How To Tell A Successful Success Story

 Articles, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling More  Add Comments »
Mar 272024
 
telling a success story

photograph Credit: Anna Shvets

When reading a book called 7L: The Seven Levels Of Communication by Rick Masters a series of seven steps to tell a “successful success story” caught my attention. A review of the book as a whole is here, but taking a specific excerpt from the book here is how the book suggests someone should tell a success story.

 

It is useful for anyone interested in interpersonal relationships, business in general or sales.

  1. What was the client’s name and specific situation?
  2. What would have happened if you were not involved? Consider the worst case scenario without you.
  3. How did you help solve the problem?
  4. Specifically, what was the result or outcome?
  5. What did the client say or do to let you know you did well for them? Was there a referral or a testimonial?
  6. Based on the above, it is time to ask for a specific and relevant referral. For example, a realtor can ask for the name of someone who may need his or her services.
  7. CTA: Ask the person(s) to take a specific action to make number 6 happen.

 

Things That Need To Go Away: Not Leveraging The Network And Contacts

The Most Desirable Skills Of A Salesperson

 Articles, Marketing, Negotiating, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
Nov 202022
 

curiosity

Many readers of my posts are probably among the people who think a great deal about sales and what makes a good salesperson. It is a constant source for thought and observation. Personally, being a hard worker has always struck me as being the key ingredient to sales success – even over ‘smart work’ or product knowledge. This belief stems from personal experience and my own observations over the years (as well as published research).

 

What made the topic top-of-mind again was a new article on BBC’s website, which posited that curiosity is a trait that drives success. The story pointed out that those who are curious, and show patient inquisitiveness, are more likely to experience academic success, boost earnings and boost memory. These are useful traits for a salesperson and, should help with complex enterprise sales as well, since they enhance the desire for discovery and engagement. Who could argue with those vaunted traits?

My caveat – there is always one – is regarding when curiosity is misdirected and unproductive. Scrolling through Twitter or one’s Facebook feed does not count. Sparking one’s curiosity is important (as is the employer sparking employees’ curiosity), but it has to be directed at the right activities.

 

If sales is the lifeblood of a company and salespeople lead the sales then what other skills are desirable?  How about consistency and focus? How about desire and desire to learn and teach? Well, perhaps ‘desire’ falls into the ‘hard work’ category. I would add presentation skills and sympathy and care to the list. Sympathy and care apply to the salesperson’s feelings towards both the customer and one’s own company. The last quality may encompass this, but let us call out interpersonal and people skills of course. Perhaps these are all fit for individual posts, but what do you think?

 

Things That Need To Go Away: Salespersons Who Do Not Care

Let’s Talk Artificial Intelligence

 Articles, Management, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
Apr 302022
 

 

 

I posted an article on Sales Enablement recently. Much of the modern software used in that niche utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI). So let us focus on AI now.

 

What Is AI?

Firstly, let us understand what AI is. Most of us will think back (forward?) to Arnold, Terminator and Skynet and why not? Machine Learning is a subset of AI, but more precisely Artificial Intelligence is programming that teaches a system to mimic human behaviour and actions, but obviously at a faster and more effective manner that brings with it the consistency of a machine. More completely, AI is a series of networks that leverages statistics and instructions over and over to emulate humans. It is designed to improve overtime as well because the more ‘experiences’ (a.k.a. statistics) it has the more complete it becomes.

One more thing, AI may be all the rage now, but it is hardly new. This notion goes back to Alan Turing and the 1950s. For an early application look up ELIZA from the 1960s.

So What (For Sales)?

The end goal, however, remains somewhat elusive. Systems are not perfect. It is thought that perfection has been attained when humans cannot fathom whether they are dealing with a machine or a human being and results are impeccable. If AI, therefore, includes Machine Learning, analytics, natural language, simulation, learning and interaction then how can it help the profession of sales? Here the idea is to take all the information and transaction in sales – conversations, e-mails, responses or lack thereof, every CRM entry, every sale, every lost deal, et cetra – and put them into one place in order to help the seller. The goal is to identify the correct course of action, the next step, the way to help customers and sellers and to win business. Is it possible? To some extent the answer is yes. The hesitation, however, stems from the unpredictability of human psychology and of course different cultures and needs or wants. Yet, AI is supposed to learn those too because after all, it is all data translated to action.

