Prospecting

Asking and Listening Even Through Email

I am often asked, “So, what are your sales conversations like?” My response is that I ask questions and share successes around two related themes: 1) How are you doing with getting new hires, new partners, new investors, etc. on-board with your sales process and how do you want folks to behave, communicate within that process; and 2) How are you doing with getting your existing team understanding your desired sales processes, patterns, or some might say, sales rhythms?

Below is the content of an actual email conversation I am currently having with a prospect.

I hope you will notice that I ask specific diagnostic type questions that map to my offerings.  My prospect’s answers, if I am listening, will guide me on where to take the conversation. I know, for example, that it’s a recipe for disaster if a manager or executive is not asking tough questions about individual opportunities during sales forecasting meetings. I also know from my experience that forecasting disaster is something I can help my clients avoid.

Do you know what answers to your questions indicate a need for your product or service?  Have you socialized these questions and highly probable answers internally?  Do they map to real world example which you or your teammates can effortlessly and confidently describe?

Although this was an email conversation, we could have had the same conversation over the phone, in person, or even over twitter.  The key is that I have been thoughtful ahead of time with the questions I want to ask.

____________________

I have been talking you up big-time around here, Adam. “Get our sales act together” has made it into the top 3 priorities for 2012. Pipeline, account planning, you name it….

So, how do we make this happen – me helping [company] out?

The timing is perfect. It’s now recognized and internalized that we need to get a number of areas of our act in order. (Pipeline mgt, real forecasting, account planning in particular.) Everyone on the exec team (about seven-ten folks) recognizes this. What kinds of things could you do? The urgency is that we know/want to crush it in the first half of the year. We’ve got a handful of big accounts (~12) and a myriad of dogs-and-cats. We’re trying to consolidate to go deeper/broader (both in portfolio of our services purchased, as well as number of BUs across BigCo’s like XXX) rather than try to service a gazillion clients. Gimme an approach I can take in. [key player] is here today, and I’m having dinner with him this afternoon/evening. 

(I responded with a series of questions to understand my contact’s situation more specifically and to indicate the sort of capabilities I provide my clients.  He replied to my questions with in-line answers.  Check it out.)

Is there any concept of a pipeline?

Yes. 

Do you have the stomach for a pipeline and business review to see where you are with particular opportunities that you hope will contribute to “crushing” it in the first half.

To wit:

1) What deals are in the pipeline with new or existing customers that can get you to “crush it” status?

We have a list.

2) With the identified deals – a subset of these must close – why do you think they will close?

There is the big question…it’s “gut feel.”

3) Defend the realism of these ID’d deals by undergoing an opportunity review:

• What has happened so far?
• Who do you know will champion us with the selectors, funders, implementers?
• Why should they? Have they agreed to the value, usage and implementation stories and what are they?
• What are the steps to gaining a signed contract?

This would be a hugely valuable exercise.

4) If you do not have enough real deals to gain “crush it” status, what are you doing to get more into the pipeline?

Need a plan.

5) What is your business development process and within that process, how do you execute each step?

Not that structured.

6) Have you identified the conversations you want to have – with whom and what IN PARTICULAR you are going to say - to generate interest to the point of gaining trust and having your prospect kick off an evaluation of your skills and capabiiities?

Nope. Need this, too.

I can help with all of the above.

Valentine’s Day and Prospecting

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it seems appropriate to take a fresh look at prospecting.  After all, isn’t it sales and marketing’s constant function to ask others, “Will you be my Valentine?”

Darling Prospect, Will you be Mine?

The Valentine’s Day-Prospecting love connection light bulb went off in my head as I was listening to a terrific podcast from Dr. Bob Cialdini, best selling author and speaker on the science of influence.  In this podcast, Cialdini uses the pharmaceutlcal sales scenario as a backdrop for describing his thoughts on how sellers can get prospects interested faster.  I don’t have any drug firm clients, but I can easily see how his expertise can be applied to on-boarding or “in-boarding” sales and marketing teams in other verticals.

So, here are my notes.  Think of this as a modern day roadmap to winning the hearts and minds of your prospects.

1) To build trust quicker -

- Open with a negative or a drawback of your offering. Shows you are willing to be truthful and establishes yourself as both trustworthy (giving the straight scoop) and knowledgeable.  You are willing to share data that you understand.

