“We’re getting commitments, but we’re not getting orders…”

“Some of the biggest companies out there are our customers, we just aren’t getting the volume…”

“The decision-maker is saying we’re going to get the business, but then her people order from their old suppliers…”

One of the most common problems I hear from clients is the problem of traction. They can get into the big companies, but they can’t get that “yes” to turn into dollars. I have touched upon this in the past in “Unsticking Stuck Deals (parts one & two) and “The Executive Sponsorship Agreement.”

I believe that sales people are pathologically optimistic, and it’s a good thing that they are. If they weren’t, how could they get out and face the rejection and frustration that accompanies the sales process? But that optimism carries with it some inherent dangers for their companies.

False positives, missed signals and ‘hope’ acting like ‘commitment’

Sales people are given a variety of “yes” answers over the course of a sales process that create the sense that a deal has occurred. In reality, though, there is at least one unseen step in the decision spectrum where the ‘maybe’ masquerades as ‘yes.’ You can probably spot it.
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“If we get Microsoft, (replace Microsoft with your favorite iconic brand name), then it is going to be a lot easier to get other big guys. So what if you take a little bit of a haircut on that deal? It’s what we are going to have to do to get our name out there.”

When I work with small and mid-size companies, I often hear the siren song of the logo deal.

This is not a discussion I hear on occasion. In one flavor or another I hear this conversation in almost every company I meet. The promise of affiliated greatness for your brand because of someone else’s strong brand is very hard to pass-up, I know.

I’ve written and spoken against this practice at length. For the sake of context, I’ll just give a quick summary of why this is a dangerous temptation. Then I will outline the Trigger-Map Strategy we teach for companies that want to boost their brand through key brand affiliation.
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I posted this blog some time ago, but in the past several weeks I have directed so many people to it that I thought it would be good to bring it back for a re-post. Enjoy!

I’ve been on the road the last two weeks with a number of clients and I have to tell you that the swagger factor in the marketplace is low. That’s right: SWAGGER. That quality of confidence that provides patience in the face of stupidity, no-blink nerve when looking into the eyes of challenge and the slight strut of knowing you’re the best.  In talking to best-in-class sales leaders in a variety of industries who work with top-shelf branded clients, I discovered that they are still committing the following party fouls when approaching new prospects:

• Running test-proof cycles for the most basic products and services;
• Waiving engineering, design, drawing, setup and installation fees for first-time buyers on small orders;
• Fulfilling tiny initial orders so that “you can prove yourself”;
• Agreeing to long “try, wait and see” cycles.

Brando Don’t Audition. At some point in your company’s history of performance, serving demanding clients and developing your reputation, your company became good enough to answer this question from a prospect: Are you qualified to do business with me?

“Qualified” means competent and market competitive—in pricing, features and benefits—which further means that you should have the right to move past the first round (walking in the door).  Prospects ask for samples, references, test-runs and little orders as a credentializing step in the process of doing business with you. After you have credentialized yourself, THEN you get to the real issues of a potential business relationship, which means relevance and value at a scale past credentialization. That’s why I say, “Brando Don’t Audition.”

Marlon Brando’s has a level of expertise and notoriety that makes it ridiculous and insulting to ask him to audition.  His body of work of work speaks for itself.  Your company’s body of work should do the same.

When prospects ask you to credentialize yourself, you have to get them to see you as competent and competitive straight away so that you can get down to the nitty-gritty: the value and relevance of using your firm. One of the best ways to do this is to take the prospect back to your company’s body of work.

You say:

“Look, we work with X, Y and Z companies, solving problems like P, D and Q and with the scale of A, B and C. This tells you that we are capable of doing this type of work, consistently and at a market competitive rate. Otherwise these companies, with their rigorous qualification process and purchasing approach would never have hired us. If you agree that we can probably handle your work, let’s spend our time focusing on the specifics of this relationship so that I know whether or not we can be relevant and valuable on this particular program.”

