SALESU

Been There, Bungled That

Salespeople talk forever about the ones that got away, but what are they doing to prevent it from happening again?

by Jeff Thull, CEO, Prime Resource Group

Sales managers continue to express frustration over their sales team's inability to connect with the buying power in the executive suite. Laying the groundwork with underlings is well and good, but carefully crafted sales and marketing strategies often are highly diluted by the time they reach key decision makers.

Here are seven common challenges that sales professionals must resolve in order to effectively engage the executive suite.

Consider the following problems, how often they occur within your team, and how quickly and effectively you address each of them.

1. Salespeople are relegated to support-level personnel when they are unable to speak to the executive's critical business issues

Brilliant ideas and valuable products and services fall to indifference if salespeople can't quickly establish credibility and connect to each executive's most pressing issues. Credibility comes via the relevancy that a salesperson establishes in an introduction by connecting solutions or capabilities to the unique business drivers that each executive has. By referencing challenges an industry is facing or objectives that a prospective company has stated in its public records, a salesperson can demonstrate that she's thought through the prospective customer's unique needs.

2. A salesperson's strongest contact in the customer organization no longer holds the power to make the buying decision

In today's highly competitive and volatile marketplace, globalization, consolidation and centralization cause decisions to move to higher levels of power and influence. Expecting that a single contact in the customer's organization can and will carry your message effectively is hanging on to thin threads of hope.

It's critical that salespeople translate the value they can create at the technical, operational or clinical level to the impact it has on the performance drivers that are on the executive's dashboard and have those conversations with each executive. What's more, recognizing the dials that executives watch, and being able to discuss their current measurements and how your solution will impact those measurements, results in a conversation that most executives are willing to make time for.

3. The competition is in your customer's executive suite when your salesperson isn't

Salespeople typically spend more time preparing for a visit with a prospect than they do for a visit with a current customer. Warn your salespeople not to let familiarity lull them into understanding less about current customers than your competitors would prepare for.

4. Your salesperson buys into, "I make the final decision," when in fact, political moves and ego games have her hung up with someone who can barely influence the decision

Don't let diluted messages sabotage your best opportunities.

Salespeople must understand how the solution affects each level of responsibility within the customer organization. It's only natural that they will interact at all levels to understand the full potential your solution will have, and after the sale to assure that the full value of the solution is being achieved. By building relationships as they gather information, your salespeople will be firmly grounded with those who are both impacted and influenced by the decision.

5. Your salesperson finally reaches the person who holds the checkbook, but can't build the financial case necessary to make the sale

The financial executive plays an increasingly central role in setting the strategy of the organization and how to fund the implementation of the strategy. Do not ask customers to translate your technical advantages into the financial impact of your solution. Salespeople should involve them in calculations; have them collaborate and adjust assumptions. In the end, the customer must "own" the justification. Your salesperson needs to be their advisor, not their sales rep, positioning your solution as a strategic asset.

6. Third-party consultants - so-called purchasing professionals - prevent your salesperson from conveying the value that your company can create, forcing your salesperson to compete on price

A salesperson must recognize that he and the consultant have the same customer. The salesperson can build the case for mutual gains with the consultant by asking the questions they have not thought of asking and don't have the answers to.

They will recognize the value you add to their position and invite you into the executive suite. Salespeople can help third-party consultants manage a quality buying process that builds successful outcomes for the consultant, for the salesperson and for the customer.

7. Your salesperson's convincing proposal won the first round of approvals, only to discover later that the executive buy-in never happened.

The executive had criteria on the table that was not apparent and, thus, never tapped into Salespeople must engage executives early in the decision process to establish the criteria that creates senior-level ownership.

Winning proposals connect the business drivers at all levels of influence and decision. Salespeople must ask in-depth questions that the customer has not thought of asking, questions that expose the risks inherent in a successful implementation of the solution.

Compelling relevancy gains access to the executive suite. Salespeople must communicate with credibility and understand each individual executive's mindset. How many of your salespeople have truly gained insight into how executives at prospective client companies think, what they expect, what makes them move forward, and how they drive management support? Expected credibility is what you know about your solution.

Exceptional credibility is what you know about your prospect's business. Look at your sales team's presentations, client notes and e-mails. Are they about your company and your solution or are they about your customer and their business? Only after your salespeople understand the mindset of each executive, connect to his agenda and establish exceptional credibility, will they find themselves having meaningful conversations that produce long-term and mutually beneficial relationships.

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View all online articles from the May/June 2006 SalesForceXP magazine.

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