Strategizing To Win Accounts – Sales Reminder#3

Strategizing To Win!

A good sales process includes good sales strategies. Good sales strategies help a sales organization to maximize their returns on effort, and, generate sales faster and more predictably.  Sales organizations should target accounts based on parameters that match their products. Trying to fit products where they’re not the most effective solution can have long-term negative consequences for your company and brand.

Additional targeting is also based on  annual revenues, total number of employees, geographic location, competitive replacement of  existing products, business models, regulatory pressures, and dozens of other factors.

Large accounts, or what is most often referred to as Major Accounts, most often require flexible sales strategies to win their business. Major accounts undoubtedly require major activity, interface with multiple people and departments, and dealing with major issues. The planning for and the management of a major account can be extensive! Of course the rewards can also be great!

Sometimes sales has the notion that  smaller accounts are simpler and easier to navigate. In many cases, nothing could be further from the truth! Developing a plan for Small Accounts is just as important as plans for Major Accounts. In both cases, developing a winning account strategy involves knowing where you are headed, why you are headed in that direction, who’s on board with you, how long your trip will take, what’s the cost of the ticket, and what sales activities will be required to complete the sales journey within the required time guidelines. Your sales goal is to delight your accounts while preserving time, energy, and shrinking internal resources.

We are now at the stage where a Lead is now a Prospect. We have Qualified the Lead and converted it into a Prospect. We have reasonable confidence of developing an Account. Developing a strategy to win and develop accounts should never be haphazard. This process of strategy development starts when sales is certain that:

• An account will purchase within a specified time period
• We know our solution is competitive, if not superior, and there is an excellent chance it will be adopted
• We have identified critical business issues for the prospect

This means the prospect is qualified. Only when a prospect is qualified should further time and expense be invested to develop the prospect into an account. The journey from lead to prospect to an account is rarely a straight path! Many internal and external factors influence this journey. It’s like a running back in football. Sales must dodge and weave it’s way through the competition, people, client requirements, internal and prospect politics, economic issues, availability of internal resources, product configurability, product customizations, deployment schedules… If the path seems straight from lead to prospect to account, it rarely is! Experienced salespeople sometimes call these seemingly straightforward, quick to close, easy accounts “Bluebirds”. Sometimes the Bluebird becomes a hungry Raptor and you become the menu item! I was initiated into my first technical sales job with a Bluebird prospect the senior sales people wouldn’t touch. I sold the deal but it was very messy for a variety of reasons!

Don’t be blindsided if you can avoid it. It’s important to pay attention to the details of the sales process and to compensate for the unexpected and understand who is involved in the account’s decision process. An inflexible sales strategy will cause you much heartburn!

Let’s take a look at factors that influence whether your account development strategy helps sales to progress from lead to prospect to a won account.

The Account’s Business Environment

• What trends are impacting this industry?
• Are there general trends within this industry for responding to the current economy? Does my solution fit?
• How will I utilize these trends to affect my sales strategy?
• How will my solution impact this account?
• Do I have a reasonable ROI model for the prospect?

Internal Resources

• Have I identified the internal resources needed to respond to the account’s requirements?
• Are these resources available to me when I need them?
• Do I require some special industry knowledge to be successful? Can I acquire it?
• Is my company committed to make the solution work for the account?
• Do I know how to effectively use my internal resources?
• Are partnerships required to win the account? Do they know their role? Will they be available when needed?

Account Insights

• How does the account make decisions?
• Do I know the personal wins for user buyers, technical buyers, and economic buyers?
• Do I have an appreciation of the account’s politics?
• Is the account facing a revenue downturn, are they thriving, are their margins very thin, is competition increasing?
• Is their place in the market changing? Are they  growing share, declining share, holding even?
• Is the account expanding their product line or services?
• How does the account’s environment help guide my sales strategy?
• Is this account willing to embrace new technologies and strategies?
• Are they fundamentally accepting or culturally opposed to my solution?
• Have all buying levels express their needs and opinions about what I have to offer?
• I there and external manager who could influence, delay, or halt my sales process?

