The Sontaran Stratagem (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is there a role for stratagem in your sales strategy?  There is, but probably not the one you might automatically consider.  The objective of stratagem in this concept isn’t laying a trap for your prospect.  It’s laying a trap for your competition.

One of the Principles of Professional Selling is Never Mislead a Customer.  Fooling a prospect may, or may not, be easy but it’s always bad news.  Duped prospects turn into sour customers, and sour customers are very bad for business.  So there is no room in a professional sales strategy for stratagem, which Thesaurus tells us is a trick, an artifice, a trap.  As far as the prospect is concerned, that is.

But we owe no duty of fair play to the competition, do we?  A stratagem built into a sales strategy and intended to trap competitors is perfectly acceptable.  Especially when the prospect benefits as a result.

Inspiration for this thought came from a reader who commented on our article A Strategy for Sales People to Avoid Death Valley.  The point made in that post was we should always keep open a reason to go back to the buyer, until the deal is signed.  The comment asked the question – when competition is fierce and the buyer is in control how does the sales rep keep something back?  Our answer was lay a trap.  Set up a future conversation, not directly related to the requirement, but promising value add for the customer.

That’s the stratagem, and the point of this article. It works in any situation, in any sales campaign, but is especially effective when the buyer holds all the cards.

The stratagem has to create a competition you can win.  It might be price, or service, or relationship, or technology development.  The fundamental requirement is the new and additional promise must be something extra, something not in the defined requirement, but an extra benefit.  And something for which you know you’ll come out on top.

And its vital the competition doesn’t see it coming.

At this point an example is always helpful.

As usual we’ll go back to old friend Paul the insurance broker.  Persuading a business to change brokers is like asking them to change banks.  They don’t do it very often.  Worse the existing broker always has an inside track to the decision maker, and the opportunity to respond to any initiative taken by the competition.

Paul got tired of winning business on the quality of his consulting, the security of the policy, and the cost, and then losing it at the final hurdle because the incumbent was the CFO’s brother in law.

He needed a way of going back after the deal had been lost, and winning it again.  And the trap he laid was a detailed analysis of risks inherent in the existing policy, with a report from the existing broker on ways the policy could be improved, to be compared with a similar one from him.

The trap of of course was the incumbent broker would always have difficulty in critiquing his own work. After all that’s what brokers are there for – arranging adequate cover at the lowest cost. But Paul’s secret was there are hidden risks in every policy.  Client’s just don’t know about them.

Instead of opening up the project to win the new business with a detailed evaluation of the existing cover, he built that into a new post selection phase.

Once the broker selection had been made on the basis of the PowerPoint sales pitch, and all the relationship strings had been pulled, the detailed evaluation would start.  He’d highlight all the holes in the cover and the prospect would compare his report with the incumbent’s version.

It’s hard to buy from somebody you know is incompetent, or worse, even when they’re your brother in law.

Some time ago the Supply Chain software business was all the rage.  Every company was looking for ways to optimise it’s supply chain, using data intelligence to find ways of improving availability, whilst simultaneously reducing cost.  License fees were high, and competition was fierce.

The vendor executing our stratagem was awesomely successful.  In every deal the pitch was the future.  Something the buyer couldn’t predict.  Something the vendor had already worked out.  The promise was a meeting with the vendor CEO, a vision of where things would go, and a promise of partnership to help the buyer get there.

The competition didn’t understand what was going on.  Our example vendor added the future to the existing requirement, and a partnership with the company defining it.

If you’d like more insight and ideas about managing sales check out our eBook Succeeding in Sales Management

Business Model Triangle (Photo credit: Alex Osterwalder)

What do we mean by Sales Model and why is it important?  And isn’t this all a little too intellectual?  Why are we wasting time talking about theory while, out there, people are spending money with somebody else?

These are all good questions.  If you are the sort of sales professional who can sell anything to anybody, make top dollar on every deal, do it differently every-time and still over achieve against your goals?  Please tell us your secret before you leave to do it again.

if you’re not one of those guys, stay with us for a while.  This article makes no judgement about right and wrong.  But it does explain what the best sales model is, and the ways the decision directs other choices.

