Posted by Toby Bray on Fri, Mar 25, 2011
Unless your buyer is unaware of thier pain, they have already started interviewing vendors. Much of the Buyer's Journey takes place without vendor involvement, and since so few companies have formally mapped the Buyer's Journey, they miss opportunities to connect with prospects at many points in the buying cycle.
What is the difference between the Sales Process and the Buyer's Journey?
A sales process is an internal instrument used to report on activities related to the sales pipeline. It is also a way of driving sales to stay on track with prospects. Now, read the steps in your company's sales process from a buyer's point of view. Are any of them written in the voice of the buyer? Most likely no. They are all written in the voice of the seller, and the buyer does not care about the seller's internal processes, only their reputation and the value of the solution.
The Buyer's Journey maps out the steps a prospect takes from the moment they discover they have a need until they have taken delivery of the solution. A well defined Buyer's Journey allows a smart business to plan and execute marketing programs that support the sales effort. It also assists sales people in moving from bothering the prospect with sales calls to understanding how to advance a complex sale by addressing needs.
In my next post I'll talk more about the steps your business needs to take to reduce marketing costs while increasing market awareness.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Wed, Dec 29, 2010
We are often asked to assist in the hiring process for sales and marketing professionals. After years of observations we can draw a couple of conclusions:
Sales people who can perform every task they are asked and perform them all well are like Cy Young award Winners - few and far between.
Sales people are often loaded up with so many additional responsibilities that time spent selling is less than 20% of productive time.
Hiring managers often use a "I'll know one when I see one" approach over a best-practice oriented process.
In medium sized businesses, the principal often hires and coaches the sales team. It's rare to find a founder that understands real sales productiity vs. driving the team to meet call quotas.
Sales people may be adverse to using technologies such as Sales Force Automation (SFA) and or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools because they don't see them as assisting in the pursuit.
Hiring managers often underestimate the amount of time and effort it will take to coach and manage less experienced people.
To hire the right sales people, a business needs to invest in creating a realistic picture of expectations and efforts. It also needs to ask if it can get more productivity out of the sales people by finding innovative ways to off load tasks that are not directly tied to closing business.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Thu, Nov 04, 2010
There are lots of how-to books that detail methods a business can employ to increase sales. Most of them focus on the tools and techniques sales people can use to advance a sale, but they miss the big picture.
Whether it's complex selling or soultions sales, sustaining sales is not as much a factor of the sales method as it is the ability of the company to understand and articulate a customer's customer's needs. When a business has a clear understanding of these needs, everything from creating a solid value proposition to hiring the right talent are much easier. The business is focused on delivering value to the customer from an exernal perspective. This kind of thinking at every level drives it's internal decisions and external communications. Everything is customer focused. In summary, a customer focused business with solid decision-making skills will out perform its competitors and spend less on marketing and sales whie doing it.
The same holds true for investing is a startup. Just ask the question "Do they truly understand that the customer wants what the customer wants"? If not, they have created a shiny object looking for a market. But that is another post.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Carlos Diggs on Wed, Oct 27, 2010
When conventional approaches to your hunting leave you feeling defeated, it may be time to consider something unconventional. Here are 10 tips that will reveal the guerilla sales hunter in you.
- Get noticed, Called Back, Get appointments today!
- Eliminate Frustration,Stop Being Ignored
- Avoid Being Labeled As Just Another Sales Person Calling
- Develop Endless Referral Sources
Download these easy to follow tips to exceed your sales goal.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Carlos Diggs on Tue, Oct 26, 2010
Did you know that the #1 method for finding new customers is through referral marketing?
- Learn how to approach your 3 levels of contacts (friends, family, & fans)
- Avoid the most common road block to success
- Follow our simple 4 step action plan that will generate profitable results
Download this practical how to guide that gives you the knowledge you need to grow your customer base inexpensively and quickly.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Carlos Diggs on Tue, Oct 26, 2010
Below is a real life case study that will illustrate the possible direction a sales opportunity can take. It would be helpful to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this blog series for a complete proper context.,
Real life case study:
I will use one of my past sales to illustrate how a solution sale evolves into a consultative sale, then into a complex sale. In other words, a major sale.