- Frame what your stuff does in terms of what your prospect will miss out on, rather than what they will gain. The idea of losing benefits is more powerful than the idea of gaining the benefit in minds of buyers. People would rather protect what they have than work to achieve a gain.

- Use social proof – your offering’s popularity – to show it’s worthwhile. Below the surface, people actually make judgments based on what they perceive is going on around them. “Our most chosen dessert” attracts even more buyers. This is “social proof” of what constitutes proper conduct. So, if you have popularity – USE IT.

- Feature and benefit selling is important, but it’s old school. Today, science shows that we respond to what we perceive should be a better product based on price/popularity/other externalities. We experience things based on context. Prospects stop critiquing – actually turn off that portion of the brain – when they hear statements backed up by popular assent or experts.

2) People say yes to people they trust and like. So, how do we develop relationships quickly?

• Find similarities.
• Give honest praise, genuine compliments.
• Come to like your customer, first. That’s when people feel safe, when they feel liked. They will feel their interests are protected, so they are more likely to follow your recommendations. Don’t try to first try to make someone like you until you’ve tried to like them.

Hmm, seems like good advice for Valentine’s Day, too!

Good Selling.

Unleashing Our “Inner Steve Jobs”

Carmine Gallo writing in Entrepreneur magazine last month offered up his seven principles that drove Steve Jobs success.  Gallo suggests that “any of us can adopt them to unleash our ‘inner Steve Jobs.’” So, to unleash your “Jobs-siness” in sales I suggest reading Gallo’s list and considering the following -

1) Do what you love.  I’ve never been someone who could sell ice to eskimos.  If I don’t believe in my product, love my product, I can’t sell it.  For me, life is too short to work on something dispassionately.  If you don’t love it, why should someone else?

2) Put a dent in the universe.  What’s the big vision for how your prospect’s world will look if you work together?  Consider whether you have created a vision big enough to excite others.

3) Make connections.  If you are reading this blog post you probably already consider yourself a life long learner.  Why else read a blog on sales?  Good for you!  Now, think of all the meaningful events and activities in your life.  How can they contribute to and inform your next important client interaction? For Jobs, among other things, it was the connection between calligraphy, India and designing computers and electronics.

Me? I went to law school and practiced law for a few years.  Hated the career, but loved the education. Believe it or not, it helped me learn to empathize with my prospects.  Much the way a lawyer needs to analyze both sides of a negotiation or dispute, a good seller understands his prospect’s point of view. So, my law studies helps me be a “student” of my prospects.

You are the sum of your experiences.  So use them to relate to others.

4) Say no to 1,000 things.  Can you disqualify an opportunity and rationalize your pipeline?  Can you fire a customer who isn’t worth it?  Saying “no” and “No Way” can help clarify why you are working on the good opportunities and with the attractive clients.

5) Create insanely different experiences.  Are you offering up anything that differentiates you from your competition? Or, do your conversations, presentations and websites fill up a Buzzword Bingo card?

6) Master the message. Create and practice your personal and company stories and DON’T WING IT.

Your stories should seduce both sides of the brain – inform and inspire, educate and entertain your prospects.

7) Sell dreams, not products. The things or services you sell are only props that help your clients achieve some goal or objective.  So, talk with them about their goals, objectives, challenges, struggles.  Then show how using your stuff can help make the dream come true.

Good Selling.

Might I Suggest Some T & A: Trust and Alignment

“I’m trying to be consultative, asking all the right questions, but my prospects don’t seem interested.”

“I thought we had a great conversation, then he blew off our follow up call.”

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m leading an interrogation instead of being a good salesperson.”

At some point in your sales career, you have probably said or felt one of the above soon after a business development or prospecting call.  It’s a sinking feeling and it sucks. It steals your optimism.  It can make you question your self worth and wonder why you ever thought you should wear a sales hat.  It has happened to everyone.

But, don’t despair.  This is fixable. What likely happened is a connection failure: You failed to bond emotionally, and the prospect doesn’t feel any reason to get invested with you or your company.  All you need is some T & A.  Trust and Alignment, that is.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

Trust

Above all other things, people buy from people they trust.  So, it only follows that from the start of your initial sales interactions, you need to build a foundation of trust with your prospect.

