Dec 7, 2012 | Governance, Sales
We are all pretty familiar with the typical sales funnel, wide at the beginning, narrowing progressively as you get closer to the “business end”. It is a simple, descriptive metaphor for other than an impulse or regular consumer purchase, but like most models, rarely reflects reality.
Prospects come into, and leave the sales process at all points, and then often come back, for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the efforts of a sales/marketing program.
Given that is the reality, it follows then that the relationships that evolve are far more valuable than the position of any prospect in the sales funnel, as it is the relationships that evolve that enable lead nurturing and recycling through the irregular, stuttering, and often unpredictable sales cycle.
A much better metaphor in many cases may be a game of snakes and ladders, but that is nowhere near as neat and tidy in a board paper.
Nov 19, 2012 | Sales, Strategy
Sales revenue is probably the most common senior management KPI, and is virtually always present for sales people.
It is a very misleading measure.
A friend, one of the best sales people I know, is in an industry struggling to reform itself in the face of direct sales over the net. Her sales are down 10% year on year, so the blasts from irrational budget enrobed donkeys keeps coming, but her industry is down 30% YOY. In that context, her performance is fantastic.
The basic question therefore when planning sales should be: “What are the demand drivers” Understanding the answer to that should offer a realistic view of the customers motivation to buy, not just from you, but to buy.
Too many ask “What sales can we do” which implies looking internally, ignoring the drivers of demand. They take the easy way, click a few keys to give an extrapolation of the past, which rarely has anything to do with the future.
Nov 8, 2012 | Sales
Few would dispute that Da Vinci was a great artist, he created great art and amazing innovations across several mediums, a creative genius. What is often missed is his technical skill, engineering, anatomy, and at a very basic level, his skill with a hammer, chisel and paintbrush.
Which came first, the art or the science? Probably neither, each nurtured the other. Da Vinci’s determination to reflect the body accurately in his paintings led him to risk his life and liberty by dissecting bodies to get the anatomy exactly right.
How you may ask, does that relate to sales?
The most effective sales people I have seen do two things:
- The build relationships that last
- They close.
One without the other is of little use, the first produces no revenue, the second without the first produces only a one-off transaction, and wastes an opportunity for an ongoing commercial relationship.
This all takes expensive sales time, so increasingly automated marketing tools are being substituted for sales people, adding to the science, but making the art all the more important, as nobody wants to be sold to by a digital robot, so the people need to understand when to intervene, and take control.
Oct 23, 2012 | Sales, Small business
“Not now” is a response sales people receive all the time, question is, does it mean not now, or not ever?
When sales people hear the words, they have two choices:
- Ignore the brush off, and keep at it
- Asses the lead for any long term value, and if it is there, put the lead back into the lead “carpark” for review at a later date, or for when something happens to give the opportunity to reconnect with the prospect.
Taking the first option is rarely the best, it just gets annoying, but persistence in continually recycling leads, adding to the store of knowledge each time, is a bit like continuous improvement in a factory, part of an ongoing cycle that delivers performance.
Any lead is hard to find, turning that lead into a prospect is not a one-off exercise, it is a process that can have many twists and turns, that can now be significantly automated.
Oct 8, 2012 | Customers, Sales, Social Media
Sales is a tough job, you win or you lose, with no middle option. Understanding those you lost is the key to improving future performance.
Over 30 years of engageing with sales people, managing sales forces, and doing sales training, it seems to me there are just 5 reasons that seem to be recurrent in a failed B2B sale.
- Failure to understand that a potential customer in not interested in what your product can do, or has done, just what it may do for them. Trying to sell the features of a product, rather than the benefit it delivers, tailored to the circumstances of the buyer is sales death.
- The power of incumbency is huge, vastly underrated in most cases. When getting a sale means someone else is missing out, the risks to an organisation, and the reputation of the one who makes the change can be significant, so failure to remove the risk usually leads to failure. The old adage “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” still holds.
- Failure to communicate and convince the decision-maker. I have seen huge efforts go into making sales, and as the effort drifts, it becomes apparent that the one who makes the decision, the Yes/No person, is not engaged, and often not even known.
- Lack of up front resources, or content that serves as an alternative to the traditional sales effort. In this day of the net being used as a primary information source, it is often the case the specifications of a purchase have been determined, and a purchase decision made, before a potential supplier is aware of the process. The processes of qualifying a lead, supplying information that contributes to a specification, building relationships, and determining price and delivery requirements, previously the function of sales has moved on line, the only variable left is the “who will supply” question.
- Price. This is almost always the reason that gets cited as the one that broke the deal, but usually it is just a convenient excuse when any of the other four above have kicked in, and the explanations just get too complicated. It is the “Dear John” of the purchasing officer.
Sep 28, 2012 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales
Working with a client recently, I realised my language had changed. The word “Pitch” had been substituted for the more usual “Present” as I encouraged them to get out and engage with their markets in a very focused way to build sales, rather than taking a more passive approach, and presenting their credentials, hoping to strike a nerve.
Any presentation, as I have argued before is an opportunity to sell something, a product, an idea, a course of action, but it seems to offer three alternatives to an audience, buy in, leave it alone, or remain on the fence. By contrast, a Pitch seems to offer less options, you either buy in, or not. No middle course, no fence, yes or no.
Before he was famous outside advertising, Bryce Courtney used to write a weekly column for one of the Australian newspapers called “The Pitch.” Looking back at a dog-eared copy of a compilation of columns published afterwards, and decoding the great stories for the message, it is unashamedly, “Pitch” as a call to action, leave no middle ground, and manage a conversation for a “Yes or No” outcome.
A more recent publication is Oren Klaff’s great little book, “Pitch Anything” which offers a framework for making a pitch successful, and whilst the focus is on capital raising, the lessons are applicable everywhere.
So stop presenting, and start pitching when you want a clear outcome.
