Salespeople are notoriously inept negotiators.  This isn’t a criticism at all.  They are two entirely different disciplines.  A bit like finding an actor that’s become a fine musician, or the other way around.  It hardly ever happens.

Apparently, we in the UK are shedding our centuries of reserve and unquestioning acceptance to now embrace haggling on the high street.  The Telegraph this morning offers wonderful insight into how this is all working, including priceless tips on how to gain cash slashed off in-store prices.

Just a couple of days ago I was buying my sister lunch and spotted a Borders bookshop.  I wanted to buy Seb Coe’s new tome, The Winning Mind.  After some playful banter with the assistant, I gathered up that and another, but on returning to the counter, noticed the paperback was a little scuffed around an edge.  I suggested that this was worthy of a pound’s deduction.  She said she couldn’t do that, but would ten percent off be alright?  90p, a cup of tea!

When I was a cubrep all those years ago, the great Wyn Rees came in and gave us a day’s training in negotiating skills.  We were all obviously awful, but four things have stood by me ever since.

1. Never open your mouth without knowing how you’ll use the construct “if you…, then I’ll…“
2. Rigourous preparation must include knowing every negotiaiton currency and each one’s bottom-line
3. Wherever possible introduce new people to conduct the negotiation
4. Slow everything right down

The session was in part necessitated because two of my senior colleagues had rocked up to a megabucks closing deal meet, where their first gambit was to push a plastic supermarket bag across the table and grin, “we’re here to give the shop away”.

The aforementioned Telegrap article ably demonstrates that win-win discounting can happily apply, and in these credit crunch recessionery times, people will more and more be demanding purchase incentives.

I think the major take-away from this is clearly to avoid pure isolated price reduction.  Whenever someone asks for a discount, and let’s be realistic, in the b2b world everyone expects their price will be “list-less” someting, the first tactic should be to say ‘no’.  Defend your price.  From then on, only offer a cut if they add to their ‘basket’ and take something else extra as well.

Milo Frank wrote How To Get Your Point Across In 30 Seconds - Or Less around twenty years ago.  The edition I skimmed through recently was impressively its seventh reprint.  I remember I was interested in it at the time because some training I had around then got me to practice my cold-call pitch whilst holding a lighted match.  You had to score before you burned your finger.  It was a good way of understanding the pressures and focusing your game of getting something over well, even though nowadays such an approach is less relevant to the telephone cold pitch.

The are two pillars to this for Frank.  Firstly, consider the three principles of the 30-second message.  Although these don’t seem that groundbreaking for 2009, they are:

• have a single, clear-cut objective
• know your listener and what they want
• get a well-formulated approach

Which can be well summed up by “know what you want, who can give it you, and how to get it”.

Then you must think about the construction of your thirty seconds.  He likes three simple elements:

• Snappy Opening with Hook
• Concise Expression
• Killer Close

He recommends that the hook should be a question.  To paraphrase, which of these hooks grabs your attention more?  “All top salespeople share one key ability” or “What one key ability do all top salespeople share?”

You must also keep your chat jargon-free, and ensure that your call to arms is crystal clear.  He talks in terms of seeking either an action or reaction with your close.  An action is obviously like setting a deadline to agree on or do something.  A reaction is more subtle, and is making a statement that either almost has to be contradicted in some way, or triggers action without you explicitly demanding it.  Obvious examples that spring to mind include ‘the time’s running out’ kind of closing, or suggesting that they take the one-up from what you want them to take.

One of my customers has a world-beating piece of mission critical software for a specific niche.  As such they have a fiercely loyal user-base, with an industry-envied 85% of their sites being reference-able.

As with all niche strategies, possible de-railing issues can crop up, like these three I’ve just learned of in this case, when:

1. someone within that target market decides against a tailor-made solution or one that everyone else has,
2. they consider themselves to be ‘different’, or
3. the key individuals are trying to distance themselves from a previous regime’s thinking.

