Good salespersons are also good consultants ..

Good consultants do the following :

1. Ask questions
2. Provide expert opinions
3. Are accessible
4. Build creative solutions
5. Deliver what they say they will deliver
6. Develop relationships
7. Act with clients' best interest in mind
8. Solve problems
9. Introduce clients to new ideas, helping them see a better way 

Is this not exactly what the good sales people do? 

Selling is not about persuading someone to buy something they don't need. It is about helping clients and prospects find solutions to their needs and about providing value.

Kit of 4 Dignostic Questions to ask when sale / share is down

Diagnostic Question 1

Symptoms : Unclear accountability

• Marketing : is responsible for finding out and analyzing how many customers exist, their needs, their readiness, their behavior, their habits, the prices they are willing to pay, the competitors and their activities, collaborators and their activities.
• Marketing : is responsible for choosing the target customers. 
• Top Management : is responsible for approving the steps taken by marketing as above because all long term decisions like locations, machinery, plant, organization and capital structure will depend on these decisions.
• Marketing :  is responsible for defining the products and services - through the process of positioning - such that they represent good Value Propositions for the chosen markets. You can work out product specifications and pricing only after this is done.
•  Marketing : The right go-to-market strategy - you must be at the right places with the right offer with the right messages and facilities when the customers come searching for you. Alternately, when you are in search of customers, you need to prospect, contact, communicate, convince, close and transact and set up mechanisms for doing so.

Diagnostic Question 2

Symptoms : Poor choice of "Target Customers"

1. Market too small for you to focus your resources and attention
2. Market too big for your resources to tackle
3. Market growth too little to meet your ambitions
4. Market growth too high and you may not be able to scale up so rapidly
5. You cannot make much difference to what the customer expects
6. You cannot differentiate your offer much from your competitors
7. Chosen market pulls you in a different direction than where you want to go
8. Participating in the market does not enhance your competence / eco system
9. Participation in the market reduces your average realization / profitability

Diagnostic Question 3

Symptoms : Poor choice of "Value Proposition" (Offer) 

1. Your customers are not clear why should they choose you
2. Your customers are not clear where they can apply your product
3. You sales force cannot get better price than your competition
4. The money you spend on promotions does not work efficiently
5. Your sales force does not know which competitor you are targeting
6. Your sales force convert less number of calls into sales
7. Your sales force cannot convince your customers
8. Your competitors spend less but sells more

Diagnostic Question 4

Symptoms : Poor choice of "go to market" activity 

1. You do not know which customers are more likely to buy than others
2. You do not know how many and where are your high priority customers
3. You have planned without knowing how customers come-to-market
4. You do not know who is searching for you and how
5. You do not know whether you should search for the customer or the other way
6. You do not have a cost efficient and effective system of 
• prospecting ( cannot separate cold customers from hot )
• reaching ( cannot meet the right customers )
• contacting and engaging ( cannot generate interest )
  
• messaging( cannot give message to move the sale forward )
• overcoming objections and negotiating ( getting stuck in finalization )
• closing the sale ( getting commitment of the customer )
• transacting ( invoicing, delivery and collection )
• giving pre/during/post service ( customer relationship )

Developing Organization Capabilities to Sell High End B2B Services

Today's hardware, connectivity and software has dramatically altered the equations in the world of B2B buying and selling. Hardware like smartphones and computers, anywhere connectivity offered by mobile networks, and search capabilities offered by Google and others have created a new world which did not exist before ten years.

Today, it is common for a salesperson to find that the client - even before their first serious meeting - has already found out a lot about him and his company. He has seen your facebook, linked in, twitter accounts. He has seen your websites and blogs. He probably has even found on the web what people say about you and your company and your products. In short, you may be meeting him for the first time but are not really a complete stranger to him. He knows a lot about you.

Most sales management books of today still are based on the mindset of the buyers as prevailed 30 years ago ...tell me who you are, which company you come from, what does your company do, who are your customers, what do they say about you ....AND NOW TELL ME WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT TO SELL TO ME. Those days are gone. The buyers already have a pretty decent idea to many  of these questions EVEN BEFORE YOUR FIRST MEETING.

These days many clients want to quickly get into how you will work through their issues and whether you can, and will, do what you say. These days the sales meetings get to the heart of issues more quickly, and clients' expectations for results are higher. Therefore, from the seller's side you need salespersons

• who are more knowledgeable
• who are more solution-savvy
• who are more responsive 

In short, today's client needs to see a B2B Business Developer as someone who knows the subject-matter well enough to see the whole picture quickly, understand his problem, and collaborate effectively to design a workable and effective solution. This has important implications on the type of organization you need to create to sell well in today's environment.

