At last sales professionals can have their very own sales coach – online. At all hours of day and night, anywhere in the world, they can check their sales plan against a database of best practice. The coach gives an immediate assessment of the degree of qualification for the deal, and a list of recommendations.

This system is pure gold for all sales people, hardened veterans and beginners alike – because it works on pure facts. Facts distilled from more than 200 consulting projects into a compendium of knowledge –  what works, and what doesn’t. Easy to use software asks simple questions, then feeds back analysis of the answers in a probability assessment. This is a confidence number you can trust. The list of recommendations is even more valuable. As you tick the boxes that probability increases, and so does your confidence.

Experienced sales guys know the most valuable support comes from the bid review, when they get a sense check from a good sales manager. That’s when their assumptions are tested, and their conclusions are validated. Even for top performers, two heads are always better than one.

Sales beginners, on the other hand, benefit most from accompanied calls, when their manager comes along and helps with the customer. In their case, they learn from examples of how to do the job, and leverage their bosses authority.

Unfortunately most sales reps don’t get all the support they could use. Sales managers are busy people, and don’t always have the time to help as much as they’d like. And of course, not all sales managers are that good at their job, and can’t make a positive contribution.

That’s where the power of the online sales coach shines through. This guy never gets too busy, or stuck in traffic, or chooses a more important deal. Always there, and always right, the online coach is any sales guy’s best friend.

For sales professionals who don’t get all the support they need from their management, the Occulus service seems heaven sent. For less than a cellphone contract it offers them the very best of advice, and it pays back on every deal. And for individuals its entirely private. Only you and the coach know what’s going on.

The service is even more valuable for businesses. Check out The Online Sales Coach for the business perspective. But if your management won’t invest in this level of support, you can do it on your own.

We were so impressed by what the service does, and the ways it does it, we joined the Affilate program.

You can check it for yourself, and find out why. Just try it. For free of course.

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

Related articles

• The Online Sales Coach (successfulsalesmanagement.stevensreeves.com)
• B2B Selling Isn’t Black Magic (frontofficebox.com)
• Make Your Sales Manager Happy (frontofficebox.com)

What do call a salesman you can trust (or saleswoman of course), if you can find one?

Sales people are paid to persuade you to buy stuff you don’t want. They get a commission when they can, and fired when they can’t. Like journalists they tell you what you want to hear, and not what you don’t. When it turns out you bought a pig in poke, there’s no point in complaining. The law is on the sellers side – Caveat Emptor – Let the Buyer Beware.

How could you trust somebody who’s interests are exactly the opposite of yours? You shouldn’t, right? You weren’t born yesterday.

That’s the buyers perspective. What does it mean for the guy doing the selling?

You’ll be familiar with the problem. When selling, you want the customer to trust you, and distrust the competition. Unfortunately the other vendors have the same objective, but the other way around.

You’ll substantiate your claims, with benchmark, and references. And so will they. You’ll focus on your USP – Unique Selling Point, and so will they. You’ll promise customer service and so will they. In fact you’ll say anything to prove your credibility, and so will they. Ultimately you’ll discount the price, and so will they.

The result is the customer trusts nobody, quite rightly. All you sellers are guilty of pitching your product or service at a price higher than you’re prepared to accept. You’ve just proved it.

If you’re prepared to mislead on your price, what else are you hiding? And why on earth would the customer trust you? Would you trust you?

The bottom line is buyers trust people who tell them what they don’t want to hear – the downside, and how to manage the risks.

Sales professionals who understand their products, their markets, and their customers, go the extra mile. They take the trouble to find out what will really work for the prospect, and show how they’ll achieve it. They evaluate the risks, and show how to avoid them. They focus on what prospects want to achieve, as opposed to what they’ll buy.

When sales people contribute their expertise to help customers achieve their goals, and minimise the downside, they become trusted business advisers.

That’s what I call sales people I can trust – trusted business advisers, who want to win business in their own interests, but understand it’s only business when we both get what we want.

Trusted business advisers who contribute their expertise to help me achieve my goals, and share in the proceeds I call Partners.

What do you call sales people you can trust?

Related articles

• Trust Me, I’m a Salesman. (successfulsalesmanagement.stevensreeves.com)

Close the sale like your CEO would. This technique is friendly, fun and best of all functional – as in it works – unlike most of the tricks you’ll hear about.

There’s a popular myth about Closing The Sale.

