Agile Selling¶
There is new challenge to sell since buyers have changed. When they have an issue, they go online to research their problem. Buyers self-educate, leaving the seller totally out of the loop. Without deep buyer understanding, it’s increasingly difficult to get business. You’re dealing with educated people who want conversations and collaboration, not pitches of any sort.
Reframing Failures¶
Turn the sales problem into a challenge rather than a personal problem.
Neuroscience research shows that when you make a mental shift to view obstacles as opportunities, your brain is reenergized.
When a competitor wins a deal, agile sellers refuse to see themselves as the losers.
Failure isn’t one bit personal. Failure is a nature part of the learning process.
If you’re struggling, you’re not failing. You just haven’t learned it yet.
Setup the right goals¶
While it’s admirable to strive for the stars, research shows that big goals can actually be a hindrance, especially before you’ve achieved a level of proficiency.
Rapid learning¶
Breaking new info down into discrete chunks
Searching for the ‘minimum effective dose’
The goal is to find the least amount of work needed to produce outstanding results fast
You know what buyers pick as the differentiator in their decisions? The sales experience itself. To become the differentiator, you need to always be learning. We need to provide value in every conversation and manage the customer experience. Learning agility is your only sustainable competitive advantage.
Understand Buyers¶
Understanding who you’re selling to is far more important than what you’re selling!
People, not organization, make decisions. Selling is and always will be about dealing with people. That’s why it’s so crucial to be conscious of our impact on them. Everything we do either draws them toward us or moves them further away.
The more you know about what makes your buyers tick, the better off you’ll be. Start by finding out who is involved in making decisions.
Once you nail down the positions, you need to understand their roles and responsibilities, objectives, motivations, status quo, and challenges.
This essential info helps you:
Craft relevant, enticing messages
Plan customer-engaging meetings
Help people make the right decisions
Differentiate yourself from competitors
Buyer’s matrix
Position
Roles/responsibilities: what are they in charge of or expected to manage?
Business objectives and metrics: what do they want to achieve? How do they measure success? How are they evaluated?
Strategic initiatives: what likely strategies and initiatives are in place to help them achieve their objectives?
Internal challenges: what likely issues does the organization face that could prevent/hinder goal achievement?
External challenges: what external factors or industry trends might make it more difficult to reach their objectives?
Primary interfaces: who do they frequently interact with (e.g. peers, subordinates, superiors, and external resources)?
Status quo: what’s their status quo relative to your product or service?
Change drivers: what would cause them to change from what they’re currently doing?
Change inhibitors: what would cause them to stay with the status quo, even if they’re unhappy?
Embrace the status quo¶
The truth is, the status quo is your biggest competitor. Your prospects don’t want to change how they’re doing things.
Ask questions:
How do our targeted prospects do things without us?
What problems might they be encountering with their current way of doing thing?
How do these problems impact efficiencies? Costs? Revenue? Other departments?
What effect does this status quo have on achieving their objectives?
What’s the business case of making a change?
What issues might arise if they’re doing it themselves?
Immerse yourself in the status quo. Search for its weakness, shortcomings, and gaps. Once you have a working knowledge of your biggest competitor - the status quo - you’ll be able to have more intelligent conversations with your prospects.
Business case¶
Many companies fail to arm their sellers with a strong business case. They still believe that their products or services sell themselves.
Don’t tell wrong story. Focus area should not be own company’s story, and miss client’s story.
Interview your customers¶
One of the best things you can do to learn why people buy your products or services is to interview your own customers. Don’t be shy about this. You/ll be amazed at what you can learn and just how valuable it can be in your sales initiatives.
Be aware that you may occasionally run into an unhappy customer. If so, listen carefully to their issues and don’t be defensive. Find out what you can do to help.
Believe it or not, people tell you a whole lot more over the phone than if you’re face-to-face. And don’t waste your time trying to do it via e-mail or online surveys; the response rate is low and the quality of info is poor.
Make sure you plan your questions ahead of time. Otherwise, the conversation can wander all over the place and the answers you get won’t be helpful. Consider recording your interview too, so that you can listen to it again for insights you might have missed the first time.
Define the buyer’s journey¶
1st decision: |
2nd decision |
3rd decision: |
4th decision |
Allow Access |
Initiate change |
Select resources |
Expand relationship |
Buyers are reasonably happy with the status quo until something either piques their curiosity or changes their priorities |
Buyers are interested in learning more. They research, they meet, they discuss. The key question they ask is: Does it make sense to change from the status quo? |
Buyers educate themselves on options, get proposals, validate ROI. Their key question is: What’s the best decision for us? |
Buyers evaluate satisfaction with the initial decision and relationship. Their key question is: Should we do more work with them? |
Gain insights¶
Whenever you’re talking to prospects, try asking the following questions to gain even greater insight into their buying journey:
What piques your curiosity and gets you to even consider a change?