 

So, Is AI Going To Take Over The World And Rid Us Of Our Jobs (And Sustenance)?

Maybe. Still, as of today the reality on the ground is that AI is here to assist, help, improve and enhance the seller’s efforts not replace it. Put that way, would anyone argue against help? Which salesperson would claim he or she does not need help? One issue, that one can foresee easily, is that AI may be trained to be biased to think like a seller or a vendor. To be successful, this writer supposes, AI needs to think like a customer or prospect. That is the way to successfully sell after all.

 

So Which Are The Tools?

Like any other category, AI solutions are bound to be comprised of the good, the bad and the so-so and trials, proofs of concept and honest assessments are a must. It is smart to gauge results, ask the user community (the sales team) honestly and measure revenue enhancement before committing. Randomly picked, because TNG and SugarCRM are as good or bad as any other to keep an eye on, I have bookmarked this in order to track the revenue for my ‘proof is in the pudding’ hobby tracking, but truthfully the market will speak sooner or later.

 

One last thing. Candidly put whether effective or not, the reality is that the market for AI-driven solutions in sales is going to expand. Just keep in mind how much salespeople have traditionally disliked using CRM and yet the parallel expansion and growth of the sector! One factor that speaks to my hypothesis is the growth of AI in other niches. With increased adoption of AI in healthcare, customer service, arts and more the concept is becoming mainstream, which means more revenue for the sector to enable improvement and also for more people to become more comfortable with the notion.

 

Here goes a list of vendors and providers in the Sales AI space:

 

  • Affinity (including Nudge.ai) – A tracking CRM for industries where relationships are important.
  • Conversica – Provider of a conversational AI. Claims that all its AI Assistants are more accurate than a human. Suited for business development and marketing.
  • Clari – An opportunity management and forecasting tool to offer better visibility to sales teams.
  • Drift – Sales and Marketing conversation at the right time with the appropriate content plus insights especially for inbounds.
  • Exceed.AI (Part of Genesys) – Similar to drift geared towards inbound prospects and leads for sales and marketing, it automatically picks up the conversation, sets appointments and updates Calendars.
  • Gong.AI – Captures and analyzes customer interactions for insights and next steps.
  • Heyday – Tuned for retail, Heyday’s AI connects inventory and catalogue to customer search results and nudges sales to connect with customers when most appropriate.
  • Introhive – Relationship intelligence that leverages CRM to reveal ones network and relationships with customers.
  • Kixie – Automates calling and texting of the names in CRM and records and tracks the events.
  • People.ai – Provides persona-specific productivity tools and provides insights.
  • SalesDirector.ai – Offers predictive insights into sales team’s pipeline and customer interactions.
  • Salesforce – Salesforce, the leader in CRM, has embedded AI in much of its solutions for insights and automation.
  • Saleswhale (Part Of 6Sense) – An AI assistant to engage with and follow-up with leads.
  • VeloxyIO – A platform that integrates e-mail, CRM and calling into one solution and view.
  • Zendesk – Engage with and support customers across a myriad of channels and keep all interactions in one place.

 

*Things That Need To Go Away: AI technology companies that are made to be acquired as opposed to being there long-term to help customers.

Let’s Talk Sales Enablement

 Articles, Management, Marketing, Negotiating, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More, Uncategorized  Add Comments »
Apr 182022
 

 

Sales Enablement has been quite an oft-discussed concept in sales circles for the last decade or so. As the name suggests the concept should be simple. Sales Enablement is the who, what, where, when and how of enabling sales (defined here broadly as inside, outside, SME, enterprise, BDR, etc.) to achieve its goals in general and quota targets specifically. Simple enough. Yet, there is a lot more to helping sales, and indeed the whole company, deliver the value message to customers.

Personally, Sales Enablement for me is anything and everything that enables sales. As such, and for me, marketing is sales enablement. A company executive travelling or getting on the telephone with a salesperson to aid his or her effort is sales enablement. Training is sales enablement, et cetra.

