Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 23)

to the low percentage of successful cold calls and it is worth whatever it takes to get a referral for the call. By doing this deep dive into the potential customer, your first call to them won’t be a “cold” one, because you will already be addressing the right topics with the right people. II. Qualifying and advancing those opportunities (decide which to pursue and which to drop). Khalsa cites research from the ES Research Group showing that, at any given time, 65% of salespeople are pursuing worthless deals. Equally alarming, the same research shows that 80% of deals are lost due to an inadequate or non-existent qualification process and sales planning. One popular military dictum holds, “He who defends everything defends nothing.” Khalsa says it is critical that salespeople and sales organizations extract resources from low-probability opportunities and invest them in high-probability ones. Yet many are loath to give up on anything with even a slight chance. From Khalsa’s experience, a strong predictor of sales success is the flow of meaningful information between seller and buyer. Probability is high when there is access to the buyers’ key stakeholders resulting in an in-depth discussion of the underlying business opportunity and the resources necessary to achieve it. Probability is low when sellers must guess or tell. Qualifying rigorously based on the flow of meaningful information allows sellers to concentrate their time and energy on fewer deals and win more of them. To get this free flow of information, Khalsa says, salespeople need the mindset, process and skills to create an open, honest environment where clients feel safe to share what they think and believe. “Salespeople need to get real and break through dysfunctional seller/buyer practices to become truly client-centered,” he www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com says. “They have to talk less and listen more by asking effective questions to really understand what clients value and craft solutions that exactly meet client needs. The more salespeople focus on their client’s numbers, the more their numbers will go up.” III. Getting the sale (closing the deal). Khalsa contends that doing more with less also applies to winning presentations. He observes that the overwhelming majority of presentations are “packed with phenomenal amounts of information” and do a great job of showing how smart the presenter is. Unfortunately, that’s beside the point. “They’re information-rich but still lacking when it comes to the true purpose of a presentation, which is enabling the customer to make a decision,” Khalsa says. “Salespeople are adept at packing all kinds of phenomenal data into a slick-looking slide deck. What they typically aren’t taught to do is create one that gives clients exactly what they need to know before they buy. “What is the decision we want on the table at this meeting? What does the client need to believe, intellectually and emotionally, to comfortably and confidently make that decision? How do we address those beliefs? “When you consider those questions, include the exact information needed to answer them—and no more. Any more or less and you make the decision harder and less likely.” For example, if Khalsa were coaching you on your presentation skills, he would advise you to start with the end in mind. Within the first few slides, the client should know exactly what decision(s) you want them to make. “You also have to make ‘no’ okay,” he says. “If the customer feels you are trying to force them into a sale, they’ll react aggressively in the opposite direction. “If they feel they have a true yes-or-no decision, they will engage the discussion with an open mind,” he continues. “You should always be scanning your language and messaging to ensure you’re acting as a trusted advisor to the customer, rather than a pusher of products or services.” In addition to knowing where you want to be at the end of the presentation, you’ll also be doing yourself and your customer a favor if you spend some time identifying the necessary stepping stones to that destination, Khalsa says. He recommends identifying three to five beliefs that the decision-makers need to check off (logically and emotionally) in order to make the decision at hand, then organizing what you say about your solution to address those beliefs. Gain a decision on each belief after addressing it rather than waiting until the end for Q&A. When the beliefs supporting the decision have been successfully addressed, 23 MARCH/APRIL 2008 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Sales Marketing Management Cover Story: Lessons From the Master Maximum Mobility Training Technology Incentives/Motivation Travel/Meetings Book Excerpt - Value Merchants The Way I See It - End the Discounting Habit

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

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