Author: tazewelldave

Except for transactional sales like online buying, the majority of sales (thankfully) still involve salespeople.  But even in value-based sales, price looms overhead.  A misstep many salespeople make is to get so focused on the prices of their products (Are we too high? Are we leaving too much money on the table?), that they overlook three things buyers decide on before a price discussion begins.

1. The buyer decides on you

In the person-to-person sales process, salespeople first need to sell themselves.  It doesn’t matter what the product or service is, buyers are asking themselves: Do I like you?  Do you care?  It’s often noted that two-thirds of people who decide to take their business elsewhere aren’t concerned so much about technical problems or lured by the competition as they are by feeling that they are being taken for granted.  Such potential for rejection begins at the very first interaction sellers have with buyers.

Selling yourself first means making a good impression with how you look, sound and act.  But more importantly, it means connecting with the buyer.  I remember a big meeting with a group of executive buyers.  Someone made a statement that was so surreal it could have come out of a Monty Python film.  I caught the eye of the key decision maker and we shared smiles.  We talked and laughed about it following the meeting and afterwards I could always get an appointment with him.

2. The buyer decides on your company

After becoming comfortable with you, the buyer needs to become comfortable with who’s behind you.  A company’s reputation helps answer questions in the buyer’s mind like: Do I trust you?  Are your people a good match for mine?  If you work for a known company, that’s a plus.  In the previous low-viral environment, there was nothing like handing over your business card with a famous logo on it to a potential client.  But those days (and accompanying handshakes) may be over forever.  Now your company not only needs name recognition, it needs accessible and compelling websites.

If you don’t represent a well-known company, you’ll need to have a succinct and compelling statement about what your company does.  Not long ago I contracted with a company to get rid of mosquitoes around my house.  The seller I bought from said his job was to “make summer fun again.”  Loved it.  Some salespeople tend to overprocess this.  For example, if you’re using more than a couple of sentences to explain what your company does and they include words like “leverage” and “recontextualize,” you might want to get some help.  Maybe ask your kids.

3. The buyer decides on your offering

Many buyers today already believe they know what they need because they’ve been thinking about it for a while and searching the Internet.  Clearly, what a salesperson is offering has to at least partially fit the picture in the buyer’s head.  Then it’s up to sales skill to help the buyer get the right solution to meeting needs and solving problems.  Or, if you’re a great salesperson and playing the long game, help the buyer get to another company because your offering isn’t the best fit.

There are a couple of things important to note about all this.  First, a whole lot happens in the buyer’s decision process before price comes into play.  The buyer may have a notional budget in mind, but nothing specific happens until they like and trust you and believe you can help them.  The other important thing for salespeople to remember is don’t lead with your solution.  Lead with you.  You’re your own best product.

Many business development and salespeople mix up the concepts of branding and marketing messages.  That’s pretty easy to do, especially if you work for a large company with a central communications department.  In those organizations it’s sometimes more about self-congratulatory branding than selling: “We’re number one,” “We’re really big,” “We’ve got cool stuff.”

Marketing messages are better when they’re about a particular solution directed toward a particular customer set.  Business capture teams working on proposals typically call these win themes.  The problem with that name is that, like branding, they can become more focused on your own company than the customer and often don’t include any substance.  It’s better to start this two-step process with key discriminators.

1. Construct Key Discriminators

Key discriminators have value to the customer and are unique to you.  If a customer doesn’t care about a feature of your solution, why should you mention it?  And if you market the same features as your competition, why would your customer decide to choose you?  I can remember sitting in a Gold Team review years ago and the capture manager put up a slide listing twenty key discriminators.  Wow.  If you have twenty, they aren’t “key.”  Plus, that list was not unique.  It could have been used by the competition or any product in our own inventory!

If you get stuck coming up with a key discriminator, take the viewpoint of your customer.  What would make the customer’s situation better, faster or cheaper?  Good key discriminators ignore all the features that are common with the competition and highlight particular features with some kind of metric or measure.  If you’re really good at this, you can even take potential weaknesses and lead with them: old = “proven architecture,” small = “right-sized,” and we haven’t sold many yet = “delivery ready.”

Building on the power of three to make your messages memorable, select three key discriminators that are of value to the customer and unique to you.  For example, if you have offices near the customer, deliver on time and have great customer service, you could say: “We’re a local company with fast delivery and great service.”  Position these key discriminators as the centerpiece of your value propositions, elevator pitches, proposals … even tee shirts for the team.  Get everyone on message.  That’s the first step.  The second step is to transform them into competition winners.

2. Convert Key Discriminators to Ghosting Discriminators

Jeffrey Fox gives a good description of ghosting discriminators in How to Become a Rainmaker.   Because customers have a tough time deciding which provider is best and it’s never good to bad-mouth the competition, you can use ghosting discriminators to separate your solution from your contemptible competitors.  It’s as if a ghost is putting doubt in the customer’s mind about the other companies, not you.

To convert your key discriminators into ghosting discriminators, first take a close look at what your competition is struggling with.  Do they lack local presence?  Have past performance issues?  Poor product support?  Now add absolute identifiers (superlatives) to your key discriminators to increase the perception of risk by not picking you: “we have the most facilities near your offices,” “are the only company to consistently deliver on time,” “and are ranked highest in customer service.”

If your key discriminators are strong, you can convert and use them as ghosting discriminators with all of your competitors.  You can also pick weaker discriminators that might make good ghosting discriminators against a particular competitor.  The important thing to remember is to stay focused on the customer.  What’s of value to the customer in your solution?  What is it about your solution that’s unique?  How can you contrast the unique strength of your solution with the weakness of the competition in the mind of the customer?

The last time you got something extra from a company, how did it make you feel?  Good, right?  Even though it might have been an orange-colored tee shirt with a too-large logo that you wouldn’t wear more than once, getting it made you feel like you were appreciated.  The secret of why this works is in the giving, not the gift.

It’s not altogether about the total value of the something extra.  The extra has to have some kind of value to the customer in order to be effective, but only up to a certain level.  If the something extra is too much, it can make customers feel uncomfortable.  Or certain types of customers may expect even more and more.  And it can ding your profitability.  Sometimes, less is more.

When I was selling military aircraft in Central Europe, I’d often be at regional air shows.  I loved those small shows because the flying was great and the crowds were fun.  Even small airplane pins were accepted with big smiles.  Because summer weather in that region always included passing rain showers, we brought a lot of umbrellas with our logo on them.  They were wildly popular, didn’t cost a lot and provided great advertising.  I’d see them back in the cities all year long.

Why even consider giving something extra?  Isn’t a good product at a good price good enough?  The general answer is yes, but quite often good enough is not competitive.  Smart business people learned long ago that an estimated 20 percent of their customer base gives them 80 percent of their business … and refers them to others.  That’s why loyalty programs were created – to “gift” repeat customers and encourage new customers to join up.

Does your company have a something extra strategy?  Perhaps a free app?  Free training?  Free analysis?  I once worked with a group that offered free analytical software to customers so they could make their own inputs and compare different providers.  No gimmicks.  It was a superb something extra for technical and user buyers and promoted trust through transparency.

Ever been to New Orleans?  Ever heard someone say lagniappe?  It’s a Creole word meaning a little something extra, like the 13th beignet in the baker’s dozen.  I love New Orleans.  My wife’s mother’s family is from Louisiana and for many years I joined her cousins on a Mardi Gras krewe.  It was a blast being part of all the pageantry and revelry.

Mardi Gras krewes give a lot of extras – to tourism in general and to revelers in particular.  Besides their balls and social events, they personally fund all those great parades of floats, bands and “throws.”  Throws are the beads, coins, cups, and whatevers that come off the floats into the waving arms of the crowds.  It’s a wild scene, but there’s a certain decorum for safety and tradition.  We signed pledges neither to drink on the floats nor throw live chickens (really).

The reason I bring this up is that Mardi Gras throws are the ultimate something extra.  They are cheaply made trinkets with little material value, but become highly desirable for a moment.  Standing on the floats going down St. Charles Avenue you’d hear, “Throw me something, mister.” And you would.  But many times I’d look beyond the frenzy near the float and get eye contact with someone at the edge of the crowd, point to them and launch the throw.  When they caught it, they broke out into a big smile that we both shared.

What’s your company parade?  What’s your throw?  Give ‘em something extra and make it fun.

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that many companies have either a business capture or a sales process mindset.  If they have long sales cycles, up to a year or more, they tend to think they only need capture processes to pull in those complex deals.  If they have short sales cycles, they think they only need sales skills processes to reach their goals.  I believe both processes are essential to success.

