Are Women Better Salespersons?

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Oct 222009
 

When I found myself in a sales supervisory role several years ago my team comprised of both males and females. While this would not be true across the board, something that soon became apparent was that there is a sales technique and methodology difference within the group.
Men, largely, leaned more towards the more assertive approach of being forceful and aggressive, while women seemed to operate more deliberately and by the book.

Could this difference in approach be more universal? Do men sell more aggressively, while women follow a recipe or methodology? Perhaps the behaviour is correlated to recent findings that men think more sequentially, whilst women are multi-taskers?

The question could soon, in turn, become ‘do women sell better?’ Theoretically, women should be more successful for playing by the rulebook and appearing more detail-oriented? Following the methodology should bring success. This dynamic has played itself at more than one company under my observation. Having discussed the phenomenon, I have found other sales managers having observed the same.

Yet, women have not necessarily been sales leaders. If true, is this due to a lack of skill or will? Perhaps women have, in fact, had above average success.

A recent article in the daily Vancouver Sun highlights this finding as regards the Real Estate profession. It is not exactly classified information that women form a higher percentage of professionals in the real-estate game than the average industry. Reasons given include women’s love for design, decoration and general liking for homes. Additionally, buyers who see them as more diligent and knowledgeable in the field might consider women better sellers of houses.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/women+sell+better/2082572/story.html

The article not only highlights several female realtors, but also points out how successful each is. The featured professionals are happy to highlight their sales numbers and superlative achievements.

Does this apply to sales in other fields? Do women indeed make better salespersons? Should they be encouraged to enter the profession in greater numbers? On the other hand, does the profession manage to put off women, as does a career in (say) the law? Women have been leaving legal practices for, among other reasons, the propensity of the job to be high-pressure, demanding and requiring long hours. Consequently, do women ‘not succeed,’ due to sales careers’ requirements, in which they do not wish to partake, in spite of their innate abilities?

woman

Step Number Two: Being Open To All Answers

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Oct 082009
 

I was recently asked a series of probing questions by an executive who was showing all the signs of having thought deeply and broadly about some of the sales issues of the day.

What can we do to increase our sales when we are doing all the right things?

With so few new opportunities out there how do we compel a potential client to abandon their existing solution?

What can we do to increase the favourable response rate to the RFPs we fill out? Not filling them out is not an option and the client refuses to speak with us beforehand!

A good discussion ensued from there. And the more we talked the more I knew that something is missing from the discussion. The missing element: a needed paradigm shift.

A good example of this is Salesforce.com. They were not the first to introduce a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Platform As A Service (PAAS) to the market. For those honours think Siebel, Maximizer or Clarify and Amazon and its ‘elastic computing’ respectively. Yet, Salesforce was the brave company that decided to broadly commercialize a new model in delivery for the CRM. Salesforce.com is still around, but Siebel was sold off to Oracle, Clarify to Nortel and so forth. Is your company/process/sales pitch/demonstration/methodology brave enough to break itself down in order to rebuild?

When is the time to do so? At the height of your success.

If the Requests For Proposal (RFP) are not garnering their fair share of positive responses then perhaps the paradigm shift includes not answering these requests. Many companies have instituted a policy of not responding to RFxs. Why? A hands-off paper-based abstract is not a substitute for understanding your client’s needs and specific requirements. The prospect that denies you this understanding and two-way discussion is probably neither a good client nor will end up buying from you. Are you brave enough to better utilize your own resources?

A partnership, after all, requires two parties conversing, understanding and exchanging information. A buyer/seller relationship is a partnership.

If the customer is always right, then it might be prudent to listen to the manifest actions and reactions of the customer if the old way of doing things is not working.

Between 1908 and 1927 Ford became the world’s biggest automobile manufacturer with its Model T. It had the best workers, the best benefits and sold over 15,000,000 cars. GM took over next. These companies had to lose their coveted status and billions of dollars before they began to reluctantly take action. Shouldn’t they have begun reengineering themselves before disaster hit?

