How to Not Lose Your World Cup

The USA Women’s Soccer Team was just handed a stunning defeat by the Japanese Team. How did that happen and can you learn a sales lesson from it? Read on, read on.

So the USA women made two fatal mistakes. First they pushed when they should have realized that had won, they just needed the match to end. So have you ever realized you had won the deal and decided to get it closed right now, only to have it slip away? Sometimes the best option is to know when you are ahead, and act like it. Don’t go into a full prevent defense, more on this in another blog, but don’t take any unnecessary chances either.

 Second, they missed the easy shots. Penalty shots should have a better than 60% chance for a goal. All you have to do is kick it into a big net where the one person isn’t. Sales can be like this too, deals can be lost by missing or not doing the simple things. Don’t lose the big one because you can’t add, spell, or return a phone call.

Don’t collapse, collect.

Phone Sex

Well, not sex really, but sales. All of us learned to sell face to face. Whether it was Girl Scout cookies or used cars, we learned to sell face to face. Learning to read your mark was important, no, critical. Which old lady on the block would by every type of cookie? We all knew her.

So when you sell face to face you can see tells, those eye movements, face twitches, nervous feet, everything you need to steer the sales pitch to keep them in their comfort zone. Most of us now do a lot of phone selling. So unless you are selling with Facetime or Skype, you’ll need another way to do this. So how do you know what your prospect thinks?

The easy answer? Ask. Sounds easier than it is, but not asking is disastrous. Now to be fair, I get called in to do targeted demos…most of the time J. I insist on a list of questions from the prospect, and I get that….most of the time J. This allows me to show an answer to one of the outstanding questions and then ask, “Does this meet your needs”? Really only 3 answers they can give, yes, no, maybe. All can be addressed.

Additionally I ask questions like, can you see yourself using what I showed you, does this match your expectations, will this match your workflows? All of these will not only give you an idea that your solution is on target, but that the prospect is thinking about using your product. Want to know what they think? Ask.

Meet Their Needs or Shock and Awe?

During your needs analysis with the client, you will, or should, discover what features in your solution will meet their needs, and which can blow them out of the water. So do you build your demo, to meet their needs or shock and awe?

This is a tricky point. If you overly shock the prospect they may shut down, too afraid to move. If you shoot too low, another vendor may sweep them away with an amazing presentation. What to do…what to do…

 My philosophy is to win the business then show them the promise land. So meet their needs, get acknowledgement that you have done this, and then discuss phase two. Phase two should start by setting the stage. Show the customer where they are, and where you can take them. Also explain how this is not an all or nothing choice (if it isn’t). The reason for this is change management.

Change Management, in this context, is you managing your customer’s anxiety. I have lost deals I thought were a slam dunk, because it was too much too quick, the owner wasn’t sure his staff could adapt. Managing this type of reaction is change management. Incremental changes, phases, levels, all of these words can help the prospect understand that this “shock and awe” solution can be slowly migrated to, if they wish.

Resist the urge to “blow away” your prospects, or you may “blow up” your deal.

Demo Tourette Syndrome

Does your demo sound like you have DTS? That’s right, Demo Tourette Syndrome. You start out sounding fairly normal, then you start blurting out buzz words, features, and functions. Not pretty.

It has happened to all of us. We all know there are features that will have value to the prospect and may tip the scales in our favor, but… What is one of the keys to a successful technical demo? That’s right, tell a story. Blurting out features does not tell a story, in fact it ruins the flow of any story you may be telling.

So how do we do this, adding some disconnected features to a good demo flow? A little planning is a good start. The discussions you have with the prospect will let you know what features they need to see. If these can be aligned to tell a smooth story, great. But what about the flyers, those features outside of the story? Two stories can be better than one, but even that is sometimes not possible.

Tell your story and get agreement that you have met the primary need, and then say that in addition to all of that, they also will be able to do the following, listing the features and benefits. Hold them till the end, resist the urge to talk about items outside of your storyline while in the same area or module.

Heat Wave or Cold Front?

How are your sales calls treated? Do you come on too strong or too much? Both can cost you deals. So when you call, are you giving heat stroke or frostbite?

Sometimes when I get a sales call, it just feels like the dog days of summer are here. Like I took a wet blanket and wrapped it around my head and tried to breath inside a pizza oven. You know…hot, oppressive, and miserable. This can happen when you come on too much. One call an hour is more than enough. OK, I’m joking. There is a difference between attentive and humidity. What do we do when it gets too hot? That’s right, go to the beach. Heat equals vacation, vacation equals no sale.

Other times when I get a sales call, I swear I could lose my ear to frostbite. The sales jargon rushes out like the winds on top of Mt. Everest freezing everything it touches. Making me want to put on some insulation between me and the winter storm. If your sales contact wants to insulate themselves from you, this is a bad sign. What do we do on a cold winters night? Coat, mittens, hat and scarf. You can’t hear anything in a scarf. If you can’t be heard, they can’t be sold.

This may be a shock, but the prospect is not there for you, you exist for the prospect. When calling make sure say hello and ask how they are before asking about the contract. Maybe you could even call your customers once in a while when you aren’t trying to sell them anything. Think warm spring breeze….

We have liftoff!

What do you think of when you think about the Space Shuttle? Sadly, most people think about one of the tragedies. Not the 133 other successful missions. Not that gleaming white space plane riding a triumphant fire rocket into space. So how was your last demo?

That wasn’t meant to be a sucker punch. It is illustrative of the need to bring your A game every day. We all spend a lot of effort to get into a position where we can show our stuff. Once we are there we need to maximize our time. Even if we can’t sell our stuff this time, will we get considered next time? This demo may determine that.

I have ended up selling stuff to a company I never knew existed because someone sat through one of my demos at another company, remembered it, and call us. You need more than a plan, more than a game, you need your A game.

Thank you NASA for 30 years of amazing Shuttle launches.  

Practicing spontaneity

We have all heard; over prepare to ensure we succeed. Practice, practice, practice. Have you ever felt your demo or sales pitch is stale? Maybe it is over preparation that makes it so. Have you ever had to demo “off the hip” and knocked it out of the park? Why do you think that is?

When was the last time you heard an exciting telemarketing pitch? Me too, never. Why? You were call number 5,432 for that person that day, and they read everyone from the same script. Shoot me now. A little originality and spontaneity goes a long way. Like a good paint, it covers a lot of blemishes and flaws with your demo.

So why don’t we practice spontaneity? Don’t laugh, why? Well I do, and here is how. Don’t practice your demo, learn your product. If you know your product you can deal with any sales demo question or wrinkle. If you know your demo, God help you if it goes off the rails.

Don’t fall into the trap of giving the best demo they never wanted to see.