Managing Customer DecisionsA Salespunch™ team member had attended a joint sales visit to one of our client’s largest customers. The salesperson asked for some feedback as they settled down to discuss the meeting in a coffee shop. “Do you believe you are selling a business service?” Salespunch™ asked. “Yes”, said the salesperson. “In that case then, the man we’ve just seen is doing the selling for you.” The facts of the matter were: Managing the Decision-Making Process- We were dealing with only one person in the procurement area – at best a middle manager.
- We were told during the meeting that a new team of senior executives had recently arrived and were making their presence felt
- The service concerned touches many people in the organisation and arouses real emotion – none more so than at the very top of the business.
As the conversation developed it quickly became clear that our client was very exposed with only one meaningful contact, and in an increasingly commoditised position. A short summary of our recommendations during the planning discussion which followed looked something like this: Planning for Sales Success - Assess how the decisions are really made within the organisation for your product or service, and who makes them. Make no assumptions.
- Consider those who can recommend and reject but can’t finally say ‘no’.
- Consider who has the power to say ‘no’ when others say ‘yes’ and vice versa.
- Consider who feels the pain when things go awry, both literally, and in a line management / departmental sense.
- Identify these people and capture the information for planning purposes.
- Dissect what you have for the organisation which plays to your core competitive strengths.
- Slice this up in relation to the categories of player above.
- Agree who needs to be approached, how, and by whom.
- Give priority attention to what it is about what you have dissected that should be of particular interest to your targeted contact – this will be the basis of your approach.
Call Salespunch™ to arrange a no obligation exploratory discussion to identify your challenges in reaching the right level of your customers’ hierarchies and how Salespunch™ can help you to raise your sales game. Contact Salespunch™ - Now! |
A Salespunch™ tool to identify where the key decision-makers sit within a grid mechanism which identifies how much influence each has over a decision, how receptive they might be to your message, their level of support for your solution and thus what actions you can take to pro-actively manage the decision-making process. Contact Salespunch™ for more information on how to analyse the decision-making process.
“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.” --Sir John Harvey-Jones Unless you are incredibly deft at all things sales (and sufficiently arrogant to even think about admitting this) you should be systematically planning each sales meeting you attend – at the very least, the first visits / contacts within key accounts. A wing and a prayer or ‘lunch and fingers crossed’ simply doesn’t cut it any longer. Your contact will spot your lack of preparation and make you pay for it with difficult questions and, in all likelihood, no sale. Click here for more
A couple of things about ‘pitching’…… - It’s a word we’ve adopted from the U.S. – it really means ‘to present your case’ – probably quite vividly. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pitching your case. You should be able to pitch your product / company / service – BUT
- .......at the right time… and that is usually the BIG problem
In our experience the THE NUMBER ONE mistake that many (even most) salespeople make is that they pitch much, MUCH too early. Click here for more To arrange an exploratory conversation with your coach, please contact Salespunch™ - Now! 01883 621088 |