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