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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What’s the difference between a sales rep and a sales manager? And how can the successful sales person climb the corporate ladder, winning promotion to the next level?

The answer is transitioning from Me to Us.

For sales reps life is relatively simple – all about Me. It’s my target, my territory, my prospects, my sales, my commission.

For sales managers its all about Us.

How can we live off the star performers, meanwhile helping the newcomers to progress?

How can we persuade the Product People, Marketing and Customer Service to do a better job for customers?

How can we keep the beancounters off our backs while we earn a living for them?

The answers to those questions are what you’ll find in Succeeding in Sales Management.

Would you send your best sales guy on every call if you could?  You know, the one who seems to have a special knack of asking the right questions, and understanding the answers. The one who’s sales forecast always turns out to be the most accurate. The one who knows when to hold the cards, and when to fold them, walking away from the deal.

What would happen if you could do that? Sales Up. Margins Up. Customer Satisfaction Up. Cost of Sale Down. Days Sales Outstanding Down.

This would rank high amongst any sales managers dreams, if you could do that. But, of course you can’t.

Even the very best sales teams are mixtures of the good, the bad, and the simply ugly.

Inevitably, the best sales reps will sometimes work the worst opportunities, and the worst sometimes get the best. With good sales people even bad deals can turn out to be good. Bad sales people usually find ways of wrecking good ones.

Managing sales teams is always a matter of averages, with the good balancing the merely competent, to an acceptable overall result.

You could solve the problem, if the sales manager went on every call with the poorer reps. That’s probably what happens now, to an extent. No sales manager wants to see opportunities wasted, even if it means doing the selling for the less able.

But that’s not the ideal answer. Whilst the sales manager is selling, who will do the managing?

The real answer is improving the skills of the poorer performers, with training and coaching, and perhaps a little “encouragement” – make the number, or make tracks. Unfortunately that’s easier said than done.

Maybe technology offers an answer? Nearly 50 years ago they put men on the Moon. Surely there’s a way to use mobile technology, online databases, and intelligent software in improving sales results?

There is now.

The Occulus sales management software provides a database of sales best practice distilled from more than 200 consulting assignments. A coaching oriented workflow based on questions helps the sales rep calculate a confidence factor for each deal, and offers suggestions about how the chances to win the order can be improved.

We took a long hard look at Occulus and were so impressed we decided to join the affiliate program.

You can try it for yourself, and find out why, with the free online deal analysis.

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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

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Selling B2B products or services doesn’t involve any form of magic, black or any other colour. But it does require discipline and focus. There needs to be a process everybody understands, including the prospect. There needs to be attention to detail, with no stone unturned in the search for clarity. There must be teamwork – individuals don’t win B2B on their own.

Whenever the selling team loses that discipline, attention to detail, and teamwork, the proposal is in trouble. The buying team will be out of control, and difficult to influence. When buying teams aren’t counter balanced by effective selling teams they are likely to make very bad decisions. For examples of how bad they can be, see what a mess government procurement of IT can deliver.

That’s the MBA version of the theory at least. In reality life is more complex than that.

Selling B2B can seem so difficult because keeping everybody and everything in synch with the strategy and the process is close to impossible. Sods law says if something can go wrong, it will, and in B2B it always does.

The person leading the sale – the team’s front man – must take ownership of and control over the sales plan, and everybody contributing to it. In most cases, that person is the sales rep, which is both a problem, and an opportunity.

Giving responsibility for managing the corporate effort to the sales rep will be a tough ask for most managers. Reps have many great strengths. Unfortunately discipline and attention to detail are rarely amongst them. Hunters are rarely farmers but in B2B the sales lead needs to be a bit of both. Add the unfortunate fact that sales people rarely have MBA’s, or even training in major account management, and its easy to see delegation at this level as an accident waiting to happen. Such is the problem.

On the other hand a sales rep equipped with the right tools, and coaching in how to use them, can be highly effective. The motivation is obvious, and the other skills in communication and conversation are already honed. Equipping the motivated expert in communication and conversation with tools to help with strategy and process offers the opportunity. When the sales rep gets it right, first time, every time, the rest of the team can get on with its job. Everybody can be confident they have the best chance of winning, or exiting the negotiation early when they don’t.

This paradox can only be resolved when those right tools and coaching are available to the sales rep, 24X7, anywhere, anytime. S/he has to be able to monitor the process, and get ideas about next steps, as events occur. S/he can’t be constrained by internal issues – working around the buyer road blocks is difficult enough. S/he can’t wait for anybody to return a call. S/he needs to make decisions on the run, responding to stuff as it happens.

If only those tools and coaching existed, life would be simpler for everybody.

That’s why we were knocked out when Occulus came within our radar. This online service checks all the boxes. With Occulus the best practice identified through of hundreds of research projects is delivered to sales reps and their managers over the Internet. They have the very best process management tools at their fingertips whenever they need them.

