The Resolution of Concerns

Kurt Lewin, the founder of Social Psychology, created some theories about the conflicts we humans have to work through as we make decisions. He named them Approach-avoidance, approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and double approach-avoidance.

Approach-avoidance conflicts occur when one goal contains both positive and negative characteristics, like making a multi-million dollar purchasing decision. In this case, the buyer experiences fear over something that is also desirable.

When the decision is far away, like when the RFP is issued, both positive and negative feelings about the decision are less strong; however, as he gets down to the BAFO, the negative consequences are magnified.

Typical Customer Concerns

• What are the risks associated with going ahead?
• What if it all goes wrong?
• Can we trust these people?

Sign that this Phase is Over

• Easy. The customer makes the purchasing decision

Common Strategic Errors

• Ignoring concerns with the hope that they will go away.
• Pressuring the customer to make a decision.
• Trying the "typical" amateur closing techniques.

Coaching Questions and Tips

• Probe the salesman for his understanding of the concerns and potential show stoppers.
• Map out the end game together.
• Be alert to the threat of resurgent and wounded competitors.
• Are there iceberg issues lurking in the waters?

Other Key Coaching Questions

• What might stop this purchase from a happening?
• Can the customer articulate the value of our solution?
• Have we helped them define success?
• How will we/they measure success?
• Have we helped them resolve their concerns before we negotiate?
• How do you know the issue has been resolved? Are you sure?
• Do we have contractual or technical issues or both? Performance?
• Do the benefits of our solutions outweigh the costs?

This phase is critical. Do not neglect it. Spend time coaching your salesman through it. Do you remember the old phrase - Whistling past the graveyard? It means ones attempt to proceed with a task while ignoring a clear and present danger and hoping for a good outcome. As Rick Page says - Hope is NOT a strategy.

Good selling!

Evaluation of Options

At this point in the buying cycle, a decision to purchase has been made. The question now is, from whom?

Typical Customer Concerns:

• What criteria should we use in making a decision?
• Which competitor best meets our criteria?

Sign that Phase is Over:

• Customer has a clear decision mechanism in place and has used it to select one or more final contenders.

Common Strategic Errors:

• Failure to uncover and rank decision criteria
• Little attempt to change or influence decision criteria

Coaching Questions and Tips:

• Have we performed a vulnerability-analysis?
• What and where are the gaps…Value, Credibility, or Performance?
• What is our strategy to overtake, redefine, trade-off, or strengthen?

Other Key Coaching Questions:

• Have you had a conversation with the customer about decision criteria and process?
• What are their decision criteria?
• What is the decision process?
• Who will make the decision?
• What is the timing?
• Who is the competition?
• What are the alternatives?
• Where are we vulnerable?
• What types of gaps exist?
• Can we map out a vulnerability analysis together?
• How can we influence their decision criteria?

As the customer gets closer to making a critical purchasing decision, it's likely that she can develop "cold feet" for a number of reasons. Making a major purchasing decision is fraught with risks, both to the buyer (personally) and her business. "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" - That was the old saying that illustrates this point. But what if you are not IBM and you still want to win?? Next, we will look at an often neglected phase of the buying cycle, the Resolution of Concerns phase, and discuss how you coach your salesman through it and position your product for victory.

Recognition of Needs

If your salesperson has done a good job in the last phase, she has surfaced one or more previously unrecognized problems that your product/service can help solve. Now, she needs drill into those problems and help the customer understand their severity. The ability to “dollarize” the cost of neglecting the problem and the ability to extend the problem’s implications on all other parts of the business is critical. It is a lot like the old iceberg metaphor. What is visible above the surface looks like something one can easily sail around. However, danger lurks below. A good salesperson helps the customer see the danger that lurks below and helps them steer well clear.

Typical Customer Concerns in this phase:

· Do we have a problem?
· How big is it?
· Does it justify action ?

Signs that this phase is over:

Customer accepts that the problem is severe enough to justify change and therefore decides to take action.

Common Strategic Errors:

· Failure to investigate/develop customer needs
· Making product presentations too early

Coaching Questions and Tips:

· How are we shaping the opportunity?
· All implication end-points mapped? Where else?
· Have we overlooked anything?
· What’s our value hypothesis?


Other Key Coaching Questions:

· What problems are they trying to solve?
· How much pain exists?
· Do you have implied/explicit needs?
· Who owns the problem?
· Who is impacted by the problem?
· Is there a risk if they don’t see the upside?
· Do they have a budget?

Next, we will look at that stage where you have the customer ready to receive your proposal. The customer may issue an RFP or, if you are clear on what stage the customer is in, you can get a jump on your competitors with laser guided unsolicited offer. This stage is called the Evaluation of Options.

Good selling!