However, there is a niche and segment for Sales Enablement all to its own in the marketplace. The segment is large given how the addressable market is vast. The number of vendors vying for a piece of the pie is large because sales is so crucial to everything everybody does. These vendors and suppliers define the market more narrowly than my definition and seek to inhabit the more focused and accepted definition of what the marketplace for their solutions is.

This narrower definition speaks to tools, solutions, programs, software and content that allow the Sales team to find prospects or take a top of the funnel prospect and convert it to a paying customer at the bottom of the funnel. Yes, it is still multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted, but defined more narrowly than my definition above. And with the advent of technology, Sales Enablement in the hands of its official suppliers and vendors has become more technical, more up-to-the-minute as pertains to the needs of the individual accessing it and more relevant for the type of sale it is accessed for and, notwithstanding the automation of much of it, has become more advanced and scientific. That automation piece is actually important because salespersons do not always have the will or time to engage with the technology proactively. it is a win for the sales team’s time and also insurance that the rights steps are being taken when the solution triggers events in an optimal sequence. Modern AI-powered solutions do wonders sometimes.

The more focused definition is fine and here you will find a list of the vendors in the space as of today. The sentence says ‘as of today’ because by the time this writer finishes this paragraph and hits the ‘publish’ button half a dozen vendors have sold themselves, merged or failed rendering the list dated. This is only half a joke. Another half a joke is how a company that is in Sales Enablement could not enable its sales team to take over the world (yet wants to help everyone else do the same). Yes, it is understood that many companies do not seek to remain or grow. Like any sector, half of the companies out there seek to be acquired and cash out. Here is another quip: it is said (by me) that any company with a a.ai domain is flashing a sign saying ‘buy me! buy me!!’

The list is coming shortly, but first a few bullet points on why Sales Enablement is seriously important and a comment on its integration with other departments.

 

Why are companies adopting formal Sales Enablement programs and solutions?

 

Sales is not an insular position. It needs and feeds everyone else at the company. From the management team to Marketing and Delivery sales needs to be hand in glove with everybody else. Sales and other departments need to be in sync. The right Sales Enablement environment enables this aspect. This is internal alignment.

Similarly, sales needs to be in sync with its prospects and customers. Sales needs to supply the right impetus, content and information to its customers – whether the two parties are speaking currently and directly with one another or not. Sales Enablement needs to ensure that the two sides (supply and demand) are related and relevant. This is external alignment.

Finally, all of this should be measurable and accountable. How many videos professionally filmed and uploaded by companies have you seen that despite clearly having cost time and a monetary bundle in preparation, lighting, filming and editing have a paltry one hundred views (half of which is the producing team)? Isn’t something amiss? Yes, there is. It is not serving the needs of sales or its customers obviously. How many leads from Marketing were garbage? How many quality leads were mishandled by Sales? Why are people not responding to content? These are mere examples of a mismatched Sales Enablement piece of the puzzle that is not performing and is screaming for a programmatic review, be it content-wise, consumption-wise or perhaps even forming an accessibility point-of-view challenge. Things need to be measurable so they can be manageable so we improve and consistently recaliber.

Finally, Sales Enablement should be integrated. The more all the sets of data, material and processes are integrated the more likely for them to actually work, to be leveraged by sales, to save the requisite time and ultimately to contribute rather than detract. Moreover, when all solutions are integrated the company can better measure the effectiveness and garner insight into what is working and what is not at scale.

Perhaps an ancillary reason to adopt these solutions is to recruit salespersons in the first place. Obviously, enablement tools help the team be successful, earn more and treat customers correctly, but what a recruitment tool? A company adopting the right tech can expect to have more successful sales teams and give people more reasons to work there, right? After all, this whole article is about adding value.

 

 

Is there a list of providers and vendors in this space?

