The Sales Handicapper

The UVP Your Competitor Can't Match - 7 years later

I originally posted this article in April, 2009.  Seven and half years later and nothing has really changed!

Just about everyone you're selling to is already doing their job without the services or products you're selling. And, unfortunately, every one of your competitors is also saying the same thing you are; "we deliver unique value blah, blah, blah".   Even worse, it's probably true.  Unless you have invented something that is not available from anyone else, there is most likely no real difference behind the distinctions you're claiming; except one - YOU!

YOU are your company's Unique Value Proposition (UVP).  When everything else is pretty much the same, the difference behind the distinction has to be you.  There is nothing left.  How do "you" become the difference between you and your competitor?

1. Begin the relationship discussing your prospect's business, not "asking" about their business.
2. Learn their culture and display empathy rather than sympathy. 
3. Talk about the challenges you know they face instead of being lame and "asking" about the challenges they face. 
4. Talk in terms of profit, not revenue or expense.
5. Ask the hard questions early.  The truth will set you free.  
6. Become comfortable with winning 51-49 instead of 100-0! 

Discuss your prospect's business; don't go in asking questions about it.  Why should they waste their time educating you about their business so you can sell them a solution to a problem you've already demonstrated you know nothing about?  Do your homework and begin your relationship with a relevant discussion about their business. Take the problems you know you can solve and ask them how they are dealing with those problems.  Be careful though.  Anyone can ask canned, yet insightful questions. Where you become the the UVP is in knowing what to do with the answers and where next to direct the conversation.  The more you "know" vs. memorize, the more unique you'll become in your prospect's eyes.

Ask questions about what their daily life is like.  Make sure the questions are level 2, not level 1.  A level 1 question goes something like this; "have you been impacted by the current economic crisis"?  That's a dumb question.  Of course they have been impacted!  The real question (level 2) is "how" has their life changed in the last 6 months".  Listen carefully, because the answer to this question will assuredly tell you if they know they have pain, where it is and its level of acuity.  (See post on Pain Selling)

When you ask a prospect to share their challenges, you are either wasting their time or playing games.  Go into the conversation already knowing their business challenges and asking questions that will help you determine the degree to which those challenges are debilitating or just minor.  Remember, right now, people are not spending precious budget on minor pain.

When you understand your prospect's business, you understand how they make a profit; not just generate revenue or incur expense.  Ultimately, it is your impact on their profit that will guide their decision.  If the person you're speaking with can't talk profit (especially if any aspect of your solution professes intangible benefits), find someone who can or you won't make the sale (and you'll waste a ton of time). Profit dollars pay for your solution, not top-line revenue.

The world is not perfect and neither is your product or service.  You know it and so does your prospect.  So, if a benefit is irrelevant or a feature is missing, don't try to sell around it; agree with it!  The reality is you don't care about winning every comparison or on every point, just those that make a difference in the buying decision.  In fact, most often if you ask if the issue is important, they will most likely may answer "no, I was just curious".  Try to win on every point, however, and you may win the battle, but you'll lose the war.

If you're not ready to be the new UVP in your company, you should probably look for another career.  More and more aspects of services and products are becoming commoditized.  Business acumen and creative are the new killer apps in selling.  Let me here what you think?

Understand the "Third" Currency (and use it wisely)

In the beginning, there was time.  Time was the only "currency" man could allocate or trade (beside manual labor) to achieve his needs and goals.  Somewhere around 2000 BC, the Egyptians invented the second currency; money.  For over 4000 years, these two currencies have really been the only things man has been able to control and trade for personal gain. (Clearly there is much more to this issue, but I'll leave that for others to spend their time on.)

For the last 10 years, for reasons which everyone is aware, a "third" currency has become mainstream; information.  Today, there is a continuous stream of information being willingly provided by consumers and businesses.  Information is being bartered every nanosecond for goods and services all of the world.  In many cases it has become the predominant currency in use today.

This has never been more true than in today's B2B selling environment.  Our prospects are providing more information about who they are, what they want and what makes them tick (both corporately and personally) than ever before. If you're going to offer a "free" download that requires THEIR information, YOUR information better be darn good, because it wasn't free - they just used their information currency to "buy" it.  What that means is that the more time you make them waste answering questions for information you should already have, the less money they're going to give you!