Steve

Coaching Around the Buying Cycle

In the seminal book, Major Account Sales Strategy (the follow on to SPIN Selling), Neil Rackham described the stages of the buying cycle as follows:


1). Changes Over Time
2). Recognition of Needs
3). Evaluation of Options
4). Resolution of Concerns
5). Implementation

You can familiarize your self with these stages buy reading the book, or clicking here:

http://www.huthwaite.com/go.cfm?do=Page.View&pid=28

In the next five blogs, I will look at coaching tips you can use to help your salesman move the customer around the buying cycle. Let’s start at the top.

Changes Over Time:

Typical Customer Concerns in this phase:
• Are we satisfied with status quo?
• Do external factors present a threat/problem?

Signs that this phase is over:
• Customer expresses uncertainty and dissatisfaction with current state. May express an implied need.

Common Strategic Errors:
• Assuming your position is secure
• Short cutting the cycle and rushing to solutions
• Failure to leverage front liners for Implied Needs

Coaching Questions and Tips:
• Probing for opportunities?
• Detailed customer knowledge?
• Identified all sources of dissatisfaction and acute pain?
• Deeper account penetration?

Other Key Coaching Questions:
• What else can we help them with?
• What challenges are they experiencing?
• Who else might we talk to?
• Will the client act as a referral?
• Can we document success?

Next, we will look at what most believe is the key stage, Recognition of Needs.

Amateur Salespeople Don’t Take Notes – That’s One Reason Why They’re Amateurs

I was on a sales call with one of my colleagues last June. As we drove away in the taxi, he ridiculed my note taking during the call (it was his customer) and bragged about his good memory. He said “Look, if I am taking notes, I am not focusing 100% on what the customer is saying.” This arrogance can cost you. Rule #1: Take good notes.

My colleague’s misguided confidence in his IQ and memory reminded me of Jeffery Fox’s book: Secrets Of Great Rainmakers. In the book, Fox tells a story about waiters who write down their customer’s orders vs. those who don’t and the differences in the gratuity each receives as a result. The waiter who writes down the order earns significantly more in tips. Why? The waiter, who thought he was impressing the customer with his great memory, was really making the customer anxious and uncomfortable. Deep down, the customer was worried that the waiter might not get it right and if he did blow the order, the customer was especially annoyed because the error was preventable. So it goes with a sales call.

When the customer is talking and you are taking notes, the customer is feeling more valued. The fact that you are writing it down, in detail, makes the customer feel that what he or she is telling you is important.

Taking notes signals to the customer that you are a professional and that you are organized. By the way, invest in a high quality portfolio and spend a few hundred dollars on a good pen. I use a Raika sewn bound leather portfolio with gold-edged ruled pages and a Montblanc rollerball pen. Make an impression.

Taking notes helps sharpen the customer’s mind. When the customer knows you are writing it down, she will subconsciously work harder on getting you more detail and greater accuracy in the information she is transmitting. I have seen customers pick up the phone and call other departments to get me more detail during a call. Wow! They WON’T do that if you are just sipping coffee, nodding attentively, and making eye contact.

Taking notes also gives you a great way to summarize as you close out the call. You really focus the customer when you say “let me review my notes with you and make sure I have this requirement clearly understood.” Then, take the customer through what you have written down ... point by point. Finish with “Did I miss anything? Was there anything else you wanted to cover with me?”

Here is a final excellent reason to take good notes. You can re-play the sales call later, in the solitude of your hotel room, and discover fresh insights that maybe you missed on the first pass. You can triangulate with notes you made from a previous call with another executive in the same company. You can share the notes with your team and see what new ideas the notes stir up in their minds. Here is another one. When I refill my Raika, I make a point of re-reading every page of the old diary. Without fail, I find something I missed, an action or request that I need to follow up on, or a note that at the time, seemed unimportant, but now, in light of new developments in the account, are key to achieving my objective and closing a big sale.

Look, if for no other reason, because a lot of amateur salespeople never take notes, you will immediately stand out from your competitors by doing it.

Good Selling!!

Quick Tips for Better Sales Presentations

Years ago, I coached sales teams and executives on how to make more effective presentations to customers. I developed a Quick Tip Card (see picture and double-click on it) no bigger than a normal business card. This little card served as a client's pocket reminder of the key points covered in our coaching session. Many lives were saved.

Side one is titled BEFORE and side two is titled SHOWTIME. I’ll share it with you and add some detail:

BEFORE

Planning
-Consider Audience Expectations.
The customers listen to one main radio station. WII-FM (What’s in it for me). Make sure you are tuned in.

-Know Your Objectives
I ask myself this question...”I want to say (Blank) so that (Blank) will happen”. Fill in the blanks.

