Reading emails before action

When an email lands in your inbox do you really read the email content or:
- Do you just reply with your standard reply email ?
- Do you forward it without really reading to your supervisor as prescribed by the workflow ?
- Do you try to up-sell in the first reply ?

It is imperative that you read the email and answer appropriately to his request for information or solve his problem or issues. That is the first goal of your reply as you need to satisfy his first demand.

The impression of the potential customer

If the potential customer gets:
- A standard reply then he will feel unimportant
- Forwarded to a supervisor then why was he wasting time communicating with the first person
- A solution but also an up-sell then he will feel the focus is too much on up-selling as the expected revenue is not enough
- A reply several days later then he might have taken his decision already
- A not then he is left in the cold and needs to hope other vendors bring a solution

The cheapest leads

You should grab this kind of opportunity as these are the cheapest leads you can get: apparently without any effort from your side or your company they present a potential sale for you for free. You or your company save upfront the cost of the lead generation.
All you need to do is:
- To read the inquiry email
- Investigate into the company: what does the company do
- Investigate into the person who addresses to you (using LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy, Viadeo or even Facebook)
- Reply solely to his question as an expert as you still need to build trust.

Read the emails of potential customers and answer them appropriately within 24 business hours.

Do you really read the emails of potential customers?

In some cases you should say “NO” to your customer and not proceed in selling to him. This “NO” is hard to do but it is better in the long run.

Saying “NO” to your channel-partner, system integrator-partner can be appropriate too when they:
1. Impose their requirements on projects for their benefit
2. Increase complexity of projects (like adding on third parties)
3. Change the requirements (rule of the game)
4. Mange you instead of you managing the partner
5. Change due dates (earlier) without having discussed
6. Change your price quotations by increasing the deliverable(s) without notifying previously
7. Call after business for urgent decision hours so you miss feedback of your staff and employees
8. Put you under pressure to decide fast upon new issues as quote needs to be in
9. Complain about everything including your products or competing products
10. Want special discount for each and every prospect
11. Discuss every item on your invoices
12. Pay always overdue
13. Want free inventory
14. Asks commission on top of received discounts
15. Ignore RMA (Return Material Authorization) procedures
16. Refuse to accept and handle faulty goods from customers
17. Call you and several employees about the same issue or problem
18. Use your information to sell the solution of your competitor
19. Pick up leads beyond their geography defined in the Partner Agreement
21. Get drunk at your yearly partner event – never sober
22. Occupy your booth on the trade show without any effort
23. Play games (sound/noise) during conference calls with potential projects
24. Receive MDF (Marketing Develop Fund) or Co-op Marketing but never spend it effectively or wisely
25. Blame you for any kind of mishap in projects

In many of these cases you might be better off without the partner as he creates:
- Overhead
- Not recoverable additional costs
- Confusion amongst your staff and employees and prospects and customers
- Loss of time and efforts
Instead of bringing in money this type of partners will cost you money.

You should evaluate:
- The amount of sales the partner brings
- The amount of additional costs he generates over one year
- How many potential customers he drove away by his actions.

Did you ever said “NO” to your partner ?

Limited reach

If you are eager to find prospects or projects then it is likely you won’t find them.
Maybe you are to pushy by being too much focused on getting a lead or even a sales cycle started. People feel this and this probably turns them away from you.
Promoting too heavily your product or services by grabbing every opportunity to mention your solutions will not helping to achieve your goal of leads and prospects. People will perceive you as a salesman eager to score or in the need to score.
The number of contacts you can make is limited. Hence the number of your pushy sales pitches is limited too as your reach is limited.

Email marketing tried to solve this problem of limited reach by blasting out marketing and sales messages to a massive number of people. The effectiveness of email marketing in B2B is probably decreasing significantly because of the pushiness.

Mouth to mouth expands reach

On the other hand when you listen to people and advise them with your real business expertise you will create a different attitude. The perception will be different.
The chance that the person you are helping will become a lead or prospect is still minimal, but the reward is in their network.
If you really help them with your advice, it is very likely they will mention it to their peers in face-to-face conversations and during social happenings as people crave for interest. Thanks to you they have something interesting to tell.
Or on a next occasion in a social environment the same people you have advised previously can introduce you to new people with similar business issues.

Giving advice and sharing your expertise will significantly expand your reach.