People put you through the hoops of auditioning because:

• They feel they have to. Some part of their process requires it.
• They want to put you in your place. Like keeping you in the lobby 15 minutes extra before meeting you.  It’s a power play.
• They don’t know you’re Brando. This is the place you have the greatest amount of control. Through your initial conversation and presentation, the prospect needs to understand that putting you through the hoops is a waste of their time and yours. You are the Marlon Brando of your industry!

The competitive market place has caused companies to stop swaggering. You have to get the swagger back or you’ll risk grinding out your confidence by going through the audition door.  And really, you should be going through the finalist door at the first knock.

First, let me apologize for the big gap in my blogging. I have been all over the country in the last 6 weeks with the Inc. Magazine presentation tour. We made stops in New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was a fantastic experience and I met some remarkable new entrepreneurs (those “newpreneurs” I’ve been talking about). Between those travels and my client work I have not had a moment to write to you. But, I’M BACK!

Follow this link below to a video of a the presentation I gave in Seattle. I covered the 5 Best Practices of Explosive Growth Companies.

Scroll down the landing page and click on the video box at the bottom.

The presentations went very well and we had a great exchange of ideas. The Q & A is worth watching as well because I respond to some of the questions typically asked by people who want to hunt big, but are not yet sure how.

It’s good to be back. Enjoy the video.

I liked your “Sales Challenge” answers so much that I am going to make “Sales Challenge” a regular part of this blog in the future. Great ideas from everyone!

Here’s the rest of the story…

The team improvised. The second-in-command eel exhibited classic “I don’t want to be here” body-language: he was slouching, his arms were crossed. He didn’t even bother to cinch up his tie when he came to the meeting. He could not have tried harder to project the “I’m here because I have to be, not because I want to be. Make it fast” attitude.

The first thing the sales team tried to do was break the ice and ask some questions about what the eel wanted. Nothing doing. He simply said, “Just make the presentation like you would if John Doe was here.”

Without much to go on, the team tried to change the expectations. Team: “John Doe’s not here, so the objective of the meeting is different. In fact, it’s wide open now and the presentation may not even be valuable. Let’s talk for a moment about the area we are looking at, what goals you have in that area and what you consider to be some of the pain points.” They got a little bit more out of him here, but not much. The eel was still closed off and defensive.

Third, the team tried to befriend the eel. Team: “Considering the time the team has been in place and what your group is trying to accomplish, our analysis is favorable. Some of these results are probably in line with things you are already addressing.” Even as the team presented high-level results, we’re got nowhere. The problem was that we were now all-in. We opened up the dialogue about the presentation, so we had to make the presentation. Calculated risk. I would like to say it paid off, but it didn’t.

We pitched the presentation, left copies of it and promised to follow-up. The team’s email to the eel’s boss (our AWOL first-in-command) to set up a conference call to review the results was brushed aside with a perfunctory email response: “Thanks so much for the report. It is very thorough. I don’t think a call is necessary at this time. I’ll review your recommendations and get back to you.” Dead stuck.

Mistakes in our approach? A bunch. I’ll give the short-list:

1. We didn’t make a same-day appointment confirmation call with the most important person in the pitch to make certain he would be there. 2. We didn’t call the meeting off when we found out that the sponsoring executive was not going to be there. 3. We pitched the one guy who had the most to lose and then let him pitch the one person who had the most to gain without us. 4. We had not involved the eel early enough in the sales process to have gotten some level of buy-in or fear-reduction before we started the entire sales process that culminated in this presentation of results and opportunity to propose our solution.

There are more, but I think these are at the top of the list.

You have all been very helpful with what should have been done differently.

I now have a different challenge for you. What should the hunt team do next?

I recently went on a pitch with a client’s hunt team. We were supposed to be pitching to the first in command, but he was pulled away to a funeral at the last minute. He left a message for us while we were on the plane, so we didn’t listen to it until much too late.

We arrived at the prospect’s offices to present the results of a preliminary analysis of their operations and to detail my client’s company plan to help them. We were told that since the first in command was out, we would be meeting with the second in command.

Sales Challenge: The second in command is the eel in the deal.