The Business Case For Selling To The Technology Group

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Aug 182009
 

A while ago, I wrote about selling by sitting on the other side of the table. Other Side post

Let us drill down to the IT executive and the increasing pressure from the company’s executive team for all technology investments to be aligned to explicit business strategies. Companies are demanding that IT only ask for money for projects it can prove have a return on investment that positively impacts the bottom-line or other specific and stated goals.

Could you connect the dots for your IT prospect, which they, in turn, can justify to their internal audience?

These are:

  • Understand what the company’s goals and plans are. Example: Lower electricity consumption and energy costs in all data centres.
  • How is the goal calculated? Example: the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) is reviewing the company’s annual million dollar utility bill.
  • How does change management work at the customer’s company? Example: Are metrics presented by IT to the finance committee automatically accepted or are outside agents utilized? Could you present your research metrics or is there another gauge that is needed?
  • Communicate and plot your process and capabilities. Reach an agreement before you set out to create a business case. It is important to have both an assurance from your audience and to include senior members of the IT team to work with yours. The technology team members assigned to work with you should have the trust of the group’s foremost senior manager. This process identifies your product or service’s value and its alignment to company goals and needs, but also outlines the type of time and money required from the customer. Example: A 15% reduction in utility bills includes a 20% reduction in number of physical servers translating into a total saving of $500,000 over two years. The cost for the service: $300,000 financed over two years.

Document, document, document in order to justify. More importantly, keep everyone on both sides notified and have the customer’s own conclusions included.

The joint working project is another opportunity to educate, sell and transfer knowledge between the two companies.

10 Strategies For Selling And Operating In A Recession

 Marketing, Selling  2 Comments »
May 172009
 

1.    Consider Hosted Services, Outsourcing or Cooperation/Collaboration with another service provider in lieu of acquiring new products or adding new services. This way it is possible to offer an immediate service as part of the larger offering and broader service without committing time and capital resource. Obtain an SLA (Service level Agreement) from your provider that ensures your good name is intact with your customer.

2.    Offer two-tier pricing: higher rate is for immediate service and the lower means delayed gratification and priced for the recession. Say you normally charge $175/hour for service. Regular 3-day response can be $125/hour, while the immediate or same-day service is priced at $250/hour.

3.    Use ‘down-time’ to motivate and train employees. Human resource is more important than lip service. Whether it is offering your staff courses, training or coaching now is the time. Make your sales team part of an implementation or service call and the services team part of the sales strategy. Teach everyone how to act in an industry-specific or market segmented way. Can these groups articulate an ROI (Return On Investment)?

4.    Analyse your expenditure and revenue sources. Do some customers/vendors/partners cost you more than they bring in? Now is the time to discover them and ditch them. Be brave about it.

5.    Be Japanese not American! Do not sacrifice short-term revenue for profitability by thinking long-term. Now is not the time for a fire sale. Companies shoot themselves in the foot and are setting themselves up for both a loss now and sustained low margins in the future. Remember: it is the net margin that counts and pays the bills not the revenue coming in.

6.    This is not the time to stand still. Hire the best talent and obtain the best products and services at a bargain. The best talent and acquisition is available now for cheap and probably leads to a higher income than 2% return on bonds in the bank. Buy now and you get a bargain. It sounds simple, but this requires thinking that is confident and against human nature.

7.    Solution selling in a recession does not mean denying the recession. There can be a powerful argument for recognizing the recession – especially when combined with the above notion that now is the cheaper and smarter time to buy. Do not deny that everyone is caught in hard times. The economy is real, tangible and a shared pain for you and your customer. Instead, explore how you product can help lessen the impact of a recession on your customer.
o    Could your Business Intelligence software tell your customer how much exposure they have to a downturn and indeed how much they need to cut (when the economy is on the upswing they can turn the software back to measuring transaction costs or the profitability of advertising, etc.)?
o    Are you in the banking business? Can your service tell customers how much liquidity they need to maintain in order to weather a global recession? The downturn can and must be your friend.
o    Could your manufacturing process tell them firms which configurations need to be produced less of and what the market will demand more of?