 

With that said and without further ado, here is a list of companies in the space. As mentioned, this is narrowly defined and offerings such as marketing-only, training-only or CRM are omitted.  One further ado: Having not personally used all these solutions, inclusion does not equal warrantee that it does what it says. My experience is that several are quite useful and helpful. A few are a waste of time and have proven themselves to be a nuisance. The advice goes doubly for readers who are not in the USA. Contact data are more scarce internationally in many of these tools and process norms do differ from country to country. Also, with the advent of 2023 everyone has joined the AI train and most of the below include it. Review and analysis before buying are your friends.

  • Adapt – Real-time customer data that integrates with your CRM
  • Apollo – Find prospects, segment them and connect with them
  • Avoma – Acts like a salesperson’s assistant and offers note taking, summary, suggestions and even forecasting.
  • Bombora – Buyers’ intent data to understand who is looking to buy
  • CallMiner – Analyses your communication with your customers to drive your actions
  • Chorus – Conversation intelligence to analyse sales meetings and suggest improvements. Owned by Zoominfo since 2021
  • Cognism – Market and Sales intelligence including contact information and intent data
  • D&B Hoovers – Contact information including areas of responsibility and job titles
  • Datanyze – Contact information for businesses and which solutions they use
  • DealHub.io – Share information and quotations with customers, automate steps and track engagement
  • Demandbase – Connects first and third-party data for one view of accounts – now includes InsideView for CRM data management
  • Demoleap – Offers sellers templates, sales playbooks, battle cards and a summary.
  • DiscoverOrg – Contact information and profiles that is integrated with your CRM. Part of Zoominfo
  • Dooly – Organizes opportunity notes and fields and syncs them into Salesforce to share with others
  • Enablix – Connect Sales and Marketing content for data-driven decisions on what content is needed next. Also measures engagement
  • Enthu – Analyses team’s calls and collates them for management for intervention, training or other insights
  • ExecVision – Conversation intelligence and mining platform in multiple languages
  • Global Database – An international business directory
  • Gong – Captures and analyses customer interactions to determine best course of action and areas of hit and miss. Also offers coaching and suggests action items.
  • Groove – Automates sales activities and lightens the administrative burden of sales. It also automates action items
  • Guru – Create, share and access data and within the sales workflow
  • Highspot – Combines content, customer engagement and knowledge sharing in multiple languages
  • InsideSales.com – Playbooks for sales to optimize sales interactions including appropriate contacts and triggers
  • Jiminny – A coaching tool to record, analyse, track and learn from your customer conversations to enable improvement and analytics
  • Klue – A competitor insight platform compiled from internal and external sources
  • Lead 411 – Company and employee contact information and triggers
  • Leadgenius – Scale your outbound by finding the right contacts and lists
  • LeadIQ – Targetted information on potential leads integrated with CRM
  • Lessonly – An eLearning solution including presentation, tracking and assignments. Purchased by Seismic in 2021
  • LinkedIn (Sales Navigator) – A professional networking and communication social media. LinkedIn is a part of Microsoft
  • Lusha – Identify a prospect’s e-mail and telephone number, especially in the USA. It acts as a browser extension
  • Mediafly – Create and enhance your presentations, including trackable links and analytics
  • MindTickle – Identify the right sales behaviour and train the team on it
  • Observe – An analysis of your customers’ audio calls and text communication to derive sentiment signals
  • Outreach – Helps create and manage sales workflows and track them
  • SalesHood – A Learning Management System (LMS) that includes testing and tracking
  • SalesIntel – Helps you identify your prospects with buying intent and provides contact information
  • Seamless – Finds your prospects’ contact and LinkedIn information
  • Seismic – A content management platform that allows Marketing to create and customize sales-related material and for the sales team to discover and brand it for a particular engagement
  • Showpad – Sales content management, training and coaching in one. Track content usage by the customers as well
  • Showell – Content management, digital sales room and sales content analytics in addition to presentation capabilities. They make a free version available as well.
  • 6Sense – Uncovers buying behaviour and information based on web activity, which triggers for ABM efforts. Also offers contact information.
  • Slintel – A market intelligence and buyer intent tool. Part of 6Sense now
  • TechTarget – Identify target contacts and acquire their contact information
  • Uplead – Business and contact data including e-mail verification
  • Volley – Convert leads into customer using intent data and personalization
  • Zoominfo – 360 degree view of customers including intent data and hierarchies

 

Any names missing? Let me know.

