Too many "interested customers" but no orders!

CEO of a company selling software system for tracking effectiveness of mass media advertising came to me an year ago and told me that he had "65 open accounts" at that time. He was spending his time and his sales executive's effort for a long time on these 65 accounts but no business seemed to be materializing. He said that many of these 65 customers showed a lot of interest and engaged in discussions about the features of the software and benefits. But they went cold when the talk came to placing even a trial order.  He asked me what was missing ?

WHO ARE THE REAL PROSPECTS?

This is fairly common  in B2B business : many customers are apparently very  interested, they discuss animatedly, they give a detailed description of what they need but they do not progress forward from that position. The reason is that many of these customers are interested only in KNOWING what’s out there; or in VERIFYING if he got a good deal when he already bought something earlier from someone.

 

Then how to recognize a genuine prospect and how to avoid  psuedo prospects who will only waste your time and money but not buy. I suggest that, as early as possible in the sales process, do a reality check as below. Important is not only to ascertain what the customer needs but also how his company buys what is needed and if the purchase has been budgeted.  

QUALIFY THE PROSPECTS

If the sales executive is good and charming, he can find out in the  first call itself about five things (a) budget availability (b) if there are any qualification criteria (c) the evaluation and buying process (d) how things get bought in that organization (e) who needs to be involved to get to say yes.  Only when you have done this reality check can you guess whether you should continue calling him and whether you have a reasonable chance.

When I explained this to the CEO, he realized that he knew a lot about their advertising operations but he did not have any information on who are the real decision influencers in these 65 companies, whether they had the budget and, if not, how they would be creating budgets for this purpose.  That is also the time he realized he was in a bind - the beneficiary (advertiser) expected the ad agency to pay for the tracking software because it improved the efficiency of advertising but - since ad agency gets paid on a fixed % commission  -they had no motivation to recommend (let alone pay) for the software from their own pocket.

RECOMMENDED PROCESS

What should you do? To avoid wasting your valuable selling time and expenses, I advise you to first research the target company and decide how / why your product may help the customer.  Then create a  short (30 second) selling spiel  which tells the listener what you do, why he should listen, what you know about the need of the customer and what you have done for a similar client before with what result. Once you are ready, find out who is the concerned person at the highest level of responsibility and call him on the phone. Give him the spiel and ask “can this benefit you?”.

If the answer is “Yes!” or a strong “Maybe”, start your  qualifying process by asking 3 questions

1. IMPACT : Ask how and why the offered product may help and what  pain it would ease. This will help you estimate the impact of your offer on their revenue, costs, problems and opportunities. This would later create the basis for selling based on value to the customer (and hence less based on price)
2. PROCESS : Ask “If you find our solution worthwhile, who else would be involved in evaluating, adopting and purchasingt?”   This lets you know who to approach beyond your initial contact; without insulting your initial contact.  Since your idea or solution has already been acknowledged as worthwhile by the prospect. using this question also lets you ask them for help in moving forward. (NOTE: Don’t ask “Who is the decision maker?”  That’s insulting because it says to your contact that you think he’s a gate keeper )  
3. BUDGET : You can give them an idea of the rough cost in the preliminary meeting itself and check if the budget exists.

Don’t continue the sales process without knowing the answer to these 3 questions. The answer to the first question will tell you what selling message will appeal to them. The second and third question will let you realistically estimate the time and effort that may be involved in reaching the ordering stage. 

IF THE ANSWER IS "NO"; DON'T SELL

If the answer is "no" (or a weak "may be") stop selling and say “thanks for your time and your honesty. I can see that our solution isn’t applicable to you.”  Then ask: “Do you know of a colleague that could use my solution?”