I am Social Media Marketing Evangelist and over time a crucial aspect of the entire Social Media Marketing process has come into the picture which if inferred in simple terms makes you ponder over the most basic question:
Do Your Clients Really Understand Your Service/ What You Are Trying to Do?
As with the new buzz word and with a huge outreach new brands are coming onto the social media scene and products and services are trying to connect to the relevant audience, but somewhere I personally feel, many Online Marketing companies, are just trying to experiment with the customer, in the process, not really being one with the customer’s business objectives.
And there goes the entire effort down the drain, with the client dissatisfied and disillusioned at the end.
Listen to your customer!
I strongly suggest all marketers, expecially those in the online domain to listen to their customers. its highly crucial that you understand the customer’s business objectives and are on the same page as the client. Its necessary that you have a solid graps of business understanding of your customer, to be able to create solid and successful campaigns and create success stories in the online world.
LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 47th session, with Paul Shoker speaking on The Essential Tools of Sale at the NASSCOM Headquarters, New Delhi. The room expectedly is full to the brim and well, this is one of the most heavily attended session I have seen in my 10 months blogging the sessions LIVE!!
Okay so we are a go with Paul shaking hands with the entire audience and glad to start the session with Ankur Lal (Founder and CEO, Infozech Software Ltd.) Im always amazed with Ankur’s persona
“We always seek to go in front of a customer but when we are there, the heart bumps….we fall short of words”
- Ankur
So here we are starting with the session, interestingly enough we already have some real interesting questions by the participants. I wanna know what my clients are telling me, I wanna know what my customers are saying, I wanna know what my customers customers are saying…says Paul
When I first started selling I was 21 years old….and I still sell.
Im going to take you back to basics…Im in for the ride Paul!!
Where do you play
DNA of a consultative sales professional
Value proposition attribute you are competing on
Common sales cycle vs Consultative approach
Sales planning – approach and tactics
Suspect – prospects weighting
Common mistakes a sales professional can make
Well, this is what Paul is really going to share with the room! I have worked in almost like 20 countries. Everytime there’s been a different culture and a different sales cycle. So Paul is gong to share it all with the audience today!
There are four stages and at the end of the day we need to make a simple call:
Intent
Focus
Relationship
Value
The chart moves from left to right from Transactional (at stage I) to Collaborative (at stage 4)
Paul explains the pointers with an example! That of a telephone line. I was collecting 50 compliment slips from 9 to 6 in the evening when I was selling in London! Now i had to call each one of them the next day and I miserably felt shocked. And then I thought out of the box! And Paul shares some really amazing points here at this stage!
I went and met the finance head for Rolce Royce and I sold him nothing but, business issues!
It took me 18 months to close a 250million dollar deal…its does not come easy, trust me
DNA of a sales professional, Paul shares the real Gold now!
Confidence, self belief and passion
Hunger and have he ability to move out of a comfort zone
Pro active and self motivated
Focus and execution – too many people working on too many opportunities
Dream big and have a prize you wanna shoot for. Make it personal!
It took me 3 years to be a millionaire, I drove the best cars, lived in the best houses – why, because i made it personal
Believe in your company, propositions, its values etc.. and that all these things add value to your customers entire value chain
Professional, articulate and personal
People aren’t punctual in India, and I have seen this!
Speak the customers language
Network
To effectively listen and communicate value
You go listen to your client and dotn say anything, you will be chocked what you will learn
What is the biggest attribute you will link your value proposition to?
Are you trying to sell on Quality
Are you trying to sell on Service
Are you trying to sell on Cost
What is the differentiating that you are offering around, questions Paul to the room. This will help you to effectively set your sales strategy says Paul, and the entire room is listening with pin drop silence!
Paul is now sharing the difference between a common sales cycle and a Consultative approach
The Consultative guy:
Qualifies the need
He knows what are their business drivers | Qualify yourselves | establish customers business drivers
Sales strategy and relationship mapping
How do I need to get to a decision maker – and Paul answers the question that you do not need to reach to the decision maker, there is probably an all together different person that you intended to reach out to
Setting traps and Mines
How do you think BT, IBM, Capgemini are winning these multi million deals, coz their guys are doing the real consultative selling, they are reaching out to the influencers
Let your customers BUY YOU first and then your product!
