salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales

Here’s an interesting point picked up from a customer of mine that suffers every four years.  The problem is that there’s a huge show in Germany every leap year.  This heralds every major player’s new products.  It’s big ticket capital equipment, and customers in that industry tend not to buy anything in the year leading up to the big event, preferring to wait and see what wonderful new kit is launched.

The issues for reps are that orders can dry up, creating an unhappily barron few months, as buyers put off decisions.

They way they grapple with this focuses on exposing a business case that shows:

• we’ve looked at what you want, and the new features shows there’s not much change in that area
• if you wait, the price will inevitably go up, and there’ll be the usual longer lead-times than now
• you can take a system now and we can work out a trade-in for say 18 months time when you’ll have made money back already
• what we have now works for you and your plans now too

It’s funny sometimes how patently unconnected experiences can smash together to give you a selling idea.  Just before lunch I received a cold call.  Someone was trying to peddle some server cabinets.  Normally I wouldn’t have to field such overtures, but my main man in Cape Town is taking hols for paternity support – congrats Steph! – so the call fell to me.

“Do you need any server cabinets?” No thanks, I replied (although I don’t exactly know what a ‘server cabinet’ is, I’ve a pretty good idea we don’t need one!)
“Do you know anyone that wants some?”  No, have a good day.  Call over.

As I then drove to pick up some shoes being mended at the local cobblers, this conversation haunted me a touch.  Granted, S Africa and the vanguard of commerce rarely go hand-in-hand, but even still, who on earth is managing/training this guy to cold call?  I was still day-dreaming about how I would have approached the conversation (too long on detail to scribe on here!) when I had to escape the searing late November heat to grab a juice.  I found shelter in one of those cafes-in-a-bookstore set-ups.

The magazine shelves made it easy to distinguish local and international titles.  The golf ones were nearest me, with Ernie Big Easy Els peering ahead from one with the headline “40 great golf ideas”.  It was about trips.  Given my weekend trot ‘round Steenberg for a cheeky Nine (awesome course, despite my rustiness), I thought what a bugger, if only it was about 40 tips.  The kind that could save you a shot on every round to improve my game.

Then the thought smacked me, what if I could give my telesellers 40 tips on handling cold calls.  The kind of list that could, every single day, ensure one extra success than presently experienced.

I remember being at an office supplies company in the mid-90s where each telesales person had two yellow stickies, one either side of their screen.  The one had a list of the most popular 10 products, the other the most recent 6 special offers.  The idea was to make sure that when the buyer was about to wrap up, they always said “by the way…” before pitching whichever of these 16 seemed most appropriate to the call just had.  They made boat-loads more sales through this.

Maybe 40 is too much given this, so I thought of creating a Quickfire 5.  I can build upon training I’ve recently been party too, which means my set would be less about process, and more slanted towards winning lines.  So whilst not a definitive list you’ll get the idea from these, albeit with some confidential data removed:

1. This call’s about ______. If this appeals to you at the end we can agree to meet….
2. What are your current plans around _____?
3. How much time does it take to ______?
4. How about we work out your savings during 20 minutes sitting down together ….?
5. Which suits you best, next week or the week after?

A guy I’ve a lot of time for within one of my customers recently got promoted to be a’top the sales department. His description of how life differs at various rungs will resonate with many people I’m sure.

He was a successful rep, selling for several years on his own patch as an Account Manager. Then with a reshuffle of territories, an extra Region was created, requiring a new Regional Manager. He got the vote. Yet he felt, although a decent step up, he was really only a glorified Account Manager. And now, many more years later, the old sales head departed leaving a vacancy for the top man. Each Regional Manager was interviewed, and although I’m not too certain, I think he was the only one that truly wanted the role. And he got it.

So here he is, surveying his new responsibilities. And he said he was really enjoying it, because for the first time, he was allowed to “play with the toy”. He had loads of ideas for how to move forward and for the first time was given leeway to formulate his plans and then enact them. He was thoroughly enjoying life and seemed to relish being able to see the wood from the trees.

I bet for anyone in sales, being able to occasionally play with the toy makes a welcome respite from process-driven management and relentless target–orientation. A welcome reward for success and perhaps fitting motivation for personal endeavour.

Waiting in a reception I turned towards the back of the FT lying there for a quick business related morsel.  The book review greeted me of a fella with decades of industry-shaping experience on ’strategy and resource allocation’; Joseph Bower.  Strangely absent from my business school syllabus, I read on intrigued about this Harvard prof.

His thoughts here turn to ensuring effective leadership succession.  The killer quote for me has a wonderful tip for those running sales teams.  Leaders for him face “3 core tasks:

1. judging where the world is headed,
2. identifying the company’s talent, and
3. engaging that talent“

I was immediately struck by how applying such framework to your current sales management plans would be an absolute winner.  Especially when you present it to your boss in this way….

The future can be shaped by your own product developments, consumer behaviour changes, prospect touch policies and competitive forces.  I.D-ing talent could involve an audit of your charges and what you plan to do to keep them performing or improve.  And engaging that talent could look into elements like incentivisation and recognition ideas, career paths, sales support structures, training and their self-actualisation.  Brilliant.

One of my customer reps giggled a story to me yesterday about how a buyer in the first meeting mentioned he’d set aside 15k for his planned purchase.  Knowing he could supply for a couple of grand less, he responded with a cheeky ’so you know what our kit costs already?’ and the deal was done to the self same 15k.

