The IT dept questions

Whenever you are selling software solutions or security systems to companies you need to face the IT Department: The IT manager and his highly trained staff.
They will question you about all possible imaginable issues and other competing technologies.
They seem to know more and are aware of more technologies than your technical sales support staff.
Apparently they can ask more questions than you or your technical sales support can ever answer as they have had trainings and courses about IT technologies.
Sometimes we wonder if they have had trainings in posing difficult questions or posing the next question.

On the other hand the business managers or directors of the company have a limited number of questions. They are more interested in the benefits and the advantages for their business or the company: if we implement this what would it cost and what’s the return on investment ?

If you can get the VP Marketing interested then the required budget is no longer a problem as in many cases marketing budgets are beyond all other budgets in a company.

The relief by cloud computing / web services

When cloud computing and web services will become generally and commonly used then there will be no IT Dept. Probably only a CIO as the IT Dept. has become obsolete due to the fact all an employee needs is a browser.

Then solely the business manager or company directors will decide and rule.
No more questions about the technology.
Just questions about the benefits and advantages of using your solutions.

When will this happen? The process of converting to could computing and web services has already started.
Will this mean also the end of the technical sales support in the software business ? Probably.

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Close deal – Maybe – No
The best thing that you want to happen is to “Close the Deal”.
The second best that can happen to you is getting a clear “No”.

If you get a “Maybe” then you are nowhere and you have to invest more time and effort in the sales process in order to stay in competition.
Hence this sales process can go on for weeks or even months:
- Not knowing what you are up to
- Not knowing if you have to invest more time and effort in the potential customer
- Not knowing if you have to quit now or later

This uncertainty will make your overall sales efficiency decrease as it will bother you.
Hence the best thing after a “Deal” is getting a “No”.
That will end you investment and waste of time and capacities.

However in the case you see a future opportunity you need to continue to contact the company.

How to get the “No deal”
The problem is to force the potential customer to say “No” in order to allow you moving on – instead of:
- Maybe
- Soon we will make a decision
- We have some more questions
- This issue needs to get explained
- Can you give more details on
- Do you have other references?
- Would it be possible to implement these features?
- We want to see another competitor before our decision
- Can you demo to the VIP from the headquarters?
- …
All these will require more time, effort and money to be invested in a deal that might never going to close.

Forcing the customer can only be done by
- Asking straightforward and hoping he is honest.
- Asking contrary questions and see how they respond to them
- Asking a sequence of eliminating questions
You should feel if the manager or director is still motivated to sell your solution to his company management.

Getting a “No” is not so bad: relieved
Getting a “No” is not as bad as you stop the bleeding of money.
It stops the worrying.
Allows you to focus on the next deals.

Without a “No” you need to:
- Go back to your management to ask for more investment based upon the chances of succeeding
- Motivate your coworkers again to present to or to work on this prospect further.

Getting the “Deal” gives you the victory and getting a “No” releases you from continuing to invest time and effort in the lead.

If you get the “No” ask why and analyze the reason with your team as it can be used for the next prospect or lead qualification.

Have you ever feeling relieved when getting a “No” ?

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All salesmen have a Rolodex in one form or another:
- the real physical Rolodex
- an electronic contact data base
- a spreadsheet

This Rolodex is the asset of a salesman: it is the rescue lifeline of the salesman where he can fall back on when he starts missing sales. It allows him calling up people for generating leads or getting hints.

Obsolete Rolodex
The main problem is that the Rolodex becomes obsolete after just a few months.
People will move from job to job or from job to unemployed.

People will only inform salesmen of the status or job change if they see a benefit in it. Just, like they update their status on LinkedIn as this can help them finding a new job or better opportunity.
The best is to have links with all of your contacts using LinkedIn and then your Rolodex is likely to be up-to-date as people communicate their changes.

The challenge of the up-to-date Rolodex
As there is no incentive or personal benefit to keep the salesman and his Rolodex up-to-date, he needs to check all of his contacts with online data bases like LinkedIn, Spoke, Jigsaw, Zoominfo and other directories to make the changes that are communicated and published.
Additionally he needs to contact those contacts that haven’t communicated a status change on a regular base just to be sure if they are still in place.

As contact data base of all salesmen grows, the effort and required investment of keeping track and re-contacting becomes a challenge to achieve.
In most cases the Rolodex deteriorates in accuracy and thus value fairly quickly as the investment in contacts is only valued the moment you need a contact. Hence most people don’t invest time and effort in updating.

Building a new Rolodex is more important
What’s important is not the past or the current number of contacts in your Rolodex, but the number of up-to-date contacts.
The best salesmen are not the ones with an impressive Rolodex, but those who can build up a new Rolodex in a short amount of time.

What’s the status of your Rolodex ?

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Business: the complex sale
People in a company or in their business are always hard to persuade to make a purchase as it takes presentation, sales pitches and negotiations.
In B2B the complex sale is a fact and comes with a long sales cycle.
Business buying decisions are rational and based upon evaluating different propositions.

Consumer: consumption
The same people as consumer go shopping in their spare time with the main goal to buy, spend money and feel good. In many cases shopping is their preferred spare-time activity – even during their holidays.
The sales cycle is very short and in many occasions impulsive – even for their expensive cars.

So how come when people are in a business environment it takes time, evaluation and consideration?
While during their spare time as a consumer they just buy for spending the money.

