Even though I asked for Executive Sponsorship in these sales processes, it wasn’t until the past few years that I have had clients write down what it means in a 1-page document and give it the candidate in a meeting. The previous approach had been effective but the use of the 1-page has been amazing.

Here is what it looks like, on your letterhead with the title at the top “Executive Sponsorship”.

“We know that moving forward with a partner requires the work of a number of people. We also know that without senior executive sponsorship, the work of the day and competing priorities keep organizations from moving initiatives like this along.

We are not asking you to agree to doing business with us at this point. It’s too early. We are asking for you to be our executive sponsor through the process.

For us this simply means:

• Access. Your assistance on connecting to the right people is very important.
• Priority. Setting the appropriate level of attention for your organization so that the process is supported.
• Interest. We will be communicating with you throughout the process what is happening. Let’s stay connected back and forth on the progress.
• Logjams. If the process bogs down, we need to be able to come to you and be able to count on your assistance.
• Clarity. There are times when we will need to better understand your company and its unique culture. If we are confused, we ask you to provide clarity.

That’s it. In being our Executive Sponsor you are only ensuring that the process of determining our best fit with your company is fully executed.”

When to use it. Once you have identified the key decision-maker in the process and have secured his or her interest, then you ask for Executive Sponsorship. It is absolutely paramount that the person understands you are not asking them to agree to doing business with you. You are ensuring that he or she is engaged in the process, will provide you the resources necessary to do a good job for them in the process and that this isn’t some lukewarm interest.

What if they say ‘no’? That is great! It tells you that you either do not have enough interest generated for them to provide the basic professional courtesies outlined in your agreement, or they were just looking for free consulting. Go back and generate more interest, or leave happily knowing that you were not going to get the deal anyway.

Does it have to be in writing? – Yes. Tepid attempts to secure a verbal commitment without clearly stated expectations do not give you real traction. I know because that was the way I started out doing this. Then I tried it with the 1-page document and the results were much, much better. I challenge you to try the Executive Sponsor document in your next big sale process. Let me know what happens.

Full disclosure: I have 6 clients using this approach right now with fantastic success so I know not only that it can work, but that it is working right now.

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.

What is a sales team’s likely response when their buyer involves a bunch of people in a sale who don’t know much about what they’re buying?

“These people are IDIOTS!”
[Paraphrased from frustrated sales people the world over, dealing with “new” buyers at their big targets…]

When big companies lay people off, the functions of those people get stacked on top of the already-full desks of other people. These new responsibilities most often don’t come with training, a manual, or any relevant experience on the part of the recipient. And these new job requirements just show up. Often times, one of these responsibilities is to be the buyer of products and services with which the “new” buyer is very unfamiliar.

So, what do these people do with their new responsibility? Most of the time they choose one of the following:

1. Do nothing. They don’t buy anything- they just put it off
2. Stick with the incumbent.
3. Buy from the lowest-priced vendor.

In the rapidly-shifting organizational charts of companies dealing with downsizing, ignorant buyers can be dangerous to your sales process for new accounts. Face it—there are a lot of options that are easier and safer than going with a new provider like you.

Getting these new buyers to sway away from the three easy options listed above will require you to adjust your approach. Here are some recommendations…