We sat down in the board room and prepped for the meeting. What would you do?

Some options:

• Pitch
• Leave
• Improvise
• Other

What would you do in this situation? I want to hear your thoughts because I think that this type of scenario happens more often than we would like. Let me know what you think!

I spoke to Newpreneurs™ at Inc. Magazine/Alibaba.com conferences in New York and Chicago this week about the 5 key things it takes to be successful in growing their businesses explosively through large account selling.

Here’s what I told them:

• Focus. Pick your 4% marketplace to attack and weed out “toxic clients and black hole prospects” as quickly as possible
• Solve your prospect’s real issue. Companies are not focusing on pain, features or benefits. They are buying on time, money and risk.
• Get a bigger buyer’s table. The people who will kill your deal are often times not in the room. Invite your detractors into the process. They will work against you anyway so you might as well face them head-on and work through their issues with them.
• Think like a big prospect. Interest is generated by your compelling advantage, but the decision to buy from you comes from how much fear your big prospect has of your ability to deliver.
• Hunt heavy. Take a big team and all of the resources. If you have to err on how many resources to expend, err on the heavy side.

Here’s what I didn’t tell them:

• It’s not about the product. Many of the contestants in this national Newpreneur™ of the Year contest sponsored by Alibaba.com are product companies. As I listen and judge their presentations, the recurring theme of their 90-second elevator pitch is “my product is best.” Their distribution channels are not necessarily looking for the “best” product. Whether they will take their products to market through dealers, distributors or retailers, these Newpreneurs have challenges that have nothing to do with the quality of the product. Quality and value of product to the end buyer is an issue of returns.
• Distribution channels want to know about:
  • Velocity. How quickly will the product move in and out of my DC?
  • Margin. How much will be made per unit and palette in total dollars and in percentages in comparison to same or similar product in the warehouse?
  • Risk. How long will it take for the sales to be the same or better than whatever it was    that filled that space in the DC and on the end sale point shelf?

  When they focus on the quality of the product, companies are focusing on one-off sales, not on the big deals that go through 2-step distribution.

• It’s about the supply chain. As my brother Tim likes to say, “In this marketplace, companies don’t buy from other companies, they buy from supply chains. You are not just you any more, you are you plus all the partners you bring with you including your bank, your landlord, your business partners, and everything that makes up the composite picture which is what you offer.” To be successful in going to market, companies have to bring the full solution and the complete team to the table to land their biggest deals.
• Passion will only get you so far. Every contestant has a dream. Their passion inspires to the point of making you want to weep. I’m serious. It is energizing just to be in their presence and if you can get to one of these events coming up, you should. You will leave fired up and confident in the future of our economy. That having been said, very few of the contestants would have survived the TV show “Shark Tank.” Push in on their business plans, poke at their go-to-market-strategies and everything is a little squishier than you would like to see. A couple of glaring gaps:
  • Money? For the most part, these new business people are looking at their businesses in a hand-to-mouth fashion. A big order, an investor, even an inheritance would probably not be used well based upon the answers to the questions we heard. There has to be a plan for what the next level of money would do for the business.
  • Team? You can’t do it alone. Each of these businesses needed a MasterMind group of advisers to guide them.
  • Scalability? One of the first things a big company is going to ask a product company is “Can you keep up with demand?” This is a question that was not well answered by most of the contestants. A strategy that says “We’ll figure that out when we get there” will run out of runway the moment the business is “there.”

The Newpreneuer™ series of events has been great and I am looking forward to the remainder of the tour. Even with these small critiques, I understand why almost two-thirds of Americans surveyed believe that the economic turnaround will be fueled by new entrepreneurs, not the large, old-line companies of the past.

By Tim Searcy

I have referenced before that the CIO for Nortel made a keen observation that “companies no longer buy from companies, they buy from supply chains.”  Supply chain management is a buzz word concept that has actually had some staying power.  More of our clients are finding themselves in presentations in which they have brought in “partners” to assist in selling to a whale. Multiple- team selling can be a way in which your company can combat the “whale’s” natural fear that your organization is too small.  As in all things, the devil is in the details.

