Selling Professionally

Over many years, I have had a recurring conversation about the definition of "Solution Selling." Note that I put it in title case. Yes, I mean a very specific term that was coined, I believe, by Mike Bosworth. All credit to Bosworth, I have not studied Solution Selling all that much, but what I did take away from it was the concept of finding out what was bothering (my terminology) the customer and then figuring out how to help them solve the problem. Very much a diagnosis and prescription process. The conflict that comes up, however, is when salespeople (or anyone, for that matter) feels that solution selling is the act of selling the whole damned enchilada to the customer. People have this impression that solution selling is figuring out a way to make sure that the customer has one of everything, whether they need it or not, and two of most things on the price list. In my books, this is not Solution Selling, this is flogging product. It sounds like it is a good thing ...

"Trust me on this." Have you heard this before? Have you heard this from someone trying to sell you something? What was your reaction? If you are like most people, your trust in the speaker dropped. Significantly. Trust is not something you can demand. Nor can you buy it, win it or simply find it. You have to earn it through hard work and determination. Trust others. Be trustworthy. Both of these are hard to do on a regular basis. Without being a puppy dog, do you trust the management above you? Do you trust your customers to be honest with you, without you asking them to be? Do you trust your fellow salespeople to be doing the right thing for you when you are not there? For some people, one or more of these actions is jump-out-at-30,000-feet scary. I have been asked to cover for someone going out on the road, but that person invariably called in to see what was going on. He beat me to his voice mails, he jumped in on emails whenever he could. He just could not le...

For those of you who have been following my writings here and on LinkedIn, you will see that I use the term that is the title of this blog, quite a bit. The reason I use all three words is that depending on which "process" you subscribe to, you will use a different term, but I believe that many of the different processes are really talking about the same thing. If there were one common term that everyone used, then I would use it, but there isn't, so I use all three to represent the central concept. 'Nuff said about the words, what is the concept? Why this focus on goals/challenges/pains? As a salesperson, we need to find something that the prospect will pay for. They don't want to pay for new software or a box of widgets. As I have told my teams in the past, no Audit Manager wakes up in the morning saying, "If I could buy some data analytics software today, I would be a HERO!!" No, they wake up thinking, "If I could prove that the control is ...

Week 1: "Yes, boss, the ACME order will definitely be a big one. Very likely my largest for the year!!" Week 2: "Yes, boss, ACME is still on target. They need one of everything we have, and two of the core item. I have thrown the kitchen sink at them. It's a doozy. Drinks all around when this one comes in!" Week 3: "ACME is still trucking along. They are having some budget issues, so we took out the kitchen sink, but it is still going to be good." Week 4: "Yep, ACME will buy next month. They want to spread this over the next three quarters. They felt they just could not project manage all of it at once." Week 5: "OK, boss, we are down to the wire. They have asked for a final proposal detailing the different price levels they could buy at, so I have done a simple quote for just one of the core, a quote with some of the services, and a third option where they can get most of what we were talking about last month." Week 6: "...

Sometimes selling something requires more than just one sale. At ACL, we were selling a tool that would enable auditors to completely change their jobs. Ultimately, auditors could enjoy some very significant benefits, but only if they changed HOW they did their work. It became apparent that we actually had to make three sales in order to get the order. This is actually necessary for any new solution that will require people to change their habits. We first had to sell them on wanting to change how they did their jobs. The differences were: have all auditors do their own data analytics work, prove with 100% accuracy whether a control had been broken or not, ask more questions and ask different questions that had never been asked before, and more. This was often the most difficult part of the sale. Only once they saw the value of changing how they did their jobs did they even begin to evaluate their current tools. They had been taught how to use Excel and various Business Intelligence to...

I have been reading about shrinking pipelines, questions by sales management and trainers on how to focus development efforts, and a number of other general ailments in sales teams. For each one, there are many different ways to approach solutions, but the central question when things are going wrong is, where do I start in order to fix the situation? Without good data on what is currently happening, it is hard to determine what you need to fix in order to achieve what you do want to happen. In my experience, starting with the metrics and numbers is the first place to go. Let me tell you a story... There was a sales team that I had set out to provide some training for, quite a few years ago. They were all grossly under-performing. They seemed to know the product and were all really nice people, but the revenue numbers weren't good enough to support their office. The reps were complaining that there were not enough leads. Common comment. So, I wanted to get their focus onto ...

Let's do a quick little review of my blog in general, so far, to put Howard Stevens' ( http://www.chally.com/thosewho1.htm ) third rule into perspective, along with my focus for this blog. If you checked out this blog on day 1, and again today, you will likely have noticed that my introduction at the top of the page changed significantly . In fact, it changed three times. Why? Because I have been trying to figure out a focus for this blog. Why? Because, as my introduction now suggests, being professional is to do what you do with some sort of intent. You may then ask, "So, why did it change over three days? Did you not have an intent to begin with?" Well, yes, I did have an original intent, and that intent still exists. The reason things have changed is that I have added intent to the original. Let me explain. In the context of Stevens' third rule, "Salespeople use networking to develop quality contacts", my original intent for this blog was to contin...

Customers don't all come in one shape and size. However, depending on what you are selling and what your market is, you are likely to get relatively high consistency in general traits. Particularly in B2B selling. Selling data analytics solutions to auditors? Expect highly analytical people who will want to know everything there is to know about the subject and are not likely to be impressed by a Closer type salesperson. Be ready to have a complete needs analysis mapped out and a proposal that would put War and Peace to shame. Selling iPhones? Be ready for the technical questions and being able to show how the light sabre app works on it, then stand back and let them figure it out for themself. If you try to dig into goals/objectives/pains, you won't get enough of their attention to show them how the lighter works or how they can get a random restaurant in downtown NYC with four stars and two $$. These are just the two ends of the spectrum. There is every infinitely different m...

Howard Stevens writes ( http://www.chally.com/thosewho1.htm ) that there are distinct positions in each sales team. In sales, he suggests that there are Closers, Consultants and Relationship Builders. Stevens continues that each person, if they are going to be absolutely the top in sales, cannot be more than one of these. I know that for myself, the "Consultant" type is front and centre. I don't have to think about it, I don't have to pump myself up to work in this way. It just is there, for me. The "Relationship" type is a very strong second for me and I think fits very effectively in with the "Consultant" type. But the "Closer" type, for me, needs preparation, energy, thought and a pep talk before I start. And that is all well and good. The important element to being a professional salesperson is to know for yourself which is your dominant trait, and make sure that you are working in it. Stevens' analogy is a baseball team, where at...

So, here you have it. My inaugural blog post. And you can say that you were one of the first to see it. Please let me know when you do see it, and subscribe if you want to hear my random ramblings about professional selling. What started me on this? Well, first and foremost is being "temporarily" unemployed. I say temporarily because I am actively working to change that status to "employed". As I work on my networking through LinkedIn and other social settings, I have seen more and more blogs on various subjects, but of course tons of them on selling. I know I have lots to say, but up until this point in time, no soapbox of my own to stand on. I came across this article today. http://www.chally.com/thosewho1.htm I have a feeling I have seen it before, but not having had a place to record it and record my thoughts about it, I can only guess. The site calls it a "classic" article, but I don't know its actual age. What I do know is that it has a...