One measure that the recently installed boss at this client decided upon, was to get on the road and meet as many customers at his level as possible.  So far, I understand he’s made such arrangements with two-thirds of customers.

There’s two important selling points here. The first is that a new personality can always earn the benefit of the doubt, and if necessary, a fresh start.  If you think a particular account has gone a touch off the boil, then introducing a new person can reinvigorate the corporate relationship.  Although prepare them for potentially having to patiently and respectfully sit through a verbal drubbing at first.

As long as you put an agreed action plan for improvement in place and demonstrate progress on it, this renewed impetus can quickly lead to extra sales.  Clients like to reward effort and personal focus on them, and in this case, drawing up a “scope of works” to investigate issues, share any pain and put right any misunderstandings, immediately netted a quote process for £150k of margin.

Yesterday I found myself in a store well-known to my generation for it’s ability to provide fantastic crockery when the emergency of moving home renders you, almost literally, potless.

Currently in an old-school state of culinary disarray, I noted that their display was more teas and coffees than I recall.  Baffled by how many different teas are now on offer, I asked the pair of servers at the till what their best selling tea was.

Unfortunately I crashed against the inevitable London problem in these situations of vendor and buyer not speaking the same language.  Luckily, a young chap appeared to say (without hesitation, in virtual RP) “English Breakfast”.  I then asked which flavoured tea was number one.  But this was a question too far .

I frequently ask this kind of question.  Years ago (1996 I think) I had an uncomfortable experience when arriving in a first-time meeting accompanying the top man of an exciting sales software house.  When we met the owner of the prospect, I was effectively introduced as the ideas-man.  The prospect then instantly quipped, “what’s been your best idea?”

I was momentarily flummoxed.  I thought I recovered to construct a well-argued description, but later in the car on the way home, we discussed it as part of our post-match analysis.   I realised that there were two ways of handling this question well in the future and resolved to never be rocked by it again; always have a prepared response to what my ‘best’ of anything could be for starters, but more importantly in this context, this is a question that deserves to be neutralised through a deft sidestep.

So from then on, I’ve regularly asked people what their ‘best’ is.  My findings are remarkable.  It is truly amazing how many shop assistants, for instance, cannot tell you what their best selling items are.  And on the rare occasions when they can, they cannot stretch to tell you the top 3.

Away from retail, when I’ve had people try to sell to me for my businesses, asking them who their best customer is, or what their best-selling product is, always throws them off course.  Which is a real shame, because if they could answer properly, the insight for me from knowing why these were the ‘best’, and the distinction it would bring to their cause, would be invaluable.

So, what’s your ‘best’ (and why)…?

As his wikipedia entry so succinctly states, Graham Hill is the only driver to win the so-called Triple Crown of Motorsport, namely the F1 World Championship (twice), Le Mans and the Indy 500.

I just watched a fascinating BBC doc on his life, which began with a marvellous quote from him.  I can hear it uttered by those leading sales efforts at sales meetings across the globe…

“Time is of the essence … and I’m very short of essence”

Yet a true reminder of his pursuit of excellence comes from 1960s black and white interview footage around half-way in.  It appears in the context of contrasting his immensely popular jovial playboy nature with the transformation to a steel-like focus once around a racing car:

“I know I’ve got a bit of a reputation for being awkward, so I’m told [chuckles] and I think this is because … I set very high standards for myself and I expect other people to come up to that same standard.  So you’re bound to … if you don’t get what you want … press for it and though it might mean somebody else working that little bit harder, they might think I’m being particular, but I want everything to be exactly right and that is important, and that’s the way I drive and the way I expect things to be done.  On the whole I think it pays off.”

There’s nothing wrong in striving for perfection, whether in motor racing or selling.

Until the past few months, Estate Agents regularly topped polls seeking to shame the ‘most hated profession’.  Then bankers came along.  Here’s a reminder as to how those old poll findings came about.