• Focus on the big issue buying rather than feature and benefit. I’ve written before that the language of big buyers is the language of Time, Money and Risk (see our webinar and related blog post about “The Triples”). These buyers will have a better chance of understanding the business issue benefit than the departmental or functional level benefit. Stay in the world of Time, Money and Risk, and stay out of the end-point utility of what you sell.
• Translation and simplicity always win. There is no sense railing against the ignorance of the buyer in this conversation. It’s not his or her fault that they’re in this discussion. So, the onus is on you to provide the translation of value and to simplify the benefits of the program. Strip out the jargon, peel back the acronyms. Use the analogies and stories to lay out a very simple and practical explanation of not only what you are selling, but what they are buying. Most of these folks do not understand the problem that they are solving in making this purchase, so you need to explain to them what they’re buying.
• Greater need for salespeople to be experts in the customer’s business. The balance of proof is clearly in your hands. You need to be the person who can provide expertise in the customer’s business without making them feel stupid. Explain how the two industries (theirs and yours) have changed over time. Walk through the evolution of what buyers have looked for and why you are now, at this time, the best choice.
• Doubts in your products/services are often doubts in themselves and their ability to buy intelligently. You need to address both. Expert buyers may doubt your claims and therefore choose not to buy from you. Inexperienced buyers doubt their own abilities to discern, so they stay with “business as usual”, and, in effect, rely on the expertise of the previous buyer. These “new” buyers need to have confidence that they are making the best choice and the safest choice. Your sales pitch has to focus on increasing their confidence that they know what the best choice looks like BEFORE you convince them that yours is the best choice.

We are going to be dealing with inexperienced buyers with a greater frequency in the future, not less. Market trends and drivers like SARBOX, board governance requirements, and the power of procurement departments will be forcing decisions into RFP/RFQ and RFI processes that are strong on process and weak on relevance.

Downsizing and streamlining will be piling more work onto managers and executives who have less time and functional knowledge in their areas of responsibility. In order to break through the easy choices of price, incumbent, or do nothing, we have to change our approach.

I’m working on some big sales right now with my clients. I act as either a member of their team or as a key advisor. We’re aiming at accounts ranging from $500,000 to $100,000,000. This is a great part of my professional life. People hire me typically for one or more of three reasons:

1. They’re looking to “double their double.” They want to double the speed with which they can double the size of their company and they believe that landing large accounts is the way to do it.
2. They want a manageable and scalable approach to running their sales process, measuring it and improving their success rates.
3. They have a mega-sale that they want to land and they want me to be their adviser and coach. I play the role of “deal-doctor” for lack of a better description.

I’m doing all of this work right now for a variety of clients, but it just so happens that in the area of mega-hunts, we’re in a very busy hunting season.

Every one of these deals is different – different size, industry, competitive landscape, personality mix… You get the idea.

But there are a few things that each of these mega-hunts has in common…

• There’s always a fight. Granted, it’s a family fight, but it’s a fight all the same. I have come to expect it and even to provoke it on occasion. If there isn’t a fight, you have some potential bad mojo. Either people aren’t passionately engaged in the conversation and are just going through the motions, or people don’t think we’re going and are just going through the motions. Or, their mind is on something else and again, they’re just going through the motions. Bottom line: a fight is a good thing.
• Everyone is a mind reader. People pull the tiniest scrap of data about a person who’s on the prospect’s team and make an enormous projection about what they want or will believe. Because of the desire to sell people at an emotional level, the more emotion connected to these scraps, the more they become the focus of the discussion of what we should pitch. This can lead to some very dangerous conclusions. Start with the facts that you know, then evaluate the opinions you have heard and finally take a moment to consider the gossip. Just make sure you don’t do it the other way around.
• Last minute hi-jacking of the pitch. Someone in the eleventh hour is going to stand up and say, “I think we’ve got this all wrong. We have to change this whole thing or we might as well not bother pitching it.” You can almost count on it. And they win a lot more often than you would think. The fatigue of working through the RFP response or the presentation deck just starts to wear people out. The frustration of not being able to get it quite perfect will cause people to just give up on their current path and start over. Sometimes breakthroughs happen when frustration gives way to the creative energy release. My caution is that if you cannot take the changes being offered and integrate them into the current pitch, don’t switch your overall approach.

So, if this is always the same, then what do I always do to manage these circumstances? A couple of things.

• Be ruthless about the preparation. Insist on giving all of the data to all of the members of the team as early as possible. This includes a dossier on the target company, a profile of all participants in the buying process, and a copy of all communications regarding this deal.
• Pick your team early. The team will shape the story, the key pitch points, the elements of pitch theater, the chemistry, the hunt process—all of it. Do not do the majority of the work and then bring them in; you just get more fights and more hi-jacking.
• Set 3 meetings, minimum. There is a deal strategy meeting. Then there is the pitch preparation meeting. Finally, there is dress rehearsal or final review. You need these to be long enough to allow for vigorous discussion, a healthy fight and brainstorming.
• Assign roles. People need to know up front what they will be responsible for: Who is handling communication with the client before and after the presentation or submitted proposal? Who is responsible for creating the documents and pitch decks? Who will be the conductor during the pitch? If you assign early, people will do a better job of handling the job and of planning time to do a good job.

Don’t get me wrong, this won’t completely fix things. I’m on a plane as I write this, leaving one meeting wherein I saw a pitch hi-jacking happen, and I am on my way to another meeting where I know I have a mind-reader. That’s okay and it’s to be expected; the energy is potentially really healthy. My management tips are about containing and focusing the energy on what will help you to win.

Hi All,

It occurred to me recently that we have a TON of free sales resources scattered throughout our site. From e-books to podcasts, and webinars to essays, we’ve definitely taken this thought leadership stuff to heart. And now we’ve gone one step further and wrapped it all up nicely into one lovely package we’ve aptly named our “Resource Center.”

So now, instead of registering for every e-book or download, you will simply register once for the Resource Center (it’s still free, of course), and you’ll never have to fill out another form again. (Registration is only required for e-books, webinars and podcasts.) Your email address will become your login, although our center should recognize you if you enter from a computer that you’ve previously used to login. I’m not one to brag (which is a trait that my marketing agency cites as a fatal weakness), but it is pretty snazzy…

In all seriousness, though, I invite you to check it out and take advantage of all of our free tools, including a brand NEW e-book that we just introduced today. (I’ll write about that separately later.) “How to Get into Big Companies for Big Sales… and What to Do Once You Get There” details a variety of new challenges that big sale hunters face and then provides extensive pointers, tips and insight that will allow them to greet those challenges head on.

I would love your feedback on the new resource center and e-book, so please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have a chance.

Now, let’s hunt!
Tom

In most horror films, at some point two people are in a scary place and they get separated. And at that moment, the tension begins because where there was conversation, now there is just the sound of the person’s breathing…the silence begins to play tricks with the imagination…and the suspense builds on itself until the character is at a level of irrational panic. Usually the person is calling out into the darkness repeatedly the name of the other character…and getting nothing back.

Silence is the worst when you’re on a hunt. One day there is a great dialogue and lots of discussions and the next you’ve entered some twilight zone of communication—emails aren’t returned, phone calls deadend at voicemail, and even your ace-in-the-hole contact (the one you’ve cultivated to give you the inside scoop) has dropped into some witness protection program, never to be heard from again.

Prospects smell fear and desperation; it’s pungent and unpleasant, so screaming into the night or begging for a returned phone call will not create a sense of strength and often doesn’t result in a returned call or email anyway.

However, humor can really work, so I want to share a few of the ways I have broken sustained silences in a big hunt and I want to hear some of your ideas in return. So, here are some cheap tricks and favorite techniques for reactivating the dialogue during a hunt that has gone silent…

1. Call and Sing Happy Birthday. I have done this a ridiculous number of times. I called my key contact and left a voicemail that says, “I wanted to get a hold of you and wish you a happy birthday. Congratulations on your birthday and I hope that you’re doing something special to celebrate. The next time I’m there you have to let me buy you lunch for your birthday, but for now….” This is where I break into song (“Happy Birthday to you…”) on the voicemail. Most every time I get a call back from the person within 24 hours. It involves them laughing at me and saying that whoever told me that it was his/her birthday was wrong, but they appreciate the call. That opens up the conversation and I get to re-connect.

2. Bio/Intro/Recommendation. – I send either a biography, introduction or recommendation about the person to him/her for his/her approval. The statement is flattering and factual. I indicate that I am using it for either a LinkedIn recommendation I am preparing for them or consideration for them for a national meeting that we are having that we would like them to attend and possibly speak at. I also indicate that I am missing a few items and I need to discuss it with them because the materials need to be submitted in a few days.

3. Send food. Is this cheesy? Absolutely. Is it transparent? I hope so. Does it work? You bet. Send them food—unusual food—and on the note write, “I know you have been busy because we haven’t talked. Call me for a minute to catch up while you enjoy this.” I recommend Graeter’s ice cream, particularly the Black Raspberry Chip, my personal favorite, that can be ordered by the pint. They pack it in dry ice and ship it everywhere. Cookies from Mrs. Fields are always good. For some great snacking food, go to www.VolpiFoods.com, and order some wine salami or rotola, (WARNING: Shameless client plug for Volpi, which doesn’t make the salami any less yummy!).

I know that silence, like time, kills all deals. You have to re-establish contact and dialogue, or you are fooling yourself if you believe that things are going your way. So, now it’s your turn–how do you break the silence with clients/prospects during the sales process when things go quiet (perhaps just a little too quiet)?

My son keeps telling me about a new show called “Lie to Me.” Evidently the main character has the ability to tell when someone is lying and, often times, why he/she is lying. Facial clues, tone of voice, body language are all indicators for him. He’s a scientist with years of study behind his abilities, but he has a few “naturals” on his team. These are people who can come to similar conclusions with accuracy, but have no formal training. [An ex-girlfriend of mine used to say that she had the same ability—she could tell when men were lying because their lips were moving. (Sigh.)]

Anyway, it got me thinking about our abilities in the sales process to identify liars, half-truth-tellers, concealers and the most dangerous buyers of all (I think): the delusionally hopeful, whose greatest sin is that they lie to themselves first and then repeat it to us.

I don’t have science behind me and I’m wary of the pop-psychology world of body language interpretation, (“If he crosses his arms that means he is defensive”). I do, however, tend to think that there are some indicators when the conversation is not completely truthful and those hints are worth watching for…

When I hear these types of red-flags, I push. I think that a mixture of self-confidence, raw curiosity and authenticity can get you closer to truth, regardless if the person will tell you the truth or not. The biggest push of the three is raw curiosity—ask the questions that are uncomfortable. It always surprises me how often we don’t ask the questions that we know we should because we are afraid of the answer…as if by not asking the question, the answer doesn’t exist.

What liars have you seen? How do they show up and what are your strategies for dealing with them?

It has all of the excitement of the big game, the high school play and your first illicit smoke rapped up in one. It’s “all you can eat night” at the adrenaline junkie café.

I’m talking about the night before the pitch for the big piece of business—it could be the final interview in an RFP process, a proposal meeting with the big prospect or the next step with your biggest client. Regardless, it’s show time and you and your team, (which could be no more than your pet, yourself and your coffee pot), are up late getting ready with all of the final details.

I’ve been through it a million times and I’ve watched dozens of clients go through it. This experience has taught me some key things that you should do to get it right in getting ready. But before I do that, let me share my worst mistakes ever…

• Opening the shrink-wrap on a software package that we had decided to use to create some of the elements of the next day’s pitch for the first time at 2am the morning of the meeting.

• Taking the red-eye from one pitch to get to the next pitch – that day I got the names, business issues and even the terms of the deal mixed up so badly that the prospect asked us to come back in the afternoon when we were a little clearer on the details (this one is so painful, almost 20 years later I can hardly write about it)

• Taking a team of the CEO, CFO and COO to a meeting on which they had not adequately been briefed, assigned roles and gone through a Murder Board exercise (see below). They spent the majority of the meeting arguing with each other on the assumptions in the presentation in front of the client.

I’m not going to tell you that you should have prepared beforehand and that it is about organization and planning, blah, blah, blah. You already know all of that and you’re still pressed for time up until the last minute. What I will tell you is that if you focus on the wrong things, you may get through the pitch well, but you may hurt your chances of getting the business.

Here are the right things to prepare …

Who’s the “Shoe?” In Vegas, when you’re playing cards, the cards are dealt by the dealer from a box called “the shoe.” In our terms, whoever is playing your master of ceremonies is the shoe—he or she is managing the meeting and the movement through the presentation as well as fielding the questions from the audience and selecting members of the team to answer. There can only be one shoe in a meeting for your team—pick them early in the process so that you can always ask this question in preparation to that person: “Do you understand this and can you run this part of the meeting?”

People over slides. Lots of preparation I see is around the presentation slides—as if the slides will tell the story. They don’t. So work the people hard. So much so that you can cut slides. What will they say? What prop will they use? And what questions will they ask the group you’re pitching? REHEARSE YOUR PEOPLE’S QUESTIONS TO THE AUDIENCE.

Murder Board. Everyone on your team has a secret fear that he or she might be the one to screw up. Ask this question to yourself and your team: What questions could they ask us in this presentation what would absolutely kill us? Then make certain you have the questions answered well and the person responsible for answering the question assigned. A fast, strong answer to a killer question is a great tone setter for the meeting.

Never trust your technology demo. Be prepared to pitch without smoothly transitioning if it blows up. I have seen techno demo become techno-drama several times. It may be an important part of your pitch. It might even be the whole reason for the meeting, but if it blows up, you have to be prepared to address it and move on.

Get 5 hours of sleep. You don’t need a full night’s sleep. But adrenaline and caffeine work better with a foundation to sit on and 5 hours of sleep will give it to you.

If you are a part of big pitches, you may have some of your own war stories to share. I would love to hear them.

Thanks,
Tom

Yesterday we introduced our first free eBook, Landing Big Sales with an RFP, and I can’t say that we could have picked a better time to do so.

I was just talking to a friend yesterday about how RFPs fit into the current business landscape. Our conclusion? And this isn’t rocket science, here: As budgets become tighter, and companies–big and small alike–become more anxious to show increased ROI, RFPs will simply become a necessary evil. Companies are going to want to make sure that they’ve explored all possible avenues before they make any decisions. And what’s the best way to do that? You guessed it…

So while RFPs may have been a mere yes or no decision for you in the past, you’re going to start seeing more and more of them in days to come. There’s no escaping, so my suggestion is this: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In other words, take some time to learn how to master RFPs. We’ve spent years dissecting these things and are now so familiar with them, that we’ve even figured out how to make the topic interesting and funny. Really…

And hey, I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to fill out an RFP: they’re time-consuming, vague, and often don’t result in new business. Sometimes you even feel like you’re offering free consulting–and, well, sometimes you are. This eBook will help you determine whether or not you’ve got a shot; whether the RFP makes sense for your company; and if so, how to make sure you stand way above the competition. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! (And yes, I’m definitely using fear tactis here).  Click here to Download: Landing Big Sales with an RFP.

*A small town in southern Indiana. What did you think I meant?

The power of words…

Grab attention, communicate an idea, provoke, engage, energize… If you hunt large sales, you know that the turn of a phrase or the capturing of a concept hinge on powerful words. I just read Frank Luntz’ article “Words That Pack Power” in the November 3rd issue of BusinessWeek. He picks out five words from the executive lexicon that should be used regularly in the current business world…

* Consequences – Use it and the listener thinks that good or bad, it is about them
* Impact – Not ‘effort’ or even ‘solutions’- these come out as intentions and people are done with good intentions
* Reliability – Luntz claims that “Value is now the sum of price plus convenience plus reliability.”
* Mission – not ‘mission statement’ which can be hollow or trite, but the intense accomplishment focus
* Commitment – the idea of making it personal to the credibility of the speaker

I have to tell you, when I read this list I was left ambivalent. I think that word-selection is vitally important. I also think word-omission is just as important. I’m just not sure that these are good enough, especially the last three. Those three are dog-eared and tired shadows of their former selves. Also, Frank did not provide a list of words that we should leave out of the executive lexicon, a list I would like to have seen. (Fortunately, David Meerman Scott wrote a whole e-book about such words and phrases: The Gobbledygook Manifesto).

So, what other words do you think make the list of ‘Power Words’ for American business? What are the words we should get rid of?