8.    Focus on the industries that are better weathering the storm or even profiting by it. Country Clubs might be in trouble, but Tim Hortons sure isn’t. Discrete manufacturing is in trouble, but auctioneers are not. There is a recession in New York City, but did you know that Nebraska has a 4.6% unemployment rate, thank-you very much (New York is 7.8% as of March, 2009).
o    Click here for statistics: http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=state&seasonal=u

9.    Revisit old leads, old customers for more opportunities and when all else fails, generate good will and future business by showing even better customer service now and add to your personal touch. Take advantage of your competition’s turmoil and their lay-offs, which are lowering their service levels.

Remember that it is less costly (some say by 50%) to tap your existing clients than to acquire new ones. Sell more often, sell more dollars on average and collect faster from your existing clients. Can your customer base support a direct referral program that compensates them upon your completing a business transaction with a company they referred?

10.    Don’t be a living self-fulfilling prophecy. Remain active and on the job! Less business requires more work and activity – not less!

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers is quoted as saying, “companies break away during downturns.” Think about it. He guided Cisco during the 2001 meltdown and the Great Recession.

 

*Things That Need To Go Away: Buying High And Selling Low. It Is For Lemmings.

 

Selling By Sitting On The Other Side Of The Table

 Articles, Selling  4 Comments »
Nov 022008
 

Years ago my employer paid me to play a game, er, I mean to take a course.

It was called Decision Base. http://www.pantelisinc.com/decision_base.htm

The courses teaches one to think from the perspective of a business owner or a manager and make decisions about hiring, lay-offs, investment, buying, borrowing and more.
Good idea, isn’t it?

How do your customers make decisions and what forms their strategic vision for their business? Where does your product or service fit in? Think about these components of strategic and tactical envisioning:

Automation: Lower Headcount, Higher Productivity, At-will Availability, Fast Access…
Example: Self-Service Human Resource Management System for employees

Delegation: Line-of-business employees who are given permission to make their own decisions. What does it take to make this happen? The right information, training or workflow perhaps?
Example: A bank manager who – with the right training – can offer a pre-approved loan without needing approval from the headquarters.

Control: Knowing what is happening in real-time accurately through a single source of truth.
Example: Automated alerts via email, mobile messaging or executive dashboards. The accuracy and timeliness of information translates into effective management and decison-making. Real-time knowledge equals quicker intervention.

Presentations – An Interview With Dave Paradi

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Mar 162007
 

-Please speak about your background and qualifications. What makes you credible on the topic of presentations, sales and marketing?

I have been speaking professionally for almost eight years and did training and presentations as part of my corporate job before that. I became an expert in the strategic use of presentation visuals by studying what works, figuring out why it works with audiences, and then explaining how presenters can use these techniques to develop their own slides. Because of this depth of knowledge, Prentice Hall asked me to co-author an MBA text on the topic, which was published in 2006.
Naturally, a lot of presentations are done in the sales and marketing area, so a fair amount of my consulting and training is for organizations that are responsible for sales in a larger company.

-What is the background of your website and what do you feel it adds to its visitors?

I was fortunate to learn early on from some experts what makes an effective web site, so my goal on the web has always been to offer value to those who visit the web site. I have many free articles posted and every issue of my newsletter (over 130 issues so far) is also available on my web site. Whenever anyone signs up for my newsletter (which is also free), they start with a 7-day e-course on proper PowerPoint usage so that they can see if my ideas are right for them. My web site and newsletter have been effective because I can trace most of my clients back to something I wrote for the web site or in a newsletter.

Spotlight On The Presenter

Spotlight On The Presenter

-At a high level when is a presentation is necessary and when it is forced into the process?

