Archive for the ‘Engaging Your Customers’ Category

Sales Proposals: Give Yourself the Best Shot

January 31, 2012 by Scott Olsen

A start-up software company we’re working with is trying to gain traction in the market. In a recent assessment of their sales process we noticed that every time the sales person delivered a product demonstration, she would follow up with a generic proposal by email. We identified two fatal flaws with this process. First the proposals were generic and second the proposals were emailed. By itself, the generic proposal diminished the sales person’s success rate. Combined with the fact that she didn’t walk through the proposal live via the web or at least the phone, really put her in a limited spot. With this approach, how could she put herself in the best possible position to get feedback and have the chance to clarify or make adjustments to win deals? If the sale is important, it’s worth taking the time to tailor and present the proposal live, especially for a start up  who needs that critical feedback to learn and adjust along the way.

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Categories: Closing Skills, Differentiating You, Engaging Your Customers, Executive Selling, Sales Proposals, Selling Process

How Would Peter Drucker Sell?

January 7, 2012 by Scott Olsen

When I review a sales team’s questioning guide, I typically find thoughtful questions. However, the questions are often in no coherent order. Or at least no natural order that would help the customer feel comfortable and confident to open up and engage in a truly productive and insightful conversation.

My main goal with any customer conversation is to add value to the customer’s thinking and decision making while uncovering and satisfying their critical success factors. When we ask good questions, we have a much better chance of getting good answers (no guarantee, it’s still sales). Furthermore, when we ask good questions in an optimal flow, we have an even better chance of getting really good answers.

The SPIN® Selling model provides one way of organizing your questions. Personally, I prefer an approach that helps me uncover BINGO information. Uncovering BINGO Information offers a slight, but important twist to the SPIN® Selling model. Here’s a brief overview:

  • Background
  • Issues/Impact
  • Need/Benefit
  • GO for the close

I was once told that Peter Drucker (1909-2005) said every business should be asking themselves two questions. The first is “what are we doing?” and the second is “what should we be doing?” Background questions are similar to “what are we doing?” Background questions deal with the general facts, goals, vision and what is working in your customer’s world. Furthermore, background questions help you warm up the conversation and are always safe, neutral or positive in nature. Issue questions are similar to Drucker’s second question, “what should we be doing?” Issue questions are far more interesting as they help uncover the difference (or gap) between what the customer is doing today verses what the customer could be doing. However, issues alone are rarely, if ever enough to propel a customer to take action. This is why we need to follow issue questions with powerful impact question. The purpose of the impact question is to help quantify the cost of not resolving the issue.

For example, the fact that a customer uses a paper process when they could be using an automated process is an issue. The impact is the quantification of what this issue is or might be costing the customer. How much extra time does it take? How much does this extra time cost? What else could they be doing with that extra time? It’s a domino effect and top sales professionals are skilled and helping the customer realize or visualize these impacts.

Once you’ve confirmed the issue is worth resolving, by asking impact questions, it is time to make the need explicit and ask the customer how they would benefit from the capabilities your solutions provide. Continuing with our example above, you might say something like, “It sounds like you need a streamlined process. How would it help if you and your colleagues could capture all of your requirements in one place and receive real time alerts to any update to your projects?” With a good benefit question, the customer herself creates the value statement. With the customer’s positive response, it’s time to go for the close or the logical next step in your sales process.

When you ask questions in the optimal flow, you ask questions in a way that naturally flows in the same way your customers make decisions. Ultimately, you put yourself in a position to close by providing the customer with the exact solution they’ve confirmed they need and desire.

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Categories: Creating Ideal Customers, Engaging Your Customers, Questioning Skills, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Selling Process, Tactical Selling Skills, Trust and Credibility, Uncategorized

Uncovering Critical Success Factors

January 27, 2011 by Scott Olsen

What are your favorite questions to ask prospects and customers? If you really want to help satisfy your customer’s critical success factors, what questions do you need to ask?

Tom O’Keefe, Chief Revenue Officer at ShopIgniter, and a good friend of mine likes to ask, “What does your business plan demand that you accomplish, that you didn’t accomplish last year?” Michael Gear, VP Sales for GoodData, loves to simply ask, “How our you being measured?”

I’d love to hear the questions that help you uncover your customer’s critical success factors!

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Categories: Differentiating You, Engaging Your Customers, Executive Selling, Questioning Skills, selling

Inspiring or Draining?

June 4, 2010 by Scott Olsen

Are you inspiring your customers every time you engage with them? Or are you draining their energy? One company (Creative-Brand Communications) in Portland, OR has a thriving business helping their client organizations in the banking and credit union industry find creative ways to “push the envelope.” They go beyond what customers can see and connect with all of the senses: hearing, touch, smell, taste and sight. They do this in a way that brings their clients’ brand to life in every way possible.

