Selling some of it is intuition

I had an early morning coffee with one of the most successful technology sales people in Europe this morning. This guy has closed both high value and low value deals all around the world. Every time I meet him he leaves me with nuggets of wisdom that are worth considering. Here are six I jotted down this morning:

Complex sales will require multiple channels of communications with the prospect. Inevitably when the deal sizes get interesting channel dynamics & personalities will emerge. You need to think like the partner if you are going to get one of the big boys to joint bid with you. The value you bring needs to be clear to them and to the customer. If having your organization involved in the joint bid doesn’t strengthen a partners position considerably, they just won’t have you on their bid team.

The sales guys that are doing deals right now have the ability to present the business case for a major sale with a CEO in the morning and then get on the phone and progress a smaller €100,000 deal in the afternoon, gone are the days your sales number will be achieved by just focusing on the big deals. Selling requires some street fighting (in the nicest possible way of course) ·

Lots of small deals are lost by forcing a yes no decision (T Junction) too early. You need to avoid taking the prospect to a T Junction too quickly, nurture the relationship and seek out the compelling event. Your solution needs to be must have, not a nice to have. Lots of sales people forget this.

When selling to the public sector abroad, obey the price envelopes that are set down, failure to do so will result in you not being shortlisted

Sales forecasting and planning should not just be about a scientific model, you need to, look back to previous quarters, look out at the market and then apply some intuition otherwise the target that are set are unlikely to get buy in from your sales team

Selling is very much team based, it requires sales professionals, pre-sales support, technical support, finance and customer support, it’s not about one or two top people anymore.

Hope these nuggets from the field of professional selling are of use.

John O’ Gorman – sales effectiveness, sales activity

The fact is getting project approval has slowed sales down

I was on an early morning con-call this morning with a professional sales person based in Australia. He recently secured a significant deal (more than $10 million). I asked him what he was doing to face the slowdown. His reply:

“Now is a good time to knock on doors, it is important to stay focused and to stay positive about the impact your solutions can deliver. Eighteen months ago, I wasn’t too worried about looking for budget in the early part of a sales cycle. Now I am qualifying very hard a lot earlier on, we are asking questions like

• What will the board view be on a project like this?
• Where will the budget come from for this project?
• What types of cost benefit analysis will we need to work on together?
• We are being frank but at the same time respectful, its is important not to come across as being pushy.

Our sales team are drawing out the cost benefit and project justification a lot earlier in the sales cycle as part of qualification. We are working with the clients to build this so we don’t waste our time or theirs. Qualification and activity levels are the only game in town if you are going to reach your numbers”.

I hope this insight from the field is useful.

John O’ Gorman – sales coaching, sales effectiveness, sales management

Who is needed on your selling team? – 8 key roles

We all know that buying teams are getting larger and decision making is more complex. But what about your selling team? What type of sales team is needed to close a €500,000 plus deal?

I was chatting with two successfull entrepreneurs yesterday about selling complex solutions into major organisations and we began to talk about the type of sales team needed to close big ticket deals. Based on our collective experience of over 50 years in business we identified a number of key roles critical to moving opportunities from leads to meetings to sales cycles to orders.

1. A sales person – who adopts an expert selling approach – a listener

2. A pre-sales support person who knows the domain

3. A product/market expert who can talk knowledgeably about the industry

4. A Product director – the person who own the technology vision and road map, the guy who protects the IP and core

5.  A Senior developer who can be paired off with senior developers from the client/buying team

6. An account manager who can be introduced towards the end of the sales cycle – a person who has delivered similar projects, a person who has faced project delivery channels previously

7. A implementation/customer services director who owns the process for delivery, customer service and steering group reviews

8. The MD & maybe even chairman – as part of reference checking, building confidence and validation

Sales as we know it has changed forever, gone are the days that 2 people can sell high value deals without help from domain experts, technology experts and delivery experts. This fact has implications for the sales and relationship competencies across your organisation.The organisations who are closing business are holding workshops and team meetings with their key staff to remind them of their responsibility for sales. Worth a thought.

John O’ Gorman – Sales activtiy and sales success, accelerating sales growth

Closing sales – people are managing it – so what have they done

Something to be positive about: An Irish services firm that has hit their revenue target month on month for the first quarter of the year this against a backdrop of:

• Tighter budgets in the sectors they are selling to
• Their local competition closing offices and cutting headcount

In Sept 08 the situation was as follows:

• This firm didn’t have to sell proactively in years
• They had very few new local projects to work on
• They faced stiff competition for international projects
• Making contact with past clients, prospective clients was at an all time low

Over a three month period this firm took a number of key steps to address the situation:

• Firstly they asked people at the grass roots to help with business development
• Secondly they held workshops with all customer facing staff to remind people about staying in contact with clients
• Thirdly they reviewed all their old contacts, centralised them and began to make proactive contact
• Finally they started to note conversations they were having with clients at all levels and got senior staff to come along to meetings to share their insights and expertise with contacts

All quite simple you might say. Well the results have been interesting to see.

• Activity levels have increased without hiring a single sales person
• Over a six week period four of their project team handled 20 proposals and won 7
• In-house experts without any background in sales are spending a few hours a week on business development
• Their sales target hit 3 months in a row
• A new pipeline of real work that will bring delivery headaches

I highlight this story because it shows that new projects can be secured despite all the doom and gloom we hear on a daily basis and as this company proved everyone can and should contribute to business development.

John O’ Gorman – Sales activity to accelerate sales growth

Customer Referrals: Shortening Sales Cycles: As a service business you live and die by your referrals or do you?

We have spent a considerable amount of time with sales managers and managing directors of services firms recently and have been astonished to find that less than 20% of sales people in services, firms are asking their customer base for referrals. This is despite the fact that an introduction from a respected contact will help shorten the early part of most sales cycles and increase sales activity dramatically.

When we asked 60 services professionals the question do you ask for referrals, we got answers like this:

• “That’s a good idea”
• “I hadn’t thought of that”
• “You are right all our customers would be willing to give us a referral or introduction”
• “Ehm not sure, I don’t feel comfortable asking”
• “No one ever suggested it”

The fact is if you have a strong relationship with your customer they are all only too willing to help you sell.

Let them help, go ahead and ask your customers for that referral, but before you do, be prepared for them to ask you the following:

• Who should I refer you to?
• What would you like me to say?
• Can you provide me with a few lines I can send for you?
• Have you a short bio I can attach?
• Can you provide me with a case study that maybe relevant?

Sometimes it’s the simple things that impact our overall sales effectiveness and sales success.

John O’ Gorman – Sales effectiveness, sales planning, sales activity

Lead Generation – 8 out of ten managers say they need outside help – here are some questions to ask

8 out of ten companies say they need help with lead generations.

Before you engage the services of any lead generation/telemarketing company ask them the following questions

1. Will they allocate a dedicated resource to your account?

2. Generally how long does it take to access a decision maker?

3. How do they track and record call backs?

4. What do they see as the KSF to a lead generation campaign are? If they don’t say lead generation is about a programme of activity and ongoing communications then end the conversation

5. Will they run a pilot for 3 months?

6. Can they show you sample qualification information they look for??? The good ones can

7. What are the common objections they get over the phone? Again the good ones will rattle off an answer to this question.

Lead generation comes in many guises. It requires a system and process not just a person on the phone making calls.

Your sales team need to be either prospecting, presenting or advancing sales cycles. If they aren’t generating leads you will need to get them some support. If you do get outside help ask the right questions.

John O’ Gorman DirectorAccelerated Sales Growth, sales managment