Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Quotes and proposals. Two of the most overrated tools in sales. Proposals are a waste of time unless you’ve already been selected as the vendor. Seems ironic doesn’t it?

And quotes can be mental salve for the sales professional. As if “leaving a quote” is tantamount to making a sale.

Are both tools necessary at times? Yes. However, they frequently disguise and distort the real buying and selling process.

It’s important to cut through the smoke and mirrors with the following sales tips.

Dismissals, Quotes and Proposals
Do you remember what a dismissal is in sales? Here are some examples:

• It’s when a prospect readily accepts your offer to send collateral marketing material in order to get you off the phone as quickly as possible.
• It’s when a prospect hastily accepts an appointment in order to get rid of you. An appointment they never intend to keep.

Quotes and proposals can be used as dismissals too.

The earlier in the sales process a prospect asks for a quote or a proposal, the more likely it’s nothing more than a dismissal. A waste of your time.

Another Reason To Be Wary Of Quotes and Proposals
Ever have a prospect virtually beg you to provide a quote or proposal, yet you have no relationship with the company? They’re looking for free information to put alongside the information provided by the supplier they intend to buy from.

An unqualified prospect has no investment in your perfectly executed quote or proposal. It’s nothing more than another datapoint to them.

Misguided Intentions
Too many sales professionals see quotes and proposals as an end goal. They lose sight of the real goal. Making the sale.

I’ve never heard of a sales organization that pays commission on the number, size and weight of quotes and proposals submitted.

Antidote Sales Tips
A prospect should make you earn the right to give them a proposal or quote. How? By their raising legitimate objections that indicate genuine interest in your products or services. Counterintuitive isn’t it?

And you should make a prospect earn the time you’ll invest to create a quote or proposal. How? By your relentless qualification and discovery of their suitability to be one of your customers.

The best antidote for fruitless quotes and proposals is strenuous customer qualification. You might produce fewer quotes and proposals, but your closing ratio and your sense of accomplishment will improve immensely.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Find a New Sales Job

There are a million myths about the selling profession. What’s most frustrating is that many “sales trainers” dole these out as quality sales tips.

Here are 10 of my not-so-favorites presented in no particular order.

Myth #1
Salespeople lie more than buyers. The math on this one is simple. A sales professional has a lot more to lose by lying than a buyer. As an example, I’ve asked dozens of professional buyers if they’ve ever lied about pricing. I haven’t found any who said they hadn’t engaged in this practice. A salesperson would be committing sales suicide to lie about a price.

Myth #2
The internet will replace all sales professionals. Ever see a website find a decision maker or uncover a prospect’s budget? How about discovering a buying time frame or learning about the competitive landscape?

Myth #3
Ninety-two percent of our communication with customers is through body language. If this were true, then phones, emails, text messages, marketing collateral, etc. would be virtually useless.

Myth #4
If you can just get your foot in the door, you’re halfway there. If this is how you get an audience with prospects, you’ve already alienated them. They aren’t listening to a word you’re saying either.

Myth #5
ABC (Always Be Closing). People are hardwired to resist being pushed. Push enough and they’ll run – and not toward you. The close is merely the final and natural step in a well-orchestrated sales process.

Myth #6
People buy on price. Price is always a consideration, but it actually ranks number five for buyers in study after study. Availability, risk, service and quality are more important to a buyer than price. Buyers ask about availability and price because we can immediately give them hard numbers on these items. Risk, service and quality are learned through relationship and time.

Myth #7
There is a stereotypical sales personality. If that were true, a pre-hire sales test would exist that could effectively weed out the non-sales types. There isn’t such a test (i.e. one that works) because all successful sales professionals are different.

Myth #8
Sales professionals only care about making money. Studies show that income ranks below a number of other factors such as job satisfaction and professional growth for sales professionals just as it does for people in other occupations.

Myth #9
Sales is just a game of numbers. This might have been true 15+ years ago – but not today. Sales is an information and relationship game. Quality, not quantity.

Myth #10
Working for the best vendor or supplier means you’ll win the sale. Creating a relationship with a prospect that is based on your good character and work ethic gets the business. Besides, the prospect decides who is the best vendor.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

There is an avalanche of misunderstanding and disagreement when it comes to value propositions.

Since there is no absolute definition of value propositions, let me give you a brief history. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions as to what they really are and how you might use them in your selling efforts.

In The Beginning…Phase 1
It all started with salespeople doing nothing more than selling the features of their products. This kind of selling started before the industrial revolution and sounded something like, “Ivory soap is 99.44% pure.” Nothing more than a simple feature.

Things Evolve…Phase 2
Around the 1930’s, the advertising and selling world realized that prospects needed more than a feature. They needed a reason to buy. The benefit was born. Tell the prospect about a feature and then tell them why it helps them.

Significantly driven by automotive advertising, we saw feature-benefit statements like, “General Motors’ new Hydra-Matic transmission completely removes the work of shifting and operating a clutch.”

Circa 1970’s…Phase 3
The first hint of sophistication in features and benefits enters here. The marketing types realized (as we know today) that prospects couldn’t care less about the feature; they were interested in the advantage to them (i.e. the benefit).

The marketers fixed this by simply reversing the feature-benefit statement to a benefit-feature statement. Tell them the benefit first and then tell them how it is achieved.

“Give your children more of your time by using Duncan Hines’ 1-2-3 easy cake mix.”

The Birth Of Value Propositions…Phase 4
Transport yourself to the 1980’s.

It is arguable who actually “invented” value propositions. There is also little agreement as to what ingredients should be in a value proposition and in what order they should appear.

However, most value propositions include the following four basic components and normally in this order (but not always): need, feature, benefit, uniqueness/differentiation.

“Busy executives need to be able to work in comfort when traveling. American Airlines’ business class provides you the ability to conduct business in a luxurious environment. No other airline offers as many business class seats as American.”

One More…Phase 5
Sales and marketing is currently operating, for the most part, under phase 4. But there is a new wind blowing. Primarily driven by the Gen Y’ers.

This wind is called the New Authenticity. It throws out all of the above and simply asks the sales professional to be revealing, honest and direct with the prospect. No formulas. No games. No marketing (at least not overt).

Kind of refreshing sounding isn’t it?

Sales Tips Wrap Up
You’ve been through all of your company’s sales training and you’ve heard the marketers at your company tell you their story. Your sales manager uses “value proposition” or “value added selling” in every third sentence.

However, the most successful sales professionals have used the new authenticity approach for their entire sales career. They just didn’t know what to call it.

This new authenticity thing has legs.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer