Category Archives: Client management

How to sell effectively in the digital age

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I recently read a fantastic article titled “Why Top Sales Reps Will Be Unemployed In 2 Years” (posted by Steve Loftness), in which Steve highlights that the buying environment has changed but the sales force has failed to adapt.

He uses Rick and Domina as the two distinct types of sales people around today. Rick is your traditional salesperson, whilst Domina is the evolving (or 21st century) salesperson. Rick relies on his years of experience, whilst Domina is focused on self-improvement. Rick knows what the customer wants, whilst Domina works with the customer to identify their pains and needs. Rick has a LinkedIn account, Domina works her LinkedIn account. And so on. There are quite a few more examples and it is well worth reading through some of them to check your approach and to see if you could benefit from some of Domina’s insight. I certainly did.

Here are few examples:

Symptom Rick (obsolete) Domina (evolving)
Social Network is challenged. Has a hundred or so LinkedIn contacts, but rarely spends time there. Doesn’t even check messages on Linkedin or research prospects. Does not have a twitter account. Built up a large 1000+ contact network over the years. Lately, however, has started to work her LinkedIn network better to focus on prospects.  LinkedIn is her first stop for prospect research. Recently switched her Tweets to be more valuable to prospects/clients than what she did before – tweet about her products and events.
Uses own “tried and true” sales presentations. Although Marketing has supplied multiple versions of sales presentation templates that stress the company value propositions, he insists on adding his own flair and interpretation to sales presentations. This results in reusing his tired inward-out slides that he is comfortable spinning stories around. (At least he is telling stories.) Has always leveraged presentation material from other Reps and Marketing.  In the past, was not happy with Marketing’s output, so augmented it where necessary.  Now, however, she is active in piloting and providing feedback to Marketing on the presentations that their Internal Content Marketing Agency produces.
Doesn’t understand who the competition is. He is convinced that his only competitors are the two major providers of similar products.  He has never considered that competition could come from an ancillary market.  Does not ever discuss with prospects his main competitors: the prospect doing it themselves or doing nothing. Since learning about it, she is now keenly aware of the possible competitors to an opportunity including known competitors, “doing nothing”, the client doing it themselves, and completely different markets that may actually be in need of her solutions. She makes it a point to be prepared to address all possible competitors – relying heavily on Marketing’s customer and competitor intelligence.
CRM usage is absolute minimum and not accurate as far as forecasting goes. He only uses the CRM system out of mandate – putting the minimum info out there.  He may have some well-known contacts in the CRM, but keeps most of them in his own rolodex for fear of someone poaching them.  Entries he makes in the CRM on opportunities are only ever made when he has a good level of confidence in their becoming a deal. She is a strong user in the CRM system. She loads opportunities in the CRM and tracks them through the sales process. Her entries have ample notes and she keeps all of her contacts in the CRM.  She realizes that accurate, complete records allows for easier and better forecasting as well as the chance for her SM to find and coach her on sales improvement.
Story telling, if used, is about irrelevant, dated subjects. The stories he tells are engaging stories because of his charisma. Unfortunately, the stories are about olden days in a market that no longer exists.  His stories aren’t always relevant to the industry he is selling to, either. She has not always leveraged story telling, but has resolved to be one of the best. To this end, she has been studying the art of story telling and has started to put it into practice.  She knows that storytelling must have a purpose, must be relevant to the audience, and must enable emotions.

For the full list and blog post, click here.

 

Do our customers deserve us?!?

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The client is king! – There will be very few who haven’t heard this statement before and most people would agree with it wholeheartedly without a second thought. However, every time I hear it I can’t help but think that it must have been conceived by a client! My second thought normally is…’well, what does that make the supplier?’.

The term ‘supplier’ has always had a bit of a negative connotation, yet without suppliers there would be no product or service for the clients to buy, therefore making the relation between the two parties rather symbiotic and mutually dependable – a ‘partnership’ if you like.

Having worked in client facing rolls all my life (i.e. supplier-side), achieving this ‘partnership’ is the true utopia of account management and very difficult, but not impossible to achieve.

For my (potential) clients reading this, rest assured that I am not going to commit commercial hara-kiri by lecturing you on how you should play nice with your suppliers. However, a recent rather disappointing (but thankfully uncommon!) situation which involved one of the senior stakeholders walking out during the middle of a pitch (which we had painstakingly prepared for 4 days), claiming he had ‘something more important to do’ inspired me to focus my thoughts on how to nurture this delicate relationship.

So, how can we ensure that we find the right partner for us? I don’t claim to have all the answers but here are my thoughts:

Qualify each other
The initial stage of getting to know each other (in my sector it is normally the presentation and pitch process) is hugely important for both parties. The client will want to see if you are a safe pair of hands and capable of doing the job. As a supplier it is your chance to find out if the client is right for you. Ask the difficult questions and dig deep. If the client is unwilling to answer your questions for fear of giving the game away, you might want to consider if this is a relationship that can be built upon. How can you give a client sound advice if they don’t trust you enough? If their tender process includes 15+ other potential suppliers, is the client really confident in your abilities (or sure of what they want)? And therefore is your time not better spent on the clients that have taken the time to understand your business and value your time and work?

Trusted advisor
Once the relationship has begun it is only natural that as a supplier you will have to work hard to maintain the relationship. By now you should be working with someone who values your opinion, so make sure you voice them. Provide them with proactive communication and honest advice. Of course the relationship has to be win-win, but if you attain the trusted advisor position the client will not want to lose you, and will be much more inclined to treat you fairly. Don’t take advantage of this relationship and don’t allow yourself to grow complacent.

Evaluate the relationship
In an interesting blog post by Jason Ross on how to re-pitch for an existing account, he raised the importance of evaluating the relationship. No one likes to admit when a marriage has failed, but most of us also know that it is a lot worse for all involved to let it fester. Evaluate each other on an ongoing basis. An interesting approach is to score each other at regular intervals and on a mutually agreed scoring system. Present each other with the findings and discuss them openly. This way adjustments can be made before it is too late.

Now, I would love to say that I follow these rules all the time and that it is never our fault that a client relationship has turned sour, but you would all know I was lying. It is incredibly difficult to build ‘trusted advisor’ relationships and it also requires courage, especially on those occasions when you need to say ‘no’ to a client. But it does work…ask some of the  clients I work with…(but let me select which ones!).

Ps. We won that pitch!