Poorly informed sales calls are bad for business

from iamhilarious.com

I share with you today two very embarrassing stories, not because I get pleasure out of doing so, but to prove the value in sales intelligence and doing your research before a business call. Thankfully, neither of these are my own tales of awkward torture so I shall refrain from naming any names. Rest assured though, both prove the advantages in monitoring who you're selling to and making sure you've qualified the value in the call you're making.

Story 1) This story was taken from Sales Pop
An IT sales rep calls a potential client trying to sell a SAP upgrade. He thinks he has all the answers. He is wrong...:

Prospect: "You know what version of SAP we are running?"
Salesman: "Yes I do. You are running ____"
Prospect: "You know what we are planning to upgrade to?"
Salesman: "Yes. To version ____"
Prospect: "Do you know when we plan to do the upgrade?"
Salesman: "Yes I do."
Prospect: "And you know my email ID and direct line as well?"
Salesman: "Yes. I have been trying to reach out to you for 2 months now."
Prospect: "Good job. Now what you need to do is. Erase all that information
you have and don’t call me back, coz we just signed a contract yesterday with another company!!!"

Story 2) Sometimes just cold calling isn't enough. It may be an idea to qualify who you're calling first, to save yourself time more than anything:

Salesman: Have you thought about your companies logistics provider at all?
Prospect: haha, yes.
Salesman: Sorry, did I say something wrong?
Prospect: No, not really. It's just we are a logistics company...

Now of course, the likelihood is (fingers crossed) that you won't face such horrendous phone conversations but knowledge of who you're calling still comes in handy. Saying the wrong name, asking for someone who doesn't work there anymore, or simply failing to acknowledge a key piece of news surrounding that company turns noses up very quickly. Likewise, if you're wasting time selling to people who don't need or want your product you're losing time you could be using to sell to genuinely interested prospects. Knowing who you're selling to is just as important as knowing what you're selling, just ask the two examples above.

Cost and value - It's a two way thing

From Search Engine Watch

There is an ancient sales formula that even the most hapless of mathematical incompetents can understand. Cost + NO value = FAIL. It would appear that some people refuse to take notice of this formula. Exhibit A for example (see graph) is a demonstration of cost + no value in action. The Times decided they were struggling under their current business model. They changed it to suit themselves. They added no value. What is the customer gaining from this process?

A survey by KPMG has found that 81% of UK consumers don't want to pay for digital content. But that is not the interesting piece of the research. That is to be expected. A UK online consumer is used to free. Why should something offering the same service suddenly cost? To be honest, I'm surprised the figure isn't higher. No, the interesting piece of the survey was the constant referral to UK consumers being happy to give up personal data, as long as the process BENEFITED them with a more personal online service:

Cost(personal data) + value (personalised service) = Result

The valuable lesson here is that customers do not want to bend to suit your requirements. They want you to bend for them, to suit their needs. Customers are happy to pay costs providing you add value...To them, not you. It is a very simple formula. Perhaps right about now someone at the Times has just uncovered this ancient phenomena...And they're probably crying in despair.

A sales cold call...90% research?

I've been fortunate enough to work in a few different industries, although slightly less fortunate that one of those industries happened to be estate agency (please don't stop reading, I'm not one anymore!). It seems that all the jobs so far have had one thing in common, one constant. Someone, early on in your role will sit you down and say 'you'll pick it up, it's just about doing your research.'

I would love to hear of a profession where the boss would enter the office on Monday morning and say 'for the love of God guys, no one do any research!' because I simply don't think it exists. Research is the backbone of any industry, of any business, of any success story. In a past life I learnt how to write feature length film scripts. We were taught that the project consisted of 90% research and 10% writing. If you don't know what you're writing about, how can you possibly bring a script truly to life?

I'm pretty certain a similar percentage applies to a cold call. One of the keys to doing research in scripts was to bring characters to life, develop their backgrounds, and establish their underlying needs and desires. The same can be said for a cold call. If you jump in and start the story without knowing what your character wants the script's going no where. To bring context to a call you need to figure out why you're calling. If the character's (customer's) desire is to have your product then why? What are they getting out of it?

Research is fundamental in success, across all industries. As my teacher used to say, 'if you can set up an intriguing back story, the plot just comes naturally.' Translated into sales terms, 'know why you're calling, and the sale will flow much smoother.'

Are you seeking out the sales?

It's become quite easy to make excuses these days. 'Times are tough', 'no one's buying' and 'everyone's waiting to see what happens' have been mixed with the old classics like 'it's summer, summer's always dead.' This cocktail of negativity makes it far too easy to slump at your desk feeling rather sorry for yourself and not really put 100% into a sale. And don't get me wrong, times ARE tough, and you'd be perfectly within your rights to throw in the towel, turn off the lights, and do all those other stereotypical things related to giving up (how about growing one of those famous Hollywood beards that say 'I'm down and out'?)

But what people should remember is just because the market is tough doesn't mean your service is no longer required. In fact, it's almost completely the opposite, especially if you're a cost cutting service. Yes, people are less willing to throw money at solutions but I can guarantee that everyday a company is suffering a pain that needs fixing by your product or service. The problem is finding the ones in this pessimistic market willing to make that change.

That's where sales triggers come in. Identifying potential customers that are crying out for help, or locating new managers that are looking to make big changes in their department, even potential customers falling over hurdles because they've yet to discover what a company like yours can offer. They are out there, I see it everyday. So don't take the easy route. Don't fall back on excuses. Do something different today. Of course, I recommend automating the search for triggers because I've seen the power it can have. But I'm not just talking about that. Instead of slumping back in your chair and letting things get you down, do something positive. Chase a sale. They are still out there...

Find a lead today

Where is your sales organisation heading?

Most people assume that installing a CRM system will solve all sales performance issues, in a similar way to most men assuming that buying a flat pack wardrobe means you instantly have a brand new, wonderful looking wardrobe. Anyone who has sat with an Allen key, a piece of wood that simply doesn't make logistical sense, and a sense of self pity will know this simply isn't the case.

The problem is, there is a lot of useful data to take in and as an expert on the subject suggests, CRM systems "treat their own data like an island. Useful sales analytics can only typically come from bringing together information from Sales, Marketing and Finance systems." The fact that they don't combine effectively means analysing your sales performance can actually be much more challenging.

Of course, the emergence of systems like Salesforce mean we can track more data than ever before but if you were to ask a sales manager if he knew which sales tactics were working best, or which customers are proving more profitable using just a CRM system alone, he'd probably struggle to start the sentence without the line 'probably this' or 'probably that'.

There is now a free assessment online for sales leaders to assess themselves relative to their peer groups across a carefully selected set of sales performance metrics. It's a really useful ten minutes worth of time so I'd recommend giving it a go. You'll probably be more than a little bit interested in the results too...

Take the assessment

Start-up of the day II

Delighted to report that Artesian have once again been selected as the Microsoft Bizspark start-up of the day, for the second time this year. Following on from the pitching victory at the Microsoft European summit and the 'cool vendor' award handed down from Gartner it all adds up to a great year thus far (insert excitable dance on table here).

You can see the interview with CEO Andrew Yates and some more footage from the Paris event earlier this year over on the Microsoft bizspark homepage.

Also, don't forget to take the media monitoring quiz over on the right hand side of this blog. Well worth a couple of minutes and will be covering solutions to most individual questions at a later date.

Putting weight behind the need

Yes, this is a tenuous link to a cold call...

Reading a lot of sales blogs, a common piece of advice thrown around is think about what your prospective customer is getting from the call, rather than just what you're getting. It's very easy to go in with the objective of 'selling my product or service' but harder to put yourself in the shoes of the other person in the conversation. One thing it's safe to presume is that they won't start the call thinking 'you know what, I really fancy throwing some money at something today.'

Now of course, you can approach this one of two ways. A simple approach would be to call and ask the prospect what their pain is and what they're looking to improve on or what they need. But the problem with this approach is A) it's time consuming - and your prospect might not want to spend a whole load of time with you, and B) it can lead you down paths you weren't expecting. Yes, you can learn what they want but on the spot you've then got evaluate how your product or service best suits their need.

The second approach is to use a trigger event. This, to me at least, seems the far more productive approach. Before you start the conversation you know what the pain is because you've been alerted to it by the sales trigger. You've had time to prepare a reasonable proposal to fix it and, you're not taking up hours of your prospects time learning about them. What's more, you look on the ball and competent, which last time I checked goes down quite well during a sales pitch.