The Sales Model is just like a business model, only limited to sales operations. It’s organisation, strategy and processes. It might also include skills needed by the sales team and their compensation package.  It’s influenced, at least should be, by the product and associated services, by the target customers, by the competition, and by the prices and costs involved.

That’s quite a lot of influences for what most people would consider a simple departmental issue.  Why not send the sales people out to knock on doors and ask for some orders – that’s what everybody else does, isn’t it?

Well, actually they don’t, or at least the successful businesses don’t.  They work out at least a skeleton strategy with value proposition, customer demographic, price and cost of sale targets, and sales process.  A couple of examples will help show some of the differences.  We can see how different sales models will apply in the same recruitment agent.

The business value proposition is all about human resourcing for the hotel and catering industries.  Companies needing additional staff use our company to find and recruit the people they need.   The service covers both senior management salaried staff and by the hour casual labour for kitchen porters, cleaners, and waiting staff for the restaurants.  But the company uses different sales models depending on the staff to be provided.

Recruiting and staffing of by the hour temporary requirement is a minimal value add business.  There’s a lot of competition so fees are low.  Success is about having the right staff looking for work and luck catching the right manager on the phone at the right time. Sales is Inbound and Outbound telephone call based. Either the customer wants extra help or doesn’t.  Either the agency has the right skill available or doesn’t.  This type of business is really numbers game.

The other side of the business is entirely different – Executive Search as opposed to temporary staffing.  Fees are much higher, and so is the involvement of sales.  The sales function is led by an Account Director with an intimate understanding of the client, the industry and what’s required for the senior management roles.  When the hotel is recruiting a new Hotel Manager, or Front of House Manager, or  Head Waiter or Head Chef it needs a business partnership with the sales representative which starts with the initial introduction and continues through the complex process of specification, advertising and search, negotiation and start up.

This is one simple example of how sales models will differ between businesses and value propositions.  There are many more, of course.

Just how the sales operation works in order to achieve the right mix of revenues and costs of sale is what we describe as the sales model with organisation, processes, and metrics.

If you’d like to get more insight and ideas about managing sales check out our eBook Succeeding in Sales Management

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Is there a diference between selling a product and selling a solution?  Over recent years all sorts of marketing and sales people have transformed their pitches.  Products were out, and solutions were in.  Great news. Something different to talk about, and an escape from the pressure on features and price.

Customers liked it. There’s an implication in the word solution suggesting results guaranteed. Not just tools (products) but expertise, services and risk management.

In all too many cases the words changed, but everything else stayed the same. Without corresponding transformations in the sales and delivery models any evolution from product to solution will be an illusion.  The customer experience won’t change, except for increased disappointment.

The lines between products and solutions are easily blurred, and misunderstood, so maybe a short review of the history of selling will be useful? Understanding how we got from there to here makes it easier to understand the ramifications for both sales and delivery processes. And points to the very real changes which need to be made for a business to really evolve from product to solution.

There was a time when there weren’t enough products to go around.  In fact, right from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution up until the new millennium, factories were flat out trying to keep up with the explosion in demand for just about anything.  Sales people were employed to present products to potential buyers.  That’s all they had to do.  Catch the buyers attention, present the product, and ask for the order.  If any punter didn’t buy, so what.  There was always another just around the corner.

Typically sales professionals were paid only a commission on what they sold.  Sales Managers allocated territories and measured activity rates.  They developed the concept of a sales funnel in which prospects were captured and forced through a series of arguments to a purchase decision.  The model was really simple.  Making 100 calls to get 20 prospects to listen to a pitch, would result in 10 proposals and 5 sales.

Sales teams would operate in isolation from the main business.  Their job was to get orders.  The factory would deliver.  Whether the product would, or would not, meet the expectations of the buyer was irrelevant.  Let the Buyer Beware – or Caveat Emptor – says the law.

That was how most of what we know as the principles of selling emerged.  The sales super hero who didn’t take no for an answer, battered down doors, cold called like a machine, talked fast, told jokes, hit and run, became the role model.