In my opinion, a presentation should be chosen as the method of communication when the message needs to get to a number of people at the same time and you will want discussion during or after the presentation. Too many times a presentation is used when an e-mailed report would be better. If there is no discussion necessary, you should use a report instead of taking people’s time to attend a presentation. In any business situation, professionals need to think of not only what their message is, but what method should be used to deliver it.

-What is the single biggest mistake people make when presenting?

In my survey of audience members on what annoys them the most about bad presentations, the overwhelming number one issue is when the presenter stands there and reads the slides to the audience. This is annoying because audience members can read four times faster than the presenter can speak and the presenter is not adding anything new. It is really a waste of time, and people today won’t stand for it. I always suggest a proper presentations structure, including audience analysis, goes a long way to developing an engaging presentation.

-To the best of your knowledge which is the best presentation in history?

There are many great presentations that have been delivered, and since I have not seen them all, it would be impossible for me to pick just one. What I suggest is that after you see a presentation that engaged you the entire time and motivated you to action, ask yourself what did the presenter do that was so effective? Was it a logical argument, was it effective visuals, was it the way they spoke or something else. By collecting your own observations and those of others, you will start to create your own list of what makes the ‘best’ presentation.

-Is PowerPoint the best tool for a presentation?

PowerPoint is one tool, and it may be effective in some presentations and not in others. It depends on what the audience expects, how they prefer to receive the presentation and whether visuals will add to the message or not. If PowerPoint will not add to your presentation, don’t use it. As to whether PowerPoint is better than its competitors, I really can’t say because I am not familiar with the other products. PowerPoint owns around 95% of the market, so that is where my clients want me to focus.

-There are no presentations on your website. Why are documents a better medium?

It is interesting that you make this observation. My web site is really a demonstration of my expertise, and I have found that people still use the written word to evaluate your level of expertise. I recently had some video recorded of me doing some live sessions and I hope to put selected clips on the web site in the near future so people can see some of what I do in a live session. I have also recorded some of my web training sessions, so people can always purchase one of those videos and learn a specific topic at their own pace.

-Dave Paradi can be found on the web. www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com

Looking Forward To… Objections

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Mar 132007
 

Quick, raise your hand if you look forward to customer objections.

Congratulations to those who did for, as seasoned professionals know, objections are a gir… salesperson’s best friend. It is natural of course to dislike, even abhor speed bumps and dread the inevitable objections that prospects raise – unless one is the president of a debating society – but before doing so out of habit pose a few questions to yourself.
Don’t you have objections before you make a purchase? Don’t you need reassurance before you part with your money? Do you ask for a better deal or even haggle? Doesn’t eager questioning imply you are getting closer to making a decision? Then why dislike the natural progression of the sales cycle?

Objection means interest, engagement and frankly a potential sale. A customer who is not raising the bar or posing questions is not likely to work with you.

The experienced professional expects objections and moreover looks forward to them.

-Be ready! Customer objections (for your industry or product) are probably not as varied as you may think. Be prepared for them, make notes of past objections you have heard and review them periodically.

-Do try to remove them proactively. Since we know that they are inevitably coming it is prudent to begin tackling them sooner rather than later. “Horatio, before we go any further, you have to agree with me that we will not be the lowest cost provider in the market. After all, you want to make sure that we remain healthy and viable business partners of yours for years, don’t you?”

-Reassure the customer that their objections are normal, been encountered by you before and that you appreciate their thoughtfulness. Furthermore, despite the objections having been raised before, the people bringing them up are now happy customers of yours.

-Ask exact questions to exactly understand the reason behind the objection. In order to answer the underlying question one needs to understand its extent and to whom they really belong.

-Agree and deflect. Some might liken it to verbal judo: “Horatio, I admit that we will not always be the fastest to deliver, but do you agree that you will not always need delivery 6:00 am the next day?”

The seasoned sales professional is gratified that customers have questions about products and services which they are considering and look forward to assisting customers with their decision.

