Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

I have to give credit to Ron Stewart for this phrase- The Tail of The Fail.  Ron is a senior sales management executive for one of our clients and he talks about two things when he addresses his sales people: the tail of the sale and the tail of the fail.

As I analyze my own personal sales fails from the last 12 months, they each have their own story.  But, if I think about my entire history of sales fails, they boil down to these 3 most common errors:

1. Not getting to 'VITO' (very important top officer).  I was talking to a PEO provider this past year.  I had met with my point of contact and with his management team. I had an agreement that we would move forward starting in March.  March came and went, so did April, May and June.  Finally, I got a return phone call and discovered that the senior partner in the firm said "no" to the project.
2. Not getting budget.  A year ago, I was engaged in a discussion with a benefits group.  I had worked with this group before and had a very good relationship with the influencer/decision maker.  I asked about budget and got a budget to work with.  I failed to double check to make sure he was willing to spend that kind of money; he had said that he was.  But the objection to execution was "I just can't spend that kind of money right now."
3. Anemic Pipeline = being desperate - When your pipeline is low, you will have the tendency to propose solutions to people that don't qualify. These people don't qualify because they really don't have a compelling reason to take action or make a change.  Such was the case with a group in NYC.  The initial meeting was a good one, but I failed to ask the question, "Are these problems you are talking about and the associated cost compelling enough to take action?"  Didn't ask the question, made a proposal, didn't get the business.

I promise you that it is not easy to admit my tails of the fails. But that is one of the keys to becoming more successful. Be gutsy enough to say that you screwed up, find out what you need to do differently, and then learn from your mistakes. 

One more thing, though, make sure you work on the right end of the problem.  If you are failing to execute, you need to do a quick self assessment as to ‘why' the problem is happening.  In my case, it wasn't a need for approval issue, nor a money issue, nor a lack of a selling system issue; it was an issue of not effectively having a pre-call session with one of my other experts in-house.  I was not prepared as well as I needed to be. The result- failure to sell.

The start of any undertaking is obviously the most important step.

"Every journey starts with the first step" 

"If you want to run a marathon, you have to start with the first step"

"Putting yourself in a position to win means you have to start competing"

When it comes to building the confident and trusting relationship associated with a strong seller / buyer relationship,  the start is especially true. I'm not just talking about the immediate "bonding and rapport" part of selling.  That is important, but the "start" isn't a 5-minute segment of chitchat talking about the sailfish on the wall or the soccer pictures on the credenza.  No, the start is the entire first contact process.  It doesn't matter if it is a phone call or a meeting at a chamber meeting or the initial meeting after the phone call.  It's the start that will often, if not always, determine your finish. In today's post, I focus on the initial face-to-face meeting with a suspect.

I want to describe this segment via the "HAVE-TOs"