Competitive Pressures

• Do I know who my competitors are on this account?
• Does the account have the ability to develop a solution to their issue in-house?
• Do they have a partner who has pledged to implement a solution just like mine?
• Do I know how I stack up against the competition in terms of price, features, and performance?
• Do I know who the competition is targeting at the account?
• Do I know their selling style at this account?
• Do I know my competitors strengths and potential weaknesses?
• How do these competitive issues guide my sales strategy?
• Is the competitor really offering an “apples to apples” solution or is it something less or more?
• Have I discovered requirements my partners can respond to?

I know you have your own account winning strategies. These questions a comments will hopefully provide you a few additional ideas and Sales Reminders to consider.  Maybe I’ve given you a little spark! Good selling!

Next edition: Time Management and Self Organization – Sales Reminder#4

Qualifying Checklist – Sales Reminder#2

Why Spend Time Qualifying?

Qualifying sales opportunities is fundamental. Qualifying is a process sales uses to help determine whether to pursue a lead or opportunity. Qualifying helps sales to decide whether internal resources should be committed and effort spent to respond to a potential sales opportunity. If a prospect is not prepared and interested in acting to fulfill their requirements, I urge you not to mount a huge sales effort unless there is a strategic reason to do so.

Remember to ask at every stage of the sales process:

• Have I really identified their business pain issue?
• Will they act to solve their issue and buy?
• Will they purchase within the time frame discussed?
• Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?
• Am I just a educational tool for this buyer?

Answering these questions will help to determine next steps in the sales effort.  Remember, qualifying is a continuous process and begins with pre-qualification of leads.  Qualifying should be systematic and embedded in your CRM solution. As you qualify a prospect you will gain answers to the three important questions: Will they act to solve their issue and buy? Will they purchase within the time frames discussed? Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product or service?

Most prospects will provide a requirements document or schedule time to discuss the specifics of their requirements. It’s up to sales to thoroughly discover their needs. It’s imperative to learn the prospect’s sincerity to buy. Effective probing will help to thoroughly understand a prospect’s needs, while at the same time, help you to answer,”Do I understand their business pain?” and  “Will they act to solve their issue and buy?” If a prospect has a clear set of requirements, or gains clarity as a result of consultative probing, they are more likely to act and buy.

During the discovery phase of the selling process, it is important to prioritize a prospect’s needs to determine what is important to resolve immediately. For instance, a prospect planning a viral social media marketing program, might have the goal of attracting hundreds of video entries and thousands of new users, creating couponing opportunities, drive regional consumer traffic to showrooms, conduct user research… Most often, for prospects to be interested in buying your solution, their highest priority must be met by your solution.  This also helps to answer the questions, “Will they act to solve their issue and buy?”, and, “Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?”

If a request for proposal is developed by the prospect and you decide to respond, prioritize your response to show how their top priority requirements will be met first. Be clear when explaining how their needs will be met. By doing this you encourage the prospect to answer the question, “Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?”

The key to qualifying are probing consultative questions.  As answers are given to qualifying questions, sales will be guided to develop on target responses and formulate sales and account winning strategies. These answers will also help with sales pipeline forecasting.

Qualifying Checklist

Creating a Qualifying Checklist assists in keeping qualifying on track. If you’re selling a technical product, often times your professional services organization will want to have input to your Qualifying Checklist. Answers collected will help them prepare for implementation if the sale is successful. View the Qualifying Checklist as your guide, your compass for navigating a prospect’s requirements.

Here are some broad Qualifying Checklist categories that might fit your organization:

Will they act to solve their issue and buy?

1. Do I and my internal teams have a clear understanding of the prospect’s requirements?
2. Do I understand the true business “pain” the prospect is facing?
3. Do I have the attention of their management team and decision maker? Is the management team and decision maker aware of their needs and my solution?
4. Has the prospect stated how they will make the buying decision?
5. Is a solution to their requirement vital to their business, or, is it a “nice to have” feature?
6. Is a consultant involved in the decision? If so, am I communicating with the consultant?
7. Are all members of the evaluation team identified and communicating with me?
8. Has the prospect said they will buy? Have they said when they will buy from me?
9. Have users, technical teams, and other management teams, all agreed to buy your solution?
10. If I’m an early stage company, are there special buying considerations that need to be proposed and accepted by all to increase buyer confidence?
11. Have they stated there is a budget to buy or will they find the budget to buy?
12. Does the prospect have experience implementing a solution like mine?
13. Will they require additional special industry benefits analysis or a unique ROI summary?

Will they purchase within the time frames discussed?

1. When would the prospect like to see the solution implemented?
2. Has the prospect completed and signed contracts and agreements in time to hit the deployment date?
3. Are our project teams coordinated? Has a schedule for deployment, and project roles and responsibilities been detailed?
4. Is there a critical business reason for them to act now?
5. Are they facing strong competitive pressures?
6. Are regulatory issues driving their decision?
7. Does the prospect have a sense of urgency to act?
8. Has their evaluation team justified the project?
9. If you require assets from the prospects, such as schematics, authorizations, or creative, have the transfers and formats been planned and accepted by the prospect?
10. Has there been a change of key personnel since you started the qualification process? (A big red flag!)

Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?

1. Do the prospect’s requirements match my product?
2. Is what I have to offer competitive in the marketplace?
3. Is what I offer disruptive to historical ways of doing business?
4. Has the prospect stated a preference for my solution?
5. Is the evaluation team leaning towards my solution?
6. Do my competitors offer any advantage over my solution?
7. Is the evaluation team convinced of your ability to deliver?

You will have qualifiers specific to what you are selling, but I hope this is a good Sales Reminder. I’m convinced, thorough qualification will shorten sales cycles and allow sales to create new accounts and revenue much faster!

Next edition: Sales Strategy – Sales Reminder#3

When Is It A Prospect? – Sales Reminder #1

When Is A Prospect Really A Prospect?

Many business sectors are currently facing sales challenges. This isn’t new news! For big ticket item Sales Managers, Sales Directors, Vice Presidents of Sales, and Business Development  specialists, the pressure to deliver sales and partner alliances during this time of slowing economic activity can be a daunting task. It’s ever more important to maximize every selling encounter with a prospective customer.

For sales managers and their sales teams, this could be a great time to re-examine sales processes. The goal being  to assure your organization is maximizing sales opportunities, and are consistently involved with activities that deliver results. For instance, are our follow-up activities timely, are we really calling on the right corporate levels, are our prospecting activities productive… Over the next few Sales Reminder discussions, we’ll remind about Prospecting, Qualifying, Strategizing To Win, Organizing Time and Activities, Establishing Credibility, Solution Presentation/Discussions, Sales Obstacles, Asking for the Business, and Solution Roll-out. We’ll even explore Social Media Marketing programs that sell.

I’ll put some ideas out there for you to consider or remind you of sales processes that may be forgotten. Sales Reminder is best used by sales teams that sell big ticket B-2-B solutions like hardware, enterprise software solutions, manufacturing automation systems, business process consulting services, technical professional services, Cloud – SaaS – PaaS and the like. In reality, B-2-C  sales might get a spark from my comments, especially Social Media Marketing insights that come real deployments.

Actually, you already know these things if you’re managing a sales team or if you’re selling.  Sometimes, it’s good to get brief reminder of sales process issues. I think it helps to energize us mentally and sharpen our focus.  We must never forget to remain faithful to a solid sales process that produces repeatable, reliable, and predictable results, and positive sales results especially during challenging times. No matter if you’re a start-up or a Global 500, creating and executing a good sales process is critical for generating consistent and repeatable sales results. If  sales methods are, “shoot from the hip”, or “make it up as you go”, sales results will probably reflect these selling styles, a little hit and miss. If these styles work you, and you’re happy, you can stop reading.

In Sales Reminder#1,  you are reminded of  leads and prospect development.  Recently, I overhead a “conversation” at a very large enterprise software company. Several members of their marketing department were in a heated debate regarding, “what is a lead”! I thought I’d have to dial 911! The amazing thing is, no sales people were included in the discussion. It wasn’t my business, but  had I been asked, I think I could have provided a few insights from a salesperson’s  point of view. If a large and reasonably successful technology leader is debating what leads and prospects are, I thought a discussion about these critical sales ingredients would be useful to a broader sales audience.