In sales folklore, the ability to close deals is the superstar’s secret sauce. Somehow the superhero isn’t intimidated by the customer, or the competition, or the price. He knows he can drop the right world, put on the right smile, and magic the buyer’s signature onto the order.

Such mystique makes ordinary mortals shiver at the thought of the Close – otherwise known as the dreaded Asking for the Order. Saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, to the wrong person might lose a deal which is almost won. Maybe it’s better, more polite, less risky, to wait for the customer to decide? Maybe she’ll close herself?

As always the superhero isn’t what he seems and the mere mortal has no need to worry. There is no magic secret, and customers aren’t frightened by you asking for the order. (They might well be irritated by stupid closing techniques, but that’s a separate conversation.

Instead of thinking like a sales droid, mere mortals should think like a CEO. CEOs rarely get sent on those dreadful sales training courses. They don’t often listen to water cooler stories of heroics. They wouldn’t know how to manipulate a buyer with smart questions. But they do know about business, and specifically about making decisions on behalf of the business.

The CEO Close is a simple technique for staying in control while seeming to give it to the prospect. It’s a virtuous circle of three sequential phases – The Open Question, The Trial Balloon, and the Conditional Close.

It can be, in fact should be used on every sales call until the deal is won.

Here’s an example of the sales side of the conversation for your Sales Playbook.

You can add typical customer responses from your market and replace the ?????????s with whatever fits your business.

The Open Question
“What do I have to do to win your business?

The Trial Balloon
“How would it be if I could ?????????????. Would that do it for you?

The Conditional Close
“If I can offer ????????????, will you give me the order?

You’ll notice this is a simple, polite, conversation which gives both sides a chance to explore the rest of the sale, without committing to anything.

Business Plan Spreadhsheet

Does your business plan make the usual mistake – focussing too much on money, and not enough on market? Do you add up the numbers without really understanding the  assumptions? Most people do. Do you set the rules about what you will, and won’t do, before you start the plan. Most people don’t.

In which case, the business plan loses all relationship with what’s going to happen, and any value as a management tool. It’s relegated to fairy tale status. Your plan might satisfy an investor at start up, but will it survive the first review? Will you survive the first review, if you can’t explain how what actually happened differed from the plan, and what you’re going to do about it.

In business planning the spreadsheet should be the result of strategy, not what drives it. Get the strategy sorted out first and then use the spreadsheet to calculate the finances. Here’s an example of how a landscape gardener might write a business plan which makes sense as a management tool.

It’s important to begin with basic principles. That’s the way he’ll avoid the majority of business risks. He’ll base his plan on a list of things he won’t do, under any circumstances – risks he won’t take, or compromises he won’t make. For example:

• Borrow to invest
• Work on a Sunday
• Accept work beyond his competence
• Mislead customers
• Be late on the job
• Extend credit

Next he’ll define his resources, and capability to create value. What is it he can do to make money for customers, and take a share?

• Skilled staff
• Machinery
• Expertise in design, landscaping and plant selection, and water features
• Consulting capability
• Within 10 miles, attend site before 8.00am
• Start new projects within 4 weeks

Next he’ll define his ideal customer, his value proposition and his operating model. Once he’s decided what he can do (having ruled out what he won’t), who he can do it for, and how he’ll explain his offer, the next job is defining the market, unique sales proposition, and sales approach.

Only at the end of this process will he be able to start putting numbers into spreadsheets.

Our notional business hero might come up with something like this:

1. Within a 10 mile radius there are 1,000 homes and business locations worth more than $500,000, each of which spends on average $10,000 per year on expertise like his. That’s an annual market of $10 millions.

2. Some existing service providers leave customers dissatisfied because they get to jobs late and employ unskilled workers. He can compete for and win 20% of the total market.

3. His resources compare favourably with other providers for homes with water features in their gardens so he’ll target those with a proposition highlighting that as a USP.

4. He decides to dominate the high value add sector and to do that chooses a sales process which starts with a free assessment and fixed cost proposal.

5. He targets annual revenues of $2 millions at a profit of 15%.

Now he can set about his cash forecast, understanding which parts of his strategy drive which numbers. He’s equipped to change the strategy if and when the numbers start going wrong.

Following this approach our virtual entrepreneur benefits from a number of advantages, each of which adds to his chances of success.

He’ll know when to walk away, from a job, from a market, or even from the business itself. He set the rules about what he wouldn’t do. Now it’s easy to stick to them, and not be diverted by

He’ll know exactly which customers to target, with which proposition, and how to turn the interest he generates into profitable business.

Finally he’ll know how all that adds up to the numbers, and where to look when those numbers don’t add up.

He won’t need management consultants, because he’s adopted Fayol’s principles of management – Forecast, Plan, Action, Review, and repeat. In fact, if the landscape gardening idea turns out to be a pipe dream, he can set up as a management consultant.

Most sales people adopt a style which fits with their personality, influenced by their organisations and management, of course. We figure there are four basic categories of sales style. Which of these best describes yours.

Believers

The Believers are guys who talk to themselves in the mirror every morning, reinforcing their confidence to withstand the days battering. They just know they’ll make it, if only they can believe a little harder, persuade a little more. They’ll ultimately fail, because despite all the self improvement rhetoric beloved by aspirational types, its impossible to believe your way to success.

Bullies

We’ve all met the Bullies. They’re the ones who won’t take No for an answer. And they don’t stop talking or bragging. Bullies intimidate customers and are roundly despised as a result. They’ll make plenty of money in the short term, and won’t hang around to clean up their mess.

Bag Carriers

Bag Carriers do what they’re told. Incapable of independent thought, they go with every flow, carrying the bag for whoever does the thinking. Bag Carriers rarely break eggs, and therefore never make omelettes. They don’t make enemies, or friends.

Balancers

Balancers work between the lines. Managers complain they’re too supportive of customers. Customers complain they don’t support them. Somehow the Balancer is nobody’s friend yet is needed by everybody. Sellers and buyers only get what they both want when the Balancer triangulates the relationship, taking the blame from both when something goes wrong.

These are all styles of B Player sales people. A Player sales guys mix all four styles to suit each situation.

Cold calling people you’d like to meet is a tricky business.  So many companies employ the Activity strategy now everybody’s wary of picking up the phone to obvious sales calls.  They make as many calls as possible, usually automated these days, and pitch some dubious benefit cloaked in a conversation.  These calls are a nuisance, an  interruption, and an insult.

We described some particularly moronic examples in The Worst Kind of Cold Call Sales Pitch.

Cold calling indiscriminately positions you in the same category as those businesses.

But cold calling with a request for conversation based on research is much more acceptable.  Make the proposition specific to the target and you’ll get better results.  Much better results.

We described the concept in The Secret of Successful Prospecting Is?

When you’ve researched your target’s situation.  When you’ve walked in her shoes.  When you can explain politely the value you can deliver.  Then you’ll be a successful cold caller.

It’s all about adding value for the target, and creating a little value for yourself in the process is perfectly acceptable.

Success in cold calling is determined by the relevance of the message.  Not by the number of calls you make.

How many golden rules are there for achieving success in selling? Probably hundreds. In fact you’ll find plenty in this blog. But there are some which stand head and shoulders above the rest. This article focuses on six which apply to any sale, of any product or service, in any business.

1 – Call As High As You Can

Whether selling $billion business process outsourcing or garbage cleanup, your conversation needs to start with the highest authority you can reach. The CEO might be the final decision maker, or may have delegated the role to a staff member. It doesn’t matter which. Reaching the top of any authority hierarchy and being referred down the tree to the decision maker always carries an authority you’ll never achieve by working your way up. Call as high as you can. That’s how you’ll uncover the real reason for the buying discussion, figure how how real is the opportunity, and understand how to win it.

2- Integrity Is Your Only Asset

Do you know any sales people who spent their entire career working the same job? Sales people always move on, taking their past successes and failures with them. Some past misdeed could bite them in the behind at any time whereas a good reputation is an enduring asset. Doing the best job you can for customers is the only way to build a reputation in sales. Ultimately what the bean counters think of you is irrelevant. It’s past customers who give you referrals, and references.

Protecting your reputation is reason enough to stay away from selling the wrong thing in the wrong way. But there’s another dimension to maintaining your integrity. Knowing your professionalism works to the customer’s benefit builds confidence. You can be direct, knowing all the experience, and knowledge, and skills you’re contributing to the conversation. Believing you are doing the right thing, for the right reasons helps you stay in the game when the going gets tough.

