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Should The ‘Butler’ Way Be ‘Your’ Way?

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Forgive me for indulging you in the conversation of basketball. But I think if you’ll read this closely, there may be a message for you.

Butler University is in the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tourney. And the beauty is they are also the host team (it’s played this year in Butler’s hometown of Indianapolis).

But the reason this is important to you is the light I want to shine on what’s called The Butler Way. And make the case that the Butler Way should be Your Way.

Teamwork. Preparation. Fun.

The statistic that you should care about is 10 of the 12 players on the team are homegrown…right in Butler’s home state of Indiana. They don’t need massive travel budgets…they aren’t looking for the most sought after kids. They look for kids with talent, integrity and a predisposition to team work. If they’re a little shorter, OK. If they play below the rim instead of above the rim, that’s OK too. Because the Butler Way isn’t about getting the best players. It’s about having the best team. A huge difference.

There’s a Lesson Here For Salespeople and Business Leaders

Get the fundamentals right. Get the thinking right. Get your mind right.

If you get those right, you don’t have the be the sharpest knife in the drawer. You don’t have to have the quickest wit in the room. You don’t have to say ‘everything right’ to close the sale or acquire a piece of business. You don’t have to wear the latest fashion so you impress your prospect…in fact you don’t even have to impress your prospect. And you definitely don’t have to have the best price—because it ain’t about price.

Butler Coach Brad Stevens

Because the Butler Way is not about impressing anyone. It’s about playing within yourself–playing your game, not the other guy’s game. Having a ball doing it. Never getting rattled. Being really, really smart on the floor. And it’s about  a player being OK with scoring 24 points one game and 4 the next…and not getting bent out of shape about it.

I don’t know whether Butler has a chance to win it all. I do know this: that the tide is changing in our world. It’s not about being the biggest and overpowering today (politicos will recognize this as “too big to fail”).

You don’t have to have the biggest marketing budget–or the biggest booth at the tradeshow to win business. In fact, I would suggest that you have an advantage if you AREN’T big. (I’m quite sure that schools like Butler use their size as a recruiting advantage.) Those are NOT the fundamentals of business.

Here are Six Fundamentals to get you started–and these should be Your Way:

  • Listen to your prospect. They’ll tell you what they really want and what’s important to them. In other words, stop talking and pitching.
  • Do what’s right in the process. If there is a wrinkle in your product or service, bring it up upfront. Don’t hide it hoping your customer never sees it. It’s not good for your Karma.
  • Be of “integrity.” Meaning, if you’re thinking it on the inside, then say it on the outside. When you begin holding things back, you lose.
  • Be who you are. Know what you’re really good at and don’t try to ‘make things fit’ just to make a buck. It always seems like a good idea at the time, but seldom is. I can’t tell you how many clients are looking to cut clients because the fit just isn’t right–and some of that business in unprofitable.
  • Care. Doesn’t sound like a Harvard Business School strategy does it? But it will make massively more successful than some academic marketing concept.
  • Finally, have some fun. How many times have you been called on by someone who just doesn’t seem like they’re having much fun? I have, often. Take a lesson from Butler, and have some fun. Laugh a little. Celebrate. Don’t get rattled. And do the fundamentals right—let the outcome take care of itself.

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?”

Sales Process Work – Inside an Effective Sales Strategy

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Recently, I posted on where sales training is going (The Future of Sales Training), I got some flack (probably well-deserved) for not getting in to more detail on each of my points. Sometimes in a blog, you just don’t have space to address the whole topic.

So, today I’ll dive a little deeper into point 1, which I’ve inserted below as a reminder.

1 A lot more process work. A lot less technique work. Not saying you shouldn’t have the basic sales skills (which so few really have), but I’m seeing it become a “process world.” Get the sales process right–and make sure it’s right for the prospect–and results will flow. Most sales companies have no coherent, useful, meaningful sales process. Get one–or hire someone to help you design one.

There is a curse alive and well in professional selling. Most sales processes have been built by sales people (and sales managers, who once were good sales people). The problem with that is the one thing you know about most sales people. They have a tendency for lack of detail. Your accountant or attorney or doctor doesn’t suffer from this. But sales people do.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. It becomes a problem though when a “lack of detail person” builds your sales process.

And what has been overlooked in building an effective sales strategy and process are the details of the sequence of events. You see, in every sales process there is a sequence of activities that happen (whether you’re aware of them or not).

Perhaps after the first call, two weeks go by before you get with your prospect again. Guess what? Time kills deals. Consequently, you should have a built-in section of your sales process to make sure no more than 3-5 days go by between contacts with you.

That could mean an article sent to the prospect. It could be a narrative/review of your first call (written of course). It could mean a white paper – or a case study – or a blog that you recently wrote on a topic he/she’s struggling with – or a podcast you’ve done (all the more reason to blog/podcast).

Bottom Line
You MUST think through all the gory details of the sales process. Most companies have not done that. You can do that by doing a Mind Map or a Flow Chart with each and every section of your sales process. Yes, it’s tedious. No, it’s not fun.

But all you have is your sales process. You could have a mediocre product, but with a good sales process, you will win a high percentage of time.

The Future of Sales Training. How You Can Play.

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We get asked all the time, “Where is sales training headed?” No crystal ball here, but I do see some trends that every sales manager and company president should be interested in.

As you formulate your selling strategies for the future, and sales training becomes part of that, you should look at how to deliver training so it has maximum value.

Here are some trends:

1 A lot more process work. A lot less technique work. Not saying you shouldn’t have the basic sales skills (which so few really have), but I’m seeing it become a “process world.” Get the sales process right–and make sure it’s right for the prospect–and results will flow. Most sales companies have no coherent, useful, meaningful sales process. Get one–or hire someone to help you design one.

2 More frequent training touches. The idea of having your sales team together once a year for training is absurd. The market changes daily–and the sales team that is on top of those changes–and sharing best practices, is the one that is leading.

3 Better diagnostics before you train. If you’re going to hire a professional training company, make sure they / you diagnose what the REAL ISSUES are. This requires conversations with management, with sales team members and with others who observe market problems. If the training company wants to charge you for this, pay it. It may be $10,000 – $50,000. But it’s worth it so you make sure you get return on your investment. (HINT: Diagnose the real problems, be they fear, doubt, disbelief in product, self image. You can’t change behavior unless you’re working on the real problem. Few do.)

4 More soulful approach. We call it “soulful” but you may refer to it differently. This has to do with training the heart and mind, and letting the words follow. Gone in the future will be the “company script” where the company trains it’s sales force to “say this.” We have a concept we call HIGH INTENT, which is rewiring the sales mind to think differently about the sales process–and be there to help the customer identify and solve problems. If you operate from a place of HIGH INTENT, you control the process. Tomorrow’s sales training will be about changing the thinking of the sales professional–not just changing what they say.

5 Remote Learning. Get used to it. If you have a remote sales force that comes together infrequently, then look at podcasting, teleconferencing, or video blogging to train your people. People want training. The Generation Y’ers need it and value it. But they won’t be happy sitting in a training room for 14 hours at home office. You can’t use the excuse anymore that your sales people are “all spread out.”

6 Clarity of Value. Most sales teams are pathetic at expressing the value of their company. I had a call yesterday from a bank– a well known bank. They were introducing a Payroll Product. Her pitch? “We wanted to let you know our product is cheaper than Paychex–by as much as 30%.” Someone in that bank’s corporate office would stick a pine cone up their nose if they knew that was the sales person’s pitch. That is a result of a miserable training job of helping the seller see the true value to their offer. Result. I don’t buy. And she destroys a little of the brand that they’ve spent millions building.

7 Management Coaching. In all of our training, the managers get coaching as well. This is the future. The manager must believe in, and know how to reinforce the training. The manager should always be one or two weeks ahead of his/her staff when it comes to the content to be trained. If you’re a manager and don’t believe in the training your team is getting, then say so. Because if you aren’t reinforcing it–or think you’re above it–then you’re wasting money.

There is a higher need today to train your sales team than ever. The internet, globalization, and a confused, time-constrained buyer are just a few reasons that your sales team, in order to be high performing, must be well trained.

Their remoteness should never be a reason not to develop them.

The Ultimate Selling Strategy: Change Your Thinking.

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I got a call from a client last week. She had just begun our program with her company and had heard us talk about “changing how you think” in order to get better results. We hadn’t yet gotten into the details of that, but since she called, I shared with her the five areas of change needed to radically change results.

I hope you can use this information to achiever better sales/business results for yourself. We’ll probably do a podcast (The Advanced Selling Podcast) on it soon.

=1 Change how you think about yourself. Most of us see ourselves as victims in a big economy–held hostage by market forces and company forces. We are quick to blame others for our malaise. That’s what’s so cool about sales–it’s up to you. It’s your accountability that is THE factor in whether you’re a success or not. See yourself as an abundant being on a mission to bring value to your customers. Whether they buy or not–or whether they buy on your time line–is irrelevant. All that matters is that you’re in the present moment with them while in conversation about their pains/issues/matters of the heart. The greatest sales strategies in the world won’t work if you aren’t thinking correctly about your self in the sales process.

