Are You An Accidental Salesperson?

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In October, we plan to release an online course called The Accidental Salesperson which presumes that many people who are drafted into sales today really didn’t set out with sales at their goal. This can include engineers, subject matter experts, accountants, lawyers and even a lot of salespeople.

And yet, most of the training that teaches those people how to sell is old and antiquated and actually takes away the very power that a technical subject matter expert has.

For example…

One of the keys to a successful salesperson − which the accidental sales person has an enormous amount of − is expertise. Accidental salespeople who grew up in the technical world know how to solve problems and they probably know how to find problems, too. That’s not necessarily the case with a salesperson who might not have worked on a widget − built it, designed it or engineered it.

These accidental salespeople are being asked to either head up the sales process or be a vital cog in the wheel of the sales process. And if the accidental salesperson doesn’t know how to communicate the value to a prospect, they will be lost.

So if you’re an accidental salesperson, don’t look to the sales team to train you on how to sell. The last thing you want to look like is them, especially if they are using antiquated and old manipulative tactics to do their job.

Instead, seek out training that helps you understand:

  • How people make decisions
  • Why people buy
  • What are the typical problems that a customer has
  • How do they equate the problem they have with the money that you’re asking them for to fix it?

Figure out the answers to those questions and every sales person on your team will be asking you to go on calls with them because most of them cannot do that.

Is It Mindset Or Skillset That’s The ‘Difference Maker’ Today?

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I had a long, tedious discussion with a family member this week end about the difference between COMPETENCIES and SKILLS. As someone who is ‘in the business,’ I suppose I should have been able to rip off a definition of each, but I couldn’t.

What  did occur to me as we were having the conversation is how little either of them really matter in sales success.

For over 12 years, we at Caskey have been preaching that it’s your “inner game” that makes all the difference in your success. And that if you want to significantly change your outcomes, change your thinking.

Afterall, situations change rapidly and scenarios change from one customer to the next. So, how can you possible have a skillset for each and every nuance of customer situation?

You can’t.

It’s why we’ve been trumpeting the message of “it’s about mindset, not skillset” for years.

Mindset Has Four Components

As we see it, if you can master the mindset of selling (and of yourself), you are unstoppable. Here the four that we teach.

1. Abundance.

This is the perspective that suggests there is more than enough to go around. There is an abundance of sales opportunities, prospects and pain to solve. Any shortcoming you feel right now is a function of how you think. Period. Look at your sales funnel to gauge how you were thinking ‘yesterday.’ Because that’s all a sales funnel is – an indication of old thinking. Read more

This One Idea Distinguishes You from All Others

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I wrote a couple of weeks ago about an encounter I had with a client who had asked us to critique a formal presentation he was making to a prospect.  As we were going through it, I realized that nowhere in there did he inform and educate his prospect to the “secrets of success” of this project.

My Advice To You

As you position yourself as an expert in your industry (and you should be doing that all the time) some sort of a “secrets of success” cornerstone report will help you help them.

So…What’s The Bottom Line Question?

If someone came to you and said, “John, what are the secrets to success in the implementation of this phone system?” you should be able to pull out the document that says, “Here, if you follow these steps, step-by-step, you will succeed enormously in solving your problems and getting the solution implemented.”

If you don’t have that, then write it.

If you don’t want to write it, then continue to be hoisted into the commodity heap with all other people who sell on price (and good luck with that).

 

 

 

 

3 Tips On Selling A Premium Product in a Commodity Market

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A few years ago, I did a Webinar called “How to Sell A Premium Product in a Commodity Market.” It was one of our best attended webinars we’ve ever done.

Lots of interest in the topic – and I believe I know why.

In this article, I want to update some of the content and give you a couple more ideas.  I picked this topic because it is an ongoing area of concern for sales people – how to sell a premium product into a market that sees price as THE main driver.

Why it’s so tough.

Think about it. We live in a “price leads” society. Advertisers have led us on a race to the bottom by the constant drumbeat of, “Lowest Prices In The Industry!” Or, “We’ll Beat ANY Price!” I know you’ll say, “But I’m not in the retail game.” No, you aren’t. But do you see the attitude that they’ve placed in the minds of buyers?

So the context is that even though your buyer might not jump to “What’s your price?” they certainly have it on their radar.

Here are four notions that I suggest you consider as you extract yourself form the “commodity dungeon” where the only important issue is price:

1. Position Your Self Properly.

Interesting thing about positioning is that it’s not just about what you say – it’s about how you say it. Sales people spend so much time concerned with the “what” and ignore the “how.”

And that’s wrong.

Regardless of your word choice (you’ll have to decide that), the essence of your message should be centered around ‘the types of problems that you solve.’ That’s right – no enthusiastic sales pitches about how great you are – or how smart your team is. None of that.

Frame your ‘premium value’ around the pains and problems that prospects face. Some of those problems they know they have. Some they’re oblivious to. But either way, begin the conversation there.

Be a problem solver not a product seller. There is a trap waiting for you. The prospect sets it and you fall right into it. It happens when the prospect shows interest and you default to “the pitch.”

Instead, when your prospect shows interest in the types of problems you solve, refrain from pitching the product and spend more time diagnosing what that problem means to him. This one thing can do more to change your position (in the prospect’s mind) and help them see that your premium fee is worth it.

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Evolution of a Salesperson [INFOGRAPHIC]

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In problem-solving terms, the rule is when you are confused about the next course of action you always start with, “How did we get here?” As we look at sales forces all over the world, we see problems like:

  • Closing percentages are low
  • Difficulty finding and getting in touch with buyers
  • Every part of the sales process gets commoditized
  • The sales process lasts way too long.