New age B2B Business Developer needs to play following roles :

1. Business Consultant : Your objective is to find the best answer for the client's issue, even if your service isn't part of the solution. Study the client's current business and future objectives, stay on top of developments in the client's industry, and work to become a valued client resource instead of just a seller.
2. Creative Ideator : Selling professional services always begins with ideas clients can use. You must go far beyond the traditional advice such as sending relevant articles to clients. Dig below the surface to explore the relevance of ideas for your clients. Then, find innovative ways to get those ideas in front of your clients.
3. Win-win Strategist: You can never lose track of the big picture—foremost for the client, but also for your own business. As you envision a solution, focus on results for the client, assess whether the opportunity makes sense for your business, and decide how you will both win.
4. Project Leader: A services sale is a project in itself, with its own objective, scope, timing, staffing, and budget. Buyers rightly view the sales process as a dress rehearsal for how you will operate if you win the work. So manage the sales process with a vision, communicate widely, and manage tasks to meet your objectives.
5. Change Manager: Your ability to guide clients through change is as important to the sale as the quality of your service. In the past, too many clients watched the erosion of promised value when a seller's implementation approach resulted in delays or worse, project failures. Now, they're not just asking questions about what will change; they want to know what you will do to bring about that change—and minimize disruption to their operations.
6. Relationship Builder : None of the seller's roles is more important than the others, but without the ability to build strong client relationships, you'll struggle to stay in the game. The other roles you play provide the necessary foundation for relating to clients. And those who master those other roles are usually also the best relationship managers.
7. Communicator: The seller's primary responsibility is to negotiate the sale with favorable terms, and that requires highly tuned communication skills. Each of the roles above offers ways to strengthen client relationships and manage the sales process, but those roles only facilitate the sale. To take a prospective sale from a lead to closure demands expertise in persuasiveness, building trust, and, at just the right time, asking for the sale.

Hence what matters is the improvement in the following skills which makes the selling effort less complex to manage

1. Client Relationship Development: Think strategically and plan for clients' long-term benefit; establish trusted client relationships based on recognized expertise, innovative ideas, competence, and a mutual exchange of value.
2. Interpersonal Communication: Lead discussions and influence direction and outcomes; exhibit active listening and questioning skills; communicate effectively at all levels in client organizations.
3. Client Interviewing: Prepare for and conduct insight-based discussions with client executives and others to gather relevant facts to support the development of a winning services offer.
4. Problem Diagnosis: Use analytical techniques to uncover the root cause of client problems; envision a range of viable, sustainable solutions.
5. Sales Proposal Development: Convey a persuasive written view of objectives, approach, economic terms, and expected value.
6. Project Leadership: Plan and direct the sales activity of the seller and client teams, from initiation of the sales process until the sale is completed—and beyond.
7. Personal Selling, Negotiating, and Closing: Offer compelling reasons to spur action, in both one-on-one and group settings. Propose and obtain agreement on terms and conditions that serve the client's needs and preserve your profit.

Locate customer dilemma and develop your sales approach

Having to sell a service - which is intangible - is bad enough : having to sell a complex and high end service like consulting service, advertising service or a placement service is a nightmare. If are in outplacement service, what do you tell and what do you sell ?

The technique of  differentiation based on some elements of "marketing mix" - product, price, place, people, process, or physical evidence, does not work well in high end services. 

That is where the technique of selling based customer's dilemma comes in. A dilemma is defined as a choice among options that seem equally unfavorable or equally favorable. Dilemmas are not problems - because problems have solutions but dilemmdeas do not.  Dilemmas are not solved but resolved - by properly weighing competing options.   

If you sell your service as a solution to a problem, the client may say “I can do it better myself" or "I know someone who can do it as well as you". But say the same thing as an answer to his dilemma and he may get interested. For example, take the outplacement service mentioned above. Don't say "we are in the business of outplacement". Say "We help management fire their friends.” Similarly, don't say "We are business lawyers"; Say;  “We are retained by corporate clients who are caught in a dilemma - if they move too quickly, the company may not be acting in shareholders' best interests but if they don't they may fail in their fiduciary responsibility.”  Positioning based on dilemma captures several messages at once. It conveys what you do and also the special way in which you do it.  

Dont say "we are PR consultants". Saying "We help align the company's message with its strategy" is better. But saying “we help companies develop communications in situations where communicating facts is a risk but not telling them is also a risk". Dont say "I am a financial planner". Say “I work with senior executives who don't trust experts but are simultaneously afraid that the world is complex and if they don't take an expert advice they may forego  opportunities.  An HR consulting firm may say "we help clients who do not know whether to take a rigid approach to treating talent and see their best people leave or whether to treat people on a case by case basis"

Rules and Tools of selling complex products

The "sales funnel" approach advocated in most sales management books ( prospecting, planning, contacting, presenting, overcoming objections, closing, transacting, delivering. commissioning and collecting) works only under those circumstances which have following 3 conditions present :  

1. the selling situation is P2P (Person To Person)
2. the customer in front of you understands his need 
3. whatever you are trying to sell already exists  

What about rest of us who are in charge of selling complex , customized, high value solutions and products - like projects, offset printing machines, industrial air conditioning plants, call center services to foreign clients, the idea of including your group of publications in your client's media plans, ERP systems, pitching for a new client account in the advertising business  etc ..? 