Business guru

Thus instead of being a salesman on a commission, you should be a business guru with expertise to share and giving advice freely. Make sure they remember you and get their contact details. The contact details should be used forming inform about the success or fail of your advice and not for starting sales pitch. Again listen instead of speaking.Even if your expertise wasn’t successful they appreciate it as you are concerned about them.

Are you a salesman or a guru ?

Hoarding expertise and information is history

All the information and expertise of a salesman that allowed getting an appointment is now available on the Internet. This can be provided by your competitors or by peers on social media (forums, LinkedIn, Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc).

If you keep your expertise and information to yourself then your potential customers will find it on the Internet from another source. Thus bypassing you completely. This could make your company and its’ products obsolete as people won’t find you on the Internet.
Not getting found increases missing sales deals. Hence hoarding information and expertise is history.

Share your expertise, knowledge and information

Instead you should share your expertise, knowledge and information in order to keep up with competitors and make sure you are being considered for all the possible shortlists. It is not solely your products, the feature and functions of your products, the quality of products and after service and the brand name that will get you on the short list as your company and products might get overlooked or simply net found during the research phase of the purchase cycle.

Not gating for content

In most cases influencers and decision takers will not contact you before they have made up their short list. In order to get on the short list it is better to provide information and expertise without gating for this content as this is part of the sales cycle. Asking for contact details is a hurdle in your sales process and won’t help sales.

Instead of waiting and hoping getting invited to present all of your knowledge, expertise and information during a sales meeting, you need to publish this as it will:
- Bring traffic of interested parties
- Build your authority in the business
- Get you on the short list
Only when on the short list you will be contacted for information about your solution and price negotiations. This kills the concept of opportunities moving through the funnel as it has become ultra short.

Are you still hoarding your expertise ?

Leads in funnel – Sales deals

Marketing needs to prove their marketing spending’s by showing as many leads as possible.
Although Marketing will qualify the leads before entering them into the funnel they have the tendency to let more leads qualify.

On the other hand the more under-qualified leads the Salesman gets the more time he waists by qualifying each of the leads in his sales funnel. Hence the lesser time he can spend on the really well qualified leads. This creates the perception with salesmen that the marketing leads are of lesser value. In the worst case the salesmen will even ignore the leads from marketing as they prefer to work on their leads.

Rewarding

Marketing is rewarded for the number of qualified leads it generates into the funnel.
Salesmen are rewarded by the number of sales deals they have closed.

During sales meetings and revisions by the sales manager the salesmen are evaluated not only by the number and value of deals they close but also on the success rate of their funnel. Moreover their pipeline is used to get a forecast of sales which is all important business and management information.

Hence salesmen should be in control of leads entering their funnel which is not always possible with the current Marketing Automation tools. These Marketing Automation tools and CRM system often start from a marketing campaign and feed the potential leads directly into the funnel.

Commissions for Marketing and Sales

Instead of marketing being rewarded for the number of leads entering the funnel, they should be rewarded just like salesmen for deals closed. In this way they would take the time to qualify leads better as every lead requires time and effort from a salesman. The more effective the salesman can work the better for both.
Marketing and salesmen should both be rewarded on a sales commission for deals closed.

This split commission would bound the collaboration between Marketing and Sales as they both will have the same goal.

How is the distribution of leads organized in your company ?

Sales reps

Sales reps are into sales, sales arguments with features and functions of products or services. Their main focus is selling the stuff which gets them a commission.

Salesmen

Salesmen are into explaining about benefits as selling to C-level people requires putting the solution into a business context. A successful salesman will try to understand and interpret the business requirements, issues and problems to be solved.

Their main focus is not the product or service that they eventually want to sell, but the business requirement, issues and problems that needs to get solved. Their goal is to find and present a feasible solution for the potential (or probable) customer.

Business perspective

Thus you need to look at the purchase decision from the business perspective of the potential client. It’s about the client and the feasible solution, not about the product or the service that needs to be sold.

Of course eventually the product or service will get sold – sales deal closed.

Are you a sales rep, a salesman or a businessman ?

It is not because you lost the last deal that you will loose the current deal.
It is not because you just won a deal, that you will close the next deal too.

Winning strike vs negativism

People are strange when they are on a winning strike then they believe the winning strike will continue. It will show by their self confidence, happiness and probably ego.
This positive feeling and confidence will lead to even more closed deals.