=2 Change how you think about your market potential. Most markets are abundant. Yet, when I hear salespeople talk about their sales funnel, it appalls me at how scarcely they see things. Your market is in a lot of pain that they need you to fix for them. Never forget that. And because there is an abundance of pain–and an abundance of money available to fix that pain–then you are in an abundant market. Period. Never let the scarcity of another (even a prospect) effect you.

=3  Change how you think about your roles as a sales professional. This is cool and very simple. Your role in the sales process is to create an environment for the truth to occur. You have to create a safe atmosphere where your prospect is so comfortable telling you the truth, that it’s easier to do that than to lie to you. You’ve heard the expression “buyers are liars.” Well, it’s only because amateur sales people drop into “convince and persuade” mode and make them lie. If you’re creating the right environment, buyers won’t lie.

=4  Change how you think about your value. The value you bring to customers hovers around the intersection of THEIR PAIN and YOUR SOLUTION. Stop thinking your value is all about your benefits and features. Your benefits are only relevant if they have a pain and they believe you have a solution for it. NEVER LEAD WITH YOUR VALUE. Lead with them telling you their problems–and you determining if you can help them. Most corporate selling strategies lead with how great they are for the client. If your a prospect, do you want to hear that?

=5  Change how you think about the sales process. “OK class, who should control the sales process? The one with the money?” NO. THe one wtih the solution. Most sales people get this wrong. But you can only control the sales process to the extent you change your thinking on #1-4. If you merely try to exert control of the sales process without work on #1-4, then you’ll appear crass and amateurish.

So that was my answer to my client. Obviously, in training, I go into much more detail, but thought you’d maybe get a little something from that.

Any comments? I know someone will take me to task for something I said (or didnt’ say), so have at it. And recognize that a change in sales results starts in the mind–not in the market.

Getting to the Decision Maker–Your Attitude Matters

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Recently in our SELECT (advanced sales training) program, we got into a conversation about getting to the right person in the sales process.

As we went down the path, it became apparent that it was less a technique issue and more of an attitude issue on our part.

I went back in to the studio and recorded a short eight-minute recap for all of our client base and anybody who has subscribed to our email newsletters.

Hopefully, it can provide you with a little guidance when you are faced with this idea of “How do I get to the decision maker inside my prospect company?”

Fear Installment #2 “Fear & Self-Sabatoge”

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By Brooke GreenI posted a blog a few weeks ago about the Fear of Learning billcaskey.com. In that blog, I talked about how the fear of learning can stop us in our tracks.   It’s hard to believe that we would want to stay stagnant.  Why wouldn’t we want to get better?

Sounds crazy, right?  Not really. Think about all of the ways that you self-sabotage.  You complain about how your jeans are too tight as you stuff another Girl Scout cookie in your mouth. You talk about getting out of debt, but then come up with a reason to put those great shoes on your credit card.  Not that I have any personal experience…

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. 

Diagnosing The Problem
When we go into companies and do a diagnostic on the current situation, it is usually clear why we’ve been invited in.  As we talk about how we can fix problems, the discomfort in “what might be” starts to show itself.  Sometimes the pain of doing nothing is so much less than the pain of change.

What are we afraid of?  Will people’s expectations of us increase?  Will we have more to lose?  Will we just be TOO fabulous?

Can You Handle Change?
Maybe you’ve imagined what life looks like when you’ve accomplished the learning.  Are you afraid it will turn out differently than your plan?  My experience is that I can handle learning (change) much easier in small bites.  Instead of looking at the end of the learning, take it as it comes.   It’s kind of like not looking at the total amount of your mortgage, but just the monthly payment – much easier to stomach, isn’t it?

What is one thing you would like to learn / change? (Hint:  What is not working in your sales process?  Can’t get to the decision maker?  Not enough activity?  Deals fizzle out?) What is the smallest step you can take?  Once you’ve accomplished that, what’s the next step, and the next and the next…. You’re on your way.

My “Biased” Thoughts On Most Sales Training…

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With the podcast that we do (www.advancedsellingpodcast), we get a lot of questions on what we think of sales training. Well, it’s kind of like asking the chef if the food’s good in the deli next door. You kind of know what his answer will be.

Most of the time, these questionners are wondering because they are in the midst of searching for sales training, sales management training, or other professional development.

