead this highly experienced group in an open discussion on the importance of transforming sales organizations to effectively compete in business in 2010 and beyond. The group will address the vital elements of the sales function, including structure, processes, and talent development, to help better equip sales organizations with the capabilities needed to optimize revenue impact and operating effectiveness.

The Sales Leadership Conference is the premier event for Senior Sales Leaders. Attendees of this event will spend the day networking with colleagues, sharing best practices, and sharpening management and leadership skills.

Click here for more information or to register for the conference.

About Richardson

Richardson (http://www.richardson.com) is a global sales training and performance improvement company that helps leading organizations improve sales results. We do this in three ways. We analyze the structure and talent of your sales force, we train and develop your sales team, and we continue that development through coaching and reinforcement. We equip your sales leaders and sales force with the skills and strategies they need to win in today’s complex selling environment. What is unique about Richardson is how we create truly customized solutions that change behavior and provide measurable results.

Aligning Sales Talent To Maximize Results

When you look at your sales organization, do you see a perfect fit between your Sales Professionals and the roles they are expected to fill? Are Hunters hunting and Farmers farming? As salesforces have been right sized, customer expectations have risen and competition has become more fierce. The question of “right role, right fit” has become top of mind for Sales Leaders in every industry.

Click here to join an archived session of Harry Dunklin, Senior Vice President and Practice Leader of the Sales Readiness Practice of Richardson, for a 60-minute webinar to learn how world class organizations are:

- Creating a high-performance profile of Sales Professionals and Managers that align with the challenges of today and tomorrow

- Leveraging selection technologies and tools to make the best choice from a pool of qualified candidates

- Jump starting the onboarding of new Sales Professionals to improve retention, engagement, and time to productivity

- Auditing in-flight sales organizations to align the roles and talent to the go-to-market strategy

- Using assessment technology to put a laser focus on training needs and accelerate learning

Attendees of Harry's session will receive a complimentary copy of industry-leading HR Chally's whitepaper, The Trouble with Personality Tests, which details why personality does not equal performance and how talent assessment tools can help your sales organization be more successful.

Visit http://www.richardson.com/ to learn more about Richardson's comprehensive sales training and performance improvement solutions.

Richardson Releases 2010 Sales Challenges Research Report

Richardson has released our 2010 Sales Challenges Research report, Lift Off: Compelling Insights to Launch Your 2010 Strategy.

To better understand the primary areas that a sales team should focus on in 2010, Richardson’s Research Group conducted a survey of over 15,000 sales professionals across every major industry segment and a variety of sales roles. Leveraging this survey data, Richardson developed a report that highlights the most pressing issues facing sales organizations in 2010 and provides data that helps Sales Leaders to:

• Shape business development and sales strategy
• Identify process improvements and align skill-development resources
• Strategize how to best position your sales team for success

Through careful reflection of their 2009 business outcomes and in anticipation of a more successful 2010, survey respondents provided insights and information that was aggregated to identify areas of focus for this upcoming year. When asked about potential challenges concerning five key sales cycle categories — generating business, negotiations, closing business, managing relationships, and expanding relationships — survey respondents indicated, as a percentage basis, the following as the most difficult in each category:

• Business Generation — Identifying new prospects — 26.3% of the respondents
• Negotiations — Maintaining profitability during negotiations — 27.9% of the respondents
• Closing Deals — Positioning competing value propositions — 32.0% of the respondents
• Account Management — Finding additional ways to add value — 38.5% of the respondents
• Expanding Relationships — Becoming a Trusted Advisor — 36.5% of the respondents
  

Lift Off: Compelling Insights to Launch Your 2010 Strategy research report can be leveraged by Sales Leaders to identify for their own sales teams the one or two areas where a significant investment of time, effort, and resources can be deployed to develop critical skills and improve crucial processes. By addressing both skill and processes, Sales Leaders and their teams will be better poised to deliver results in 2010.

Lift Off: Compelling Insights to Launch Your 2010 Strategy is complimentary and can be obtained by visiting the following: http://www.richardson.com/saleschallenges2010/.

Complimentary Webinar: Creating Compelling Presentations

Are your presentations a missed opportunity? Your sales presentation is likely to be the last impression the client has of you and your company before deciding who to do business with. Join Richardson’s 60-minute interactive webinar, Creating Compelling Presentations to Engage, Inspire, and Motivate, this Thursday, December 10th at 3:00pm EST to learn tips and tricks to creating engaging, high-impact presentations. This session assumes you do not have the time or interest to study design and typography, but would like to know how to make your visuals look better and differentiate yourself from the competition. Along the way, you will be provided with a good balance of principles, concepts, and practical examples. Can't attend our live webinar? Continue to register today and WebEx will automatically send you a link to view the archive after the live event has concluded.