The entrepreneur:
We all know entrepreneurs who are very hard to deal with as they will get into hard negotiations for all their purchases related to their business, whereas when they buy stuff for their living they spend their hard earned money easily.
His buying characteristics change during the same day.

Business purchases: beneficial
The thing is business purchases could improve their business or effectiveness and thus generate more revenue or more income which should be most important. Thus the more improvements, increase in effectiveness and increases in convenience they can achieve by purchasing tools and services the more likely to increase their business activity or more profit.
More income means more to spend during or consumer part of live.

Consumer buying: convenience and ego
Consumer purchases can increase personal convenience or could boost the ego and in very few cases can save money in the long run. But in most cases it is just money spend for the sake of:
- The eagerness of having things to take home
- The good feeling of buying
- The social status obtained with goods
Consumers are not very rational.

Are we schizophrenic buyers?
So why it is there is this huge difference between spending for the business and spending for their personal life?
Are we all schizophrenic ?
Do we all have double lives ?
Do we think differently between business and consumer ?

Are you difficult to deal with during your business and very easy when you are a consumer ?
Or are you just difficult all the time for purchases ?

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You would expect salesmen to sell themselves well when the are looking for a new job.
Although they might get a new job fairly quickly, the question is: did they sell at the best price ? The bid price.

There is a huge difference between selling a product frequently and selling a service or product one time only.

Recurrent deals:
If you sell a product frequently you can increase or decrease the price and measure the increase or decrease of the number of deals closed.
That is a good feedback.

Unique deals:
In case you sell a one-off there is only one shot for that particular deal:
- To high will result in having no deal
- To low will make you close the deal but not at the best price
This is selling by making a bid.

Selling, negotiating, poker and bid pricing
So even if the great salesman gets his contract for a new job, did he get:
- The best deal
- Just a good deal
- A lazy deal?

This will depend on his selling capabilities for one-off products or services if he obtains the best pricing or not.
How well is he in negotiating and bid pricing ?
Bid pricing a different metier.

Some sales people are great in presenting the best suiting benefits, advantages, features and functions for the customer.

Other salesmen are better skilled in negotiating and playing a poker game and setting the bid pricing.

There is a huge difference in these two types of deal making.
Recurrent deals:
- A standard product
- A standard service
Where the price is more or less fixed and comparable with competitors.

Unique sales deals:
- A house
- A project
- A service
- A vacancy
Where the price is more floating and not exactly comparable with competitors.

Some of the best salesmen will not get the best deal for their job.

What is your metier ?

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Why tell less ?
People can only retain two or three messages from one presentation or speech.

When you are explaining your products, business or business models, you have to focus on the main or essential stuff that is significant to your potential customer.

If you tell people about 10 benefits, advantages or features during a presentation or conversation, they only will retain two or three of them.
Then the problem is which three will they remember ?
You don’t know. You don’t know which messages they take back home.
You need to be in control in order by limiting the number of messages.

The company presentation is universal
If you use the standard company presentation you will be presenting too many subjects, benefits and ideas as it has been made for many purposes:
- To please the CEO
- To please the investors
- To please the VP Marketing
- To (maybe) interest the customer

Certainly not to please the Salesman.

The company presentation is intended to be universal.
In sales nothing is universal – all customers are unique (or they think so) and should be treated that way (especially in B2B).

Investigate to clean out the presentation
Any presentation or sales pitch starts with an investigation in the company and the people to meet or talk to. You need to know the purpose for attending, their problem and their interests.

This implies you need to clean out the standard company presentation, even if management imposes you to use it as it is.
In the end it is your sales revenue and your sales bonus that counts, not the pride or ego of your management.

Kill the company presentation for your own benefit !

Do you use the company presentation ?
If so – are you the top notch salesman of the company ?
Ever wondered how to become one ?
Start with the company presentation.

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Joint venture culture clash

When the COO of the American company asked for sales estimations to the Direktor Vertrieb (Sales manager) of the German company, he expected a spreadsheet with numbers.
Instead the Direktor Vertrieb gave sales estimations without any calculations.
The COO then asked where he got the numbers, the German replied “Aus dem Bauch” (just his best guess based on his gut feeling).

The problem is both people were working for companies that had joined forces in a Joint Venture.
The American COO almost went nuts. For him it was impossible to run a company based upon gut feeling. This was unheard of in a time of information systems, ERP and spreadsheets.

The rational American COO could demand for forecasts based upon calculations in a spreadsheet, but he had no power over the German Sales manager to oblige him.

The German Sales manager had no intention to go through all the required calculations as he was sure of his best guess. Moreover he had too much pride to succumb to the demands of the American COO.

Driven by his pride and prejudice the COO went out to calculate a myriad of spreadsheets as it was important for him to know and to have numbers based on assumptions, input from analysts and salesmen.
The numbers of the COO were used to plan the production.

About a year later it became clear the “Aus dem Bauch” numbers were near the realized sales, whereas the numbers produced by the COO were far off.

The German Sales manager had a decade experience in selling similar products into the market, whereas the COO not.
Experience counts more than all the number that can be assembled and mixed into the most complex calculations that are based upon certain assumptions.

Joint venture sufferings and oppositions

A joint venture is an organization that is difficult to manage as almost every aspect or habit of both companies can cause a clash that can make the joint venture fail.
Pride and prejudice are one of the main factors of failure.

When two cultures or company cultures meet many problems arise causing oppositions and sufferings at both sides. This is inevitable.
The sufferings and oppositions are the life and operations of any joint venture company.

Did you ever survived a joint venture ?

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