There’s a ton of training out there–and rather than me comment on any by name–I would prefer to suggest a very short list of things I would look for if I were on the other side of the desk–buying it instead of selling it.

1. Complete Assessment. So much garbage is “off the shelf” training that can’t be customized for your business. It HAS TO BE CUSTOMIZED for not just your business (and the language you use), but for your people, too. If you have a senior group, you’d better be speaking to some higher philosophies like comfort zones, high self image, and large deal negotiation skills.

Make sure the trainer, upfront, asks you (or your manager) a lot of questions about where in the sales process things stall out, how you feel about that, what isn’t happening that needs to, what do you want to get your prospect to admit to, and are there any emotional roadblocks to high achievement (self image issues)?

A Terrible Sales Training Story…I had a client tell me yesterday that he just returned from a 2-day training where the facilitator (from a global training company) read her PowerPoint slides from the screen and when finished with each one, said, “What do you think about that?” EVERY SLIDE!!! Wow, now there’s some real growth happening there?!?!?!!? (And I’m sure the company paid $000,000 for that content).

2. Content Philosophy. Most sales training has, at it’s core, an intent of helping you “sell more stuff.” That is totally wrong (as far as I’m concerned). A better intent is to help the constituent (seller) “discern” between someone who can and will buy–and another who can’t.

You can call that “qualifying” if you want but I actually think that word has been overused. Most often it’s used to make ANY PROSPECT FIT. The philosophy of great sales training content should be to help you understand and articulate the value you bring–and do that ONLY to people who have pains/problems that need to be solved. (Many people are willing to live in their own garabge–they aren’t prospects. Great sales training helps you discern the economically serious from the merely curious.)

Make sure the training content speaks to the inner game/soul of the trainee. That’s where all of the action is anyway. It’s not in the words you use, or how high up you call in the prospect company, or how elaborate your 12-step sales process is. It starts with the 6″ of real estate between your ears. If the content you buy doesn’t deal with that, then it won’t catapult you much.

3. Ongoing Nature. Training for adults can’t be delivered effectively in a one-day seminar. That’s just not how we learn best. Meaningful sales training, advanced or basic, must have frequent reinforcement to it. Personally, I think it should be every 2-4 weeks. It doesn’t have to be face to face (it could be via phone/web), but there has to be a regular way to reconnect with people in the training (and the trainer.)

A Suggestion:
One thing we do is the monthy TeleTraining Call. There is no new topic discussed. It is only a) a reinforcement of some of the work we’ve done already and b) a chance for people to bring issues/problems to the trainer.

If you have hired a trainer and they can’t stop talking about new techniques or how great they are, fire him and find another. Part of the great value of effective sales training is to allow the constituents to open up and speak freely about their problems, without the fear of getting jumped on. 

I hope this helps if you’re in the mode of searching for someone who can help you grow your business by implementing a sound sales strategy in your company. Remember, a trainer today should have much more knowledge than just sales techniques to share. He must understand people, human nature, how organizations (prospect) work, and how decisions are made.

If all he can do is recite from the book (or read PowerPoints), he’s not worth much, regardless of how little you’re paying.

You say that You Want Your Sales Results to be Different – Are You Sure You’re Ready?

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By Brooke Green”Fear” Installment #1

I read an article recently in Fast Co. (www.fastcompany.com) magazine about the Fear of Learning.  Marcia Conner states that while some people say that they need fear to excel, too much fear about what there is to learn can actually shut you down.   It started me thinking about how fear manifests itself in training.

Of course, when we start working with a new client there is a lot of fear:

*Fear of the unknown – What if I find out something about myself that I don’t like?
*Fear of what you aren’t very good at being revealed – What if I appear stupid in front of my peers or my boss?
*Fear of not being able to “get it” – What if everyone else catches on and I can’t?  What will they think?
*Fear of losing the familiar – What if everything I thought I knew was wrong?  What if I learn something new and people expect more from me?

Ms. Conner goes onto ask the question, “Are you afraid of revealing the terrible secret that you aren’t as brilliant as you’ve led people to believe?” 

Are you afraid of looking dumb to get smarter?  We are in a constant state of learning.  Sometimes that means being open to not knowing everything.   I had a mentor once tell me “If it doesn’t hurt, you aren’t learning.”  It’s so true.

Think about one part of your sales process that isn’t working.  Maybe it’s your income overall.  Do you find yourself looking to the outside – bad prospects, bad territory, bad product?  Try looking inside – is it really something that you’re afraid of fixing that’s holding you back?

Stay tuned for “Fear” Installment #2…