The Sales Café

Welcome to the Sales Cafe, our new name for the Random Thought Generator. Until now, this blog focused, as the title implied, on ideas of interest we wanted to work out in writing. The purpose of the Sales Cafe is to focus on sales and the universe that surrounds the people who practice and manage it. This is where we spend much of our time as well. 

We aim to fill a tall order here. The blogsphere does not lack for sales blogs, but then the real world doesn't lack for cafes. Everybody has their favorites and some of them have something special going for them. That's what we hope to build; someplace special where you can stop in on Tuesdays and Thursdays for thought provoking information. Think of it as your drive-in, take-out sales blog, where you can come by to learn something, change something or try something. 

Our writers sell, market, manage, and consult for a living. They practice in very interesting and challenging environments, large and small, simple and complex, mainstream and cutting edge. We think there's a lot to share. Between us, we've covered just about every industry and just about every position in sales and marketing, so we think the perspectives will be refreshing and most of all get you to think. 

Here at ELA, we're driven by our mission to make people smarter about their business, and we hope on your trips through the Sales Cafe you will walk out feeling smarter than when you came in.

People buy from people. Trite but true, whether it's B-to-B, B-to-C, complex or simple business relationships. Successful salespeople never lose sight of that little fact. Talk to one and ask them. Look in the mirror and ask yourself!

What complicates things is how many options there are for meeting people, from Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook to plain old networking meetings held by local organizations, and everything in-between. Perhaps no matter how much your company spends on marketing, sooner or later, the buyer is going to check YOU out, on their own, without your knowledge. They want to see if you're the kind of person they want to do business with.

Knowing that, how will you position yourself? Do you want to portray a conservative persona on LinkedIn and a cool one on Facebook? Would you rant on Twitter or "keep your powder dry" knowing that your potential customer might be shopping you instead of your company? One thing is for sure, when everybody shops the Web, your presence is required and your privacy is not the buyer's concern. 

Companies spend an enormous amount of energy and money trying to control the buyer-seller conversation on their websites. However the trip shoppers take, of their own choosing, on their way to a buying decision tells us an interesting story. When we analyze the traffic on our own site, we see people moving from the home page to the blog, to the team page and then out of the site, moving on definitely to LinkedIn and probably to Facebook or Twitter. I think this is common.

So, the moral is YOU, whether you are the owner, CEO, VP Sales, or an account executive, may have more to do with how enticing your product or service looks to the buyer than any feature, benefit or research paper that the marketing department can come up with.    

Here is everything you need to know about social media networking:

It's all about the conversation.

That's it. Whether you blog, employ LinkedIn, spend time on Facebook, Twitter, post questions and answers on Sales 2.0 or even make daily visits to your dog's breed site and forum, you are engaging in a conversation. Conversation is the "informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc.," according to Random House. Okay, so usually it's spoken, oral communication and, for the most part, this is written (but that is changing quickly with the influx of video communication). But I submit to you that the reason you are engaged in any of these social endeavors, and what keeps you going back, is for the interaction with the other people on the site. 

Sure, you are trying to sell them something, but isn't the conversation where sales starts? In a cold call, it might begin with "Hi, my name is..." or "What do you do when you need...." On LinkedIn, it's posting your professional information--your background, your current work--and trying to drum up a following of contacts by talking to them. On Facebook, it means sharing something about yourself with your friends and colleagues. It's all a conversation.

The saying goes that no product moves without salespeople. The point here is that no sales happen without a conversation. And for many products and services today, the conversation is happening on social media.

Outside-In selling -- may the best product win . . . not always!
by Jeff Williams

Second in a Series
As part of the on-going discussion about how an Outside-In sales organization operates, let’s talk for a moment about the importance of the product. 

