Selling in a Technical or Professional Firm!

Classic "feature and benefit" selling simply doesn't work in technical or professional companies. The product/service is often too complex to expect the seller to educate the prospect enough to make an intelligent buying decision. Value-based selling (popularized by companies like Xerox and IBM) is better but still inadequate if the seller is concerned with unpaid consulting, getting shopped against competitors, and spending lots of time on proposals or quotes that never get the business. If your firm has experienced any of these issues, you might want to consider adding these 4 elements to your sales process:

1) Motive
Prospects buy for their reasons…. not necessarily the salesperson's reasons. This Golden Rule of selling means determining not just what aspects of your product/service the prospect is looking for, but also WHY they are interested. What are their motives for desiring your product? What is the urgency and how committed are they to solving the problem? If your salespeople are touting cost savings over the long term and the prospect needs better productivity next week, they are undermining the sale!

2) Investment
Regardless of how advanced or sophisticated your company's solution is, if the prospect is unable to make the necessary investment, no sale will take place. No amount of responsiveness or reliability can overcome a prospect's inability to find the funds or divest in a current supplier relationship.

Salespeople must learn to deal with money EARLY in the process. How often have your salespeople recommended a solution too small to fix the whole problem? If your product is expensive, NOW is the time to determine if the prospect can make the necessary investment. Most salespeople make assumptions about the prospect's budget and are left with the options of walking away or arm-wrestling on price (shorthand for lowering it) after they have told the prospect how to solve the problem.

3) Process
All prospects have a process for making buying decisions. Large organizations have more complicated processes than small firms. Salespeople must uncover this process BEFORE making presentations. Your people probably know to reach decision makers, but they don't always find out who else is involved, the timeframe for making the decision and how it is ultimately made… until after they have provided their proposal. Have your people ever heard "This looks great and I'm really interested. Let me take this to my boss/spouse/consultant/board and I'll get back to you"? Could the presentation have been improved if they had determined who else was involved earlier?

4) Commitment
There is no guarantee that a decision will be made after the presentation unless the salesperson has that agreement with the prospect. Unfortunately few salespeople have, or know how to develop such an agreement. They end up in "chase" mode, tracking the prospect down for a decision after being told, "I'll get back to you" or "We need to think this over".

Summary
Effective salespeople uncover all this information before they submit proposals. A few powerful questions can save the firm enormous amounts of resources and make the salesperson more time efficient. Their proposals are customized to the prospect's needs and only contain those features and benefits that the customer must have and is willing to pay for.

Good Selling!

© 2001 Sandler Systems, Inc. For a FREE paperback edition of WHY SALESPEOPLE FAIL
(29 page booklet), send an email to Chip Doyle with your sales problem and company address/phone.

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Stop Talking and Start Selling!

The most successful salespeople and business development executives speak only about 30% of the time during their sales interactions. The prospect talks the remaining 70%. Unfortunately, the average account manager spends many hours preparing expensive "dog and pony" shows that tell the prospect all about their features and benefits. Not surprisingly, the account manager ends up talking most of the time during the entire sales process. The vast majority of account managers believe their job is to explain why their product is best and educate the prospect during the sales process. So why do traditional sales presentations fail to close prospects? The answer lies with understanding how the human brain absorbs and recalls information…

Studies show that humans only recall about 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear. However people tend to recall about 80% of what they say. The key to successful selling lies with allowing the prospect to talk about their needs while reinforcing their comprehension of the problem and importance of finding a solution.

Prospects want to buy, they just don’t want to be sold. If this sounds counter-intuitive to you, watch your salespeople in action. Look for the differences in their approach to the customer. When the prospect is doing most of the talking about their needs and issues, they’re buying…

Good Selling!

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