Transform Yourself from a Salesperson into a BusinesspersonWritten by Dave Stein
Continued from page 1
To survive and thrive in information economy, most important skill you’ll need is good, old-fashioned business know-how. You should know how businesses operate, especially in marketplace into which you sell. Become familiar with concepts and current practices in business strategy and planning, Internet commerce, business collaboration, and change management, among other areas. One of my clients, bidding to replace a company’s decade-old software with a new product that would let independent agents enter orders, asked how company proposed to get agents to accept changeover. There was a stunned silence. Nobody in company had imagined that independents might resist idea. My client, having uncovered an unidentified risk, locked up deal by adding management services to proposal. Financial Statements Revisited The most important element of business know-how is understanding how financial statements represent a company’s financial position and how that company compares with others in its market. If you can’t read and interpret an income statement, cash flow statement, or balance sheet, learn to do so right away. There are no shortcuts. Those financial statements are as revealing of business health as CAT scans, EKGs, and blood tests are of your physical health. You don’t need to become a CPA, but a solid knowledge of financial concepts and an ability to compare clients are key. If you believe, as I do, that effective selling at executive level is about quantifying and proving business value you can contribute, then having business know-how is a vital component of that approach. If you don’t have it, how do you get it? Here are a few ideas: uTake a course in reading and interpreting financial statements at your local college, at night school, or (in United States) with American Management Association. In Europe, try Management Centre Europe. uRead a book on subject. Do exercises. uAsk your brokerage firm for guides to reading and interpreting financial statements. Most large brokerage houses have either a book or a comprehensive document on subject. uSpend some time with your own company’s CFO, controller, or accountant. If you aren’t well versed in finance, do you know someone who can interpret a financial report for you in a pinch? uIf you have a close relationship with a client, ask his CFO, controller, or accountant to walk you through company’s financials. This is a very powerful way to understand how your client’s business operates. If you sell into a vertical market, this approach will give you real insight into that industry, which can be used when selling to other companies. We’re not talking about sharing proprietary information, of course, but industry norms — median profit margins, sales costs, revenues per employee, anything that will help you show how your offering contributes to their business plan. I submit to you that timeless truth about sales is, “It’s all about money” So if you can’t show your clients and customers how your offering will earn or save them big money, you’ll never consistently win big sale. Action: Develop skill of zooming in and zooming out — looking at your client’s company from 40,000 feet, diving deeply into relevant details, only to zoom out to big picture again. More articles at www.HowWinnersSell.com
Before founding The Stein Advantage, Inc., Dave Stein was employed in a diversity of executive sales and marketing roles. Dave consultants, coaches, speaks and trains on competitive sales strategies. He is author of How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition & Win the Big Sale. Dave was an early adopter of technology and is a recognized expert on technology sales, marketing, and service. More info: www.HowWinnersSell.com.
| | How to Outsell a Competitor Who Slashes Their Price to WinWritten by Dave Stein
Continued from page 1
·Uncover what competition uses to deflect their prospects from exploring areas listed above. In technology, you'll often find that lowball competitor has sexiest demo, for example. One client did a terrific job of figuring out that their competitor's service and support resources were stretched very thin. A few subtle and well-planned comments to prospect suggesting they look more deeply into certain "areas" pointed them in right direction. As a result of a bit of probing, prospect found that my client's competitor couldn't appropriately support them post-sale. "If they can't bring people to party now when they are selling to us, it'll only get worse if we become their customer," prospect told our rep. Bingo. ·Discover and quantify value. Whether or not you suspect that a low-price competitor will be included in bidding process, you'll need to quantify value of your offering--in terms of financial return. When you are competing against a competitor who drastically discounts, it's especially important to get close to prospect and really understand their requirements. Not only will that enable you to better position your solution, but, more importantly, you'll be able to uncover areas of potential additional value for customer that can be derived from differentiators that you are selling. If these differentiators are linked to financial impact for prospect, they are not likely to become expendable nice-to-haves, eliminated from consideration in what might turn out to be a commodity buy. Even if prospect doesn't want to or can't invest in that added value now, you've expanded their vision past what your competitor has done and have set yourself up for add-on business later. ·Educate and Position. Winners who are really good at competitive selling subtly but definitively alter their prospect's perception that buying at lowest price is prudent thing to do. You can really only do this effectively when you are selling at appropriate executive levels. ·Talk to buyer about challenging business conditions that face all of us, and natural tendency to buy at lowest price. ·Talk about companies in prospect's as well as your own industry who have gone out of business as a result of tactical discounting, and impact that had on those companies' customers. (You need to do some homework here.) ·Implore prospect to ask questions of other contenders that will expose weaknesses that result from tactical discounting. (See "Educate Yourself," above.) ·Educate prospect on differences between price, cost and business value and impact on of those factors on their business. Understand prospect's own business model, their culture and how they sell to their customers so you can link your approach to theirs. (If they sell a commodity themselves, at lowest price, you may have a serious challenge.) ·Immunize prospect in advance against what will likely be a lowball bid by your competitor. Explain how, when, and why it will happen. Prepare prospect for what you know will come... Don't just sit there and wait. ·Convincingly reduce what will likely be price differentials into meaningful, real terms. "Since there is typically a five-year life associated with my solution, and it will, admittedly require potentially a $240k additional investment, I figure that comes to 4k per month, which, you have to agree is less than a rounding error (or full-time employee) in terms of business value we've been talking about." ·Get creative. If you haven't tried risk-sharing, phased implementations/installations or other creative approaches that will enable you to win business without discounting, you need to do some brainstorming with your team. Very often a cash strapped competitor who has been discounting to win business falls flat on their face when asked to match such creative selling. Few of us can afford to sit back and wait for competition to slash their price and walk away with business. Understand your customer, your competitor, and your value. Then sell. ©2003 The Stein Advantage, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For permission to republish this article call or email us. (845) 621-4100
Before founding The Stein Advantage, Inc., Dave Stein was employed in a diversity of executive sales and marketing roles. Dave consultants, coaches, speaks and trains on competitive sales strategies. He is author of How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition & Win the Big Sale. Dave was an early adopter of technology and is a recognized expert on technology sales, marketing, and service. More info: www.HowWinnersSell.com.
|