Click here to register

Goal #1: Shorten the Sales Cycle

Last week in a webinar with a group of high-performing salespeople and technical specialists, a salesperson asked:

Salesperson: “My company’s number one goal is to shorten the sales cycle. How can I do that?”

His question was timely and challenging. It seems as if your customers’ number one goal is to lengthen it! The economy and an environment of heightened skepticism have doubled or even tripled the length of the sales cycle in many industries.

So what can you do that is in your control to accelerate the close?

1. Early on, qualify more diligently. Position every qualifying question from the perspective of meeting the customer’s need. Find out:
   
   - Budget — Has it been allocated? How much? Who controls it?
   
   - Time Frame — What are the timelines to develop and implement? (In today’s world, the two schedules can be very different.)
   
   - Compelling Event — “Must do” dates are a blessing and the absence of one can signal a long decision cycle.
   
   - Decision-making Process — Who will be involved in the decision — economic, technical, users, and other influencers? Clarify the buying process and steps.
   
   


2. Understand the BUSINESS need that your solution will address. How will your solution help your customer achieve his/her business objectives.
   


3. Develop a compelling Value Proposition to show ROI (ideally year one or soon).
   


4. Identify milestones of the sales process so you can measure progress against them.
   


5. Set a call objective that is measurable for every meeting — face-to-face or virtual. And debrief each meeting against the objective.
   


6. Continue to check for change.
   


7. If things slow down, ask the hard qualifying questions again, but start with the driving need — is it still a priority? Tactfully ask questions to multiple customers.
   


8. Develop a coach! Almost nothing will help you win the deal and know where things really stand than a well-placed coach.
   


9. Position your benefits and ask for the business.
   


10. Know when to put a deal on the back burner or no burner and when to try to resuscitate it.

A Sales Methodology

Do you have a sales methodology that your team follows? Let’s step back. What is a sales methodology? Sales best practices? A sales process? Documented steps/procedures in the sale? Sales skills? Tools? All of the above?

A sales methodology is the system a sales organization follows to win business. In one sense (not the best sense), every sales organization and/or salesperson has a sales methodology whether it is the remnants of one that had once been put in place, the norm people follow, or what a particular salesperson has figured out for him or herself.

An effective sales methodology is one that a sales organization has thought out clearly and provides it to its salesforce. The differences between a sales methodology that just exists because a company or most salespeople pretty much operate that way and a highly effective sales methodology boils down to six critical success factors.

 Documentation: Map out clear steps as a guide for salespeople to follow/repeat.
 Best Practices: Embed it with what your top performers consistently do.
 Training: Prepare your salesforce to ensure they have the knowledge and skills needed to carry out the steps.
 Tools: Give salespeople and sales managers tools, such as easy to use CRMs, planners, access to research … to make them more productive.
 Execution: Follow it and coach to it.
 Assessment: Ongoing feedback, tweaking and refinement.

The goal of having a sales methodology is to win more deals and to win them more quickly.

The initial question was do you have a sales methodology. The second question is if not should you have one?

Take the time to map out the steps it takes to identify and convert a lead into a customer. Make it a collaborative process with marketing team and your top performers. It is more than worth the effort. 10% of your reps will do fine without a clear sales methodology. But 80% will do better with one.

Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com

NO BUDGET – UNLESS OF COURSE

Many of the customers we are talking to may be like your customers. Their budgets have either been cut or all but vanished.

They also have something else in common: their goal to increase revenue and save money in the short-term. You already know how important it is to justify your value to a customer. But — never before has value justification taken on such a critical role in closing business. It now is the key to finding, unlocking, and creating budgets. And the nature of value justification has changed. We are not only in a spreadsheet world but a world that is demanding creativity in finding rationale to buy and identifying non-typical pockets where budgets may be found.

I spoke with a salesperson who, in my view, is a master at conjuring up budgets even when the customer had been unsuccessful in doing so him or herself. It is said that “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This seems true for the salesperson. His product was so new and original that not only was there no budget for it (even in good times), there was no one with the responsibility for it.

After identifying who in the organizations were most apt to have needs for his product and then engaging in need dialogues with them and being told there was no budget, he leaned heavily on metrics and creative analysis to prove his product was a smart move and would help his customers achieve their objectives. He captivated and convinced one customer by showing that if his product increased the performance of one of the company’s 500 sales reps by 5%, that increase would pay the full cost of the investment. This brought not only a smile to the customer’s lips, it gave the customer a rationale to bring to his boss and get the OK.