Accelerate or De-accelerate
Paul is sharing the real code book of the high flying consultative sellers!
Negotiate, close or walk away
The art of a sales guy is to articulate his value
Sales Planning
Consultative sales professionals approach
Do we have a value proposition linkable to the customers business objectives?
Qualification analysis – analysis of opportunity from 4 points of view, each answering different questions:
Can we add value
should we pursue
can we compete
are we aligned to win
Competitive sales strategy
identification of the four types of sales strategy
direct
indirect
divisional
containment
development of a strategic opportunity plan
development of a competitive counter tactics
We were competing with IBM on a big deal and we knew we cant go head to jead, thus the only thing we had was an indirect approach which meant changing the rules of the game! Which also meant that there is only one par of the deal that you want! We said lets just divide and counquer. I have actually sold purely on value, shares Paul!
Leveraging politics
separating influencers from authoritarians
identifying the key influencers
how to develop a political sales strategy
Have we tried to identify the right influencers and design a god strategy around the politics, which by the way, every company has, big and small!
Some key internal questions you need to ask yourself, shares Paul
How is the competitive landscape changing?
What service could be under threat, why and which accounts?
You need to understand do I have a satisfied customer, and if not, well why not?
What is the key challenge that you may face to deliver?
the biggest of the companies make this mistake which is fundamental
What help do I need from executives or board member in the next 1-3 months
How to QUALIFY an account history?
customer name
established
market share
financials
customer base
who is their biggest competitor
how are they structured
what is their overall strategy
business drivers
Opportunities, Qualification and Tactics
qualification
do we have a value proposition linkable to customer business objectives?
how do we intend to differentiate
who will be our competitors
what is the size of the opportunity – at times too many assumptions are made
so we have the financial resources to pursue
can we compete
are we aligned to win
who are the key influencers
who are the decision makers
who are the show stoppers
what sales tactic will you deploy
Impact selling
understanding the customers business INSIDE OUT and OUTSIDE IN
Mines and Traps – Paul is now sharing an interesting example which comes from his life, a client that he dealt with! I have set the mines because I knew the features that my competition could never give. I made it a point that I ask my customer who all are you seeing, and I liked to be the last one to approach the client, as I had to know my competition and I knew it as I am an expert in the domain, and well I was clear in my approach that I was here to sell in just a meeting and not ask for another session, and this is how I scaled up!
How your proposition can make an impact to the top or bottomline
Tactics
Mines and traps…eg so that could be an important feature?
Accelerate….speed up the sale to close
Decelerate…slow down…you need to change the ground rules
This is where the art of negotiation comes in says Paul
Interestingly, Paul is now sharing about Proactive engagement! The slide on the screen is giving clarity on what a good sales guy is all about and Paul shares three fundamental magical words: Re-qualify, Re-qualify, Re-qualify
– this is the philosophy that I have used over the last 20 years
This is what I use – Suspect, Prospect weighting and this is especially for startups
0% fact findings
linkable propositions and realtionship mapping
10% opening (Suspect or Prospect)
20% qualification
how serious, budgets, decision makers
30% defining SOR
lay the traps and write the RFQ
40% bid proposal
50% proposal presentation
75% LOI (letter of intent)
85% Contract negotiation
100% signature win
Paul is now sharing with the room the most common mistakes sales professionals make:
they fail to listen – trust me shut up and listen
ask the right question and look at the body language
they fail to re-qualify
they fail to ask for an order – people fail to ask
negotiate
be an entrepreneur, there would be more respect for being straight
i cant give you a discount but perhaps I can increase this on the service levels
walk away – learn to walk away, the fear of loss for the customer, will make him ask you, what to do, dont be arrogant and just humbly walk out
Never knock your competition
The session is now in the Q&A mode and well, I must add, I loved the session, coz I started as a sales entrepreneur and I share some pieces with Paul. Thanks Paul!
"We thought we understood social media marketing and seo optimization fairly ok but after our one on one session realized many of the fundamental mistakes we were making plus learnt many new tools. Overall an investment I would recommend every entreprenuer to make"
- Nidhi, Founder CEO, Pinnacle Works