Many companies -- more than would like to admit it -- believe that customers buy from them because they have the best product in the market.  Well, in some cases (like advanced technology) this philosophy can appear to work for a while, luring the unwitting company down the road of complacency (best case), or the road of arrogance (worst case).  In either situation, the sales successes that are enjoyed early in the game tend to disappear, leaving sales management scratching their heads and asking, “What happened to our lead?”  

The piece that can be easily overlooked during the “we have the best product in the market” exuberance phase is that customers rarely buy based upon who has the best product.  Instead, we find that they are more often looking for a supplier who demonstrates a true understanding of their business and can help them solve underlying business problems.  And, solving complex business problems requires more staying power than simply having the current hot product.  

An Outside-In sales organization builds an understanding of the customer through active listening, and finds ways to strengthen the relationship with the customer over time.  By building trust with the customer, the Outside-In sales team can effectively remove perceived risk in the customer’s purchase decision-making process.  Whether the sale is for something as simple as a single copy machine for the shipping dock, or as complex as a new company-wide accounts payable system, the customer is interested in a lot more than just the initial purchase.  Aspects like long-term reliability, serviceability, and alignment to company values can all play a big role.  Many times the deciding factor comes down to something as simple as how easy it is to “do business” with you.  Rather than the performance attributes or feature set of your product, a mundane thing such as flexible credit terms that fit the customer’s buying process could spell the difference between Deal or No Deal.  

As a case in point: a Fortune 50 computer company I worked for was being consistently beaten by its arch rival in the scientific server market place. Despite having a superior product, customers were beginning to turn to the competitor as a better alternative, and this was causing some consternation for our sales and marketing organization, since we could not fathom why customers were gravitating towards a clearly inferior product. Well, as it turned out, our quoting process had become so bureaucratic that turn around time on new quotes had grown to longer than 14 days. By asking customers what was important in making their purchase decision, our competitor discovered our Achilles heel, and quickly developed a streamlined quoting process that could produce a quote to customers in less than 48 hours. Needless to say, the competition continued to take away market share until we woke up and addressed the real underlying issue. Thus, by steadfastly staying in tune with the unique needs of customers, the Outside-In sales organization – in this case, our competitor – stayed one step ahead of us, even though we had the best product.

I would love to learn about your own experiences with an Outside-In sales organization, so please let me know your thoughts, and what examples you have seen.

At some point in their evolution, all sales organizations go through a thorough analysis of their sales process, with the goal of maximizing the efficiency of pulling customers through their new and finely tuned sales cycle. The prevailing notion is that if we just understood our selling process better – what the steps are, who performs them, the timing of each step, etc. – then we could optimize our selling process, thereby improving our closure rates and overall quota achievement.  Viewing the world in this way – what is best for us – is what I call an Inside-Out approach.

Instead, we should recognize that the only reason that our selling process even exists is because our customers have a buying process that they are trying to get through as efficiently as possible.  Once we make this realization, things can really start to fall into place.  Rather than trying to find all the ways to more efficiently pull our customers through our selling process (Inside-Out), we should focus on how well our selling process aligns to our target customer’s buying process, which is what I call Outside-In.

Let’s take an example of a potential sale near the close of our fiscal quarter (end of January) for $150k worth of forming equipment for a small lamp shade assembly plant.  In the normal Inside-Out (sales cycle) approach, our sales team would naturally be fixated on convincing the prospect how our forming machine is superior to anything on the market, and at a price that beats the competition.  We would focus on moving the customer through the stages of our sales process, including: 1) confirming that they need a new forming machine, 2) verifying that our machine meets all their requirements,  3) checking that the price of our solution fits within their budget, and 4) that we can deliver our solution in a timely manner.  Sounds like we have this deal in the bag, right? 

Wrong. 

If we had been focused Outside-In rather than Inside-Out, we would have put ourselves in the shoes of our customer.  Doing so would have indeed verified all the steps above, but would have also uncovered the fact that any purchase for over $100k requires Board approval, and that the Board only meets four times per year, just after the close of each calendar quarter.  Since that meant the Board held their recent meeting about a week ago, we now have no chance of closing this deal until next quarter!  Bummer . . .