I once served as the National Account Manager over a major account for a very large telecommunication provider. My client had a need for a more cost effective and reliable data network spanning hundreds of locations. They were using hundreds of dial-up modems. This was very problematic and expensive. They called me in and presented what I would call a simple or single problem that required a single solution.
Before I could offer a solid solution, I had to take off my sales hat and put on my consultant hat. I performed a detailed assessment and needs analysis. I performed extensive research of emerging technologies and methodologies. I tested my ideas and sought advice from our resident subject matter experts. I developed a high-level concept paper (overview) which included a brief problem and solution description for the latest data networking solution, a scope of work, level of effort, total cost of ownership, and return on investment.
As a result of my findings and recommendations, my solution opened up a broad range of possibilities for automating and enabling greater levels of productivity and efficiencies for the client. This opportunity quickly turned into a complex sale, because I had to seek out value added partners that could provide the technology and expertise to fill in the gaps of an end-to-end solution.
This sale started out as a single source solution worth a million-plus dollars. In matter of a couple of months, it grew into a multiple source solution with several millions of dollars over many years.
If you need help implementing a program like this, consider contacting a sales consultant.
Share your experience by leaving a comment.
We have an entire integrated sales and marketing company at your disposal. How can we help you generate more business? Let's talk about making something happen for your company.
Carlos Diggs is Managing Partner at 360 Sales Focus, a full service sales and marketing consultancy. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/carlosdiggs. Reach Carlos at cdiggs@360salesfocus.com or 410.782.0360 or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/360salesfocus.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Mon, Oct 25, 2010
This past weekend while watching the Bills @ the Ravens, a friend asked me to provide some perspective on the impact technology has had on sales and marketing. While one could talk for hours on this subject, my answer was simple. "Technology is driving the cream to the top".
Today’s successful sales or marketing professional is a life-long learner and self-starter who can self-manage. S/he is an athlete.
The current economic climate and advances in SFA/CRM technology have taken most of the day-to-day processing out of the sales and marketing roles. Coupled with cost cutting measures (assistants and perks), the new sales and marketing reality is lean and mean. While marketing is accustomed to the ebb and flow of budgets, sales is not. Smart sales people are exploring how to harness and employ social media while working with marketing to improve sales. On the other hand, marketing is spending time with sales compressing the sales cycle by learning how to sell. All of this requires a skill set found only in the best sales and marketing people – the ability to self-direct and manage outside the realms of advancing sales & creative endeavors.
What kind of sales and marketing animal are you?
Photo Credit Kevin Law
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Mon, Oct 11, 2010
Mobile devices are capable of advancing sales in many ways, yet most companies have yet to unlock their power.
Most businesses approach mobile by providing an app that is little more than a bookmark to a mobile version of their website. Mobile allows us to take things a step further using functions and features that are difficult to build into a website.
A sales opportunity is traveling with a tablet. They receive a drip email from your company and decide to return to your website where they find content designed for the web. It makes sense to your business, tracking is robust and this visit will get logged in the Sales Force Automation tool. But what if...
An sales opportunity is traveling with a tablet and receives a message based on where they are in the Buyer's Journey. They click on the message and instead of getting a website, they land on a custom crafted experience that features an all-in-one tool that displays full motion video, diagrams, offers to read text, highlights what is being read, allows for annotations and provides the ability to share notes with other influencers and decision makers.
We are entering the "Me" time of marketing, yet the "Me" in sales is most often overlooked. Map your Buyer's Journey, customize content based on the sales opportunity's role (decision maker, influencer, etc) and deliver the information using the right tool in the best channel. Then, get ready for a much shorter sales-cycle.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Thu, Sep 23, 2010
The emergence of social networks has forced Google to reconsider its role of simply answering questions. Expect it to begin to incorporate logic that moves away from statistical results (who should be on top based on keywords) and towards swarm based reasoning. Swarm will utilize the opinions of a social graph (people with whom the user is connected and their connections) placing value on the graph’s trust of information sources and businesses as part of the logic behind search.
In the process, Google will make search more personal and gaming the engine more difficult. To influence search results businesses and individuals will need to be socially engaged and pay more attention to customer service. Imagine what happens when Google uses not only the user’s question, but also the opinions of their social network to serve up results. In that not to distant world of commerce, companies will need to pay closer attention to after-the-sale support, followed by promises made vs. promises kept on the sales side.