A Few Guidelines

Prospecting is the active seeking out, identification, and communication with potential users of your product or service.  It’s vital for every company to create a continuous flow of reasonably qualified or qualifiable leads to their sales team.  If marketing generates few prospects, the sales team will not be successful unless prospecting is also their responsibility. In most enterprises sales has a major responsibility for generating prospects in addition to those developed by marketing.

A company must learn to develop a steady pipeline of prospective users of  their products and services. Track the effectiveness of converting web inquiries, trade shows contacts, email blasts responses, blog comments, industry specific database contacts, traditional advertising, cold calls, social media marketing programs, social networking, referrals, and all other lead sources. Measure what works and what doesn’t in order to help build a genuine sales pipeline. Focus on those three or four pipeline building programs that offer the best  return on effort.

Then What?

OK, now for the selling part!  First contact! Plan and practice. “I’m talking about practice…practice…I mean practice…”  Basketball fans will remember words similar to these from a famous NBA player (Allen Iverson) a few years back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDBR2L5kzI). Yes I mean practice!

First contact with a lead or potential customer could be a phone call, an in person encounter, a web based presentation, or other methods. It’s important to WRITE your objectives and practice the flow of your discussion. If there is time to plan for your initial contact do so, never completely rely on experience and cleaver wit.  Your “prospect” is looking for a solution that will solve an important business issue. Always have a “pocket presentation/elevator pitch” ready for first contact. You know what this is. Learn your product/service and present it as a solution to a business problem.

WRITE your opening points, the body of your message, your conclusion, next best action, and briefly practice. Your opening must generate interest and the body must show the “prospect” how your solution will be beneficial to them and their organization. Conclude by briefly summarizing the meeting and gain commitment on the objectives you set. Ask for the business if it’s that straightforward, but certainly ask for next steps if this is a complex sale. In my opinion, a complex sale is one where more than one person has input to the final decision!

Before you go crazy investing large amounts of time, committing resources, and large sums of money to win the business, pre-qualify the prospect as much as possible. I know this seems formal and a little convoluted, but it’ll ultimately save you time, reduce your cost of sales, and increase your close rate. Simple pre-qualification questions can be along the lines of:

• Are they actively seeking what I have to sell?
• Is there genuine “pain” ?
• Have they committed a budget to purchase what I have to sell?
• How do they make a decision to purchase a product or service like mine?
• Is there a time frame set for making a decision to purchase a product like mine?
• Will they consider purchasing this product or service from my company?
• Is my product or service, as it is currently configured, a good fit?

If you get positive responses to these questions, you’ve probably turned a lead into a prospect. Otherwise, you have an inquiry or a contact for future sales development. Even if their customer profile fits your product perfectly, you don’t have time, in most selling organizations,  to target accounts that show no real “pain” or buying interest . Keep in touch but spend your time where you’ll achieve the best potential sales results.

In Summary

Here are questions to ask about leads, creating prospects, and how to approach your prospects. How do you rate your methods and skills in the following areas?

• My prospecting methods: email blasts, door knocks,  regular mail, contact databases, my web site, traditional advertising, social media, cold calls, webinars, podcasts, social media marketing programs, cold calls, trade shows, in person meetings…are sufficient to generate genuine leads and prospects for the sales organization
• My sales pipeline grows continuously
• My pipeline is approaching 3x my sales goal
• When prospects cancel appointments, and they will, I’m not concerned because my pipeline is full
• I briefly practice my presentations (don’t become mechanical – keep the spark)
• I follow-up with each prospect and ask for next steps
• I pre-qualify prospects

I urge sales not to move too quickly to demo a product or produce a quote before there is certainty that you dealing with a genuine prospect. The more positive your responses to the points above, the greater the likelihood you will  consistently convert leads to prospects and thereby achieve your sales goals!

Next edition: Qualifying Questions Sales Reminder#2