So, the first question we had was: How did we get here? The infographic below gives you some insight into how we see the world of professional selling today and helps you rethink your role as a salesperson.

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How To Become An Expert In Your Industry

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What separates the expert seller from everyone else? Can you really position yourself as an expert in your niche? And what benefits will you derive from that? In this episode, Bryan Neale reviews the many types of sales people so that you can see where you fit. Then he gives some ideas on how you can immediately become an expert in your world.

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How Do You Demonstrate Value Before You Deliver It?

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It’s the duh statement of the century: “My clients love me, and they have experience with getting great value from me. My problem is: How do I get people who haven’t worked with me to believe in my value?”

Duh

Isn’t that the essence of what salesmanship is? How do you demonstrate the value of your solution in advance of delivering it? And if you can do that, won’t you improve your closing percentage and increase your customer acquisition rate?

So How Do You Demonstrate Your Value?

I was in a training session last week with a company that sells a distributed product—in other words, they sell the exact same product other people sell.

They get into these price wars where they really can’t differentiate what their solution is from everybody else’s, because it’s exactly the same. My question to the salesperson was, “What does the customer give up when they decide not to do business with you?” And he couldn’t come up with anything.

Well there you have the problem. If you don’t believe in your heart that they sacrifice anything NOT to do business with you, then their best option may be to not do business with you. Don’t go whining about how you can’t get the deal or how your margins are pressured because you can’t hold the price premium. You’ve not worked on the right end of the problem.

At your next sales meeting, cut the talk about pipeline and start talking about “What do customers give up when they decide not to do business with you?” (and you might be you, not the company).

The Role Your Self-Image Plays in Your Results

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It’s a topic that no one wants to broach, but it is “the topic” when it comes to sales results and that is: What is the image you have of yourself? The most common way this comes out is: What is your image of the role you have in the buyer-seller process.

One of my clients is a middle-aged man who’s been in his position for twenty years and is arguably the most knowledgeable person in the US when it comes to one specific niche. Yet, as we went through the exercise of finding your value, he could not come to the conclusion that he, personally, brought any extra value to the table, beyond his product/service.

It was preposterous yet at the same time common. Sometimes our humility gets the best of us, and we discount the value we bring to the process in favor of the value our product brings to the process.

In this case, the question I asked him was, “What would you do to help the customer maximize the use of the product they bought post sale?” He came up with a list of five things that he would do over the course of a year that would virtually guarantee that the customer maximize the investment in the product.  In essence, the product itself was not the issue in this sale. It was how to get the product to work right after it was installed. (And I don’t mean that it was a flawed product. I mean, that like a lot of technology products, most people underuse the potential.)

After he came up with that list, his eyes got brighter and he stood up straighter and discovered that he is the thing that his customer cannot get anywhere else on the planet, and when they decide not to do business with him, they give up his expertise and his ability to make that small investment into a large return.

Recommendation

I urge you to think about the value you bring personally to the table through your experiences, your insight, your perspective, your collective knowledge of others in your organization that have expertise. You’ll be shocked at how valuable you really are. And if your self-image will allow you, you’ll be able to talk about that in a nice, conversational, elegant, non-cocky way.

Customer Value Propositions…

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You’ve heard me say before that I hate the term ‘value propositions.’ I just got back from therapy with my advisor where I found out why I despise the term….and on my desk is the latest Harvard Business Review. You guessed it–a long article on Customer Value Propositions.

You can find it here, although it will cost you a few dollars. It’s probably worth it. HBR March.

Overall, the article makes the case that every company needs constant work on its value proposition to customers.

I concur.

Not nearly enough time is spent on this exercise. I see it being an annual topic of a strategic retreat, where several hours should be focused on ‘what our proposition is’ and ‘how has it improved/changed?’ Just think, if you get this right, most selling becomes a piece of cake.

I also like the claim that most value propositions are full of marketing fluff. As I say to clients, if your value claims are nothing but that–claims–and are not customer-centric, focused on the customer’s pain or potential, then they will be discounted by your customer.

Often it’s more about how they are expressed than it is what they are in the first place.

Where I differ from the article is that they maintain that all of the company value is tied up in the delivery (of products/services and such).

I think your value has to start with the sales process itself.

If the sales process you’re taking your clients through is not valuable, in and of itself, then why should a customer feel like you’ll bring value after they pay you?

Your sales process, in a B2B environment, should expose shortcomings and problems in how your prospect is doing business now. This happens through the diagnostic you do–through the questions you ask–through who you call on at your prospect company.

If your sales process is more intentional and buttoned up, then you (and your customer) will discover those pains better than your competition does. And when you do that, you’ll have the competitive advantage.

Rigorous Honesty

I also think they should have paid more attention to the process you go through to determine your value’s advantage (above competition). They say it’s hard work, and they’re right. But what does that mean?

One must have the orientation of “pain” when they go through the value definition process. One way to do that is to ask two questions: What does my prospect “give up” when they don’t buy at all (when they continue the status quo? ) And, “what do they give up when they decide not to buy from me?” And when you’re answering those questions, rigorous honesty must be the mantra.

If you have a bunch of “yes men” in that meeting, you’ll never get to anything meaningful. One of our clients even had three customers in their ‘value definition’ meetings to help keep them honest. They learned a lot from them–on what was valuable–and what was marketing smoke.

In our flagship product, Selling From Strength, I devote an entire section to ‘fleshing out your value’ so that you are left with words that describe it. A handy tool when you are in a meeting and your prospect says, “so, John, why are you different?”