Trust:  assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.

So, what does this definition mean for sellers?

1)    Assured Reliance – By your words and actions the prospect feels a guarantee on the rest of the definition’s elements

2)    Character – You are someone of good timber. The words out of your mouth are direct, sincere, unambiguous and confident.  They are not filled with vague promises or inscrutable industry-speak.  You are professional, prompt and concise. Since the stereotypical sales interaction is usually negative, the prospect is beginning to believe that you are different, better.

3)    Ability – You can describe how your company has helped solve problems and achieve goals for people in similar positions as the prospect.

4)    Strength – and you do it well.

5)    Truth – your stories and claims are both believable and verifiable.

To sum it up, you can begin to gain trust from a prospect by being sincere and describing your successes in a way that prospects can relate.   Gain trust and buyers will want to continue to interact with you.

Alignment

Along with trusting the seller, buyers or prospects want to work with sellers who understand them, who “get” it.  Think about that for a moment.  When you tell a loved one or a friend that you “get” it, isn’t that an emotional response?  It’s like you are saying, “I understand you viscerally, deep down. I can now take action or respond in a meaningful way.”

Alignment: the proper positioning of two things in relation to each other (slight paraphrase).

In sales, alignment shows you “get” it. In the prospect’s mind – consciously or unconsciously – a seller only deserves to take up the buyer’s time if she “gets” it, if she and the buyer are in alignment. Sellers will be more likely to “get” it, and enter into and maintain alignment if they do four things:

1)    Listen  - patiently and quietly. Don’t interrupt, you will get your turn.  And give your prospect a long runway to get it all out.

2)    Recap – takes notes and then show that you heard and understand.  Use the prospects own idioms to indicate that you were actively listening.  If they gave you metrics, give them back.  Your attention to detail will prove that you care.

3)    Relate – Once you have recapped, you can now describe what your company offers and how it works. Optimally, you will describe a success story or a course of action that is analogous to what you have learned from the buyer.

4)    Confirm – Ask if what you’ve described makes sense, could help the buyer, and is a reason to talk further.

So, if you get that sinking feeling that your prospect is blowing you off or doesn’t care, ask yourself two questions:  Have I established trust?  Am I in alignment?

You see, it’s all about T & A.  Trust and Alignment.

Good Selling!

Adam

Intro to Intro Rocket

Many companies struggle with the opening, leading marketing piece.  If you have been in sales and marketing for any amount of time, you have received emails or seen brochures that describe offerings in the same tired, flowery language –  terms like robust, dynamic, seamless, and integrated are inserted haphazardly without explanation.  Many are just plain forgettable – the worst result you can get from a marketing effort.

How can marketers and lead developers create memorable emails and other pieces?  I have four tips:

1. Lead with a story that includes a scenario with which the reader is familiar.
2. Go for the heart by triggering an emotional response.
3. Writing skills count.
4. Forget the ambiguous, vague and overused words unless you include an explanation.

IntroRocket is one company I have been working with on its initial sales and marketing strategy. I’ve pasted one of IntroRocket’s email marketing piece below. I hope you agree it follows the above four tips.

__________

I have been part of sales organizations for almost 20 years, and have won and lost more deals than I can remember – but will never forget a particular lost sale.  As we reviewed the deal near the end of the sales cycle, I learned that our competitor’s salesperson had a personal connection with a major influencer at the prospect, and I understood immediately that the relationship had tipped the scales against us.  We hated losing this deal because it was an ideal customer for us.  And what we learned in an internal executive review made the loss even more painful: we had our own personal relationship with a key player at the prospect and one of our trusted channel partners knew the CEO.  We should have been aware of and leveraged those relationships to win the deal.

This is just one example of “the deal that got away”, and everyone reading this is likely to have similar stories.  Your “one that got away” experiences may involve co-worker connections with a product manager, developer, office manager, board member, or CEO.  The common denominator is that there are existing relationships in your company network that sales reps are unaware of or fail to leverage – and the result is lost sales.

Start every customer relationship with a personal introduction

We live in The Age of Networking: a time of unparalleled ability to connect with people across multiple networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Salesforce.com.  These connections provide businesses with entirely new opportunities to discover relationships that exist between companies and their prospective customers.

But even with these incredible opportunities, many companies struggle to break through traditional barriers to discovering relationships: not all co-workers are directly connected, co-workers rely on multiple networking services such as Facebook and LinkedIn, channel partners may not be part of your networks, etc.  Regardless of the specifics, there are trusted relationships and opportunities for personal introductions that exist right now to help build better customer relationships and to close more deals.

People buy from those they know and trust.  In today’s world where unsolicited communication is growing exponentially and the effectiveness of traditional marketing is at an all-time low, the value of trusted relationships is at an all-time high.  This decade’s most successful companies with be the ones that understand their network of relationships and take advantage of the opportunities for trusted introductions.

Social Networking for Sales

IntroRocket provides Instant “Social Networking for Sales” because we enable companies to tap the value of their company network.  We mesh multiple social graphs (LinkedIn now, Facebook soon, webmail later), add intelligence about the quality of relationships, and make it extremely simple to see and benefit from existing co-worker relationships regardless of who at the company has the most relevant and valuable connection.

We connect the dots between co-workers across a company, automatically display connection information inside salesforce.com, and enable employees to engage directly with current and prospective customers via trusted co-worker relationships.  The purpose is simple: IntroRocket gives sales people an advantage in their accounts and helps companies close more deals.

Start Ahead, Stay Ahead

If you would like to discuss how you could keep your deals from getting away, please contact me.  Until then, please feel free to try IntroRocket free at http://www.introrocket.com/install/.

Michael Leeds

CEO, Founder

Mike at IntroRocket dot com

1.650.468.6901

Hiring for Sales Teams: Think Outside the Box – BizDev

Devon Warwick nails it with this post.  Hiring for Sales Teams: Think Outside the Box – BizDev.

Marketing Automation Software Headwinds Portends Sales Effectiveness Checklist

In her Software Advice blog item “Tailwinds for Marketing Software”, Lauren Carlson makes several excellent points regarding the growth of this relatively new software niche.  She correctly notes that marketing software providers are doing well directly due to the difficulty of B2B sales and hints at a checklist for sales effectiveness.

• Explanations, not jargon
• Storytellers not pests
• Track and audit sales process steps

Just look at her first three insights:

1)    Buyers want content of real value.    Change the medium and the lesson is the same.  Sales managers and execs should learn whether sellers have cut out the jargon when engaged in buyer-seller conversations.  

For example, can they explain why or how offerings are “integrated”, “user-friendly” or “”robust”?

2)    Buyers are increasingly wary of the phone.    Has your phone been ringing off the hook this election cycle like mine?  Sellers need to appreciate that buyers take this “at-home” experience to the office and treat their phones like a germaphobe handling a tray at a cafeteria.  Like I tell my clients, “if inside sales was easy, everyone would do it.” 

Are salespeople using stories and seeking alignment in their phone conversations, or are blabbering on about the greatness of your company, and therefore, spreading germs?

3)    Desire for Marketing Accountability.     As far as I can tell, starting about ten years ago sales process engineering went mainstream, and this was a good thing.  Now it’s Marketing’s time for the examination.  What the process folks are finding is that “Wanamaker’s” quote – Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half, should be treated as heresy.  So, if marketing is tracking their effectiveness, sales has to as well.  

The checklist item for sellers: 

Are we tracking and auditing our sales activities in the same fashion as marketing tracks their efforts?  Are we using the same terminology and metrics?

One last thing...  I would add another area of angst for sales due to the automation of marketing processes.  Salespeoples' behaviors and activities are being scrutinized more than ever.  For years, salespeople complained that marketing doesn't produce enough good leads.  Well, with good marketing processes automated with the technology Carlson discusses, this sales whine rings hollow.  

So, the question to ask if your company has automated a good marketing process becomes: Do your sellers appreciate the pace and quality of the marketing's output or are they sabotaging it and annoying prospects?

Putting it another way and channeling Coach John Wooden.
Do you quickly and properly follow up when marketing generates interest, or do you hurry too fast and make a mess of it?

Good Selling!

Helpful Tips to Follow When Making Early Sales Process Phone Calls

Notes From Some Call Coaching Sessions

From time to time, my clients ask me to sit with sales reps and review calls with them.  Since I’ve had several such sessions already this year, I thought it would be helpful to summarize the notes the teams took and share them here.  I’ve edited them to maintain confidentiality.

