strategic selling

Why Sales 101 No Longer Works…

Posted on June 5, 2017 Written by admin 1 Comment

It’s ironic that the sales training world has stayed pretty much the same over the last 20 – 30 years, while for most companies, the selling environment has changed dramatically. Consequently, it has become more difficult for sellers to penetrate new accounts, while potential buyers are often working even harder to keep salespeople at bay.

There’s no point in blaming the customer. Over the past decade, corporate decision-makers are being asked to achieve more in less time, oftentimes without the benefit of additional resources. Meanwhile, while workloads continue to increase, competitors are getting hungrier, and the overall pace of business has quickened. Even if they wanted to, customers simply cannot afford to spend time with every salesperson that comes calling.

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Neutralize the Disposition of Your Questions

Posted on November 15, 2016 Written by admin Leave a Comment

Salespeople tend to listen with ‘happy ears,’ hoping to get some indication that they are making progress within their opportunities, and that they are heading in the right direction. As a result, sellers tend to ask “hopeful” questions like: tip 23

“Mr. Customer, does your boss like our proposal?”

“Would next Tuesday work for a conference call?

“Are we still in good shape to wrap this deal up by the end of the week?

Unfortunately, asking hope-filled questions tend to yield less information that also tends to be less accurate than the alternative. In short, we live in a culture where it’s easier to sidestep the truth, or event tell a little fib than it is to share information that is different than they obviously wouldn’t want to hear.

In Question Based Selling, we leverage a strategy called neutralizing the Disposition of your questions. It’s uncanny, but if you are If you are open and willing to invite good news and bad news, instead of just thinking about your own goals, you stand to receive exponentially more (and more accurate) information about the status of the opportunity.

Therefore, it’s much more productive to invite complete information by asking questions like:

“Mr. Customer, does your boss have questions or see any problems in our proposal?”

“Would Tuesday work for a conference call, or is that too soon to get all the key people together?

“Are we still in good shape to wrap this deal up by the end of the week, or do you think it could stall once it hits the CFO’s desk?

Critics of this could argue that it gives the customer an “out.” But I believe most customers know that they don’t have to buy from you. Therefore, I will gladly trade all of the “outs” customers don’t know they have for the volumes of accurate information I receive in return.

Question Based Selling vs. Traditional Methods

Posted on October 21, 2016 Written by admin 1 Comment

This QBS LIVE clip features Tom explaining the differences between Question Based Selling and traditional sales training, including some of the more well known programs like Solution Selling, Strategic Selling, Power Based Selling, SPIN Selling, and Target Account Selling.

Having an internal sales process in place is fine. But just having a sales process no longer affords sales teams any advantage. All your competitors have a sales process in place also, and their process is more than likely very similar to yours. – T. Freese

If you look around any sales organization you will quickly notices that some salespeople are significantly more effective than others, using the exact same process. This enables us to conclude that just following the steps of the sales process isn’t want defines success in sales. Rather, it’s HOW you execute each of the phases of the sales process that will ultimately determine whether you are chosen as the selected vendor, or you are consistently coming in second place.

Increase Voice-mail/Email Responses by 1000%

Posted on May 16, 2016 Written by admin Leave a Comment

tip 34 Voice-mail and email are very effective communication tools. As such, your target list of prospects and customers is being inundated with voice-mails and email messages from your direct competitors, in addition to any number of other vendors who compete with you indirectly—for budget dollars.

The are only two reasons people respond to voice and email messages—obligation and curiosity. If your boss calls and leaves a message, you will likely return the call. If your largest customer calls, you will surely return their call as well, because that’s what you do when you have important customers, or a boss.

But, what about decision makers who don’t feel “obligated” to return cold calls from vendors? Besides obligation, the only other thing that causes people to return voice-mail messages or email is curiosity.

The challenge is, most voice-mails and email messages that get lobbed into potential decision makers do more to satisfy their curiosity than create it. Oops! As a result, the average return call rate on voice-mail has dropped below 5%, and the odds of getting replies to email can be just as bleak.

Sample messages of Curiosity Inducing Voice-mails:

i.) “Hi, George, this is Pat Wilkins calling from Dynamic Systems—I’m on the team that works with industrial accounts in Central Florida. I was on a conference call with one of our products managers last Wednesday afternoon just after lunch, and two issues came up that I thought might impact your current manufacturing platform, one of which is time sensitive. I wanted to be proactive and try to catch you in the office this afternoon. If you get a chance today, could you please call me back at (770) 123-4567? I should be here until around 5:30pm.”

ii) “Hi, Dale, this is Lane Patterson with HLM Corporation. I’m on the team that supports healthcare accounts for the Midwest region. I was hoping to catch you for a minute because we’ve had 13 new announcements in the last three and a half months, two of which I believe might impact your diagnostic assessments under the new legislation. If you get a chance today, could you please call me at (770) 123-4567?”

(iii) “Hi, Steve, this is Joe Tomlin calling from Templeton Partners. I manage a team that works with financial brokers in the tri-cities area. A note came across my desk yesterday morning that caught my eye regarding (insert something relevant) and I wanted to try and catch up with you today if possible. When you get a chance, could you please call me at (770) 123-4567?”

Key Point: If I sent 5 different voice-mails or email messages, they would have five different sets of words depending on what information I had about the account, my purpose for calling, and the objective of the call. But in every case, my intention would be to leave (or send) a purposeful message, that was specific and relevant. Do that in your business, and you can easily realize a 50%+ response rate, which represents a whopping 1000% increase over industry averages.