Note Most salespeople can explain why they lost sales. Yet, the key to duplicating success is to know why you won sales. Salespeople have a more difficult time explaining wins when they are more a function of persistence and style—or fall under the broad category of relationships—than structure, process, and substance.
Most selling methods divide the sales process into the following four basic stages:
Establishing rapport
Qualifying
Presenting/closing
Postsale support
You cannot use these stages to measure your progress. They are broad descriptions rather than specific events. Each salesperson determines when one stage ends and the next one begins. With ever-changing starting and ending points, salespeople (and their managers) find it difficult to evaluate the progress and potential of opportunities. For example, if you have two sales opportunities that are both in the qualifying stage, does that mean they are both at the same point with the same potential? Absolutely not!
Furthermore, these four stages can not help you to answer your most important question, which is “How did I do in my sales call?” This question lets you measure your progress and crosses your mind every time you conclude discussions with customers. Typical answers to this question usually consist of two after-the-fact responses and one well-intentioned guess.
The call went great if you get the order or achieve a predetermined objective.
The call went lousy if you let the sale slip away to the competition or the black hole of “maybe next year.”
The call went okay for everything other than what was “great” or “lousy.”
The first two after-the-fact observations leave nothing to the imagination. You know the final score, and you either celebrate a great victory or learn from a lousy defeat. It is the third reply whose outcome remains in doubt—as does your ability to sell value and increased sales. Everything depends on how your undecided “okays” turn out.
Two conclusions jump out at you. First, your okay answers are really guesses. After all, okays in selling are always followed by a silent “I guess” or “I think.” Second, uncertainty about your potential for a successful sale means possible wasted efforts and missed opportunities. (See Exhibit 1-5.)
Exhibit 1-5: Prevent wasted effort.
Ask yourself what method you used to determine your answers. They probably range from personal or professional judgments to instincts or gut feelings to experiences or, simply, educated guesses. These replies, even though honed by time, remain subjective. They do not provide a measurable way to gauge and influence your progress. The value of these subjective indicators increases greatly if you use them after taking measurable readings, not before.
Note You and customers share a common goal that helps to improve your productivity. They do not want to waste time either. However, your selling methods, which guide their buying framework, also do not let them measure their progress. Without that ability, customers cannot provide an accurate assessment of the potential for achieving their goals in a cost-effective manner.
Making the Sales Process Measurable
MeasureMax has four selling phases as shown in Exhibit 1-6. Unlike traditional selling stages, these Measurable Phases (MPs) include quantifiable steps that have definitive starting and verifiable ending points, which are referred to as Measurable Phase Changes (MPCs).
Exhibit 1-6: The four selling phases of MeasureMax.
MPs provide the framework to measure the how:
The number of sales calls you make in each MP determines your progress and your ability to be a consistent producer.
Their sequence creates the most measurable value for customers.
The length of time it takes to complete MPs gauges your efficiency.
The sequence of the MPs, as well as the pace needed to complete them, points you toward the most productive strategies to employ.
Their corresponding MPCs verify that the customers’ pace and progress are in sync with yours.
MPs and MPCs also help you to determine whether the potential for achieving customers’ goals is worth spending more time, energy, and resources. These sales mile markers ensure that you do not become lost. You know what steps lay ahead and how to stay on track. Use them to outvalue competition, earn higher profits margins, exceed customers’ expectations, and retain long-term customers. Turn your “okay” guesses into measurable answers to determine whether “great” or “lousy” endings await you and your customers—so you both know whether to bail out sooner or hang in longer.
“Decommoditize” the Sale
The C word (as in commoditize) is a salesperson’s greatest fear and failure. Customers consider your products or services to be a commodity. Customers see no measurable difference between your features and benefits and those of competitors. Although convinced they provided the most value, salespeople realize that the lowest price will win. Let the bidding wars begin.
Why didn’t the most value win? In the minds of the customers, it did. They think lowest price equals the highest value. When sales-people do not give customers the means to measure value in terms other than price, they turn their products and services into commodities, not customers. That’s good news.
What one takes away, one can give back. Armed with the proper tools and knowledge of the MeasureMax selling system, you can decommoditize sales. Just make sure to contact customers who want Column 2 filled out (if given the opportunity).
Note When customers’ technical knowledge of your products is equal to, or better than yours, they view your products as commodities. They feel they can accurately compare products without your input. They no longer depend on you to explain the technical differences between competitive offerings. You now lost a key opportunity to justify a higher price than that of your competitors. Fortunately, you can recapture this opportunity and lost value (and then some) when you make customers rely on you as an expert in their industry as outlined in Chapter 3.
Column 2 Selling
To fill in Column 2 with measurable benefits, you must contact individuals who do not equate price and delivery with value: owners and beneficiaries. The people who “own” the budgets that fund purchases are owners. The people who derive the most value or benefits from these purchases are beneficiaries. Owners reside at the top of the decision-making chain. When you sell to owners, you engage in top-down selling. You have the ability to negotiate price as a function of value.
In consumer or retail sales, top-down selling is easy. Consumers are the owners. In business-to-business selling, many more people are involved in purchasing decisions. Although the process is the same, finding the owners is difficult if you do not know where to look for them in organizations. Additionally, owners speak a language foreign and uncomfortable to most salespeople. Instead of speaking features and benefits, they use words associated with executive perspectives and economic value. Terms like return on investment, corporate goals, net present value, company initiatives, and positive cash flow pepper their vocabulary. Chapter 3 demonstrates how to find owners and speak their language.
Once you find out owners’ goals and understand how they measure value, you can help them to fill out Column 2. In addition, you ask owners what role the beneficiaries play in the decision-making process. Often, salespeople make beneficiaries more important than the owners. Let the owners decide who is important. After all, it is their money.
Most salespeople prefer to contact beneficiaries first and engage in bottom-up selling. Beneficiaries understand the technical nuances of products better than owners do. They like to talk about features and benefits. They are the perfect matches for salespeople who are trained to talk technical and conduct product presentations. Yet, in between lengthy product discussions, sales problems can surface—ones that only meetings with owners can solve.
Problems arise when beneficiaries’ goals and purchasing requirements differ from those of owners. The larger the differences, the greater the potential is for wasting your time, efforts, and resources on dead-end sales opportunities. Although you might be dealing with unknowns, beneficiaries have proven they know how to get purchase orders signed. Therefore, you gamble that they have the authority or influence to get more purchase orders signed.
You depend on them to either arrange for you to meet with owners or have them sell inaccessible owners on your proposals. Bottom-up selling works well in established relationships; however, it loses much of its effectiveness with new prospects or customers that do not have proven track records. Where you start the sales process is often where you end up. Always strive to start with owners.
While relying solely on beneficiaries possesses its share of challenges, it also has its fair share of rewards. It becomes harder to make that comment about the individuals found in Column 1 opportunities.
Column 1 Selling
Customers find it easy to fill in Column 1, because all they need to do is the following:
View competitive products as commodities with equal product features and benefits.
Receive proposals from at least two suppliers.
Compare price and delivery differences between suppliers.
Decide if these differences are large enough to warrant switching to a new supplier (overcome the value of an existing relationship) or proceed with the purchase (overcome the cost of changing products or services).