Whether they are called Business Development Managers, Inside Sales Reps or Account Development Consultants, they all have one thing in common:  They are using the telephone with the goal of successfully crossing an early stage of a sales cycle.  Remember, early in a sales cycle, a seller is either prospecting to build credibility or interest, or processing inbound interest from a buyer.  Either way, it’s vital that managers help their teams prepare for and troubleshoot these conversations. Opportunities can be won or unwittingly lost here.

Now, to set the stage:  The client has purchased telephony and software that stores both sides of a telephone conversation.  With a gentle tone, I work the “coach’s clicker” – the mouse – starting and stopping the recording to ask questions and comment on what we are hearing.

1.   For outbound calls, prepare with research and practice.  At a minimum try to understand the
following prior to making a call:

a.     What does the company do?

b.    What is the role of the contact you’re speaking to?

c.     How can you make them more successful? 

d.    What are their highly likely objectives/goals/priorities?

2.  2.   On the call -

a.     DON’T SOUND SCRIPTED! Be conversationally comfortable.  If what you are going to say is not
something you could stand to hear coming out of your mouth when talking to
friends and loved ones then don’t say it.
Find a way that’s comfortable to you and practice.  Imagine you are on an airplane or
airport lounge and a fellow traveler asks, “What do you do?  What does your company do?”  Use the same voice on a prospecting
call as you would in answering in that imagined conversation.

b.    Ask open-ended questions that you can get specific on with gentle
probing questions such as:

i.     “How are you doing it today and how’s it going for you?”

ii.     “How do you track progress?”

These questions should be
diagnostic in nature meaning what is the situation the prospect is
experiencing, rather than prescriptive where the seller is telling or
recommending a course of action.

c.     Let the client speak, pausing to acknowledge the customer and letting them
interact with you.

d.    Also, be willing to adapt to what you are learning on the call.  For example, if the customer is already
familiar with you or your company, then you don’t need to state as many facts
as you would with unfamiliar customers.
So, be alert to what the customer is saying.

e.    **BE AN ACTIVE LISTENER!!
We can’t see facial expressions because we are not with them.  So, be very careful to listen for
grunts, sighs, or other auditory, but non-verbal noises coming from the
prospect.

f.      If the customer gives you a name to contact, ask for permission to
reference them when you try to contact the new name.

g.    Offer them something that could trigger a meaningful follow up.  Invitations to webinars or live events
are best if the prospect is not seemingly interested in starting a buying
process. 

h.     If all else fails, ask if you can begin (or continue) to send
information on how we are helping others like them. How can they turn that
down?

**If the customer feels
that you’re scripted, they will zone out**

**If the customer feels
that you’re being natural and personable, the doors for conversing will open**

Good Selling!

On Stories – From Presentation Zen: We learn from stories and experience

Are you using your success stories and plausible emergencies to build emotional connections in with your prospects and referral partners?

On the Blog Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds relates,

“When it comes to learning and genuinely retaining something, nothing beats experiences….Stories have an emotional component and when you engage people’s emotions, even just a little bit, you stand a better chance of them paying attention and remembering your point…” 

Now look at your sales pipeline and consider the role of success or other stories in your opportunities.

In how many of your opportunities, can you honestly say the prospect can recite back YOUR story, and now you have an emotional connection with them?

Think about the opportunities you have where there has been no decision and the sales cycle has gone on too long. Have you emotionally connected using stories?

A conversational sales story has five main components:

1. Title and industry of the person(s) you helped;
2. The vividly described situation they faced before you helped them (or that you imagine them facing and how you would help);
3. The capabilities they needed;
4. What you provided; and
5. The value saved or gained over time.

When my clients use their stories appropriately to gain credibility, they report higher sales success.  Yes, it’s that simple.
Now that’s a great story! 

Good Selling,
Adam

How to Start a Conversation by Slaying a Dragon « RareAgent’s Blog

While all the considerations around social media, marketing automation and email marketing are pertinent, effective and important, at the end of the day people buy from people and that buying cycle gets started with a “conversation.”

via rareagent.wordpress.com

I'll just add a few thoughts:

Your prospect must Identify with the hero
The Dragon has to have a brother or sister antagonizing your prospect
The fire the dragon breathes needs to be painful, more than just annoying