3 – Sell Aspiration

Whatever the prospect says s/he’s buying, there’s another motivation which won’t be discussed. There’s another objective the decision maker and influencers wish for. Find out what that is, and align your offer, sell ways you can help achieve that aspiration and you’ll be home and dry.

4 – Recruit A Coach

In any sale there’s always a conversation the seller isn’t part of. Knowing what’s being said in that conversation is a competitive advantage. Understanding how alternative solutions are viewed, and where are the weaknesses in your proposition is the intelligence which makes the difference between losing and winning. The only source of that intelligence is your internal coach. And your internal coach is the best route for delivering messages to those who favour somebody else’s offer.

5 – Always Be Prepared to Walk Away

There’s no game worth staying in regardless of the odds. Selling can be like playing Poker. You have to know when to Hold Em and know when to Fold Em. Cutting your losses is reason enough to exit a sale, but there’s another advantage. Always being prepared to walk away usually means you won’t have to. Once the prospect realises she doesn’t hold all the cards the conversation will be less about buying and more about negotiating a business transaction.

6 – Talk About Money Early, and Price Late

You have to get the subject of money on the table early, but that doesn’t mean the price you’ll deal at. Talking about money early sets the scene for the business transaction. Of course you want paying for what you’ll deliver, and the prospect understands. You need to test the buyers sensitivity to price, and need to check there’s a budget available. At the same time you need time to build up understanding of the value you’ll deliver. Talk about money, early and often, but don’t declare your final, bottom line price until the prospect is ready to sign.

That final conversation satisfies both parties. Up until now the relationship has been about value. Once the prospect has decided to buy the resistance to price is at its lowest, and that’s when you need to close the deal with your best offer.

You can sell more deals for less effort with the right strategy for handling price objections, focusing on scope (or value) and letting price take care of itself. Rather than push up the price by including stuff for free, agree whatever the customer wants to pay, and negotiate down the product or service you’ll provide for it. Only include enough to get the deal.

It’s counter cultural, obviously. Pushing up the price as far as possible is worth giving some stuff away for free. At least you get the revenue now. Who knows what will happen next month, or next year. Take the money and run! Isn’t that what all salespeople do? Well not quite.

A past employer of mine certainly thought that way. At the time the company was a veritable gold mine. It’s ERP software led the market for multi site AS400, System 38 and System 36 computers – IBM when nobody got fired for buying it.

Some of the sales people made an awful lot money (before my time unfortunately). The company encouraged them to give away future prices and even annual maintenance as long as the cash kept coming in. This was a sort of Ponzi scheme, in which everybody was happy as long as the business kept growing. Eventually the growth stopped. IBM mini computers lost their attraction and the Y2K Bug scare skewed the usual upgrade cycles. By 1999 nobody was buying anything. The company disappeared almost without trace, alongside a lot of other software businesses. That’s what happens when you give away future upgrades and annual maintenance.

Meanwhile another past employer of mine has grown from strength to strength, dominating markets which didn’t exist during my time. This company is in the outsourcing business – software, infrastructure, information systems operations, business change management. It’s philosophy is totally different to the previous example – take as much as the customer is prepared to pay and negotiate down what will be provided. As a result the value of its contracts just keeps growing. Every time the customer wants something extra or a little different the contract gets renegotiated and the Account Director smiles all the way to the bank.

If you’ve heard the stories of the UK government efforts to build new integrated IT systems for Health you’ll wonder how it could spend so much and get less. Reports are confusing but I’ve seen figures as low as £7 billions and as high as £13 billions. That’s the cost of something which just doesn’t work.

No names quoted here. I know some of the companies involved but not all, and not who isn’t doing what. I do know somebody did a really good job of selling less for more.

Which brings me to the closing story. Did you hear the one about the young bull and the old bull?

The young bull says to the old bull “lets run over to that group of cows and inseminate one of them”. (That wasn’t the word used but it’s safe for work.)

“Well” replied the old bull. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s walk over there and inseminate all of them.”

Next time you’re fighting with a prospect over price try negotiating down the scope. You’ll close the deal more quickly and look forward to selling all the upgrades later, when you hold all the cards.

Is there a single skill more important than any other for sales people? What do you think?

Is it tenacity, or is it bravery? Or maybe it’s a sunny personality? Perhaps its a thick skin? Putting ourselves in a position where we’re a nuisance, or worse, trying to engage others interest in what we have to sell is not comfortable.

