Selling the drama

When you are making your sales pitch is it 100% fact based? Simple ROI and cost analysis? You may be leaving a lot of money on the table by not meeting other needs as well. I know you are saying no and shaking your head, facts are facts and it makes logical sense. Well, it makes sense to you and me, but not everyone buys that way.

  

 You can take the facts and figures and weave them into a story that works on every level for your clients. Letting them know, not only how the solution meets their requirements, but their culture, processes, mindset, industry, you have a better chance of getting the message across to them that your solution is the best solution.

 

So go ahead, sell the drama of their situation and how you can meet and exceed their needs.

 

Well, it IS alcohol…

So two salesmen walk into a bar and the first one orders a beer and the bartender pours him a nice fresh glass. The second one orders a Pink Flamingo Margarita and the bartender pours him a nice fresh glass of beer. The first salesman says, “Well, it is alcohol.”

 

This raised a question to me, are you selling drinks or alcohol? Not sure what I mean? Let me see if I can explain.

 

If you have a bar that sells drinks, you need several things. Special glasses, many different types of alcohol, mixers, fruit, tools, special knowledge, and some customer service. Customers come into your bar looking for a special type of drink prepared a specific way with atmosphere. A complete custom solution.

 

If you have a bar that sells alcohol, you need one thing. Alcohol. Anyone who reads your sign and comes in anyway is expecting no less, or no more. Any type, any kind, anyway. This is the generic basic solution.

 

Well, they both are alcohol……

 

Community Live

All, Sorry I have missed a couple of days, but it is Autotask Community Live time. This is the time Autotask, the company I work for puts on its user conference. This is more than just another industry event. I know, easy for me to say. I work for them. But this is truly one of the events that defines our industry.

Big talk. Well, when you see the partners and vendors and staff all as one community, you know you have succeeded. Barriers get broken down and bridges get built. At the end of the day we are all in the same life raft, who are you going keep out?

Together we can grow this industry, together we can grow your business, together we can change our world.

Know your Job

I have been doing pre sales for some time. I am almost always doing sales engineering, but I have done other sales roles too. Everyone in the sales process needs to know their role, and you can only do one role.

The sales role is process and doing what needs to be done to close, a project manager. The sales engineer is a support person to make that sale happen. While a salesperson can be technical, they cannot be both the salesperson and sales engineer in the same deal.

The sales engineer needs to be seen as a subject matter expert, and disconnected from the sales process by the prospect. Read this as trust. The prospect may trust the salesperson, but, not when it comes to technical matters. The prospects technical staff will never trust a sales person. So if your sales is technical, you may need to call the cavalry. 

Wear a Helmet

What is that up there? Overhead. How much overhead do you have in your sales process that you can do without? I bet more than you think.

There are several items that make up sales overhead. Infrastructure, personnel, and marketing. The whole subject of overhead is a small book, so I am being very simplified here.

Do you need a brick and mortar location for every salesman? Most likely not. Modern systems allow your team to work from anywhere. You may be able to save on rent, phones, computers, bandwidth, electric, etc.

Are all of your marketing efforts generating results? At least carrying their own weight? Just like your services, you have to measure these. Cut the dead wood, focus on what works.

Your personnel most likely cost you the most. Every minute you spend on the sales and presales process is overhead. Are you tracking it? Are you measuring your results? Are you letting your sales staff use a presales engineer when they aren’t needed? This is a double whammy. Not only do you gain overhead, generally you lose billable hours at the same time, ouch.

Help me…Help you

I bet you have a sales engineer like me. Someone you can ping and have jump on a call, leaping tall buildings and saving the day. He hates it too. Well, we don’t hate helping, but we hate not being ready. So what can you do to have us ready?

First, do be the lone wolf. We are a pack. If you think you may need some help, ask, before you need it. The sooner we are involved, the easier to keep the issues in check. If you have any thoughts that you will need our assistance at any point in the process, get us involved early.

Don’t act like the meeting is a birthday party. Surprise! Schedule a meeting with us before the meeting that includes the client. I mean not 5 minutes before, but maybe 24 hours at least. Now if we don’t know something needed to help you close business we can find out, not tap dance and hope.

Yes we can help, yes we can help even with no prep, no we don’t like it.

The Morning After

Oh no what did I do? Have any of your clients had that feeling? Buyer’s remorse. If that has happened to you, why? Have you done something wrong, or skipped something, in the sales process? Maybe not, but yea, I bet you did…

If you have moved the sale forward with a professional sales process, you should have overcome or answered all of the objections. Nagging objections = buyer’s remorse. Did I see enough competing products, is the price fair, does it do what I need, should I have asked my boss? All of these objections should have been discovered and overcome very early in the sales process.

Now what? Can you say resell? Listen to the client, address their concerns and reclose.