This is Part 1 of a continuing series on Outside-In thinking.  Please let me know what you think – post your own “ah-ha” moments in the comment field – and stay tuned for more to come.  

When it comes to building sales, a structured 12-18-month plan pays dividends.

These days, it’s tough out there. In a lukewarm or sluggish market, it is tempting, perhaps even desirable if you have an antsy Board, to hire your way to growth. Recruiting and retaining top sales talent is a tricky and expensive proposition that only the largest organizations can afford to do well. The reality is that many successful salespeople in these environments are little more than conduits in a chain of well-orchestrated events generated by successful marketing and product development departments.

I’ve heard many sales vice presidents say, “Success has a thousand fathers.” Their success often depends on keeping feet on the street, hiring people who have strong personalities and are good at pushing product in front of customers. In hot markets, it’s hard to fail. However, despite close to 100 years of sales skill development seminars and publications, many people still push what to them looks like, and indeed may be, a hit product. But what if you don’t have the latest greatest “sells itself” product? Or if your “product” is really a service offering, what do you do with sales people who only know how to push product?

We’ve recently gotten reports from two clients that do business with currently distressed sectors of the marketplace—temporary staffing. The sales results for both companies over the past twelve months were rather startling given the doom and gloom we all read in the papers: national accounts are up 15%; there are week-over-week increases in new account acquisitions; and major accounts are up over 25. These are results that would be astounding even during a hot market, not like now, when the bread-and-butter market of their customer base (the construction industry) is lagging.
Two things stand out about these companies: their service offerings are very straightforward—providing workers—and easily copied so there is plenty of competition; and, they have both taken methodical, almost textbook approaches to developing their salespeople and sales managers. The approach has been the recipe for their success.

For those companies that don’t currently have products and services that sell themselves, acquiring new customers and growing existing customer relationships requires a consistent methodical approach—and a heavy dollop of strategy (which we won’t tackle today). This path requires planning, patience—and, most importantly, getting your CEO on board.

Here are a few of the steps toward laying out an approach that provides results:

1. No matter what sales process you choose, successful implementation requires first that you plan the journey well. Define your vision and mission with the mindset of an entrepreneur and customer’s point of view. Set solid, and real, twelve-month objectives that are measurable, and that you’re willing to stand behind. Develop real strategies that will inform your organization how to meet the objectives. And plan your projects and initiatives well, so that you stay focused on those strategies—not the shiny balls that appear along the way.
2. Train your executive and management team in your sales process first, and then train them on how to coach and manage the process. Inevitably, our initial conversation with the Vice President of Sales starts with a request to train the salespeople. Since a large part of what we do is training, this is of course a natural request. However, we find that in close to 100% of situations that we could train the salespeople till the cows come home and nothing much will change. It’s the sales managers and sales executives who must get out front of the curve, learn the process, learn how to coach the process and lead the way. Once your management team is up to speed, then, and only then, roll out your sales process and train the salespeople.
3. Even though your sales managers have become process experts, measure and pay them for their coaching capability, not their ability to rescue the deal. Your sales managers are first and foremost your coaches. Nothing kills momentum and dumbs down your sales force quicker than a team of heroic sales managers.
4. Don’t create process silos where none currently exist. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and HRM (Human Resources Management) need to be tightly linked to your company’s sales process. In other words, measure and compensate only for the behavior you desire. Salespeople are coin-operated. They will do what you pay them to do.

You should count on a period of 12-18 months from conception to full implementation. This may seem unreasonably long in a dynamic market, especially when it’s so easy to just go out and purchase a training class, but following a well-planned process and not skipping the steps will pay dividends you can only dream of today. In company after company, in industries ranging from software to staffing to agriculture, over the past 28 years, we have found that taking this type of methodical process produces both change and big results.