I’ve a friend renting a flat out in London.  Against his better judgement, he decided to use Foxtons as his letting agent.  They have an awful reputation, reinforced by cultural failings exposed by their fleet of garishly liveried Minis and their agents never quite managing to look the part in their supposedly smart suits.  The bottom line is that they are renowned for unattained over-promises.  They charge higher commissions than anyone else, but justify doing so by their claims that they’ll get you a better rent.

Just a few days in to my pal’s relationship with them, their absence of goodwill has been confirmed, along with a lesson in how not to run a sales effort.

Within the first week on the market, they called my friend to say the rent was too high.  This being the rent amount that they promised they’d achieve.  Then the Foxtons fella asked what my friend would be willing to come down to.  Not taking no for an answer, the agent practically tried to bully my pal into dropping the price.  It struck my friend as lazy, unprofessional and totally lacking respect for his needs.

Then I happened to be in his pad when a potential renter was shown around.  In its entirety, here was the Foxtons agent’s pitch:

“Kitchen … bathroom … storage … what do you think?”

Seven words.  I’ve heard a few disgraceful selling conversations in my time, and this one certainly ranks as pretty shocking.  If people are surviving in these tough times with behaviour like this, then there’s hope that real winners will clean up.

So the IMF made news yesterday for doubling its relief provision to poor countries during this recession from its “exogenous shock” fund.  Not normally much of sales worthiness to report there, although it’s certainly not an everyday phrase and consequently alerts the ear.

My memory of what that actually means is that when something’s exogenous, it emanates from outside of your normal environment and control.  The opposite is endogenous, when the event which impacts you is nearby, an everyday happening and typically something over which you may have an element of control over.

There’s another distinction possible, namely that exogenous events tend to be huge.  They’re massive one-off bangs.  Whereas endogenous impacts are small, potentially regular ripples.

Natural environmental disasters are often framed using this scale (earthquakes, floods, even epidemiology).  The success of artistic pursuits can also be linked to these poles.  Do you attain greater success from an appearance on Oprah (an exogenous event) or from (endogenous) word-of-mouth generated recommendations starting from family and friends?

I feel this has interesting ramifications for solution sales campaigns.  Can you adapt this thinking to maximise chances of a contract award?

Endogenous events are our staple.  Numerous phone calls, one-on-one meetings and email threads with your closest contacts.  But what about the other kind?

What would constitute an exogenous shock, and how would you try and create one to your advantage?  I think that anything that highlights and piles greater pressure on the problem you resolve that comes from left-field would be beneficial.

In this case, how do you influence those elements beyond the realms of your typical arena that in turn can influence your prospect?

The first things that spring to mind are what their customers and suppliers might say and do.  You can go further out into their industry, and other market payers or competitors.  And then don’t forget internal machinations, with those actions and deeds of colleagues from departments you’d never normally encounter.

Then there’s another slant.  If endogeny involves effects of run-of-the-mill contact, how about creating an exogenous event?  What would be the outcome of getting every single person you need to influence into the same room or attend the same event?  What would the premise of such a forum be? And how would you use it to genuinely progress?

Here’s an interesting discussion I had the other day.  A company with a field-based salesteam bought salesforce.com a while back with the usual lamentable side-effects.

Then they wanted their post-sale delivery people to fill out a new form on potential lead opportunities that their privileged access detected at client premises.  This was as well as their standard visit reviews, which can easily extend into 5 pages of typing, taking up significant time.

“Not more bloody paper!”

It’s a familiar collective cry.  So then they thought why not re-engineer salesforce a tad, pop in a few new fields and get the guys to input direct to screen.

Licence costs, bespoking traumas and management overheads all combined to render this a no-no.  Hardly surprising.  Yet the big killer was when they worked out how much time it’d physically take to fill-in the required info; it could add up to well in excess of an entire day each month.  And when they realised that this would be at the expense of a chargeable billing day, the lost cash loomed large in their minds.

