New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Well, Yes I have a problem.

I discuss Social Media with some of the established brains in the domain in India and have had discussions with Social Media thinkers sitting thousands of miles across the seven seas.

And now I do have a problem!

Before I put my problem down, let me put some questions for you to ponder upon:

• Almost every business today needs to reach out and the Internet becomes one of the best mediums. But does every business have the same objective in terms of (Branding, Outreach, Lead generation) etc.?
• Is it necessary that a solution which has worked for an IT company (as an example) would fit great for a BPO?
• Is it necessary that YOU as an Online marketing company would be able to understand everything from a product business to an IT to a BPO to a Chocolate product company?
• Is marketing universal and do the same rules apply for all on Social Media?

Well, now let me put forth my problem!

One of the biggest lacking points that I see with online marketing/ social media companies today is lack of good human resources. In my experience, you need three core and basic qualities to be even thinking of creating social media strategies for a business (client). These are:

1. Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
2. Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
3. Solid understanding of marketing

My experience of the industry says that majority of Social Media companies, talk about all the major tools and all the great jargons, but what they dont understand is how to customize a solution for the client. Each business (may be from the similar domain) will have a different set of problem statements to answer. Each business will have different objectives to achieve.

When so much is different, how can you just go along with jargons and pitch the same solution to each client?

I have interacted with many a Social Media people who if spoken to, would not have the required level of knowledge/ understanding of the product/ industry/ consumer behavior they are pitching to, but will keep circling around their choice of words which are: branding, positioning and lead generation (amongst the many others)

To scale up as a Social Media company – My way would be

The human resources that I recruit would surely have these three above mentioned qualities. Also, since time is an essential factor in the Internet business, I as a small company cannot afford to keep training my employees and wait for them to grasp business and start delivering. Hence what I need to focus on is getting the right people on board who take the ownership of work and understand the criticality of client delivery and execution.

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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:

1. Intent
2. Focus
3. Relationship
4. 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

1. How is the competitive landscape changing?
2. What service could be under threat, why and which accounts?
   1. You need to understand do I have a satisfied customer, and if not, well why not?
3. What is the key challenge that you may face to deliver?
   1. the biggest of the companies make this mistake which is fundamental
4. 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!

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