ROI now stands for Return on Information.  Be sure you invest your time to not only gather, but also analyze and package the information you find on your prospects and use those insights to share how much more money (read: profit) you're going to make them.  Do this first (and well) and your very first conversation will yield the greatest ROI you've ever experienced.

How good is your ROI?

Your Company's Value Proposition in Three Words - Time, Tools and Talent

Updated from original post of August 2010.

Time, tools and talent; we solve for little else when trying to sell our products and services.   Not just in today's market, but always.  Our prospects and clients "must" suffer from one or more of the following conditions or we can deliver no real compelling value:

1. They have the human resources (talent) they need, but don't have the tools or time required to address the challenge or opportunity.
2. They have the technology (tools) they need, but don't have the talent and/or time to use them.
3. They have both the tools and talent, but the time required to apply them hasn't been prioritized.

If one, two or all three conditions exist and your product or service aligns with one or more of the them, then you have a Value Proposition and a viable sales opportunity.  If you can't qualify at least one condition exists, then you have nothing to solve for and should move on to the next opportunity.

The most opportune condition is "talent".  Most companies today are loathe to add "new" headcount unless the need is strategic.  If they are adding "tactical" headcount it's most likely replacing a cost rather than adding a new one.  So, if your product or service is replacing an existing headcount(s) then you have a real opportunity. If your offering addresses a strategic need and can be leveraged by existing headcount, you also have a real opportunity.  However, if your offering will only add new cost at a tactical level, good luck.  Your ROI promise will have to be amazing to win the deal.  Additionally, if your solution cannot eliminate headcount and deliver incredible returns, then you better be talking to the CEO or it will die an early death.

Solving for "tools" is the most competitive and your "Value Proposition" usually won't be enough to win the day.  You'll need to win on your "Unique Value Proposition" and most of the time, that will be "you", the salesperson or the Subject Matter Expert (SME).  

Solving for "time" is the hardest situation.  Determining what employees spend their time on is a strategic issue, not a tactical one. It is very easy to get sucked into your buyer's desire to allocate more time to the challenge or opportunity your products or services address.  But you have to be careful.  They aren't spending time now solving that problem for a reason.  Make sure you qualify the condition of "time" very carefully and challenge your prospect's response aggressively.  If you can be sold that the need for more time is mission critical then you have a great opportunity.

Finally, be sure you are aware of and have addressed the new "Deal Dynamic". It is the #1 hidden killer of deals even after you've solved for Time, Tools and Talent.

Time, tools and talent - we're not solving for cancer, so keep the evaluation of your opportunities simple.  Your prospects will appreciate it.

Sales Compensation Made Easy, for Real!

Just read one of the best books on creating effective sales compensation plans.  KISS is an acronym often overused, but in the case of this book, it is quite appropriate.  For some, it may be nothing more than affirmation of your own philosophy.  For others, perhaps just beginning to build a sales organization, it should be an effective guide.  And for those who believe it to be overly simplistic I would ask you just one question; can your salespeople explain to you "how" they make money...without having to constantly refer to their comp plan?

Check it out. Sales Compensation Made Easy

Why isn't every direct sales organization practicing Moneyball?

Moneyball is a great movie!  I didn't think so at first, but every time I'm channel flipping and come across the movie I wind up watching whatever is left.  I've now seen the whole movie once and bits and pieces many times (geez, I just realized I must be watching way too much TV!).

Moneyball is about the effective use of predictive modeling to win more baseball games while spending the least amount of money possible.  If there is a sales organization of more than 3 people with a client base of at least 20 or more that has not set up some scalable form of Bill James baseball model, it is not a nearly as efficient nor as effective as it could be. A recent article in the Gallup Business Journal found that sales organizations that practiced "moneyball" were more effective than those that didn't. The primary purposes of a predictive sales model are to:

• Reduce the amount to time, tools and talent expended on prospects with little to no chance of converting into sales
• Identify specifics characteristics of a deal that you can affect to make it winnable

The results are higher closing ratios, lower cost of sales and salespeople spending less time on creating "pipe dreams" and more time developing a winnable "pipeline".

The good news is you don't need to be Bill James to build and use an adequate predictive model. It only takes a simple but disciplined process and a commitment to work it.  It's the commitment to work the model that is the most important aspect of the movie.  Billy Beane was totally committed to putting in the time and effort to work the model as best he could.  All the data he needed was available.  Bill James just created a structure that allowed for all the insights and implications to be mined.  To make sure he worked it as well as possible, Billy brought in someone who knew how to manage the model effectively and was as committed as he was to working it to its maximum capacity.

Now there are LOTS of expensive and elaborate variations of predictive sales models available that will cost you more than your salary to implement and be hated by your salespeople for all the new processes they'll have to learn - not to mention the new level of accountability.  If you're a small to mid-size company it will most likely be more trouble than its worth.  However, you can build one with just Excel and your own data.  I know, because I've done it for over 20 years, across many different markets and various size sales staffs. 

Is your sales group ready for Moneyball? If nothing else, watch the movie as a team and let their reaction be your guide.

Need motivating? Talk to the people who keep your promises

I've been away quite a while.  Glad to be back!

Ever have that feeling when you aren't feeling anything?  Ever get down because your pipeline is low or you haven't closed a deal since Bush was President?  Ever wondered what you needed to do to start feeling good again?  If this doesn't sound familiar then you're not in sales.  If it does, then I have the solution to your problem; talk to the people who keep all the promises you're paid to make.  Talk to your Client Services and/or Product Development teams.

As salespeople, we don't have to keep a single promise we make.  There are lots of other people doing that for us.  We only have to make sure we don't over promise and we'll be fine.  If you're in a relatively normal company, your Client Service and Product Developemnt teams are doing a great job of keeping your clients happy.  They are generating the relationships you wish you had, but don't have the time, tools, or talent to do it.  They are creating the success stories you will take to the market to secure more clients for them to delight.

Take a few minutes and ask them about their day or what they're working on or about their latest client success.  They will appreciate it more than you know and you will feel more motivated than ever to tell their stories to your prospects.  I guarantee it! 

Five Most Important Sales Questions - where are "you" in their sales process

Sorry this post is so late. Life got in the way.  Thanks for understanding.

We're finishing our deep dive in the Five Most Important Sales Questions.  We've determined that budget is the most important question, decision criteria is the hardest to get a straight answer to; who else are you involving in the decision is the most sensitive and where they are in their decision process is the primary driver of your sales tactics.  But,

    5.  Where are "you" in their decision process...

...can mean the difference between you selling them or making them sell you.  If you're early (or better yet, first) then the normal tactics you've developed can be applied.  If you're late, then all the best tactics for selling won't work.  You may have to resort to having them sell you.

So, what does that mean? If you find out you're late to the game, all the positioning of your unique value will be viewed as defensive.  Everything you say or do will be met with the proverbial, "yeah, ok, but that is no different than the other Nth companies who want my business".  So, if you're really honest with yourself you'll admit that you're behind and playing catch up.  You can't win because the deck is already stacked against you.  For every minute lost trying to go through the normal motions with this prospect, your next big sale is being positioned away from you by the person who got there before you.

If you've qualified the prospect with the other four questions and you truly believe your solution is their last, best hope for success, then you're left with no alternative but to make them sell you on why you should continue to fight what appears to so obviously be a losing battle.  This may sound counter intuitive, but I have used it many times and I can assure you it works.  

How does this work?  One key thing to remember, if you know you're late then so does your prospect. So, you have nothing to lose by saying something like,

•  "hey, I think we both know I'm late to the game, so if you were me, would you even bother to keep trying?" Or, 
• "given how late we are to the game, and given that all of us competing for your business can deliver about 85-90% the same things, what is the 10-15% you REALLY want me to focus on so we're not wasting each other's time? Or,
• "you know, if you think you've already made your decision or at least have seen and heard all you need to, then it's perfectly OK to tell me and we can call it day".

Now I know these may sound weird, but if you say them with true sincerity and transparency, the prospect will appreciate it and most likely give you an opening you could drive a truck through.  If you try and fake it or are not truly vulnerable to the possible outcome, then the prospect will see through you, right to your competitor.  

But remember, if you go looking for the "no" then you have to be prepared to take it. But, if you're truly late to the game, then unless you are delusional, you've lost before you start so you may as well start at the end; and have them sell you on why you should continue selling to them.

NOTE:  If you want to learn the most powerful "late to the game" approach ever, then email me with your contact information and I will share it in a brief phone call.  Sharing it in an email is not an option because the effectiveness lies equally in the delivery as well as the message.  The only condition is that if you use it, you will let me know how it worked.

 

Five Most Important Sales Questions - Where is the prospect in their process

 

We're continuing our deep dive in the Five Most Important Sales Questions.  We've determined that budget is the most important question, decision criteria is the hardest to get a straight answer to and who else are you involving in the decision is the most sensitive.  But, 

4.  Where are you (the prospect) in your decision process?

...drives your tactical sales approach. If you're late to their process your options are much more limited than if you're early. And, if your are not early, you're late!  There is no middle.  There is no even playing field.  If you receive an RFP the same time as everyone else (and you didn't write it), you're late.  A very good book on the topic of RFPs; "RFPs Suck..." , by Tom Searcy is a good read for effectively dealing with RFPs.

If you arrive early to their decision process your only goal is to create the decision playing field that all your competitors will have to play on.  Move the decision along as quickly as possible and defend your ground.  It is very important that in creating the playing field you establish only two or three key areas of differentiation that you will defend with your life.  Don't worry if your competitors win on the small stuff. Remember, you don't have to win 100-0, just 51-49.  Read the post on decision criteria for more detail on how to determine what is important.

If you arrive late, then you have no choice but to challenge the key differentiators your competitor(s) has established and do it early and with as much passion and fact (in that order) as you can.  If you're late, all the little wins DON'T MATTER.  Pick the big stuff and go hard.  If you believe an important requirement for success is missing from their decision criteria, then lead with that.  If you can add a new decision criteria to the process then you will win all the small points you'll need.  You'll still have to win on the remaining important NEEDS and WANTS, but you will make up valuable lost time.

Remember, if you begin to see the slightest change in your prospect's behavior in the responsiveness or openess to your questions, then assume something has changed and go back and ask all FIVE questions again.  You can go from early to late with nothing more than a new person being added to the decision process.  Always knowing where they believe they are in their decision process is critical to accurate sales forecasting.  Easy questions such as;

• "Are we still on track for an end of month agreement?"
• "Is installation by the 15th still critical?"
• "I just noticed you got a new SVP.  What impact will that have on your decision timing?"
• "Anything new come up in your procurement process?"

One of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of their decision process and timing is to never take your finger off their pulse.  If you own their process and they continue to let you own their process, your odds for winning the business go up measurably.  If you're late, or become late, you either go big or go home.

 

Five Most Important Sales Questions - Decision Makers

We're continuing our deep dive in the Five Most Important Sales Questions.  While budget is the most important question and decision criteria is the hardest to get a straight answer,

3.  Who else are you involving in this decision?

...is the most sensitive, by a lot!   No matter what level of the decision tree you're playing at, there is no full proof way to ask this question and not raise the temperature of your prospect and lower the temperature in the room.

The way I've phrased it above is about the closest I've been able to come up with to quickly get the question out there without making it sound like I'm asking the prospect if they require permission to go to the bathroom.   The question has to be asked quickly, quietly, firmly, but humbly.  If you accomplish that then you have only to deal with the factual response, not the emotional one.  And, by the way, there is only one wrong asnwer to this question: "no one; I am the sole evaluator and decision maker". Unless you're dealing with a sole proprietor who is an only child, with no living relatives and unmarried, that cannot be the correct answer. You must probe deeper and find out who the person or persons are they will seek assistance from.  There will always be at least one more.

You're trying to achieve three primary results from asking this question:

1. Validation that a decision is imminent.  Show me a primary contact who can't quickly share who else will be involved in the decision process and I'll show you a sale that won't happen when they say it will.  If they hem and haw about who else to involve then you MUST GO BACK AND ASK THE BUDGE QUESTION AGAIN.  If money is allocated then everyone knows who has to approve the purchase.  Another reason they may not know, is that you're not at the right level.  Go higher.
2. Information on who they "want" to bring into the decision process and who they "need" to bring in.  That's right, WANT and NEED play a role in this question just as they do in the previous post.  Believe it or not, in this case both are equally important.  The WANTS provide emotional and political cover.  The NEEDS provide business and financial cover.
3. Introduction to the other decision makers.  We all know we are the ones who need to be selling our solutions, not the primary contact.  Making "that" sale may be the most important one of all and the sale will NEVER become personal to the other players without a personal meeting with you.