Much of that thinking survives even now, despite a fundamental shift in the power of the customer, which drove the evolution from product to solution.

Through the latter half of the 20th Century things started to change.  Mass production techniques increased the supply of product.  Globalisation allowed new suppliers from emerging economies.  Customers grew to have choices, and learn a great deal more of what they were about to buy.  The world went from a shortage of products to a glut in the space of 20 years.  Competition exploded, and the pressure on features and price grew with it.

In response, the marketing people came up with the idea of solutions.  With these, the customer wouldn’t have to worry whether the product was right – the solution would ensure satisfaction.

Customers liked the idea, a lot, and so did the sales people.  But not many understood.  The sales and delivery model needed to change if the promise of a solution was to be delivered.  All too often the businesses didn’t stop to understand they needed to change philosophy as well as the marketing words.

The solution assumes responsibility for the result.  That’s what customers expect.  And its what some companies delivered.  They developed a new model in which the sales guy took time to understand what the customer wanted and organise his resources to provide it.  Instead of sales operating in isolation from the rest of the business it became the first step in a seamless process, from marketing through manufacturing, distribution, delivery, implementation, to customer service.  The sales role transitioned from unwelcome interference to trusted advisor.  The sales funnel transitioned to prospect pipeline.  Sales processes ensured cost of sale wouldn’t be wasted on prospects who weren’t going to buy.

Companies which understood the change in the balance of power from vendor to customer, and reacted with a new focus on customer satisfaction have survived and flourished,  while product companies, which didn’t, haven’t, even if they did change the words they used.

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Your sales strategy is simply a playbook – what the sports coaches call the predetermined moves you’ll make in particular circumstances set by the opposition.

For a sports playbook you need to understand and stay within the rules of the game. You need to research the opposition’s past performances, seeing how they exploit weaknesses. You need to organise your own resources to counter the other team’s moves. And you need to play to your strengths when its your turn with the ball.

Selling is no different.

Of course it isn’t a game. It’s more serious than that. But the philosophy is the same.

Anybody with a responsibility for winning business can develop their own unique sales strategy.

Management and Marketing can’t do it. They don’t understand the particular chemistry of individual customers with particular hot buttons, and the moves the competition will make.

But you sales professionals can. You are on the street. You can feel the vibes. You know which strings to pull and what happens.

Just like sports coaches, you can do the thinking up front. Put your experience to work. Figure the angles and the plays. Write your own playbook of strategies and tactics which work for you.

That’s your sales strategy – your unique sales proposition – your USP.

If you’d appreciate some help? If you’d like a coach? If you’re not quite sure of how to manage your own destiny?

Check out our tutorial The Why’s and How’s of Sales Strategy which explains how figuring the plays out before the game starts wins you more business, at better prices, with less effort.

Professional buyers can teach sales people a lot about selling. In fact sales people can learn a lot about selling, when they’re buying for themselves. But there’s one aspect of buying sales people will not learn on their own – the supply chains professional buyers build.

Supply chains are interesting, because they seem to contradict the standard business practice. They’re built on co-operation, as opposed to competition. Every partner in the chain is dependent on all the others. Nobody succeeds unless everybody succeeds. They’re also exclusive clubs. Each member is the very best at its individual role.

Buyers achieve their ultimate goal – the most value at the lowest cost, with the risk managed by somebody else – when they put together consortia of suppliers, each of whom is the best in his business, prepared to collaborate in satisfying the end customer.

Sellers are keen to take any opportunity going, especially in times like these we face in 2012. Markets are short on buyers and long on sellers. Nobody want’s to walk away from business they might win. It’s natural, when a buyer says “I’m looking for” the sales rep responds with “we can do that” regardless of how good they are at doing it. In any sales opportunity most of the competing suppliers will be selling “we can do that”.

Sales people can up their game when they understand buyers. Knowing why their company is the very best at “that” and presenting it credibly, they’ll shine through the fog of competitors claims.

There’s an opportunity here for the sales guy who puts in some extra effort. Understanding all the dimensions of the buyers requirement, and positioning the proposal as “the very best at some part of it”, helps the offer stand out from the crowd.