Who are the people who need to be involved in decisions like this?
How do you determine if a product or service makes good business sense for your company?
How do you decide which resource is best for you?
What are the most challenging parts of this decision process? Why?
What does it take to get a contract for something like this approved?
Become an expert on your buyer’s journey. Knowing where you stand in the journey will help you decide which strategies to use and when.
Some trigger events are internal to an organization, such as new executives, bad third-quarter earnings, re-orgnizations, mergers, product launches, or expansions. Others are external happenings such as legislative changes, new competitors, economic conditions, increased costs of borrowing money, or new technologies.
Learn the lingo
Company
Industry
Financial
Other
Sales Toolkit¶
The key to long-term success is short-term success. No matter how long you’ve been in sales, there’s always room for improvement.
Ask yourself these questions to determine the best sales skills to focus on initially:
Are you satisfied with your prospecting results? If not, you need to figure out what’s causing your problems and how you can change
Are enough of your initial conversations turning into serious discussions? If there’s big drop-off, consider what you can do to get better results
Do you lose to ‘no decision’ frequently? If too many forecasted prospects decide to stay with their status quo, focus on opportunity creation skills
Are competitors beating you up? If so, look at improving those sales skills that help you win the business
Are your existing customers growing? If so, it’s time to get to the root cause of why you’re not expanding the services you offer to those customers and brainstorm ways you can change that
Measure performance
Connection ratio
Initial meeting conversion
Length of sales cycle
Closing ratio
Losses to no decision
Here’s what you need to be asking about
Status quo relevant to your offerings
Issues and aspirations you can impact
Business value of making a change
Possible solution, ideas they’ve considered
Perceptions of priorities, risk, vendors
Where they are in their buying journey
Address negatives¶
If you notice negative behaviors, you can stop and recalibrate your direction. Perhaps you could even say something like, ‘you seem distracted’, or ‘it looks like you’ve got some hesitation about changing things here’. These honest statements and beneficial for both you and your prospect.
Recovery strategy: ‘Sorry, Mr prospect. Sometimes I just get so excited about how we might be able to help. But I really don’t know enough about your business yet. Let’s get back to talking about those challenges you mentioned earlier.
One of the biggest fails of all - interested people who stay with the status quo. If this is happening to you, it’s crucial to ask yourself:
Why don’t they see the value of change?
How can I build a stronger business case?
What questions could I ask to help them realize the cost of sticking with the status quo?
Am I rushing to a solution too quickly?
People won’t buy unless they believe that changing is worthwhile. That’s the real issue. No matter how much training your sales team gets on closing, it won’t address the root cause of their problem.
Optimize time usage¶
Make various checklists to help you remember things
To ensure that you get the right work done in the shortest possible time - and as soon as possible - try the following strategies for power-packing your day:
Prioritize daily
Chunk your time
Set deadlines
Avoid multi-tasks to upgrade your brain
Check email on a schedule - 3 - 4 times per day
Protect yourself from yourself: stay focus
Totally disconnect
Top sellers spend more time prepping for meetings than average sellers, at every point in their careers. They still role-play. They debrief regularly. They exchange ideas with their colleagues.
While your time is a finite resource, your energy level is a renewable one.
Take time out to think and reflect, by yourself.
Fast Growth¶
Make your own personal growth and development the number-one priority.
It seems strange to recommend teaching others while you’re still learning yourself. After all, we so quickly defer to the experts. However, the upside can be huge. As the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote nearly two thousand years ago, ‘by teaching, we learn’
Gaming the system
The objection game: whenever I encounter an objection that stumps me, I turn it into a game
The competitive game: whenever I’m up against a known competitor, I approach it like a chess game.
The one-customer game: I take a look at my best customer and ask, “if this were the only company I could work with, what would I need to do to earn a decent living here?”
Here are some ways you can build more grit:
Focus on what’s controllable
Challenge yourself
Take a break
Fake it till you make it
Prior to making an important call, stand up and assume a power pose
If you’re waiting to go into a big meeting, stop by the restroom before it starts and assume a power pose in privacy
When you’re sitting in a lobby, take over the chair. Spread out while you wait
While giving a presentation, stand tall and use bigger gestures. Think of someone you can emulate. Repeat a personal mantra that makes you feel more powerful
Never go behind someone’s back
If you need to meet with people other than the person you’re currently working with, make sure you find a valid reason for it and.
If possible, engage your current contact in setting it up.
Hope is rampant in sales. We need it to keep going - but we also need to avoid being fooled by false hope. The longer a deal stays in your pipeline, the less likely you are to ever close it, even if your prospect claimed that he or she desperately needed your offering. If the sales process does get stalled out, the only person who loses is you. Purge your pipeline.
Written by Binwei@Singapore