Nobody, or very few at least, enjoys the prospect of rejection. Going where others fear to tread requires all of those traits. But it seems to me, as the world gets more competitive, there’s another trait which makes sales people stand out from the crowd – Empathy, being able to stand in the customer’s shoes .

Now Internet Marketing has become noise – intrusive promotion of stuff we don’t want – every sales guy is tarred with the same brush. Everybody wants to sell, yet nobody wants to buy. We’re the saddest of them all – sales people trying to sell to sales people.

When I need to buy stuff there’s one trait which gets my attention. It’s sales people who know what its like being me – Empathy, for my circumstances, for my aspirations and my limitations. The last guy I want to talk to is the one who’s so wrapped up in his own needs there’s no recognition of mine.

If I was coaching sales people today I’d want them to understand where the customer is coming from. I’d want them to fit their offer to the customer’s agenda, in 3 dimensions:

The business imperative

What is it the customer wants to achieve for her business? Maybe competitive advantage, or defence against competitive threat. Perhaps its cost reduction or risk mitigation.

The business case

Every buying decision has to get past the bean counters. Return On Investment is the secret sauce in any purchase. What value add will the buying decision create for the customer?

The personal agenda

Sorry if you thought this is a simple business decision – it isn’t. There’s always an angle buyers wants to deliver for themselves . Any sales guy who can deliver on the need to offer a solution which addresses all 3 needs is a winner. The secret lies in the customer’s shoes. Whenever we stand in them we’ll know how to win the deal. That’s what I call Empathy.

What’s your pricing strategy for B2B sales? How do you decide the price customers should pay, and then persuade them to go along? How often is your idea of the right price accepted by prospects? How much revenue and margin do you lose when they just won’t agree?

If your answers to these questions are mostly “well, it doesn’t work like that” you are in very good company. These days customers are rarely happy to pay the asking price.

Our problem as entrepreneurs, or sales guys, is price is lifeblood to us, whereas to customers it’s more of a game. They find it super easy to tell us we’re too high, and wait for a response. Most often we need the deal, now, so we can move on to the next guy, whereas prospects can wait awhile and see what goes down.

There are a couple of pricing strategies you might consider, both of which can be fun, although one is more risky than the other.

Trial Balloon

One guy I worked with years ago had a very simple philosophy. When the prospect asked “how much is it?” he would confidently pick a number, say $100,000. His next play would be determined by the response he got.

If the prospect looked turned off he would add “ for the whole package, but you won’t need all of that”.

If the prospect looked happy he would add “for phase 1”.

He enjoyed playing his game that way, and who’s to argue. He probably got to a better price, faster than I ever did. He also got thrown out more often.

Building the Deal

This was, and still is, my preferred strategy. It’s a question of breaking down the proposal into components, each of which has its own identifiable cost. Then selling the value of each.

It’s the reverse of the buyer’s salami tactic. S/he’ll unpick the offer piece by piece, asking for a discount as the scope shrinks. Then s/he’ll go back to the original package and want the whole thing for the price of the bare component.

I’ll try to turn the tables, and build the price up. That way I won’t run the risk of turning off the customer. I’ll also build my way up to the maximum acceptable amount. Probably the customer will get bored. This game isn’t fun. There’s always a reason to buy the extra, which will cost more next time if they don’t buy it now. In this case the prospect just wants to get the deal closed before being persuaded to pay even more.

Coaching the Customer

Some sales psychology comes into play when we get sophisticated with the process. We probably won’t get to this discussion until the deal is on the table, ready to be closed. The customer wants to buy and we want to sell. We’re simply negotiating a price the customer is prepared to pay.

In that case we can get clever. When the customer asks how much? We can respond with “typically this package comes out at $200,000 but you probably won’t need all of that. Lets work out the components you really need to make the project successful and see if we can meet your price objectives.”

“If we can’t there’s a chance I can sweet talk my boss. If I can tell her you’ll close this week, take delivery this month, provide references to other prospects, promote our product to others in your group?”

‘She might authorise me to discount some of the price.”

“I suggest we work out what you really need, decide how much you can really pay, and then ask her approval for the deal.”

That approach usually works out OK.

More Articles on Price

If you’re interested in pricing strategies and tactics you might enjoy these posts

• Talk About Money Early, and Price Late
• Getting a Better Deal for Consulting Services
• Professionals Never Sell on Price
• What is the Right Price
• Learn to Love Your Price