By using trigger events you can put yourself in the customer's shoes much easier meaning you can understand much more what they want from the call. It seems a no brainer to use them, especially when you no longer have to search for them...

Trigger events webinar

Just a heads up from me today really. Whilst I am in no way connected to this event (other than being extremely interested myself) trigger event experts Craig Elias and Tibor Shanto are running 3 webinars at no cost looking into the idea of sales triggers and their benefits.

Again, if you're thinking to yourself 'what a marvellous idea, a stroke of genius' I unfortunately can't take the credit as I'm merely the messenger boy but it looks like they could certainly be worth your time. Here's a link to the full agenda and the registration page - HERE

I will be attending (is that the right phrase for an online seminar? Logging in at least) and will doubtless be tweeting myself silly pre/during/post event so connect with me @artesians if you want to discuss the key debates surrounding the 3 sessions.

Losing customers to make a profit? Not a model I'd want to follow

The debate rages on over the Times Online putting up their 'pay wall.' Being so strongly against the move I often entice people to come back with lines like 'they don't care how many consumers they lose, at the end of the day it's about the profit they make.' That's fine, and I can absolutely see that in the short term getting some people to pay for what used to be a free service will increase figures on a graph. But all they're doing is putting a plaster over a deep wound.

The model they are using is completely wrong, stuck in the past and not sustainable. I'm putting my neck on the line when I say this but I remain so confident of this that I'm prepared to be paraded around with a dunce hat on should I be proven wrong. Paid Content give this evaluation of how many users they're likely to lose, which I feel doesn't even touch the surface of the real impact.

No one can tell me losing 95% of your audience can possibly be a good thing long term and just think about the implications that has on advertising revenue. 'Oh, yeah guys, we've lost the majority of our consumers but you didn't want your advert to reach the masses anyway did you?' And, what exactly are the Times offering that is any different from the other newspapers? If they had a catch, a bonus that set them apart from other FREE news providers then maybe, but if, as Paidcontent suggest, 31% of online newspaper traffic is direct, how many will start going directly somewhere else where they can find content that doesn't cost a sum of money.

If you're in a newsagents and one national paper is free and one is £1 which one would you honestly pick up? Why do the more expensive Sunday newspapers feel the need to fill their weekend editions with endless free DVDs, supplements and prizes? Because they feel they need to offer more to charge more. Are the Times doing that? No.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. The model is massively flawed and lacks any creativity. It's a desperate reaction you can almost compare to that of a street vendor charging for the privilege of looking at his stuff, just because his stuff hasn't sold too well recently. In case you haven't guessed, I really, really hope this 'experiment' fails.

A case of perspective

Reading Dave Kahle's take on sales perspective this morning I became quite fascinated just how much opinion can shape an organisations stand point without anyone actually even realising.

Take this simple story from this mornings papers for example. Three very different takes could lead to a company reacting to the news in 3 very different ways:

TAKE 1) The Daily Mail

Former BP chief brought in to axe jobs in Whitehall and save taxpayers billions of pounds

Controversial former BP boss Lord Browne has been parachuted in as the Government's chief Whitehall axeman.

This to me is negative. It draws you to the point about jobs being axed and refers to Lord Browne as controversial, immediately raising doubts over the appointment.

TAKE 2) The BBC

Ex-BP boss Lord Browne to lead Whitehall reform

Former BP chief executive Lord Browne has been appointed to oversee moves to make Whitehall "more businesslike".

Very neutral, the focus is solely on the appointment and mentions nothing about making cuts or job losses.

TAKE 3) Blog Karameloo

Former BP chairman unveiled as ‘cut chief’ to save billions of pounds of taxpayers money in Whitehall

The so-called ‘Sun King’, who was Tony Blair’s favourite businessman, has been asked to use ruthless business methods to save billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

Very positive overall, reference to 'favourite businessman' gives him some acclaim whilst the story focuses on saving the taxpayer billions of pounds. Again no mention of axing jobs.

Imagine if you're tasked with delivering this news within an organisation. Of course, people can think for themselves, but by simply collecting the news from one source, are you getting the full perspective on the story? Because ultimately you're consuming a journalist's opinion. Automating the search means you have the time to view the article from several stand points, analysing in greater detail the implications of the news. It's another advantage to saving hours of daily time hunting down information. With everything delivered to you, it becomes detail to ponder over, rather than detail to find.