There are some good reasons to sell with partners.  There may be a set of capabilities that required by the buyer that you are not able to deliver.  Additionally, sometimes a key relationship may exist between a potential partner of yours and the polar bear (economic buyer) inside the whale.  It could be that the partner you are working with brings the necessary local office and physical proximity that the whale demands.  Finally, whales will occasionally tell you that a specific partner would make your offering more appealing to the firm.  Regardless of the reason, if you have decided that you will take on partners to sell the whale-sized deal, you need to keep some things in mind:

1. Who owns the chain? A supply chain or a multiple partner solutions needs to have someone in charge.  If it is you, the strength of the chain link and your ability to manage the chain are paramount.  You do not want to be in a position that a partner can somehow go around the relationship that you have and secure the business without you.  Contracts must be in place to clearly specify that for this particular pitch, your partners cannot compete separately or with a competitive solution.  If you are the subordinate in the relationship, it is important that you only select the very best partner to hunt with.

2.    How do we control the pitch? Often times, powerful salespeople or forceful personalities can take over the strategy and pitch approach of a supply chain seeking big business.  If you are in the lead, control needs to be set for items like venue, agenda, speaking times, message that will be conveyed and stories that will be told.  You will also want twice the number of rehearsals that you would normally use because the players have not worked together, and a seamless presentation will be a key way to alleviate the whale’s fears.

3.    What is the brand we are pitching? When you are selling as a supply chain, figuring out your brand can be complicated.  Will the lead firm own the contract?  Who will handle collections?  For the prospect, the question becomes “who are all of you people anyway?”  For the very biggest deals, I recommend having business cards printed that have the prospect’s logo on the card along with the lead firm and a clear title for everyone as the client’s team member.   Remove the confusion about who you are collectively by focusing on the prospect as the point of connection.

If we have concerns about trying to sell into a whale as a team of teams, imagine how the prospect feels.  One of the important points we make at HBS is to never scare the whale.  When you come at the whale with multiple players representing multiple firms, you could easily scare the whale.  Here are the come things that may be on the whale’s mind that you need to address:

• “Why is there a chain to begin with?” It is very likely that the whale starts with a one stop shopping approach to establishing a new business relationship.  The natural bias may start with opposition to a collective of providers.  Reasons that may offset that concerns include that you have selected the best of breed in individual component provision, or that single sourcing does not make sense in this particular case or that specialty requirements that move the work from the mainstream demand a unique solution.
• “Am I paying for redundant overhead?” It will be no surprise that multiple firms implies multiple hand offs and higher costs.  It will be your responsibility to clearly lay out the economics of the multiple team approach and explain the financial advantage.
• “What if this all goes bad, but I like some of the links?” Although prospects don’t always communicate their interest in some of the individual partners, it happens frequently.  In very clear terms, you need to let the prospect know that you have come together as a team and will stay together as a team because that is what is in the client’s best interest.
• “Do these people know how to work together?” Or “Am I going to be first?” Few things scare whales more than transition costs related to communication or ignorance of the new provider of business practices, business needs, market conditions etc.  We scare whales when we give the impression that the necessary training to get up to speed will have to cross multiple companies and multiple cultures.  It is important to emphasize any historical pairings that have been successful with the teams you choose.  If this is not possible, the process of making the delivery painless to the customer and with single contact point account management should be used to convey simplicity and service delivery.

Supply chains are an effective way to deliver service.  Whales can appreciate the value of multiple smaller firms positioning themselves as a superior combined solution.  The key is to make the actual work look like one firm is performing it instead of a jigsaw puzzle of individual pieces.

By Tim Searcy

Nothing beats the real world for reminders about sales process challenges. During a recent seminar when I asked people to name members of the Buyer’s Table, a participant chimed in with, “The idiot who thinks he knows everything and for some reason, everyone in the client company listens to him.” Of course, when we push down on this type of person just a little bit, we realize that they are the smartest kid in the remedial class. The rest of the firm turns to the only light of information they have and trust . . . one of their own. As the smartest person the client knows on the topic in question, they are trusted implicitly and completely. For this reason, the one-eyed man in the land of the blind really is king, and we better know what to do about him. We can:

1. Eliminate the expert from consideration. This almost never works unless your champion has always suspected that the expert was not that knowledgeable. Be very careful. An expert enjoys protected class status, and the attempt to eliminate them by showing them up can have consequences. The expert is on site or in the firm, and has relationships both professional and personal. The “nobody picks on my sister but me” mentality can take over and you will be shut out.

2. Ignore the expert. Sometimes this is wisest. Until you know the lay of the land, simply treat the expert as another member of the buyer’s table. Their questions and comment have equal merit and weight as everyone else, BUT NO MORE than anyone else. This play works well if you can keep the expert looking informed but not smart. It is advantageous to agree that the expert from their team in knowledgeable, but that the expertise exists in your team.

3. You can marginalize the expert. This involves creating clear boundaries for where the expert’s knowledge ends. In this way, the individual can feel validated about their knowledge and can even receive compliments from you while at the same time, their potential impact on the overall process can be minimize.

4. Engage the expert. This solution is fraught with peril. To engage the expert is to let their opinion dominate the dialog. Unless the expert is your firm advocate AND clearly has the ear of the polar bear, this individual can become dictatorial from your endorsement of their knowledge. If you choose to engage the expert, you must educate them from their current point of information until they actually do achieve expert status. In this way, you solidify their power base and at the same time make yourself indispensable to their future role.

5. Convert the expert. This strategy is for the expert that has clearly chosen a different solution or has “seen it all”, and just knows that your solution is not going to be effective. Instead of coercion or conversion, it is best to attempt collaboration. In this scenario, bring the expert closer, and ask lots of questions. Provide no statements or rebuttals until all of the thoughts are out on the table. Use questions to encourage the expert to move to your way of thinking.

The experts often rely on their role as expert. They are not easily replaced or eliminated, and although their true knowledge of the subject matter may be limited, their knowledge of the organization is greater than yours. Craft a strategy that puts the expert inside your circle managing the decision making process with you instead of outside your circle directing the process towards you.

I’m working with a team of sales people right now—good sales people—who have one teensy-weensy problem: follow up.

The sales process for all of us includes a large number of transactional communications. They may include coordinating a meeting, securing a key piece of information, getting approval from Procurement or Purchasing, sign-off from a superior, the review of the proposal, signing the contract and so on. Every one of these communications must be completed in order to land the deal. If you participate in the sales process, you understand that rarely have you suffered more indignity or unprofessionalism than in this cycle of unanswered, unreturned or ignored emails, voicemail messages and sent and unsigned documents.  And it’s done WILLINGLY.

I’ve watched frothy-mouthed-screaming-at-officials-soccer-moms, who when faced with following up with a prospect who agreed to an action and hasn’t done it, say “Well, I’ll just give it another week.  I don’t want to be too pushy.”

I’ve seen bar-pounding-get-me-my-beer-now-guys wait for weeks for a response on a proposal. Weeks!

What is the right amount of time to wait before following up with a prospect? Not just any prospect, but a big prospect.  I know that you don’t want to be pushy or desperate.  I get that.  But you also need to keep moving the process along. We are looking for the Goldilocks “just right” level. Here are some pointers before I give you the timing guidelines:

• Ask. My favorite approach came from a guy in Ireland pitching me some commercial real-estate. He said, “Thomas, the line between persistence and annoyance is a fine one, and I wouldn’t want to be crossing it. When should I be getting back to you so I’ll know you’ll be picking up the phone.” In every direct communication, ask when they want to have you get back to them and be specific. “Early next week” is not specific. “Tuesday at 10am” is specific.
• Set expectations. It starts with setting expectations. In voicemails, emails, face to face or by phone, never end the conversation without setting the next time. Tell them when you will be calling or sending an email, specifically.
• Be impeccable. Never miss a time or date. Not by a minute. If you are going to set the time for follow up with precision in your email or voicemail, then you have to hit it. You are creating a perception of attention detail and reliability. Just because they are not impeccable does not give you a pass not to be.
• Allow some leeway. Sometimes, my calls for appointments and follow ups are missed by the person whom I am calling. I leave this message, “I have us scheduled for a meeting today at 9am. I probably just missed you or one of your other meetings is running over. I will call back in 15 minutes to connect. I look forward to our conversation. Thanks.” Then I call back. If I don’t reach the person, my message sounds like this, “I’m sorry we didn’t get connected today, I was looking forward to our conversation. Your day may have just gotten away from you, I know that happens to me sometimes. I’ll call you back at end of day today, say 5:00pm, to reschedule this call. Thanks.”  Don’t wait for a call back or an email.  Keep pressing forward.
• Drive, don’t ride. I don’t expect that people will be calling me back. I’m driving the process, so it’s my job to drive the communication. I am always willing to be surprised in a good way with a responsive person, but my control needs dictate that I can’t be waiting.  I have to drive. How about you?
• Walk away. Like the movie title says, maybe “He’s Just Not That Into You.” At some point, continued follow up is groveling. Don’t grovel. (see Brando Don’t Audition)

If they are not responding, it means that they have moved on. I send an email or leave a voice message that sounds like this:  “I’ve been in this business a long time, and when I stop being able to connect with someone it usually means that the timing for us to work together is not good. This is my last call to you for 6 months. I’ll circle back around then to see if timing is better for us to work together. If something changes for you between now and then, please feel free to call me. “

Having said all of this, here are some guidelines for proper Hunt Big Sales Prospect Follow Up Etiquette:

Prospecting Calls

• 1st Prospecting Call- You can call or email an unresponsive person within 48 hours.
• 2nd Prospecting Call– Within 48 hours of last call
• 3rd Prospecting Call– Within 48 hours of last call
• 4th Prospecting Call– Within 72 hours of last call
• Final Prospecting Call– Within 72 hours of last call

Trade Show Follow-Up – This gets trickier depending upon the volume of contacts.

• Pre-Set Personal meeting – Within 48 hours of trade show closing.
• Good conversation on floor – Within 48 hours of trade show closing
• Passing conversation on floor – Within 72 hours of trade show closing
• Fish bowl business card – Within 7 calendar days of trade show closing
• Prospect listed in program – Do you really have time to chase someone who you never met at the show? Don’t be a psycho stalker. Let it go.

Proposals. Assuming that you are sending a requested proposal, rather than an unsolicited one, your follow-up cycle should be declared in the cover letter. It should be within 24 hours to confirm receipt and distribution if appropriate. The time should be set at that time for a full review of the proposal within 72 hours. The house goes on fire outside of 8 calendar days—you must get connection and confirmation of interest and progress within 8 calendar days or you are dead.

Contracts. Who is driving? You are. Contract cycles within clients are a misty and dark area of the sales process. Lawyers think of themselves in this process as the stewards of their company’s risk, which they probably are. Because of this, they are slow, methodical and indifferent to you. First, get an understanding from your champion how long the cycle usually takes. Cut this time by two-thirds and follow up at the one-third mark in the cycle. Work both the attorney and the champion. Your approach should always be helpful: “What areas are of the most concern in the agreement? Which parts of the agreement are we going to be able to leave the same? How can we help to work through this agreement?”

Getting the prospect’s team to move. Stuck. I hate being stuck. Usually it’s IT, but not always. The process gets tends to get bogged down while your champion of your new client is waiting for someone in his or her organization to do something. Now everybody is waiting. Your follow up here has to be vigorous and consistent but friendly. You are working within 4 hour cycles of commitments. Any time that a time or date has been missed on a commitment, you follow up within 4 hours. If they are not missing commitments, then your follow up is within 1 hour of commitment completion to thank them for completing the commitment. 20 commitments? 20 thank you’s.

Information requests. Use the same guidelines as “Getting the prospect’s team to move.”

Guidelines are not laws.  When in doubt, use your own judgment. Always remember though, YOU ARE DRIVING.