What's Your Process?

“A process for everything and everything has its process.”

-Gary Smith

Everything we do, whether we know it or not, has a process, from tying our shoes to deploying a space station. There is a set of measurable repeatable actions that allow us to achieve a desired outcome.

By mapping that process, and setting a common language and steps that your organization can understand, you can move beyond being reactive to being proactive.

As your process becomes ingrained, you begin to see and identify ways of making it more refined.

I use this as an example to discuss IT sales from identification of a qualified potential lead, to the eventual sale and each step I must take along the way. But really, this can work for anything.

If you have no process, you are spinning your wheels and reacting to what is happening around you. You may succeed but you will never realize the full extent of what you do until you have developed a process that allows you to see beyond the individual steps.

Every successful team model has a process to follow, start mapping yours now, by laying out the steps you take and documenting them, reviewing them and refining them. Create a common language for each milestone along the way to enable everyone on your team to understand and follow along.

Now everyone can see where you are in your process and take corrective action to move you towards that desired outcome.

What’s your process?

Your pal,

Sean

Engage

Are you engaging customers or educating them?  

When you qualify a customer, it’s important to be able to provide them with a compelling reason for using your product or service, a remedy to a pain or problem they experience or a desired outcome they are trying to achieve.  But don’t overdo it. Too often, a presentation can turn into an education and you will have a grateful student who thanks you for your time and then chooses your competitor.

Engagement is free, education costs money.

Your pal,

Sean

What's Your 30 Second Elevator Pitch?

You're on that elevator with a key decision maker/ stakeholder and you have a captive audience for about 30 seconds, what's your pitch?

This is a crucial element to your sales and business success. Take some time to carefully consider what you want to say.Write down what you do and how you do it. Do it more than once. You will  probably have more than one elevator pitch.
As discussed in previous posts, different organizational members will have different needs and wants. You should have a compelling statement for each of them. Business side, tech side, end users. Each needs to be clearly stated, concise and powerful.
Write it out several times. share it with your team for critique and feed back.
Rehearse it. Record it and know it. Once you have something that works for you, everyone in the organization should know it so they too can deliver the pitch when appropriate.
Try to be visual, demonstrate pay value and engage them.
If you are effective you will leave them wanting more.
Go get some!

Your pal,

Sean

Empathy

 

 Selling a service or solution requires more than just the ability to walk the steps of the cycle; it requires empathy with the client, an understanding of his needs, the vision he trying to achieve and the value both real and intrinsic that your solution/service delivers.

Several years ago, I watched Joel Oleson give an address on the significance of creating a well thought out and detailed governance plan for Microsoft SharePoint deployments. Joel is a great speaker, because he loves what he does and he understands the MOSS space better than anyone I have met. During this session Joel made the statement that while no two organizational governance plans were identical, the need for a well thought out plan was universal and making the customer understand this was the make or break component required for a successful launch, rollout and lifecycle.

What steps do you take to demonstrate empathy? Do you understand not only what you are selling but the industry you are selling into and the high level critical needs that your product or service can address?

Using Microsoft Dynamic CRM

I do not typically endorse products here (Unless they pay me of course) but recently I had the pleasure of working with Microsoft Dynamic CRM And I am loving what they have done with one of the single most important sales tools any organization can deploy.

With clear visible pipeline metrics; charts and dynamic content for pipeline management. The process is now transparent and manageable from anywhere across the organization. The entire team can immediately identify and correct missed steps, take corrective action. And see that action as it is being taken.

Sales cycles are cut dramatically by streamlining the process and using measurable sales markers and milestones that can guide you and your team through from start to finish.

All, easily created and managed by anyone on the team with minimal training.

http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/Default.aspx

The IT sales team that understands the solution sales process, and masters this fun to use, smartly upgraded suite will be a freakin' sales dynamo!

Your pal,

Sean

Creating The Sponsor Letter

I know there are several approaches to this step, but I like the one I learned at echo technology.
(Thanks go to Gary Smith and Keith Eades for this approach!)

They use a sponsor letter to detail the precise pains being faced by the customer and the organization in their own words.
Then lay out the impact to the organization as a result of those pains and what their solution represented in response.

the letter/email should look something like this:

Dear------
To recap our discussion you said:
(His pains verbatim)

XYZ corp. is experiencing late payments and problems with supply chain control due to the manual nature of their existing process.
The impact has been delinquent AP and poor supply chain management as a result of an antiquated process that does not keep pace with our competition nor accurately forecast our client needs.
The result has been longer cycles; missed deadlines and a breakdown in the type of communication and transparency required effectively serve our customers.
Left unaddressed these problems can only worsen. Leading to more problems and ultimately a loss of key accounts.

I believe the answer is:
(Solution)
By using our automated system to guide the customer relationship, and provide transparency across the organization we can greatly improve upon the existing process, add immediate value and help bring you into closer alignment with your customers.
(You made them feel the pain. Now show them there is hope!)

The result will be a much more dynamic process that enables the team to maintain pace with the increasing demand and allow a more tightly managed supply chain leading to shorter sales cycles and enhanced profits.

Our Next Steps:
(Milestone, go no go lists, trial, discovery etc. include dates and if they have provided a deadline date emphasize it.)

Please look this plan over and make any corrections you feel necessary, I will send a calendar request to review this plan with you and make any necessary adjustments.
We are still at a draft stage here, but our experience has taught us that this method works well to introduce our solution into organizations such as yours and helps to align us with your organizational buying process.

Warm Regards,

Sean

Now, confirm the pain and impact with him during your next call to be sure you are aligned.
Get him to admit to the pains, envision a cure and agree to the next steps.
also, remind the customer that life happens while we make other plans.
So while this eval process is occurring, the pain impact on the organization is only going to get worse.

This method will help you establish trust and competence and will also help you align with your customer.

Your Pal,

Sean

The Leads Are Where You Find Them

Patient: ”Doc, it hurts when I do this.”
Doctor: ”Don’t do that.”

We need to consider alternative approaches when what we do is no longer working for us.
Unfortunately, too few people are willing to explore new possibilities and as a result they limit their ability to sell and grow.

In IT/solution sales we typically find leads through traditional means, tradeshows, referrals, cold calling etc, there is no wrong way to find new business but there are smarter ways of hitting the business you are trying to develop.

My personal favorite b2b source is linkedin. Millions of professionals’ c-level on down, give us intimate details about their business and personal lives right through their profiles.

There are a number of consultants who can help you maximize the value of linkedin and I encourage you to seek them out if it’s appropriate to your needs.

I am not one of those experts. however Flyn Penoyer has written extensively about it and I highly recommend his expertise:

http://onlinebusinessnetworker.net/blog/

But I can offer you a simple taste of how you might use this medium as a way to generate interest, source leads and pinpoint new opportunities.
Previously I discussed creating the Straw client. The composite of who you believe to be the ideal target for your services/product.
Now let’s take this theory and put it into actual practice.

For our purposes we are going to target only VP’s of sales in the IT industry.
We can use the power of linkedin’s advanced search to go and find our potential customer.
When I did this search I came up with over 15,000 profiles of individuals who fit my criteria.

Your results may vary, but the point is that they are there and all the information you need to pursue the relationship is there with them.
Now after we’ve done our search, we want to review any available information and use it to fine tune the approach and also to set us apart from those who have not done their homework.
You can glean valuable information relative to size, growth, and organizational structure.
Now go get some, and don't forget to break mine off when you close that big deal!

Your pal,

Sean