On the other hand when they miss a deal they:
- Start doubting about themselves, their ability win and close deals
- Blame the company and the products the company produces which they need to sell
This negativism about themselves or the company they work for will show up in their attitude, their missing confidence and their behavior.
This negativism will show up during sales talks, presentations and negotiations. Leading to even more lost deals.

Attitude swings

It only takes a few deals to win or a few deals to loose to move from one stage or situation to the other. The swings in attitude, believe in themselves and the products can happen fast for most salesmen. It seems there is only a narrow grey zone between great / winning and bad / loosing.- making the attitude swings fast.

Only experienced and mature salesmen will take a different approach and let themselves less influence by the last deals won or last deals lost. Probably due to the many years in sales. Still even seasoned salesmen can start to doubt after a series or even a couple of missed deals.

In sales the only way is up

In sales having lost self-confidence and being negative will not get you any closer to closing deals. Moreover you will even start getting less and less leads in your funnel or pipeline.
Hence salesmen need to continue believing in themselves and see the benefits and advantages of the products or solutions they sell.
The only way is up for sales people as there is no other way out or change companies.

Many sales reps claim there is no point in calling during December as for most companies it is the last month of their financial year.
All focus is on getting the last sales deals closed in order to reach the budget, while others are planning their Xmas and Year End parties and holidays. This results in a slow month and sales reps aren’t motivated to call.

However during year-end:
- Chat time
Those who are not in sales might have time to chat, especially in between Xmas and New Year as not much is happening and they are in holiday mood.

- Reach unreachable people
People who are hard to reach might be reachable during this period of slower business.

- The new budget
This might be your last chance to get your solution on the yet to be approved new budget.

- The remainders of the budget
The remainders of budgets need to get spend before they expire: it is better they spend it on your stuff.

- New year – new budget
As from January 2nd the new budget kicks off and new purchase orders need to be send out.

- Keeping in touch
Keeping in touch with your customers and prospects by wishing them Happy Holidays can start an open conversation.

Social call instead of Sales call

Probably a sales call will not be appropriate around this time of the year, but chatting informally about the industry, business and then mention a few functions, features or benefits of your solution(s).
After all it might turn out that the year-end is not really slow, but good for staying in touch, discussing objectives and opportunities,

Tell your sales reps there is always something to do in Sales – whatever time of the year ! if they not agree then fire them.
Happy Calling Season as Xmas and New Year are an opportunity to address people differently

Christmas Is Cancelled (Part One) from Mark on Vimeo.

Missing a deal due to a missing feature

On many occasions salesmen claim they missed the deal because one or more features or functionality were missing.
The most obvious reaction of the Sales Manager or even the CEO is to demand this additional feature or function in order not to miss the next deal. If the solution cannot be found or developed in house then even an acquisition can be evaluated.

This push for more features not solely comes from sales but can also originate from marketing or product marketing as they require new features in order to be able creating new messages and campaigns or to have a me-too product.

The Feature Creep Monster

The Feature Creep Monster appears while slowly more and more features and functions are added to the product or solution.
If a sales rep or product manager can obtain a feature change or addition, it will be very difficult to explain why not to add the next required feature: that’s when the Feature Creep Monster gets into the drivers’ seat of product management.

Then more features are added until it becomes complex or cumbersome to use. The core of the product will go beyond the original specs. At the same time the group or market segment that was originally targeted when designing the product could get less focus or they might even no longer consider your product anymore as it falls into a different category.

Feature disaster

After adding one or more features, no client ever seems to require the added feature that had cause the loss of a deal previously. The issue the company now has that it needs to support the additional feature in every next revision of the product. What seemed to be a minor cost to add an additional feature that could bring significant more sales, has turned out to be a money burning feature that brings no revenue. As more and more useless features or features without impact on sales are added the Feature Creep Monster has turned into a feature disaster due to the high costs involved to maintain these features year after year.

Avoiding feature creep

In any case you have to shed that “The Customer Is Always Right” mentality. The customer just wants more at the same cost or the customer needed to find a reason to grant the purchase to a competitor.