Negotiation 101-103

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Mar 092007
 

While many commentators, courses and books like to assert that there are hard and fast rules when negotiating the truth is that this may or may not apply.
The caveat applies because different buyers and sellers have different personalities and temperaments and deserve to be treated (some would say ‘handled’) differently. Consider the person across the table from you before you plot a strategy.

Extroverts (let’s say they are energetic, messy, quick and excitable) deserve enthusiastic reciprocation, but an amiable type (generally considered ‘weak’) would need a more considered tone and a slower pace. An analytical person (details, details and more details) would demand the same, while the bossy types would demand subservience and respect.

To make matters more complicated most people fall between two of the named categories and cannot be strictly pigeonholed into one personality type.

Nevertheless, there are time-honoured tactics that apply in negotiations.

*Always aim higher than you would settle for and would realistically get. In the developed world it is accepted that the parties would meet somewhere in the middle – i.e. split the difference.

*Flinch, be upset and hang your head in shame. Do so when being pressured and squeezed.

*Take every advantage of reminding the other party why you and your good or service is unique. They may be forgetting why you are there, but it all bears reminding.

*Do not accommodate easily. You would probably leave business on the table and, what’s worse; imply that the other party did not negotiate well.

*Promise something in the future, but obtain something now. Giving away future concessions, but obtaining business today is often advantageous.

*Last, but most importantly, feel free to terminate negotiations or refuse the business. The right to refuse unprofitable or uncomfortable business is yours. Take advantage of this negotiation tactic or perhaps it is not a negotiation tactic at all!

Reaching A Prospect – Last Call

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Feb 242007
 

Ever tried to reach a prospect without any luck whatsoever? Of course, everyone in sales has. When is a good time to reach someone? It is unreasonable to call their number every hour of every day hoping to find the person at the office and available. What can one do if leaving a voice-mail has already been tried with no reaction at the other end?

If all else has failed send an e-mail and require a return reciept to it.*

If you have the prospect’s e-mail address send them an e-mail explaining your request or send follow-up information and request a return receipt. Your e-mail program will let you know as soon as your message is being picked up and read by the party on the other side. Your client is in the office and at his or her desk. Wouldn’t now be a good time to pick up the telephone to call?

The client is reading your e-mail and you can mutually decide whether there is reason to pursue the relationship. Technological limitations aside, reaching a person when one knows he or she is available and on the computer is a good time to decide whether there is a process to pursue or it is time to move on.

*In Tools>Options in certain versions of Microsoft’s Outlook
*On the actual e-mail window pane on certain e-mail programs.

Specifics Versus Generalities

 Articles, Selling  1 Comment »
Nov 182006
 

Everyone knows that in order to sell successfully one needs information about the prospect. In order to position oneself and one’s product any salesperson needs to know the target’s needs, scope, budget and time-lines. That much everyone knows, but what most do not know is how immune the buyers have become to questioning and the gathering of information.

This is why it is important to ask one’s questions with a slightly different bent and to include certain keywords. Having a variation on the theme is important. It is clear that one cannot and should not ask the exact same questions the prospect has already heard from the competition and during previous engagements.

Focus the questions on the prospect’s environment. Firstly, people want to talk about themselves. Secondly, you need the information to determine a strategy and thirdly, a prospect, which has little time to speak with you, is probably not going to buy.

Ask the prospect “specific” questions. “May I ask you several specific questions about your growth strategy?” Notice the added emphasis. “Can I find out exactly how many servers you are anticipating for your operations centre?” Again, the line of question is not vague or general. Notice the use of the word ‘exactly.’

Likewise, set yourself and your company apart by offering ’specific’ differentiators. Are you willing to offer a same-day service beginning with yourself? Will you ready everything on the same day even if it means working late? Does your company do the same in order to secure the customer? It is not difficult to understand why a customer will begin to believe in your service given the actual and tangible differentiation here, which goes beyond the competition’s vague promises and statements. Service that is delivered and not promised is specific and different.

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