One final important note: All applications should be tested for ease of use. Salespeople are busy and dislike spending time when a software is not user friendly. All purchase decisions should take this, as well as utility, into consideration. Need to heavily configure? Need to code? Need to wait minutes for it to load? Need to complete a curriculum to use the application? Need to become versed in boolean search parameters? Skip the tool.

Finally, in my experience, none of these technologies are useful without a sales process. A company must have defined its sales process, targets, territories and coached its team on those before engaging with software.

*Things That Need To Go Away: Sales Enablement solutions that make the sales team neither more effective nor more efficient

 

Should You Try Again?

 Articles, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
May 132021
 

Photograph Credit: Stocksnap

 

Salespeople know the routine.

Telephone call goes out, no one picks up and you leave a message

You hit ‘send’ and the e-mail lands in the customer’s Inbox. No reply.

Third scenario: Customer asked to hear from you or you have a planned next call and the customer is AWOL.

 

What is going on? Should you try again? Should you keep trying to reach the customer? Should you knock it off and pack it in?

The answer is you need multiple follow-ups. There is research that an enterprise sale requires five follow-ups and most salespeople give up too early.  There is also valid research about how cold calling should be warm and messaging should be exciting. Putting those aside, for the moment, if you believe in your solution here is why you need to keep politely trying until you connect or the customer tells you otherwise.

 

10. Your message was just not exciting enough.

You are contacting humans after all.

 

9. You do not get to score/sell if you don’t take the repeat/follow-up shot as someone famously said.

Well, something like that. You don’t see quotation marks around that statement, do you?

 

8. Message was never received.

The electronic dog ate the electronic message.

 

7. Customer knows that he/she is the customer and you are the salesperson.

The customer expects you to put in the extra effort to get the business. The ball is in your court!

 

6. The project has been postponed or cancelled or been given to a competitor who adeptly followed up.

You did not follow-up adequately to either know this or get the business.

 

5. Customers are simply disorganized.

Help their lives by reaching out.

 

4. Customer means to call you (see below), but has lost your number or e-mail.

“What was the salesperson’s name/telephone number again?”

 

3. The e-mail or voice-mail was deleted or buried.

It could have been assigned to the ‘will take care of this later’ column, but time has not freed up yet.

 

2. Customers forget.

We all forget things especially if it is not in our Calendars.

 

1. Customers are at work.

They are busy and have many things on their mind.

 

Things That Need To Go Away: Salespersons Who Have Better Things to Do Than Try And Try Again

 

Cross-Selling And Up-Selling

 Articles, Selling, Selling More, Uncategorized  Add Comments »
Jan 312021
 

In the world of sales cross-selling and up-selling are known and accepted concepts. Or are they?

 

I surreptitiously questioned my acquaintances recently and the concept was unclear to a few. In fact, a couple of folks confused one with the other. So without further ado what is a cross-sell and what is an upsell?

 

Cross-selling is offering a customer additional and complementary products or services. A customer arrives at the local junk food joint and asks for a cheeseburger. The employee asks whether the customer would also like sauce for $1 extra. That is cross-selling. That is a dollar of revenue that the business would not have obtained without the particular act of offering something else for sale. Is it a useful service? It could be. For example, the customer may derive pleasure from the sauce or be further satisfied at home when finding out that sauce enhances the food. This could be a matter of convenience too. Amazon does a stellar job at this. Look up anything or buy any item and Amazon will tell you what else other customers have purchased or what product goes with the one you are buying.

Up-selling is selling a more expensive, larger, grander or fancier version of what is the standard offering or the customer is requesting. This more expensive offering has more functions, better features and is more enhanced. A prospective home owner enters a builder’s sales office and enquires regarding a certain model of the houses available. The salesperson steers the person towards a larger house with an extra bathroom, fireplace and a functional attic. This model costs more and brings in more revenue and profit. Is it a service to the customer? Potentially. The fireplace is handy if the transaction is taking place in a cold region.

 

Cross selling or up selling may work or not. They may be useful or not. It is up to the seller to make the suggestion and offer value in return for the higher price. The customer will decide if the value of the additional or high-end item is justified given the price differential.