-Focus on Three Main Points
If you want to be remembered, three is magic. Four is forgettable. Five is a disaster. In songs, in poetry - three has rhythm. Up up and away in my beautiful balloon...NOT up up up and away. It doesn’t work. Tony Orlando said “Knock three times on the ceiling”. NOT FOUR. The Three Little Pigs. Goldie Locks and the Three Bears...who would remember the fourth bear? Boil it down to three.

Visuals

-K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Sam)

5 X 5
If you have to make a “bullet chart” limit it to five bullets per chart, five words per bullet.

One Idea per Chart
Flash Cards! 10 simple Flash Card charts can be covered as quickly and more memorably then five cluttered charts.

Make it Readable
Stand two meters back from your computer screen and look at the power point chart. If you can’t read it, re-do it. The font is too small. What? Won’t fit? See the two rules above.

Message Headlines
Message headlines vs. Subject headlines – very important. Ask yourself this: What is the point of this chart? Make that the title. Example: “Reliability”. This is a subject title...not good. “Our Components are 78% More Reliable than the Competition”. This is a message title...better.

Pictures Instead of Words
A picture is worth a thousand words. So is a diagram, a graph, or a sketch. Enough said.


SHOWTIME

Energy!
If you want people to be “on fire” for your idea, than you need to generate some heat on stage.
-Maintain Eye Contact
From a physical stand-point, this is the single most important thing you can do to improve your effectiveness.

-Keep Ideas Moving
Get your words, to line up and march out of your mouth in single file. Rehearse.

-Use Vocal Variety
Record your rehearsal. Listen. Do you like it? I have heard voices that could put a cup of coffee to sleep. Bring some song-like energy to your voice. Commercial and Industrial showmanship!

-Make Your Body a Visual Aid
Get your body moving. If you are saying “we need to raise productivity”, then raise your arm when you say it. “Sales are going off a cliff” OK, drive your hand off the cliff. See what I mean?

Delivery/Position

-Face the audience (not the screen!)
Too many speakers stare at their slides. Don’t do that. Face the audience all the time.

-Visuals on Your Left
People read from left to right. They take almost all information in left to right. Keep the visual on your left as you face the audience so the eye always comes back to you.

-Direct Their Eyes to the Visuals
Gesture toward your charts when you want them to focus on the charts.

-Tell Them What’s Coming Next
Many amateur speakers keep talking as they change from one chart to the next. Pros finish the idea (mini summary) and then tell the audience what the next chart is about BEFORE punching the advance button. Use a phase like this – “Now, don’t miss this next chart. It’s on productivity and that is the key to driving profits higher in 2010”. Then, change the chart.

OK, those are the tips. Practice them and you will be miles ahead.

Good Selling!

Salesman’s Checklist Can Lower Your Competitive Death Rate

Teams Using “Cheat Sheets” Always Produce Better Results

There was a recent story in the Washington Post by Ceci Connolly claiming that surgical teams following a basic cockpit-style checklist in the operating room, from confirming the patient's name to discussing expected blood loss, reduced the rate of deaths and complications by more than a third. I claim that your sales “death rate” can also drop dramatically if you take a lesson from pilots and now, surgeons, and use a checklist of your own during sales calls.
Connolly’s theory is that the human brain can't remember everything, so it's best to focus on the complicated challenges and leave the simple reminders to a cheat sheet. A salesman’s checklist is a cheat sheet...a basic form of pre-call planning. The sales call can get intense and dynamic. The professional salesperson must focus 100% on what the customer is saying. Listening skills are a salesperson’s most important attribute. You can’t listen effectively if your brain is working overtime to think of the next question you want to ask, or trying to figure out how to get the sales call back on the road and out of the ditch. Here are some ideas:
-Plan and write down your opening statement. Make it a “killer” question or phrase that grabs attention and focuses the client on the problem.
-Ask why it is important to solve this problem.
-Uncover the decision criteria. Rank them in order of importance.

-What is the decision process? Who is involved? (Get introduced to the people you don’t know that have a role in making it happen).
-Has the budget been approved?
-Which other solution providers are competing?
-Interest rate being used to arrive at NPV and IRR
-Carrying cost of inventory/Cost of capital
-Other financial ground rules?
I think you get the idea. Write them all down. If you are involved in complex sales for expensive things, it’s likely that you make sales calls with a team of subject matter experts. Involve them in the checklist planning and execution. That way the team stays more coordinated during the call.
You will get the most out of your sales call checklist if you build it around the potential problems that the customer may be having. Most problems tend to fall into what I call my “basic dozen categories”. Here they are:

1) Profitability
2) Cost
3) Productivity
4) Competition
5) Quality
6) Ease of Operation
7) Reliability
8) Credibility
9) Safety
10) Morale
11) Customer Satisfaction
12) Reputation/image

Think of the basic dozen as a “checklist for a checklist”. Build your checklist around these categories and your sales call death rate will decrease dramatically.

Good selling!!