Every change of a feature or each time an additional feature to be added is discussed a cost benefit analysis should be made:
- How much more sales or how much less sales will be missed
- Costs of developing, adding, promoting, selling and maintaining the feature

In any case don’t rush into adding a new feature as once you have added the feature it will be almost impossible to remove the feature. Investigate first by doing a market research which is beyond the one customer that asks for the feature. Also try to find out if your competitors have actually closed a significant number of deals thanks to the demanded feature or if it was just a one off.

Feature creep will happen with any product, just make sure it doesn’t make your product and sales creepy.
Also learn to say “No” to your customers when they want another feature in order to tale the Feature Creep Monster.

How much feature creep have gotten your products ?
How did you tame the Feature Creep Monster ?

Elected by a corporation

The CEO’s of small companies are always proud if they receive an order or proposition for cooperation from a large company for development or R&D purposes.

However when a large corporation addresses to or asks a small company for researching or developing a specific solution, this is not because the large company can’t develop it or misses the capacity to develop it, but merely to avoid internal problems such as:
- Writing the business plan for the new development
- Getting the budget approved
- Avoiding internal politics
- Wasting time over a long procedure to get a new development started
- High research or development costs that needs to be justified

Benefit for the corporation

The small company can probably research into or even deliver the required solution much faster at a lower cost without all the hassle of the hierarchical organization of the large corporation. Moreover the large company could get the research or development done at a very low price by teasing with the carrot of possible large orders and a long time cooperation.

Although the perception of the CEO of the small company is that they have been elected for their quality or professionalism of work but actually it is just to avoid any problems or major delays for the research or development of the new solution.

Contract – agreement required

Hence the CEO of smaller companies should think twice and negotiate a contract or agreement with the larger corporation in order to really be able to reap the benefits from the research or development done for the large corporation. Moreover the efforts should be paid for – and not given away for free. If the solution is crucial to the corporation and proves to be successful, it is likely the corporation will go over to an acquisition.

Has any cooperation with a large company brought you any benefits?

The perceived purchase risks

The role of a salesman in B2B is not selling hope, dreams or a better life as in B2C, but to take away or to lower the risk that comes with any purchase decision.

In B2B people are confronted with the risks of:
- Getting new problems while solving the existing problems
- Not solving the core or origin of the problem
- More operating costs instead of less costs
- Unexpected hidden costs
- Getting fired instead of getting promoted
These risks can be real or just perceived risks – similar to the fear of people for flying or a tunnel.

The salesman needs to take away these risk for the buyer in B2B.

Internet research for risk avoidance

This risk avoidance is also the main reason why people do research online for more information using:
- Forums
- Review sites
- Vendor website
- Competitor websites
The potential buyer will process all this information more or less rationally or subjectively leading to a perceived level of risk for each product or solution.

The role of the salesman

As all potential buyers will visit the company website during the collection of information, the salesman should be able to get all possible information about the company including the digital body language of the employees of a company on the website: the behavior of the probable customer. This is why salesmen need to know who visits the company website: the interested companies, their intentions to buy and their reasons and fears.
All this information from the multiple visits by each company will allow him to better estimate the needs and the fears the potential buyer has or perceives, which will allow the salesman to remove or lower the perceived risks more adequately. The salesman who performs the best has most chances to get the sales closed.

How much do you know about the perceived risks by your potential customers ?

Sales budget and targets

The sales budget is based upon the achievements of the current year and the expectations of next year taking into account all possible parameters and influencing facts. Still every year the sales budget gets increased. As a result salesmen will start to hide purchase orders once they have reached their budget as else they will have an unachievable target for next year.

Ever increasing sales goal

The reason the VP Sales or Sales Manager imposes an ever higher target is because the CEO is under pressure to grow the company. Both pressure from the investors, pressure from the media and pressure from his social environment as the expectation is that companies need to grow in order:
- To obtain more market share
- To increase production capacities for lowering cost per unit
- To increase purchase quantities giving lower purchase prices
- To stay ahead of competitors

The real goal is profitability

However the main goal of a entrepreneur or an investor is not more sales but more revenue on his investments. The bottom line is important.
Thus instead of the chase forever growth the goal should be to increase the bottom line. In many cases this doesn’t require more sales but more efficient production, better management, optimizing production capacities.
The real goal is profitability and all other goals are subject to this.

Most mid-sized companies already operate in a niche market which is likely not to grow significantly. Instead of going into fierce competition with all competitors in this niche market, it could be better to optimize the product offering or even carve out an even more specific part of the current niche market in order to increase profitability by having a more specific offering leading to better targeted marketing and less wasted time of salesmen.