This move will not happen overnight as language can be very tricky as Brand Monitoring firms are learning. The algorithms used to determine to what degree an opinion is positive or negative struggle with our love of sarcasm.
How this plays out in the B2C market is much easier to gauge then in the B2B and B2G market where exposing opinions about partners can be seen as having a deleterious effect on future prospects.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.
Posted by Toby Bray on Mon, Jul 26, 2010
Ever met a business owner with something to sell that has a name that makes no sense and when you were given the sales pitch it took forever? It wasn’t called a mouse trap and the sales process started with a long description but it was capable of catching mice like any other trap. Naming a business, product or service can be easy when you think like a buyer and not like a seller.
The average consumer’s day can be described as hectic. Self imposed or not, the largest slice of the people we want as customers are busy. Okay you say, let’s sell to their curiosity. Not so fast. People by nature carry around frameworks to which they attach value. Each one of those frameworks (related to a subject) is rooted in the concrete notion that “I am familiar with this, therefore I believe it to be true or false, good or bad”. People are by nature creatures of habit, we like routines and don’t like to think when we are looking for something. We are very sensitive to changing our view – look at any presidential election.
Engage Potential Customers in Familiar Ways
So how can I connect the value of my product or service quickly in the mind of a prospect who is busy and adverse to change – engage them using one of their own existing positive frameworks. This starts with your business name and your tag line. If someone is interested in antique motorcycles, use terms they will recognize without effort and attach them to an existing framework with a positive connotation. In other words, don’t make them start thinking until they have connected your product or service with something they know and desire. Humans are resistant to change because it means work. Sales campaigns that cause people to do work before perceiving value and interest are already in trouble. If I have to explain myself before my prospect is interested they are less likely to remain interested in what I have to say simply because they make a choice to avoid the work of assessing the value. In a world crowded with competitors, the one who connects to the positive framework wins.
Case in Point…
Using our earlier construct, two trucks drive past you on the street in under eight seconds. One says “Pete’s Antique Motorcycles Sales, Service, Hard to Find Parts. 1-800-GET-RIDING”. The other says “Velociopter We know old machines 1-800-444-2314”. If you are into antique motorcycles, who are you going to call? Both of these companies are reputable, both of them can meet your needs. But one of them connected directly to something important to you and they never had to utter a single word. This axiom applies to printed materials, television and radio. Most importantly, it applies to selling in person. On a consumer oriented conference floor there are twenty-five vendors. One person greets you and says – I’m John from Wills Closet, We sell things to make your closets and drawers smell nice while getting rid of moths”. Right across the aisle is Odor Free Moth Be Gone. Who wins? It is as they say a no brainer.
Don’t Make Your Customer Feel Stupid
There is also the notion of making the prospect feel dumb. If we lived in a perfect world where everyone was well balanced we would never need to consider this challenge. We don’t. If I meet a person on the street and talk over their head, will they attach a positive or negative emotion to what I have to say? If I make them wait or struggle to understand me how will they feel? Will they tune in or out? Will they play devil’s advocate? Why did they not stay and listen? Because from their perspective, my approach made them think they were stupid or on the outside of a club. As for clubs, being “In” can be very seductive, but creating “In” is expensive, time consuming, and often fails because people who are “In” are early adopters. And as you may have guessed, early adopters are fickle and always looking for the next new thing. They also tend to use being in as a way to inflate their own social position causing others around them to look upon them from a negative perspective. “In” crowds can be fun, but they are high maintenance consumers that often demand much more from a business than the business can afford to provide.
Sell Before You Educate
One last point before we move on – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. What does this have to do with selling. Well Maslow postulates that we change only when something in our lives forces us to do so. A power greater than ourselves you might say. Maslow has several levels in the Hierarchy of Needs, and moving up the scale causes a person to see the world from a broader and less self-centered perspective (to simplify). So if I want you to purchase my product, and the act of setting up the sale forces you to change a framework, how much resistance will the act encounter? In the simplest of terms, “Don’t make the prospect think”, and “Sell before you educate” are two ideas you can take to the bank if you have a product people want.
Bottom Line?
I’m not against tangential or strange sales approaches, but if we learned anything from the dot com bust, we learned you can’t sell without real value, and everything you do needs to communicate value starting with the first word.
Call us today for a free sales and marketing consultation and to receive a free copy of our integrated sales & marketing toolkit. 410.782.0360.