• You have to be prepared (pre-call strategy).  Aside from your internet research, you have to prepare for the sales process.  In other words, you have to know what questions you are going to ask that are going to move the sale forward, not just questions about the technical aspects of their current position or status.  You have to anticipate the suspect's answer to those questions and then be prepared with your follow up dialog.  Too many sales people take this step for granted because "they've been in the business for ... years."  You have to be prepared for their questions and how you will respond to them.  And finally, you have to be prepared for curve balls.  Suspects / prospects always throw them, and when you are unprepared, you will always miss them or certainly never get a clean hit.
• You have to identify clearly what your preferred outcome is.  In the book, Getting to Yes, the authors do a great job of explaining how defining your preferred outcome helps guide you through any meeting that you have.  In selling, and specifically for the initial call, most sales people define the objective of the first call as "to get a second call".  I will change that and suggest that your objective be to make this the only call.  Try to disqualify your suspects instead of trying to qualify them.  I guarantee you will end up with more qualified opportunities.
• You have to demonstrate your credibility, not by what you say, but by how you conduct yourself.  Make yourself different (see first blog in this series). You will do this by the questions you ask, by your focus on the prospect and what is important to them, and by your reluctance to get into a sales pitch and do a data dump in their lap.  You demonstrate your knowledge of the industry by the stories, analogies and metaphors you use about their business.  You demonstrate your professionalism by the way you ask professional penetrating questions and by how you don't look, act or sound like every other sales person that has met with this executive.
• You have to have the courage to ask the tough questions and have fierce / honest discussions.  Everyone reading this probably knows the questions that you are supposed to ask and how you are supposed to ask them and when you are supposed to ask them. Yet, every one of you most likely leaves initial calls having failed to ask the tough questions like, "How will you make this decision?  When do I meet the decision maker?  If you don't have a budget, then how will you pay for this?  If you are shopping for low price, then what happens if I show up and I'm not the low price?  Who wins a tie?  When you told your current provider that you were unhappy with the current situation and you were shopping to replace them, what did they say?"  And finally,  "When I show up to make my presentation, I need for you to be in a position to tell me 'yes' or 'no', what objections do you have to that process?"  You all know that you should ask those questions, but time and time again, you fail to.  How come? 
• You have to leave your need for approval at the door when you leave the house in the morning.  You have to re-write your record collection about how people buy in your industry. (Let your sales manager stew over that one.) You have to leave your personal buy cycle at the car lot where you debated for the last three weeks on which make and model to buy and where you negotiated with the manager for 2 hours.
• You have to qualify suspects / prospects to do business with you rather than you attempting to qualify to do business with them. Too many sales people still go to a meeting feeling like they have to qualify to do business with someone.  No, you don't.  You have to make sure that the person you are meeting with qualifies to do business with you.  Not just from a profile perspective or from an underwriting or credit perspective.  Also, qualifying is more than, "Did you do a needs analysis, discuss the features and benefits, get a budget and agree to a decision making process?"  In our world, in our effective selling system, it means the following:
• Do they have a compelling reason to take action quickly?
• Will they invest the time, money and resources to solve a problem they have or the problem they see coming?  Will they invest that time, that money or those resources in a timely fashion or are they in the "seeking" mode of buying?
• Will they tell you "yes" or "no" when you present?  In order to do this, you MUST have eliminated the current provider.  You MUST have heard them say they want to "fix it", whatever "it" is. And you MUST have a solution that is appropriate for their problem.  You cannot make the mistake that, even though your solution isn't exactly right, you are good enough to sell them on buying something that doesn't fit their exact specs.
• You have to close.  Not close the sale, but close this step and get a clear next step.  There is always a next step even if you are in a "one appointment close" business.  It doesn't matter if your business requires multiple meetings, or one and done.  Always close what you came there to do and then move on.  I promise you that, if you get masterful at this step, you will have fewer meetings and your close ratio will improve.  Ask for closure, ask for a clear next step, ask for the business.

I will not pretend to imply that these are the only "HAVE-TOs" in the start of building your relationship.  I will suggest to you that, if you get these 7 "HAVE-TOs" right, you will close more business, more quickly at higher margins.

I don't read all the blogs in my google reader as often as I should.  But when I do I go to Seth Godin first.  He is always going to have something in there that makes sense to me and will make sense to my clients and prospects.  In a nutshell his post of January 3rd tells us that there is always a budget.

I agree.  When you get an objection to your product or service and that objection is money the first thing you need to do is discount the objection.  The money objection is just a technique that the prospect is using to end the conversation.  Think about it. They are spending money on other products and services. What they are telling you is that they are not willing to spend additional dollars on your offering because you have not demonstrated the value of your product or the they don't have a compelling reason to buy.  In the book Baseline Selling by David Kurlan Dave would equate presenting without a budget to running home and skipping third base.  Both of these sales busters are your fault not a money issue.  Before you make any presentations make sure you have a firm commitment from the  prospect to either:

1. Stop spending dollars for one product or service and spend it with you.
2. Eliminate a current expense and buy from you.
3. Raise additional monies to afford your offering.

Failure to do this is your failure not a budget item.