Recently at an onsite sales training session I saw the lights go on for a group of 20 transactional “box slinging” salesmen as to how they would share a value proposition to a C-Level prospect. They’ve had absolutely NO success in setting appointments with C-Level targets and had all but given up trying.
The reason why someone would want to meet with you and allow you to share your company’s value really comes down to creating an interest around increasing success to a level in their company that they themselves can’t create. Additionally, they would want to meet with you because they hear the expertise in your words that assures them that you know what you’re doing.
Boxes are sold mostly because of features, speed, color, pages per month, and of course price. I guess all of those features are important to someone. But in today’s business environment, the higher priority is profitability and growth; in other words, success!
Your company’s reputation, service levels, response times, and feature set are all contributors to your ability to hit your sales objectives. The definition of success can be a hundred things to a hundred different people, but can only be defined by your prospect.
In any training workshop, when I hear a sales rep ask me for a phone script which they can use to recite to a prospect, I immediately know that they do not have the skillset and understanding to be able to deliver a conversation that would earn them a first appointment with a new C-Level prospect.
This is not simply about a predefined conversation. It’s using your expertise and understanding of strategic business matters to assess their needs and create a better path of success for your prospect. One of the greatest challenges in our industry has been to transform our value proposition language from technology to business.
I guess you could say that an MFP has been more of a tactical solution than a strategic solution and over the years that’s how it’s been positioned. But as services infiltrate your marketplace, it’s not the tactical solution that wins the day. Helping an owner or executive team find their next best strategic idea is paramount. Our industry is moving from a tactical value set to a strategic value set.
So how do you get there? I recently had lunch with a friend who owns an office equipment business and he asked the question, “Where do you find the great sales reps, Charles?” He continued, “I can’t afford the mature, more tenured reps, they want too much, so I’ve gone out and recruited younger reps who are affordable and won’t cost me as much. We’re training and nurturing them to be the reps we want them to be!” I asked him about the success of his program. He looked down at the table and said, “Not great.”
There are so many moving parts to this dilemma. How do you drive success in your sales organization so you can drive success in your client’s organization and do it better, quicker and faster than your competition? I can’t tell you how many times I have met with an owner and designed a plan that complements every concern and issue they have on the sales side. But two months into the program, they’ve dissolved back into the organization they had said they didn’t want to be.
IT’S HARD TO CHANGE, but if you don’t want to change, you should just call up a competitor and start giving them your accounts. That way, you’ll save yourself so much anguish and pain in losing deal after deal in the near future. Great companies adapt, morph and transform themselves in a real-time basis. They make the necessary changes to be successful, so they can deliver success to their clients. When someone is successful, you like doing business with them! Don’t you?
Here’s reality in your face, I see it every day. Folks in our industry sell technology and some services, BUT THEY THEMSELVES DO NOT USE THEM, as a rule. Sure the great ones do. But I can’t tell you how many times I see tenured sales reps who have no idea, or interest for that matter, in learning the strategic side of business. The technology that they use in their company is embarrassing, like a 1990’s laptop or there are no superior communication tools to support their efforts. Training is limited to the sales manager riding along with reps as they both fail to secure enough appointments to drive success.
I have conversations every month where a dealer calls me to see if I could sprinkle a little pixie dust on an MPS deal they’re losing and yet they waited until they were losing the deal before they called. Great leaders have always subscribed to the practice of having smart people around them, but you want them around you when you’re planning the battle, not after you’re in the battle. The problem might be that you think the smartest person in the room is the person you see in the mirror every morning.
Of course you’re a very smart person or you wouldn’t be running your own business in this competitive world. But failing to seek outside help to increase your company’s success, for whatever reason, makes you vulnerable to a prospect’s objections, when they choose not to do it either. You both have a similar mindset, and because you can relate to their reasons, you won’t get beyond their objections.
Creating success takes all hands on deck, a proven plan and weekly correction to stay on course. Don’t load yourself down with too many major tasks at one time. Change your business from within with small adjustments of redirect, while you transform your business’ high-level direction in a great way. How many times have you heard a prospect ask you, “Why would I do business with your company?” and you spew out the words they just heard your competitor say in the meeting before you, “We have great service, our response time is only 90 minutes and you’ll have me to manage your account or I’m not going anywhere!” Really! What about a real success story where your success is their success and your answer sounds something like this:
“Mr. Jones, that’s a great question and I’m glad you asked me. At Gee Wiz Technology we decided years ago that the only way forward for us was to research, develop and deliver technology that drives success inside our client’s company.
We saw that helping our clients realize real cost savings, visibility and control from within the technology segment of their business drove real value for them. Thus, everything we do must have those performance characteristics before we would recommend them to anyone. You might say we’re more of a success partner than a technology provider and because of that, 85% of the owners we engage realize those same results.”
Creating success in your company will create success for your prospects. If you do it before your competitors you’ll enjoy that fun in business that very few people do. So tell that person in the mirror tomorrow morning that you need help, that you want to win and go find someone who can help you achieve greater success in your business, which will reflect very well to those prospects who want to drive greater success in theirs. Just like you, they’ll love doing business with someone who is exceptionally successful. Now, go create your success!