Glad I’m able to help…

I read an article in a strategic management mag from a few years back with timeless resonance for salespeople.  It discusses ten books that unmask story-telling as a definitively powerful tool in persuasion.  It must have been a buzz-topic of the time, as I later found an old copy of Inc with a similarly supportive storytelling article.

The first premise discussed offers brilliant insight:

“influencing people through scientific analysis is a “push” strategy. It requires the speaker to convince the listener through cold, hard facts. That sets up an antagonistic conversation. Storytelling is a “pull” strategy, coaxing listeners — disarming them, even — into imagining outcomes toward which facts would not lead them.“

So then, Pull, don’t Push.

I’ve always realised stories are powerful when selling.  One of my most recurring uses, is when I realise a prospect is going through a similar problem to a client I’ve helped in the past, then I really labour how they were afflicted, in high-def detail, with all the associated emotion of the time.  Another common story topic that produces attentive nodding is about how the ideas for my products came about and how they subsequently evolved.

Using fables and cliches are also recommended in the aforementioned article as,

“no matter how fantastic or fanciful … stories quiet the nettlesome nit-picking of left-brain thinking and stimulate people’s creativity”

(… and the use of comparing the early bird with the second mouse eating the cheese was a cracker, albeit with a message with which I generally do not empathise.)

All well and good, but how do you create a story that has impact?  One suggestion is to write down a list of ’story triggers’.  Another (and the best tip) is about the four-step dramatic pattern that must be in every story in order to capture people’s imaginations and emotions:

1. We find a protagonist with a situation or problem,
2. depict a change that creates drama (a decision, an outside development),
3. highlight a turning point in the drama (crisis, conflict), and
4. describe the aftermath.

The Inc instructions adds colour to this by recommending your story needs:

1. a ’spine’,
2. an inciting incident,
3. a hero (you, preferably, but not essentially),
4. a valiant quest,
5. remembering to throw in some conflict, and
6. a happy ending (”the object of desire”)

(…extra resource:)

Then after reading these articles, I happened on the beeb’s latest reality show, searching for the country’s best young speaker.  The microsite they’ve put together for it has a useful section on how to speak well, with plenty of video, including one specifically on storytelling from slick news presenter Kate Silverton.  It’s well worth a coffee break with pen and paper by your side.

I experienced a pleasant surprise the other night; excellent service in a London gastropub.  Over the past few years, the usual antipodean supply of waitrons and bartenders has been supplanted by eastern Europeans who, whilst laudably keen, are suffering inevitable confusion from not fully understanding colloquial, real-time English and accompanying sense of ‘humour’.  Hopefully the resultant current service slump (much is barely perfunctory in nature) will be short-lived.

So I wandered into a place with a friend doing a half-price gourmet burger promo.  A trio of factors made my mealtime excellent.

I fancied some water to immediately quench my thirst whilst waiting for my drinks to come.  I asked for tap water (sometimes a life-risking manoeuvre in London!) and the response pointed me in the direction of the end of the bar, where there were a couple of water jugs, complete with fruit floating and plenty of empty glasses alongside. I could help myself.

After ordering my burger I realised that I really fancied something instead of chips.  The order slip had already gone to the kitchen whilst my drinks were being sorted when I asked if they’d alternatives.  Would I like mash?  A great suggestion and they went backstage to amend my order.

Then I noticed a pint pot on the bar, filled with water, coins at the bottom and a lemon floating on the surface.  It turned out to be their tip jar.  The lemon is there because if you balance your coin on it, you get to win the tips.  It’s one of those impossible bar-games, although I was assured that one-time, a fella won three times in a night. Urban myth methinks…!

So all three happenings combined to create a fantastic impression of the place, further confirmed when the food was good too.  Yet I thought that each item was a little, simple thing in itself.

When I’m dealing with my prospects/clients, what do I do around the edges to make dealing with me a stand-out experience?  What do any of us do during a campaign or customer relationship to set ourselves apart in this manner?  I’m sure we could all do more…