Coincidentally, the best time to introduce these concepts to customers is not at the tail-end of a sale, but at its start. That is, inform the customer in advance of the availability of complementary or more enhanced offers. Then ask the question and explore the possibilities after the initial sale request has been discussed.

 

Image Credit: Geralt

 

The motions could certainly be value-enhancing and a simple way of increasing revenue. It goes without saying that the seller must have different items and categories in its arsenal to offer its customers for the concepts to be usable.

 

*Things That Need To Go Away: Greasy French Fries a.k.a. Selling Anyone Anything They Do not Need 

How To Create A Sales Territory Plan – And A Template

 Articles, Management, Marketing, Prospecting, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
Oct 182020
 

Writing a Sales Territory Plan – as opposed to a Sales Account Plan – is conceptually not difficult. As a salesperson you are handed a territory and you would like to figure out where you are (point A) and like to get to a result (point B). How to get from point A to point B is the plan.

Below and attached (Scroll To The End Of This Article to find the link) is a cheat sheet for you. Please consider several items.

  • It is important that the plan is frank and realistic.
  • It is important that the plan has specifics and is time-bound.
  • It is most important that the plan is implemented with on-going action. One too many plans are make-work projects that are ignored or forgotten thirty seconds after they are presented. The plan is there to help you succeed so you would do well to take it seriously if you take your job seriously.

Here is an outline of a Territory Plan:

Page 1: Title Page

  • Place Your Company Logo
  • Add Salesperson’s Name
  • Add Date

 

Page 2: Contents

  • Targets/Goals
  • Analysis
  • Existing Accounts
  • New/Prospect Accounts
  • Action Plan
  • Guide To Terms And Filling This Plan out

 

Page 3: Target And Target Breakdown

  • Numerical Targets/Goals
  • Break down into periods as needed
  • Existing Accounts
  • If applicable
  • Prospect Accounts
  • If applicable
  • Gap-To-Goal (based on above)

 

Page 4: Target Analysis And Insights

  • SWOT Analysis Of Territory
  • Priorities
  • How will you take advantage of the opportunities and counter the weaknesses

 

  • What works/what does not work
  • What will you do differently
  • What do you need to make it (i.e. your goals) happen?

 

Page 5: Existing Accounts

  • What does the territory look like?
  • Biggest accounts
  • Biggest account potentials
  • Break-down by size or geography or kind

 

  • Success Components
  • What needs to be done?
  • What tools are available and will work?
  • What is selling/what is not selling
  • What drives business?
  • Other

 

Page 6: New Accounts/Prospects

  • Prospect Names
  • Which industry, size or kind they are in?

 

  • Top # (insert a number here) Target Companies (Prospects)
  • Industry (if more than one applies)
  • What Do They Currently Own?
  • Have They Been Contacted by you? If not, when will you contact them, how often and in what intervals?

 

  • Other Prospects Contacted?
  • Industry?
  • Why Are They A Good Candidate for you?
  • Updates?
  • What is next and what do you need and by when?

 

Page 7: Action Plan

  • Consider SMART
  • Tactics
  • By When
  • Milestones
  • Resources Needed

 

Page 8: Guide

  • Consider SMART when thinking about the above
  • SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound: no vague inputs
  • Think in terms of milestones and break your actions down
  • Consider resources and input needed and think whether they adhere to the above concept

 

  • A Territory Plan has you starting at Point A (where you are today) and takes you to Point B (where you need to be).
  • Know your goals therefore
  • This is specific to your territory. There is not a universal formula that applies here

 

  • SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat

 

Feel free to download the attached and either use directly or copy/paste it into a slide deck of your choosing.

*Things That Need To Go Away: Planning That Occurs Only During The Presentation Session And Is Then Forgotten

Are You One To Speak Too Much?

 Articles, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
Sep 082020
 

Sometimes salespeople assume they know what matters instead of asking. Sometimes salespeople trip themselves up by creating objections. Occasionally, salespeople speak too much and when one speaks one is not listening.