Not surprisingly we decided to work with Occulus, helping our readers and consulting clients understand what they can achieve with its support, and how to implement it.

If this sounds like the tool set you need to get to the next level of sales operations excellence check out the online demo.

Work through one of your current sales opportunities and compare your own evaluation and forward plan with the ones you’ll get from Occulus.

We’re here to help if you’d like some advice on implementation.

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 anything which makes the sales manager happy – apart from the usual sex drugs and rock and roll, that is?

Sales Managers are mostly sharp tongued cynics with an attitude. They have to be. Few people get told the whole truth less often. They have to read between the lines and work with what they find there.

The sales manager spends his, or her, life between the rock of the CEO’s quarterly numbers and the hard place of customer contracts. The job is a constant battle between the certainty of the revenue target and the uncertainty of the sales forecast.

Weighted %age probabilities make sense on the front line, but mean nothing to analysts and bank managers. Typical metrics – like activity rates, win loss ratios, revenue per head, days sales outstanding, time to order, calls per order – give bean counters perfect ways to measure an imperfect world, and call the sales manager to account for the differences.

Solve that problem and you’ll make any sales manager happy. But how can you solve that problem?

By being right, first time, every time.

Recognise when deals are too tough to win, or not worth the cost of sale, and qualify out early. Don’t waste time, money, or other peoples trust, chasing rainbows.

Recognise which deals can be won and commit early. Figure out your strategy, organise your plan, marshall your resources, recruit a coach, and manage your way to the win.

That’s how to make your sales manager happy. Reduce the uncertainty. Use your experience and skills to qualify the opportunity and then win it.

Our Front Office Box and Successful Sales Management blogs suggest ideas for reducing the uncertainty in any sales deal. Our Succeeding in Sales Management tutorials explain processes and tools you can implement to stay in control of your funnel or pipeline.

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

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.

Where can sales managers go for training? And where can they access coaching – in the philosophies, strategies, processes and tools they need to get the most out of their sales team?

Usually, the best sales people get promoted to sales manager. They know a lot about selling, obviously, but rarely know much about management. That’s where the challenge starts. There are plenty of training courses in management, and probably even more in selling, but not in sales management. And sales management is different.

The sales management job mostly involves bridging the cultural divide between company management and revenue producers. Management believes all business activity can be measured, and assessed. Sales professionals know selling successfully involves an unfathomable combination of humility, tenacity, art, science and good fortune. The two philosophies are like oil and water, not mixing.

Where can sales managers find the insight to accelerate the learning curve? How much more effective could they be, more quickly? How much more value could they bring to the business? How much less stressful could the promotion be? If there was a coach to guide them?

The answer to all these questions is quite a lot.

A few pearls of wisdom from hardened professionals. Some tips on approach. Some processes and tools to deploy. Some empathy and some motivation. These are all gems of knowledge a coach can provide.

But where can you find them? That’s not obvious to me. I wouldn’t know where to look.

That’s why we produced our Sales Management tutorials – short, no nonsense, explanations of both the challenges, and the solutions – for anybody interested in solving the sales management puzzle – bridging the gap between sales and management.

If you are a CEO wanting your team leaders to integrate with your management team. If you are a sales manager struggling to bridge the gap. If you are an experienced sales professional wanting to persuade somebody you can make the step up? There’s something here for you.

The Successful Sales Management series is available for download here. Individual papers are relatively short – you can read each of them while you take a coffee break. They’re on topic – there’s no padding, just straight forward explanations and descriptions. They’re genuine insight into the experience of veteran sales managers. As far as possible they are generic – applicable across industries and businesses. They combine philosophy with strategy, tactics, processes and tools, and templates you can use to implement the ideas you’ll develop.

Here’s a list of the individual tutorials, with links to the download pages.

Success in Sales Management mostly explains the challenges of getting the job and how to win the promotion, and keep it.

The Whys and Hows of Sales Strategy details the benefits of developing and maintaining a sales strategy and includes a case study and a template on which you can base your own.

Principles of Professional Selling suggests counter intuitive rules which run counter to what you’ll see and here elsewhere, but result from real experience – not hearsay and BS.

Learn to Love Your Price describes tactics for handling price in the sales process. Price isn’t a problem – it’s a tool to help you win the business once you’ve understood our thinking.

Sales Management Processes and Tools explains the various roles in the organisation’s hierarchy and suggests processes and tools management can use to drive results from sales teams.

Sales Probability and Process Management combines sales process with sales forecasting using milestones and weighted probabilities to make forecasts more meaningful and the sales pipeline more manageable.

If there’s one single secret sale professionals use to win more business at better prices, it’s sales qualification which we explain in Sales Qualification – The Secret Sauce.

Well, what are you waiting for? Download our tutorials now and Up Your Game, starting in the morning. You’ll be more effective, more efficient, and more confident, with this insight to help you and your team to do a better job.

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.