He showed another customer how his product amounted to .0001% of their total revenue and compared that to the increase in productivity. For another customer who put money aside for replacement of full-time equivalents in anticipation of the company’s 10% turnover, he showed that by reducing that fund by one person, the cost of the product was covered, and this potentially reduced turnover and gave needed support to his team of managers.

In each case, he was able to close because he spelled out his value justification in a way that was graphic, concrete, tangible, practical, reasonable, and believable.

Today, it’s necessary to go beyond “normal” thinking about value justification. It’s necessary to really understand the company’s business, deeply probe the customer’s needs and find a direct link of your product to the customer’s shorter-term objectives, and then justify the price specifically. It takes searching every nook and corner for ways to illustrate value justification.

Closing starts in prep time when you think about the value you bring to the table and continues in the deep need dialogue you lead so you can graphically show dollars and cents value. While the value you show can be longer-term, today, the shorter, the better, and the more specific, the more compelling.

Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com

MAGNIFIED TRANSPARENCY

Your credibility with your customers is your number one sales credential. While your credibility has always been important to your customers, today it is not only foremost on a customer’s checklist for doing business with you, it is easy to measure.

The web has made it possible for customers, with a few clicks, to find out how accurate your every word is, whether about yourself, your products, or your organization.

Whether customers check blogs, social networks, etc. … they are checking. Faulty information won’t remain a secret for very long today thanks to the web. For example, flogs (fake blogs made to look as if they are generated by consumers) are easy to detect because facts are easy to check and expose in a matter of minutes. One salesperson lost a sale by making a less than truthful claim. He explained to his customer his mark-up was 5%. When the customer checked the web, he discovered a 7.5% mark-up. Armed with this, he not only had more negotiating power to get the deal he wanted, he chose another provider!

One candidate for a sales job was too casual about the pictures he showed on Facebook, giving his would-be employer insights better left for close friends. Magnified transparency is the new factor in the buyer-seller relationship.

So double-check your facts to guard your credibility and build on and keep the trust you’ve earned.


To learn more about Richardson's global sales training solutions, please visit our website at http://www.richardson.com

Lego Lessons for Salespeople

Over a sunny August weekend at the beach, I watched my 7-year old nephew, Dylan, assemble his birthday present, a Lego Aqua Raiders set. This Lego is way beyond what the simple Lego design I recall. It was aimed at 8 to 14 year olds and consisted of multiple plastic bags filled with complex small shapes, sizes, and colors and two instruction books, totaling 115 pages of small type and diagrams.

In the past, I’ve seen his dad help him with these difficult tasks but he wanted to do this one himself. Intermittently over the course of 3 days he sat whistling and working away at it.

I was astounded to see the concentration and methodology and I realized there was a lesson there for all of us in sales.

Just as he drew from his resources of among the dozens of the little plastic bags filled with tiny parts, salespeople draw from their resources, research, and experience. He used the instruction book to guide him piece by piece and looked ahead to see where each small design would take him. Salespeople’s set of instructions are their knowledge of the sales process, how to lead a call and follow a call plan. And they must think ahead to their goal.

Dylan would test each piece along the way. Salespeople must seek feedback from customers. Whether Legos or sales, tasks and sequence matters.

Dylan was motivated as he completed each piece by his sense of accomplishment and praise from all of us. When he ran into a snag, he backtracked and made adjustments. Salespeople too must get reinforcement and persist.

So some questions for you — When you are working to close a deal, how does your focus and commitment compare? If you run into trouble, can you regroup? Do you keep going to move forward to win the deal and build the relationship?

A note for sales managers: Aqua Raiders could be a good team building exercise. And if the team gets stuck, find a 7-year old.

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Sales Advice from Mad Men

Dan Draper, the “hero” of Mad Men, AMC’s hot Sunday night TV series, is full of sales advice.

Sunday night when he said, “You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells,” his idea of selling resonated with me

This has always been true for me. I remember once making a presentation for a colleague whose area of specialization I knew but not deep down as I know sales and sales management. We had no options and I had to make the presentation for him. As I made the presentation and answered questions, I remember thinking my words felt hollow. There was no passion behind them. The presentation was OK, just that OK.

I realized how lucky I am to be selling a product that I really “feel something” for.

How about you? How do you feel about your product? How much does how you feel about your product make a difference in your sales results?

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