1. Business Capture Processes

Let’s review.  The term business capture came about many years ago as companies competed for large government and highly regulated industry contracts.  These were too big for one person to sell and too important for the companies to lose.  Over time, capture processes were created and carried out by capture teams led by capture managers.

In business capture, critical actions are determined, specific team members are given responsibilities and deadlines are set.  Sometimes capture processes are proprietary to individual companies and sometimes they can be outsourced.  And many business capture templates are publicly available.

Business capture processes vary, but they’re all designed to get the team focused on important stuff that needs to be done.  And they work well at that.  But the problem comes when capture teams complete all 357 PowerPoint charts for management showing how many focused actions have been completed and they still lose the new order.  In my opinion, many capture teams focus more on checklists than content.  Capture processes tell you what needs to be done, not how to do it … such as how to sell.

2. Sales Skills Processes

There may be more suggestions on how to sell than hits of “Baby Shark” on YouTube.  Sales gurus have made a lot of money helping salespeople develop skills turning prospects into clients.  And for good reason.  Like business capture processes, there’s a linear flow to what salespeople do in their processes, all the way from getting a lead to closing a deal.  And like business capture processes, if the fundamental sales process actions are followed, there’s a much higher chance of success.

The problem with companies who think they only need sales skills processes to grow their business is that they run the danger having their salespeople do a lot of activity with too little focus.  Like “everyone out for a pass” in flag football, you can expend all your resources and get tackled by the competition before you even have a chance to throw the ball.

A linear sales skills process is not the answer for all companies in all markets.  Neither is a full-blown business capture process.  But a tailored capture process that helps identify markets, needs, buyers, competitors, budgets, prices, offerings and contact plans, combined with skilled salespeople methodically executing on winnable opportunities, is a hard-to-beat combination.

For every company, it’s not EITHER business capture processes OR sales skills processes.  It’s BOTH/AND.

It’s said that expert salespeople look forward to objections, as these give them the information they can use to close a sale.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never liked objections.  Objections are, well, objections.  Sure, you can memorize facts and figures to counter false perceptions of the performance, quality and price of your product or service.  That can help.  But there are always buyers who can’t keep from pointing out every little thing they don’t like.  And they’re persistent about it.

When I was growing up in Texas I worked at a gas station.  In those full-service days, we pumped gas, aired tires, checked oil and washed windshields.  There was one customer who always stayed inside an air-conditioned car and “helped” me by pointing to every little smudge on the windshield.  It seems that same annoying customer followed me throughout my sales career.  But instead of getting all steamed up, I learned to use three methods to handle all those objections.

1. The Improv Method

This is particularly good for price objections.  One of the primary techniques of improv comedy is to accept what someone else says and then expand on it.  It’s called the “Yes, and…”  Applied to sales, you accept the customer’s version of reality and add information in a collaborative way.  If they only know 60% of ground truth about something, you add the remaining 40%.  For example, in response to “Your price is too high,” you might reply, “Yes, that’s a lot of money, and here’s why…”

2. The Diplomat Method

In my military career, I spent a lot of time working with Foreign Service officers.  I have the utmost respect for them and how they calmly work through tangled and contentious issues.  When presented with a clearly awful proposal from someone else, a good diplomat starts by finding something positive to say about it that can be agreed upon at a high level (“Your observation about this issue is important”), then acknowledging the proposal without judgment (“Your proposal is very interesting”) and then revealing their own proposal without negativity (“Have you considered this approach?”).  Repeat as needed.

3. The Feel Felt Found Method

The F/F/F method is the classic approach to objections.  Some of the more experienced salespeople balk a little when I bring this up, wanting something more modern.  The reason F/F/F is classic is because it’s been working for ages.  It’s a proven, observable technique for success, like slowing down the tempo of your golf swing to hit the ball better.  Here’s how it works.  To an objection, you first say, “I understand how you feel” and pause to let your empathy sink in.  Then you say, “Some of my other customers felt the same way at first” and pause again so they comprehend that their objection is valid.  Finally, you say, “Once they implemented our solution they found they got a substantial improvement in …” It’s important not to use “but” or “we” in the last statement, in order to stay positive and enhance those indirect referrals from other customers.

These are three easy techniques to handle objections, right?  So why not try them out the next time you get an objection?  By the way, these also work at home – sometimes.