If new players emerge, then you have to ask all the questions again (and expect different answers).  If your prospect says nothing has changed when a new person enters the process, be sure and probe deep with questions about the new person(s) background, position and role.  Check them out on LinkedIn to see if they have a prior relationship with a competitor, etc.  New players almost always mean change. Don't be lulled to sleep by a primary contact who doesn't know as much as you do about how these decisions get made.

That brings us to the final point.  You should be experienced enough to know who the typical decision makers and influencers are for your solutions and the vertical markets you sell into.  If your prospect leaves someone out, don't be shy about asking, "typically, in companies like yours, the (fill in blank title) usually weighs in on this type of decision.  Is that the case here as well?"  To not ask the question is to set yourself up to be surprised when it's too late to recover.

Remember, while the decision maker question may be the most sensitive to ask, it is also the most valuable one to know the answer to.   What's been your experience?

 

Five Most Important Sales Questions - Decision Criteria

In continuing our deep dive into the Five Most Important Sales Questions we come to:

2.  What are your decision criteria?

While the first question regarding budget is the most important, the decision criteria question is probably the hardest to get a straight answer.  Why?  Because the old adage that people buy on emotion and justify with facts later is true even more today than ever!  Even if the prospect is using a formal RFP process and assuming most of the listed criteria are evenly weighted amongst competitors, winning still comes down to the best story and relationships.

So, how do you make sure you've identified the criteria that will make the MOST difference between winning and losing?  Ask the prospect to clearly define the criteria in two columns; NEED and WANT.  If they can't do that, then assume they're not really serious about buying and go back to the budget question and re-affirm the business need.  If they can differentiate between the two, then quicky review the NEEDS and make sure there are no "knock-out" issues for your company.  If there are none, then focus your time and energy on the WANTS - because that will be where the decision is made!

In reviewing the WANTS, you must address them as if they are NEEDS until the prospect says otherwise. This is very important because assuming the NEEDS are going to be evenly addressed by you and your competitors, the winning difference will be in how many of the WANTS you can deliver that they can't. Also, make sure you also ask "who" has helped determine the NEEDS vs. WANTS.  If it's only your primary contact, be wary.  Just as in real life, WANTS are prioritized by rank (just ask my wife and kids).  If the WANTS are only those of your primary contact (me), you stand much less of a chance winning on them than if they are owned by Power (my wife and kids).  Be sure and probe into "who" owns the wants and whether your primary contact knows the "why" behind the "what".  If they can't sell you on why the item is in the WANT column, then ask to talk to the one who owns it.  If they refuse then ask them if it can be removed from the list.  This will most likely lead to you either speaking to the WANT owner, or discovering that the owner is your primary contact and the WANT is theirs alone. Either way, you have an answer you can act upon.

The interesting thing about NEEDS and WANTS is that oftentimes there is a very fine line separating the two.  If one of their WANTS is one of your unique differentiators, then spend the time to get it moved over to the NEED column.  Why not just leave it where it is? Because the more WANTS they have that are unique to you that you can get moved to the NEEDS column, the more pressure it puts on your competitor(s) to meet the minimum requirements.  CAUTION:  Your competitor(s) is going to try and do the same thing to you.  That leads us to the final point.

The decision criteria question is also the most fluid of the five because the definition of NEEDS and WANTS can change throughout the sales process.  New information offered by you or your competitor(s) may cause the shift of one or more criteria from one column to the other.  That is why you must continuously re-affirm the decision criteria with each interaction you have with the prospect.  Any deviation from the current path requires further review of all FIVE questions to uncover any new decision makers, influencers, criteria or timing.  It also requires re-evaluation of where you may stand in the process.  You may move from first to last in the blink of any eye.

Remember, if you don't take great care in accurately and continuously assessing your prospect's NEEDS vs. WANTS throughout the entire sales process, you'll lose control of the conversation and your prospect will buy someone else's story - and then give you a long list of "facts" as to why you lost.