THE APPROACH IN THESE CASES IS DIFFERENT.

It is therefore needless to say that you should not begin such contact by talking about your products, features, prices or terms. None of these make sense to the kind of customer we are talking about. He has not thought about the need, let alone the solution that will address the need. He needs to be sold about you first, your identification of the need secondly and - if you successfully cross these two filters - you will come to the stage of selling features, price and terms at the last stage. 

In such situations - even if a client has RFP (Request For Proposal) ready, you must assume - although you should never say it - that the client does not clearly know what he needs. At the most the client may know a few "symptoms" and “pain points” but he has not clearly know what his needs are and how to specify the solution that will satisfactorily address those needs. Of course, a client who has an RFP is better than a company who still has not reached the RFP stage. All that I am saying is do not treat an RFP as gospel; it is a starting point. The clients will love you if you find and suggest a serious flaw in their RFP. It will establish you as an expert.   

Your actions under this type of situation should be to demonstrate you are an expert and also trustworthy, show you have the inclination and technique to partner with the client, to stimulate client's thinking through questioning and position you as an expert,help the client create solutions which he alone could not have thought of

The model to use here is not "sales funnel" but "DDDD loop" which consists of Discover, Diagnose, Design and Deliver. In conventional selling a salesperson starts with a product which is already designed for a known target market and his task is to present the product interactively - in the light of the need of the customer- so that an order can be obtained. In short, the emphasis of the traditional selling is on salesmanship. On the other hand, a sale of the kind we are talking about is a combination of marketing and sales put together : it is first understanding the need of the customer, figure out what he wants, configure it for him and only then  begin selling it. The people who succeed in project selling therefore are 

1. who diagnose the client needs by discovering through questions and facts
2. who use rational and consultative approach to come to a conclusion
3. who let a customer realize his cost and pain without hurrying him 
4. who help a customer in arriving at a solution.

The pitfalls to avoid in such situations are

1. Making premature and speculative suggestions and presentations
2. Proceeding without customer taking co-ownership at all the steps
3. Telling customer it is a plug-and-play product and he need not change his ways
4. Not checking if the customer has an immediate reason and resources to change 

4 Paradigms in organizing "Go To Market"

I see people appointing dealers and wondering why they don't sell. I see people trying to sell through industrial exhibitions and wondering why they come back empty handed. It is very important for marketers to understand that there are 4 different paradigms. 

1. Gathering paradigm is used when customers "come to market" in predictable ways. The customers are clear about what they want and where they can get it. In most B2C  products and certain fast moving B2B products,  shops / outlets / showrooms / locations already exist and are a proof that the goods and services they offer already has preexisting level of inquiry or demand. In such cases the marketing companies go-to-market using such existing channels. Their attempt is to "drive more traffic" to such shops and to motivate the shops to "convert this traffic" to their products. The sales management paradigm here is channel management.
2. Tender / RFP filling paradigm is used when, instead of the marketers gathering customers, the customers try to gather vendors. The sales management paradigm here is responding to tenders and Request for proposals.   
3. Hunting paradigm is used when very few customers "come to market" on their own.  Even if they do, they do not seem to have any predictable pattern. This happens when the customers know their needs but do not know what the solutions are, who sells them, and what is the right product / service / solution, and how to specify, buy, install and use it. The appropriate sales management paradigm here in the "sales funnel".  The central issue is to how isolate prospects from suspects, to drop cold prospects by qualifying them as early as possible and focus on hot prospects.  
4. The paradigm of strategic selling (Business Development) is very different from all the three paradigms above because the potential customer does not know he needs your product / service / solution; leave alone having budget or intention to buy it. Obviously such a customer does not come to market on his own. Strategic selling requires for you to first establish your credibility as an expert and to get the customer to open up and talk about his needs and pains. In strategic selling you dont start selling your product. You help the customer uncover his need and pain areas and then advice him correctly what is the right for him EVEN IF IT DOES NOT SELL YOUR PRODUCT. The strategic selling requires not only a high level of expertise in the area  of the need and product but also an access to the senior executives of the target company (C level) who are capable of creating budgets for buying the product and taking decisions to purchase. This type of selling also needs people who have credibility and personality which the target companies respect.