Competitors will readily understand the maximum value at lowest cost element. The part they’ll be less likely to translate into their own thinking is the “best of breed” concept. The fact they “can” do something isn’t a qualifier for winning the business. The fact they can do it better than anybody else is.

Finding that “something we’re the very best at” isn’t necessarily as difficult as it sounds. Just asking the right questions will usually uncover several hidden influences. Asking those questions in the three agendas will reveal hot buttons the competition might not discover. Selling as the only vendor to understand a particular want, and being the very best at satisfying it, is usually the secret sauce.

So which are those three agendas hiding the hot buttons others won’t discover?

The Business Imperative

There’s something driving the change in the business. What is it – a defence against competitive pressure, or an offensive initiative. What will reduce the risk of failure

The Business Case

There’s always a business case. Return on Investment and or cost justification – no matter how notional – will be part of the final decision. So will cash flow, and risk. Amateurs assume the business case is about cost. Professionals understand the other sides of the coin.

The Personal Agenda

There’s always a personal agenda. It might be the buyer’s. It might be the CEO’s. It might be any number of other influencers’, but there is always a personal agenda.

Sales professionals who’s offer is as good as the others in two dimensions and the very best in the other have a competitive advantage. When they’re as good in the others in two dimensions and the very best in the personal agenda, they’re dealing from a stacked deck.

On the other hand the “we can do that” rep is simply there making up the numbers.

Why do you need a sales strategy? Surely success in sales and sales management is all about tactics – individual responses to unique customer needs. No two customers, no two opportunities, and no two sales deals are the same. The only strategy any sales manager can make work is “whatever it takes”. Do whatever is necessary to win the sale, and ask forgiveness after.

When it comes to those final few interchanges “whatever it takes” makes sense. The cost of sale has already been spent. Any deal is better than a loss report.

But that’s only one part of what sales people and sales managers do. Most of their time is spent researching, cold calling, networking, discovering, probing, qualifying – finding out where there are deals and checking those are real opportunities.

For those parts of the job, a well constructed sales strategy makes a big difference. Research is better targeted, cold calls are more productive, sales resources are more cost effective, and sales performance is more predictable.

So what is a sales strategy and how can you decide which is the most likely to work for you?

Before you call in the consultants you might find some of the articles in our blogs helpful. At least they’ll give you a basic understanding and foundations for building your own strategy, to fit your business, in your market.

Here are links to a small selection.

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics
Sales strategy isn’t something business owners and sales managers put at the top of the priority list. Perhaps because they don’t understand the difference between that strategy and sales tactics, or the importance of either in effective sales operations. Or how to develop an effective strategy. So how is a sales strategy different from sales tactics?

The Role of Your Value Proposition
What role does value proposition play in a sales strategy? Or maybe what is a sales strategy, and what is a value proposition, and why should anybody care? The answer to those questions depends on how much you enjoy kissing frogs.
You’ll remember the Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the princess kissed the frog, and the frog turned into a handsome prince who married her. The happy couple lived together in marital bliss for the rest of their lives.

The Role of Sales Process
Process is an essential element of sales strategy. In fact process is an essential element of any strategy. Do you have one in yours?
Most think of strategy in terms of what they want to do. They might even think of this in terms of value proposition – what they’re going to do for the customer. But, do they think about the how?

What is Your Sales Strategy, How Well Does It Work?
Sales strategy is the fundamental element of any business plan. Most advice on business planning misses it out, focusing on revenue, costs and cash instead. Presumably because the people giving that advice know nothing about selling and wouldn’t recognise a sales strategy if it bit them in the behind. But knowing how we’re going to turn prospects into satisfied customers is more important than anything else. Without that concept built into our operating model the business plan isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

10 Challenges – A Checklist For Your Strategy
Do you have a sales strategy checklist – a number of questions, or challenges, your strategy needs to address? Writing a strategy for selling, whether for a market, a team, or even an individual deal, can be tricky. There’s a danger of building incorrect assumptions into the thinking. Testing every assumption avoids that danger, or at least highlights any risks. A checklist will help you make sure every angle is covered.