Optimization of bottom line

If a company wants to achieve growth by more sales then it will need to spend more on marketing and sales efforts, each of the increase in spending includes an additional risk.

Thus instead of the ever increasing sales budgets it might be opportune to aim for a more profitable bottom line. Instead of putting all efforts in all kinds of marketing campaigns and chasing every probable customer, the goal would be:
- To spend wisely on effective marketing campaigns and events
- To increase the qualifications for lead qualification
- To chase only the most profitable customers or projects
In order to optimize the bottom line.

Would you dare to propose this when your next sales target is being proposed to you ?

Risk perception

In B2B Sales the most important part is the Closing of a prospect. It is make or break. Win or lose.
All the functions, features and benefits of your solution are important in the purchase decision.
However as any purchase decision comes with a risk:
- Taking the wrong decision
- All the problems and costs afterwards

Remove the risk perception

The salesman or marketing should take way the risk perception or lower significantly the perception of risk.
Thus instead of hammering on all the benefits, advantages, functions and features, it is more important to hammer out all the risks.
This risk avoidance is why people and companies buy IBM, Oracle, GE or other established brand names. “You will never get fired buying IBM“.

If your brand has a higher risk perception than your competition, you have an uphill battle to fight, which you still can win if you investigate about the risk perception and convince with all your sales talents and skills.

Try to understand the perceived risks they have about your competitors and show this is not valid for your company and solution.

Close Sales Deals better

Thus in order to close more effectively and better: find out what your customer perceives as a risk and try to remove it.
It is as simple (or difficult) as that. Being supported by a big brand name or a massive advertising campaign will certainly help.

- Find the perceived risks involved with the purchase decision
- Use all your talent to remove this risk perception
- Then close better, faster more efficiently

Keep in mind that the goal of the decision makers is to avoid all risks that can influence their career, their life and lastly the business.

How many Sales Deals did you miss due to the risk perception?

In sales you have Winners and Losers.
Some salesmen win all the time.
Others seem to lose all the time.

Attitude

The Winner will see the gain.
The Loser will see the pain.

The Winner sees opportunities.
The Loser sees problems.

The Winner always has a guideline.
The Loser always has an excuse.

The Winner is nothing impossible.
The Loser will find all too difficult.

The Winner is always part of the solution.
The Loser sees only the problem.

The Winner will admit his mistake.
The Loser will try to blame it on someone else or the system.

The Winner compromises but stands firm on values.
The Loser stands firm but compromises on values.

The Winner has dreams.
The Loser has schemes.

Anticipation

The Winner will learn from his mistakes.
The Losers will avoid all risks.

The Winner is a part of the team.
The Loser is apart from the team.

The Winner will see the future potential.
The Loser will see the past loss.

The Winner seeks to learn and explore.
The Loser seeks to continue like before.

The Winner chooses what he says.
The Loser say what he has chosen.

Reaction

The Winner will do it for you or at least help you.
The Loser give suggestions which are obvious or might not help.

The Winner will look for alternatives.
The Loser will continue like it always was done.

The Winner makes commitments.
The Loser makes promises.

The Winner will execute.
The Loser will discuss what could be done.

The Winner will do something.
The Loser will hope someone else does it.

The Winner is self-controlled.
The Loser will only report.

The Winner uses soft words with hard arguments.
The Loser uses soft arguments but hard words.

The Winner makes it happen.
The Losers watches it happen.

Are you a Loser or a Winner ?

The Winner takes it all
The Loser standing small
Besides the victory
That’s her destiny.

If you leave a brochure after a meeting, chances are your communication stops there.
If you give a brochure during a trade show, chances are your communication stops there.
However if you send an email after the meeting or trade show with a pdf and open questions chances are high your communication continues.

Moreover by sending an email afterwards:
- You can bring more selling points to the table or focus on certain benefits
- It is likely people will click on the link(s) to your website in the email

Draw backs:
- Printing a brochure costs money: investment
- Printed brochures can become outdated fast: changes of features or functions
- Distributing printed brochures to all of your marketing and sales is cumbersome
- Shredding the old brochures is a requirement and costs time
- Printed brochures are not “Green”

Why print a brochure as an emailed pdf brochure brings so much more opportunities?