Great companies realize the best way to inspire their customers is to inspire their own employees first. We can’t give what we don’t have. Consistency is the key to a highly motivated and inspired workforce. The most effective organizations make it more than a one time event. However, if you do need an extra shot in the arm, Matt Weinstein is one of best at delivering inspiring and motivating events, that work every time. If your company doesn’t give Matt a standing ovation at the end of the interactive presentation, the event is free!

A very successful SVP of Sales and friend of mine claims he doesn’t motivate sales people, he hires motivated sales people. This is a great first step. However, I think he has it half right, literally. When it comes to motivation, inspiration and attitude, I believe employees bring 50% of this from home, however we can influence the remaining 50%. How? Through the environment, contests, continued education and career coaching/counseling.  Contrary to popular belief, studies show that compensation is not the number one motivating factor for professionals. The number one motivator is the desire to contribute to the success of your organization.

How do you ensure your employees understand how they contribute to the success of your organization? Perhaps even more challenging may be to answer the question, How do you help your employees gain the knowledge and skills to contribute in more ways each year?

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Categories: Engaging Your Customers, Team Building, branding yourself, professional growth

Just the Right Amount of Customer Contact

May 13, 2010 by Scott Olsen

I’m often asked about the best ways to follow up with prospects and customers. I find most sales people are concerned about following up too much and coming across as aggressive, while sales managers have a fear that their sales people may be too passive and not following up quick enough or on a consistent basis.

Based on a McKinsey Quarterly article, The basics of business-to-business sales success, there is good reason to pay attention to how you do follow up. This article is based on a study that shows the “most destructive” sales activity in the eyes of the decision maker is “too much contact (in person, by phone, or via email)”.

I’ve found the best way to ensure the appropriate amount/timing of follow up is to take the guess work out by asking the prospect. At the end of each conversation, agree together how you can best track with and support the customer’s decision making process and when you should talk next. This simple idea saves sales people a tremendous amount of wondering, grief and head ache as to when to follow up. Some of my clients have tripled their weekly productivity by becoming better at closing each phone call with an agreed upon clear next action step with their customer.

“When” you follow up is important, but perhaps the bigger question is, “are you adding value every time you make contact with your prospect or customer?” Here are some simple common sense ways that may help ensure your conversations are relevant and meaningful to your prospect:

  1. be brief and to the point
  2. open with a quick summary of relevant info from your previous conversation
  3. confirm/establish the objectives, then the agenda of the meeting
  4. summarize the key take aways from the conversation
  5. confirm next action steps and who is responsible for what, including the date/time/objectives of the next conversation

Running effective meetings or facilitating effective conversations is more science than art. One of my clients, an SVP of a very large technology company, shared with me that the most valuable training he had ever participated in was a week long course on how to run effective meetings.

Please share your approach to ensuring the right timing and ways you facilitate relevant and meaningful conversations with your prospects and customers.

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Categories: Closing Skills, Engaging Your Customers, Executive Selling, Major Account Selling, Prospecting, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Tactical Selling Skills, Uncategorized, sell, selling

Establishing Trust and Credibility

July 22, 2008 by Scott Olsen

No Trust No Sale.

As animals, we sense things before our minds have a chance to think things through. We can sense if someone is being authentic, vulnerable and real verses hiding behind a mask or being guarded. 

What instantly imbues trust and credibility?

This is a question that is at the very core of my work as an executive coach and trainer. I had the opportunity to witness first hand the rise of a Regional Account Manager to the position of VP of Sales of a very large and successful software company. We hadn’t talked for over 7 years. In the interim, he left the company amid many changes, including several executive team transitions. With a new CEO on board, he was recruited to come back, not as a Regional Account Manager, but as their VP of Sales with an offer he couldn’t refuse. What was it about him? One of the things was the ability to establish instant rapport with others, especially his ability to do this over the phone with his customers with only the use of his voice. He left me a simple voice message about needing to miss a meeting I inviting him to. I was so impressed by it, I saved it to play it back to participants in my sales training courses (Tactical Selling Skills). In addition to being relevant and personalizing the message, what made his message authentic was the tone of his voice, inflection and pace. His thoughtfulness came through, as he used humor, laughter and vulnerability to explain why he hadn’t called earlier because he was at his daughters art class while his wife was traveling.

What establishes trust and credibility with you?

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Categories: Differentiating You, Engaging Your Customers, Sales Skills, Sales Stories, Trust and Credibility, selling

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