A New Role for Sales People – Customer Experience
Maybe 2012 is all about transitioning the role of revenue generation from sales people to web pages. Maybe the new sales tasks are all about Keywords, Content and Adwords auctions. Who needs the additional costs of sales operations when the customer simply wants the lowest price, and the reps and the managers, add no value.

Answers to Questions You Didn’t Know to Ask
You already know about selling, but maybe managing sales is a different matter. How about an introduction to the philosophies, strategies, and processes used by professional sales managers? That’s what you’ll get from our eBook Succeeding In Sales Management – Preview and Buy Here

Is there a role for sales and sales management in 2012 and beyond? The traditional sales tasks in prospecting, pitching and closing seem to be redundant now the Internet has enabled customers to do their own research, and marketing to do the pitching.

Maybe 2012 is all about transitioning the role of revenue generation from sales people to web pages. Maybe the new sales tasks are all about Keywords, Content and Adwords auctions. Who needs the additional costs of sales operations when the customer simply wants the lowest price, and the reps and the managers, add no value.

This isn’t a pretty picture for sales people, is it. We seem past our sell by date, redundant in our own time, like so many other professionals replaced by computers.

It’s time for sales people to sell to their own bosses, setting a new role for themselves, and equipping their companies with a new competitive advantage – customer experience.

As much as the bean counters try to commoditise products and services, they fail. Their mistake is believing buyers are only interested in price. But customers only ever buy on price when they don’t care what they’re buying.

In the vast majority of cases customer experience is as significant in the buying decision as price, if not more so. Buying on the Internet is a very sterile experience. There’s no enjoyment, and not much security. There’s very little advice, and a lot of risk. When businesses sacrifice customer experience in pursuit of lower costs they lose control of their markets. The reverse is true. When businesses invest in customer experience they increase control and as result achieve more sales, at higher prices and margins.

The new role for sales in 2012, when so much of the traditional tasks have been automated, needs to be customer experience. Sales people help customers feel good about buying decisions, and that’s what will make the difference between winners and losers in 2012 and beyond.

If your CEO doesn’t agree take her to your nearest Apple store, and ask her to tell you why Apple is the most successful technology company in the world, ever.

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Do you think you have a sales problem?   If so you’re in good company.  And you’re also wrong.  You don’t have a sales problem.  You have a strategy problem.  The assumptions you made about market, and customers, and your operations don’t fit with reality. Rework the strategy, based on fact rather than assumptions, to solve what you see as a sales problem.

Most businesses these days have difficulty forecasting which deals will be won by the sales team, leading to problems forecasting revenue, and cash flow.  Uncertainty about income and cash turns into doubt, and doubt stops them investing – in people, product and growth.  Doubt about sales performance, revenue and cash gives everybody reason to hold back.  Not surprisingly, most people will describe such a situation as a sales problem.  But they’re wrong.

The inability to predict success in sales campaigns is a challenge, but the fault lies in one, or more, elements of sales strategy  - either the value proposition, the process, or the systems.

A value proposition  aligning your ability to add value with the needs of a defined market sets the sales rep up with the right messages for the right people.  On the other hand an aspiration to sell what you could do, as opposed to what only you can do, doesn’t.  Targeting sales people in places the competition is stronger can only end in tears.

A process aligning prospects needs with the vendors capability provides both with the opportunity to achieve their goals.  On the other hand demanding your process overrides the way customers want to work creates a confrontation neither party needs.  Insisting the customer does things the vendors way works for some major businesses, but not many, and not for long.

Systems collecting the right information, and putting it where the troops need to find it, equip sales and customer service teams to get their job right, first time, every time.  Unfortunately those systems usually get defined by the IT people who primarily answer to the accountants.  The people who most need information finish up collecting meaningless data whilst what they need to help customers buy isn’t available.

If sales operations isn’t delivering the goods for you don’t blame the guys doing the selling. Look in the mirror and make sure your strategy is working.

