RSSThe Job of Sales Must Expand
Mar 15, 2010 Sales Related
Sales is a needs assessment-problem discovery/solution placement model. We use relationships and industry knowledge and well-conceived product data to align with prospects to help influence them to choose us.
Now, with technology, we have even more capability to offer product data and find our what’s happening with the buyer. The internet, e-marketing, webinars, websites, are offering buyers whatever data they may need to choose. With our fabulous technology, we can track them, cookie them, send them stuff, entice them with blog posts. But at the end of the day, until or unless they make a purchase, we’ve done it all for naught.
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Tags: buying, buying decision team, Buying Facilitation®, Decision Facilitation, prospects, sales
Why Do We Blame Buyers?
Feb 19, 2010 Sales Related
I once told a group that I was going to title a book I’d Close More Sales if it Weren’t for the Buyer. I got a standing ovation! And I assumed I’d get a laugh. That’s like saying ‘I would have had a better birth experience if it weren’t for my mother.’
Why do we assume buyers are, um, stupid? Because it’s obvious to us they should buy. From where we stand, it seems we have THE perfect fit – the right solution at the right price, filling the right need, and the right relationship.
But we consistently forget that a buyer’s problem is not an isolated event, and it sits within the buyer’s environment – their system, if you will – all mashed up with a bunch of unknown and unknowable other elements that not only hold it in place, but maintain it daily.
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Tags: buyers, Dirty Little Secrets, managers, needs, pitching, prospects, sales, solutions, systems
Sales is resistant to change
Jan 29, 2010 Sales Related
Think about this: Dale Carnegie is the father of the current selling model. Why would I say that when there are such ‘new’ models as Permission Marketing, or SPIN, or any of the myriad selling techniques that have come along since 1937 when Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People? Why would I believe this when the internet has become such a powerful force in sales?
Because we continue (against any rational measure) to focus ’sales’ on solution placement (yes, yes, that includes uncovering needs and understanding buyers) when we have all of the data we need to understand that 1. we close a small fraction of our prospects; 2. we waste a huge amount of time for the relative success we get; 3. buyers who need our solutions do not necessarily buy.
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Tags: change, Dale Carnegie, Permission Marketing, prospects, sales, selling model, SPIN
How to Find the Right Prospect: know who will buy on your first call
Dec 18, 2009 Sales Related
How often have you chased a prospect for weeks/months/years and then got a ‘no?’ How much time have you wasted that you could have used for finding prospects who would become clients? And how much time have you spent waiting for prospects that either never showed up again, or who took far, far too long to close, while you sat waiting and wondering – or worse, chasing them or reducing the price to get them to buy because you thought they should have closed already??
Do I have your attention? Great. Let me tell you a story.
At a client site recently, as I was preparing to do real-time calls with the program participants, they set up a situation in which I would call a recent (failed) prospect and pretend I was a trainee. The thinking was that the team would hear me use Buying Facilitation® in a non-threatening situation since the prospect had already said ‘no’ after an eleven month sales cycle and three site visits and product trials.
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Tags: buying decision team, close, prospects
What do you do once your content strategies bring in the prospects?
Nov 16, 2009 Sales Related
After speaking with my friend Jill Konrath, I realized that I can actually help those of you who are bringing prospects in the door with a great stratigic marketing plan.
Let’s look at the layout of how companies are using marketing today: with great content, white papers, webinars and podcasts, companies are driving interested buyers to their sites. With good content, prospects are being educated, informed, and hopefully influenced, and get great data to help them make informed decisions as to how to become Excellent. In fact, Ardath Albees new book eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale she talks about how B2B marketers need to really get to know their customers in order to improve their marketing effectiveness. [Peronal note: Ardath is the queen of helping buyers develop content strategies. But her book immediately if you want to know what to do and how to do it. She's light years ahead of any other thinker in the field. Here is a link to read two chapters of her new book: download 2 chapters]
With all of the competition out there, having good content is not enough so companies need to not only offer great content, but follow up strategically so prospects can get everything they need when it’s time for them to need it during their decision making process when choosing a new vendor.
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The Arrogance of Sales
Nov 2, 2009 Sales Related, Top Posts
Sales professionals face a lot of failure. You work very hard to discover plausible opportunities, understand needs, respect and care for prospects, and position your products so prospects recognize how your solution manages their need. You are good. You are professional. You are conscientious. Yet you only close a fraction of your sales; you seem to have no idea who to spend time on, who to let go, who will be able to buy, or who will have no ability to buy (even though they act like prospects), regardless of the fit between their need and your solution.
You end up wasting a lot of time, being annoyed, and facing far too much rejection. Where do seemingly appropriate prospects go? How can they choose a different vendor after all you’ve done for them? How can they take so long when it’s so obvious what the answer should be? Why do people treat you so badly when you really want to serve them?
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Tags: arrogance, buyers, Buying Decision Teams, failure, prospects, rejection, sales, solution, vendors
