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JUNE 2005
Courageous Conversations with Your Clients
When was the last time you had a real conversation with the senior managers of the companies you call on? It takes courage to sit down and talk with people face to face, asking questions that matter; questions that allow you to understand the real needs of your customer, how relevant your experience is to solving their problems, and engaging at a level that allows you to know exactly where you stand. We frequently hear the words, "Call high - at the CXO level". But how many people actually speak with CXOs on a regular basis? The fact is, this is the exception. And why is it the exception? Simply because we are afraid we have nothing important to say. As a result, we find ourselves waiting to hear back on opportunities with no idea what the outcome will be. How can you avoid this? Here are four things you can do today to change this for Q3:
1. Come prepared to talk about business issues
IT Administrators like technology, but to the average business person, "cool technology" is a Time Trap according to Todd Duncan, author of the best seller Time Traps. Nothing against technology, but real conversations with real business people have to, by definition, center around real business issues. This takes time invested in understanding the markets you are serving. You have to understand the language these businesses speak if you are going to understand the issues they are up against. There are two things you can do. First, start reading about the businesses you are working with and crafting interesting questions that lead to business conversations. Second, take every chance you get to talk to business people about their business. The more you do this, the more comfortable you will be when the opportunity comes. What if business people aren't showing up at your meetings? Talk business anyway. The best way to move up the ladder is to arrive with interesting business questions that the technical people can't answer. They will happily usher you up to the bosses office.
2. Stop hiding behind PowerPoint
Whoever decided that PowerPoint was a good tool for sales calls was wrong. Any form of formal presentation eliminates any possibility of having a real conversation. I am not saying you shouldn't use PowerPoint for anything, I am saying you can't have a conversation over a slide show. Why do we continue to see this on every sales call ? PowerPoint allows a sales person to walk someone through a product set without having to understand anything. The words are there on the screen, the lights are out, and the pictures are generally pretty. What PowerPoint really does is create a wall between the sales person and the buyer. It puts a number of features in front of a potential buyer in hopes that they will see something they need. If you want to understand the needs of customers and where your value really is, the best thing you can do is to put away the slides and start talking to your customers. When you decide to engage in solving a problem, use PowerPoint to communicate the details of your recommendations.
3. Insist on talking to the decision maker
If you are not hiding behind PowerPoint, chances are you are you hiding behind the IT manager or worse, the systems administrator (SA). Its easy to call on SAs; they love free lunches, they love learning about new technology, and they love the feeling of importance. I know because I used to be one. It was a common practice to work toward two or three lunches each week and perhaps a golf game on Friday. But I was not the only beneficiary of this relationship. The sales person benefited too. They were able to report several meetings each week with significant companies, forecast large product opportunities, and they too were able to play more golf. Unfortunately, these opportunities never seem to go anywhere; there were never any decision makers involved. Understanding the business needs of a company and getting to a point where you are actually bringing significant value to the companies you serve requires courageous conversations at the economic buyer level. The job of the sales person should be to understand the needs, find the person responsible, and find a way to create a win/win relationship between the two companies. Start asking to speak to the people who make the decision. Its not going over the SAs head, its consulting with the business level people affected by the solution you are trying to provide. One way to move up is to stop creating proposals for people who can't buy anything. Tell them you need to speak to the people responsible for the business systems before you can propose.
4. Maintain control of the selling process
Finally, when the customer wants to see a proposal, the tendency is to create a proposal and email it over or drop it off on the SAs desk. At this point the sales person has completely lost control of the opportunity. After putting in hours of work, it makes sense to maintain control of the proposal. It takes courage to maintain control, but wouldn't it be better to know where you stand. Our hesitancy here is that, not knowing, leaves hope that something will happen. If we insist on talking to the decision maker to deliver the proposal, they may say no. Again, writing proposals just to send over is generally a waste of time. Insist on this being a partnership.
Courage is the opposite of fear. It is fear that keeps us from wanting to know where we really stand in the selling process. Fear keeps us from wanting to know if our solutions are really worth buying, and fear keeps us from wanting to know if we are losing the deal. As long as we don't know, we can pretend everything is at 50% probability. But we can't afford to do that in this market; the stakes are too high. Close ratios often run at 10% - wouldn't it be better to know? Your time is valuable - as valuable as the decision maker's you are calling on. As you prepare for Q3, start thinking about how to turn the unknown prospects into known entities. Either you have real value for them in your solutions or you don't. Start spending your time in the places where you bring real value and see it through to the end.
Please pass this on to anyone you know who is working to build a profitable solutions business today. Consider having David Stelzl speak at your next quarterly meeting or customer event. Create a value proposition that positions you as the expert and attracts new clients. Consider hiring a professional coach to accelerate the process. |