I was caught between two opposing views when I was trained up many years ago.  One senior rep that I bag-carried for said you must always ask about budgets.  I remember the first time he showed me his technique around the money question.  We were at a huge diary producer, Kerrygold, and their top bean counter answered without flinching.  And when prompted for more detail, he even ran off a report on a thunderous dot matrix printer to show the approved amount.  Surreal.

My main mentor though, thought the opposite.  ‘You prove the compelling business case, they’ll find the cash’ was his view.  I lean towards this approach.  Especially nowadays.  I sell great stuff, but it can’t possibly be budgeted for as to each prospect it’s a new concept.  And anyway, how many sales team leaders (the people to whom I sell) make allocations for ‘non-budgeted spend’?

There is also a school of thought that uncovering budget sums is a qualification tool.  This isn’t always necessarily the case, particularly in times of lease popularity and genuine rental arrangements.  In addition, many reps live by being able to know the budget so that they can quote just a touch more first time round.  It might heighten their game excitement I suppose, but again, I think it pays not to get too hung up about the money.

As I often tell my charges, don’t be intimidated by big numbers.  They’re all simply small figures, followed by any number of zeroes.

Don’t worry if you’re not that tekkie and have never heard of, let alone used an RSS feeder.  I’ve used all sorts of ways to keep up-to-date on sites I really like and was hoping not to use ‘don’t do evil’ (’oh yes you do’) google options.  Someone implored me to try their reader platform, so with reluctance, I logged on and watched the 49sec video by one of their engineers, ‘Chris Wetherell’.

To my surprise (and delight) wrapped up in this product explanation was a cool sales lesson.  It was the way in which he explained what his service did:

‘…it’s kind of like an inbox for the web, that might not mean a lot to you, so let me explain a little…’

I was immediately taken with his approach.  Three things grabbed me:

1. People always prefer listening to (and trust) non-sales people.  Here was an example of someone involved in making something doing the description, but you could just as easy talk about your experiences using the product yourself.
2. What a terrifically simple way of explaining the service (’inbox for the web’).  Even if it doesn’t first come home, at least you’d know what ‘inbox’ & ‘web’ are.  How many times do I hear reps struggle to get across succinctly and with power what they offer, too hell bent on a benefit driven whammy…..
3. And then the ‘relax, not everyone gets it first time’ kind of tee-up for more description.

Neat.  Nice one Chris.

Came across an accountants that had grown over a seven-year period from a small office above a shop, to a 5-branch regional player with a purpose-built HQ.  One reason they’d experienced such stellar growth, was their decision to offer clients more value-added services on top of traditional auditing.  These included positioning themselves as a specialist in helping SMEs grow.  And their track record helps in this no end.

Interestingly, their consultative framework focuses on 4 items:

Things you have to do (CORE)
Things which make you grow (GROWTH)
Things which protect & strengthen growth (PROTECTION)
Things which make daily life go more smoothly (SUPPORT)

Applying this to a selling territory would be a great help for anyone trying to make out the wood from the trees on their patch.

Speaking with one of my client’s reps yesterday, he gave me insight into what worked for him when selling insurance in a previous life in his native America.  One of his favourite questions at the very start was

“if you were designing your own solution, what would you have in it?”

He reckoned this worked well as it made the prospect think.  All too often they’re used to reps coming and pitch pitch pitching away.  It’s a neat qualification tool in one sense, to see how much thought they may have applied to it.  It’s also a great way to uncover requirements and needs.  And of course it’s always better to have them talking more than you do.

Had an entertaining talk last night with a very successful rep that’s been selling boat loads of a technology product for the past ten years.  The latest initiative from the top is to pursue national framework agreements with target country-wide accounts.  Typically such firms have offices across several sales territories, the idea being to get the nod from HQ then pick up all the sales at less hassle locally.

I have plenty to say about this kind of strategy (& I bet so would Jill Konrath, about whom I’ve blogged before) so rather than espouse what my strategy would be, the interesting point that arose from my conflab with Dylan, was why the policy was worthwhile.

How many buyers when called about a product, answer something like “we’ve got a global agreement with megacorp thanks”.  And the result is almost always the same; the rep loses interests and searches for their next number. 

I was talking to my pal Hansie the other day, and he told me about how when he’s on-site at his biggest client (huge S African insurance player Metropolitan Life to whom he’s been delivering for 7 years) his desk is currently next to the fella that manages their phone systems.  He gets at least 5 calls a day from eager reps trying to sell him a new pabx.  And simply says there’s an agreement in place (forever).

What reps faced with such an obstacle should really do, is politely challenge what the ‘global deal’ means in practice.  Are they forced to buy kit solely from there?  Are they just recommended to do so?  What happens when they want something that sits beyond the supply of the incumbent?  And play your cards right, there could well be one string to your bow that’s unique and gets your foot in the door.

Another day, another selling methodology.  The mnemonic ‘modern’ stems from the following categories:

Money
Our Solution
Decision
Enemy
Resource
Needs

As with all these kinds of structures, the idea is that if you cover each of the headings on your campaign, you shall prevail.  I got sent this one by salespunch sales coaches.  Their angle on this is to debunk the myth that more calls on a bid equates to greater likelihood of winning it.  The knock-on effect with pipeline management being greater forecast accuracy from focus on genuine progression rather than potentially aimless activity.