 

There are several good reasons for salespersons to speak less. Yes, speak less. It is difficult to imagine, but it is true that salespersons speak too much. It is ingrained in their DNA. Yet, this trait goes back to an older time when the customer was less informed and could not educate him or herself. The balance of power has shifted and buyers have other avenues of educating themselves. Imagine a hiring manager who interviews a sales position candidate and decides to hire the candidate who speaks less. Sounds strange, right? It should not be. Let me explain.

1- Speaking less may be a sign that the salesperson has done his or her homework and is looking for more information and more insight because there is much that he or she has already discovered. It is also respectful and beats the heck out of lecturing a customer. To be clear, that is different from a salesperson who is quiet and rarely speaks.

2- Speaking less may coincide with a candidate who asks more questions and shows a keen ability to look at responding to the challenges of the buyer (could be an interviewer). The pitch has to align to the customer’s (could be hiring manager) needs. It should not be random or assumed to hit the bull’s eye. Who does not like a person who asks good questions anyway?

3- Speaking less also reduces objections. The more one speaks the more objections may pop up. Here is an exaggerated example to illustrate the point:

  • Salesperson: May I obtain the purchase order from you today?
  • Buyer: Yes, as a matter of fact I have it ready for you.
  • Salesperson: That is fantastic …
    • … I have not received a PO in a while and could sure use this sale or
    • … You have made the right choice. We are the number one provider of widgets in the country or
    • … That is superb. I will pass it on to your account manager right away and he will contact you in the next two days.

Literally, anything the salesperson says could create an issue and become an obstacle. The examples are endless, but silence would have been golden to avoid, to use the above examples, making the customer think he should not award a PO to a company that does not win any business or may be too expensive because they are #1 and hence there may be a cheaper alternative out there since the customer does not need the highest quality or give the buyer cause for a halt because they were looking forward to working with that particular salesperson and not an account manager who would replace the original salesperson from here on in.

Perhaps the best response would have been ‘… Thank-you. I will wait in your reception area for you.’ Imagine that! Quite different from the salesperson who always needs to get in extra words.

None of the above suggests the salesperson should be silent, uncommunicative or refrain from opening his or her mouth. It simply means asking questions, understanding and being targeted are better strategies than being absorbed in one’s own world at the expense of potentially tripping oneself up.

 

Things That Need to Go Away: Assuming More Words Equal More Stature, Significance Or Sales

List Of Top 5 SAAS-Based Revenue Sources

 Articles, Marketing, Selling, Selling More  Add Comments »
Jun 072020
 

According to Gartner 100% of new market participants and 80% of current vendors will have a SAAS (Software As A Service) or Cloud offering by the end of this year. The market has spoken and no matter what the detractors say – and many of them have valid points – Cloud is where it is at.

This is a bona fide paradigm shift that, in the case of traditional providers, takes the whole of the company to pull off. Let us focus on sales and the available revenue streams for the purpose of this post.

1- Subscription: This is the monthly rent customers pay for use of the service. Sellers may charge by the month or for months or years in advance and make the cash flow more positive in exchange for a multi-term discount.

2- Higher Tiers: Which obviously are more expensive as they come with more features like customizations or customizations’ capability, synchronizations or integrations out of the box or higher ceilings for number of users, data and more. A higher tier may even allow a customer to work offline!

3- Resale: Your partners can resell your Cloud service just like they sold your traditional software or service. Think about all the providers for Microsoft 365 (Office 365).

4- Platform Sales: Think about Facebook’s platform that features so many third-party applications and affiliates that they easily dwarf the mothership. Google and Microsoft do a considerably worse job of this than Facebook and hence derive less revenue from third-party partners than do Salesforce via its AppExchange or Facebook. While it could be a category of its own I will throw in advertising a la Facebook or Google here too.

5- Fees: Set-up fees, support fees, data download fees, diagnostic fees, integration services fees, image fees… the list is endless.

Photograph Credit: Tumisu

SAAS may be low on margin and may offer customers the ability to churn, but you are not subsisting just on subscriptions, are you?

 

*Things That Need To Go Away: Landlords Who Make Money From Monthly Rents Alone And Offering Sub-par Service

 Older Entries