• Make sure your value proposition fits with what customers are buying.
• Get your process helping, not hindering, the alignment of a buy/sell collaboration.
• Stop your systems delivering to the accountants at the cost of the sales team’s efficiency.

Do you have a sales strategy checklist – a number of questions, or challenges, your strategy needs to address? Writing a strategy for selling, whether for a market, a team, or even an individual deal, can be tricky. There’s a danger of building incorrect assumptions into the thinking. Testing every assumption avoids that danger, or at least highlights any risks. A checklist will help you make sure every angle is covered.

In this blog you’ll find articles describing the importance of your sales strategy, and even a template you might use to develop yours. In our sister site Successful Sales Management we’ve published more articles relating to the same topic. These explain some less obvious aspects your strategy might include. Here, we put them forward as 10 thoughts for your checklist.

What’s the difference between sales strategy and sales tactics discusses how strategy addresses market wide factors, and tactics address ways in which the strategy is deployed in individual sales plans.

In Is your strategy easy to buy we describe ‘easy to buy’ in three dimensions – your internal teams need to believe in it, your prospects need to understand how it benefits them, and the buying process needs to be frictionless, with no barriers to give the customer cause for delay.

Organise your sales funnel into Targets, Suspects and Prospects explains how categorising names in the sales funnel helps with sales forecasting, and prioritising schedules when there are conflicts.

Everybody needs a sales coach highlights the importance of having somebody in the prospect business coach you in how to win the deal.

The role of value proposition in the sales strategy discusses what that proposition should be, how to describe it, and how to use it in your sales process.

The role of process in your sales strategy quotes a real life case study of how an insurance broker plans his sale in a number of steps, then executes the plan in the same way, every time.

Are you selling to the personal agenda positions the various decision and selection criteria involved in any buying process. The personal agenda doesn’t necessarily surface early in conversations, but will have an influence once the short list is selected. Uncover the personal agenda to recruit your coach.

The role of questions in your sales process responds to recent articles suggesting the point of asking questions is in creating conversations. We agree, but there’s more to it than that and explain what.

Avoiding Death Valley warns of the dangers of playing all your cards too early. Always keep a reason to go back to the prospect until the decision is made.

Buying Permission to Sell suggests there’s a step which comes before all the questions – some kind of opening statement which tells prospects they’re talking to the right people and buys their permission to sell.

If these thoughts get you questioning the status quo, watch this space.   We’ll soon be publishing a new tutorial on the subject of sales strategy – why you need one and how to get one.

In the meantime check out our library of Selling and Sales Management coaching tutorials.

Answers to Questions You Didn’t Know to Ask
You already know about selling, but maybe managing sales is a different matter. How about an introduction to the philosophies, strategies, and processes used by professional sales managers? That’s what you’ll get from our eBook Succeeding In Sales Management – Preview and Buy Here

Sales Forecasts based on confidence aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. A subjective, single dimension assessment by sales reps not grounded in fact can only ever be a guess.

Consider this example conversation between sales representative and sales manager while reviewing the sales forecast.

“How confident are you we’ll win that sale? How sure are you that’s the price you’ll get? How do you know the close date won’t slip out of the quarter?”

“Well there are never certainties in sales, but in this case I’m 70% confident on winning the deal. I’m 50% confident on the price and I’m 30% confident we’ll get it this quarter.”

“That doesn’t help me solve my prospect list puzzle. I need a single percentage to put in the forecast. What have you got?

“Well, in that case put me down for 50%!”

This is a scenario any experienced salesman will recognize. Here we have confidence in 3 dimensions, each of which may have an impact on our sales forecast, and the sales forecast drives just about everything in the business.

• The sales rep needs to have answers to these questions – otherwise how will she know if this deal is the best use of her time.
• The sales manager needs to have answers to these questions because she’s about to commit to the CEO on cash this quarter.
• The CEO needs to know the answer to these questions, because she needs to review how well the sales strategy works.

These managers need more than guesses. They need a weighted probability forecast based on a standard sales process with milestones. As each milestone is passed the percentage probability can be incremented. The value derived from applying the weighted probability to the estimated value will be a more accurate representation of likely performance than any guess about confidence.