Sales Blog with Sales Tips

Today’s guest post is by Russ Emrick. Russ is a sales professional with 25 years of experience. He focuses on sales coaching and specializes in lead generation. Learn more about Russ and his company at www.breakoutselling.com.

Recently I had a new water well dug at my residence. I realize now that the effort it took to find a good water supply is analogous to locating new opportunities.

Both start with a plan and changes are made as necessary.

Plans Don’t Always Work
Engineers studied my property. Their research identified the location and depth where water could be found. After drilling at the specified location and to the depth they calculated, no water spouted up. It was a dry hole.

Time for “Plan B.”

Selling often has the same outcome. After in-depth research and needs analysis, we may not uncover any customer opportunities. However, good preparation means having multiple options so that we have the flexibility to change course.

Muddy Water That Nobody Can Drink
On the second attempt, the drillers did find water, but it was undrinkable. The water was mixed with contaminants.

When we drill for information from customers, we frequently accept muddy answers instead of drilling deep enough to get good information.

I call vague customer answers, “stems.” In other words, they are just the beginning of an answer, but certainly aren’t enough to move the sales process forward. There are no flowers to be found here.

• “We have to drive costs out of the supply chain.”
• “We need to decrease our time-to-market.”
• “Our operational efficiencies need to be improved.”
• “We want more of a return from our technology infrastructure.”

Notice that none of these statements are quantifiable. I think George Orwell called this Doublespeak. They really say nothing. There’s a big difference between general customer issues and specific customer points of pain.

We have to dig deeper when we only get a trickle of muddy water from our customers.

• Reframe their answers by asking how a certain issue affects their business.
• Ask them to tell us what they think the solution to their problem looks like.
• Whenever possible, quantify their answers – in dollars and numbers.

Finding Clear Water Is Not Enough
On the third attempt, the well produced sparkling clear water, but not enough to supply the needs of my family.

Many times we immediately engage prospects and customers despite the fact that their well is shallow.

By digging down another 250 feet, a gusher of drinkable water finally erupted from my well. If we continue to ask informed questions of our customers – and wait for the answers, we can frequently find areas of opportunity.

Know What You Want To Achieve
It took four attempts to get a well that produced a large volume of clear water. Mission accomplished. Knowing what I wanted from that well guided me through the process. The outcome was established before we started.

We have to begin the sales process by knowing what we want to achieve. We also need to be prepared to walk away from some opportunities.

Flexible plans, quantifiable outcomes and persistence create winnable opportunities.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Find a New Sales Job

“Happy” doesn’t cut it anymore with customers. They want more than to merely be “happy” with you and your company. This is especially true when it comes to strategic accounts.

The old cliché, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” could not possibly be further from the truth when it comes to sales.

If you don’t see any areas for improvement with your customers, you aren’t looking hard enough for their points of pain. Providing solutions to your key customers will help you on your way to making them ecstatic.

9 Sales Tips For Knowing Whether Customers Are Happy Or Ecstatic

1. Ecstatic customers will remain loyal to you, even after you’ve royally screwed something up.

2. Ecstatic customers always think of you first when they have a new need.

3. Ecstatic customers will give you great referrals without your asking, both within their company and externally.

4. Ecstatic customers have your cell number and home phone number. They also have you on their speed dial.

5. Ecstatic customers will give you a heads up on your competitors’ sales activities.

6. Ecstatic customers always keep you informed of upcoming projects that affect you.

7. Ecstatic customers are upfront about their real budget for your products and services.

8. Ecstatic customers never beat you up on price.

9. Ecstatic customers never make unreasonable demands; they’re never high maintenance.

Sales Tips Wrap Up
Think of it as a goal. Focus on your most strategic “A” customers that aren’t already ecstatic and get them there.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Are you familiar with the term “marketing latency?” It’s the time between a prospect noticing your company and buying from you.

Latency is a funny thing because our sales managers push us to shrink it as much as possible. Ironically, they are most likely doing us a big disservice. Long marketing latency surprisingly has many things going for it.

The Reasons Sales Managers Love Short Latency

• Sell ‘em fast and move on to the next order!
• Our region isn’t going to make its numbers this month. Close, close, close.
• Sell this prospect something quickly so we can get our foot in the door.
• I just bought a new home and you need to do something pronto to bump up my sales manager’s commission. (I actually had a sales manager at a Fortune 500 company who would say that exact statement. Who could make this stuff up?)

The Advantages You And Your Company Will Realize In Longer Latencies
These are presented in no particular order.

• A prospect that throws you all of their business very quickly is normally looking for a supplier to finance their business. This is the kind of financing where they don’t feel obligated to ever pay their bills. All of your competitors have already shut off their credit.
• Prospects that are truly looking at you and your company for things like TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), ROI (Return on Investment) and value in general will take longer to sell. They aren’t buying on price; your margins will be higher as a result.
• Prospects that have a high latency are stickier (i.e. more faithful) to you once you start selling them. They are also more competitor resistant.
• Longer latency gives you more time to explore all the selling opportunities within a company. When we’re not looking for the quick sale, it’s amazing how often we can find additional products and services to talk about with the prospect beyond the obvious.
• Sometimes we’re in such a hurry to sell that we sell to the first person who can order from us, thinking we’ve found the mother of all decision makers. Not always true. Especially in large companies. Finding and building relationships with high-level decision makers can’t be done in a few days.
• Prospects know when we’re trying to close them as quickly as possible. They don’t like it. Who wants to buy from someone who has an attitude of, “Let’s get this over quickly so I can close this deal and move on to the next”?

Sales Tips Wrap Up
Whenever we take a myopic view of prospecting, we make compromises. Any time we only focus on how fast we can get an order, we usually leave a great number of possibilities on the table.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer