Strategic Selling

Regardless of whether you are a wholesaler, manufacturer, retailer, trades-person or service provider, without sales you are out of business.

Some businesses like to think that the business just comes their way, that they never really have to sell.  If that is you – change your thinking.  

So how can you grow sales for your business?  How can you get more of your enquirers or prospects buying, or the customers who do buy, buying more?  How do you get your salespeople to sell more?

Businesses which experience plentiful sales and have successful sales teams do not achieve these sales by accident.  They have a systemised and well thought out plan for selling.

Here’s what they do and how it can work for you.

Develop your sales team

Firstly, make sure you know who does what.  Who does the selling in your business right now?  Is there someone dedicated to it or is it something that happens when you run out of sales?  Do you proactively go after sales or just wait for people to walk in your door?

Think very carefully about what is happening in your business.  Who is on your sales team?  

How well do they perform? Is there a variety of results amongst your people? If so, what do the successful salespeople do that the others do not?  What works for them – and what does not?  What tools and strategies do they use?

Do not just analyse this for yourself.  Talk to your whole team, whether they are on your sales team or not.  Listen to their input and suggestions.  Ask them how you could make it easier for them to sell.

Make sure you have the right people selling in your business.  They must have a desire to be of service, to help people find solutions to needs uncovered in VALUE Encounters. They should have great communication skills and be able to easily establish rapport with others.  Most of all they need to be good listeners; not good talkers, to conduct VALUE Encounters.  Listening to the customer’s needs will ensure that they identify the right product or service, your customers will trust your sales people, and you will be well on the way to building a long-term relationship with them.  

Recognising team strengths is critical. Are we a Hunter (successful at bringing in new business), a Farmer (good at maintaining business) or a Gatherer (good at successfully identifying opportunities).  An organisation/individual has a variety of skills in selling and it is important to recognise where they fit into the selling scheme.

Training

Once you know you have the right people in the sales roles, make sure you support them.  Ensure that your sales team have the skills and resources to do the job well, which includes constant training.  

Have weekly sales meetings and discuss the different strategies that are being used and what is working well.  Educate your sales team as to the importance of creating relationships with customers and give them the tools and support people to make sure that they can.  Sales is about creating customers and keeping them coming back.  It is about continuous improvement.

Develop your sales systems

Develop a system of selling that suits your business.  Get your sales team involved.  Keep this item on the agenda for your weekly sales meeting and aim to constantly improve the system that you use.  Make sure your sales system includes your ongoing customer support and nurturing program.  

There are people in your business who are really good at some part of selling.  Some are good on the telephone, some are good at upselling, and some are really good at getting referrals.  Some are good at getting in the door to see people, others are great at closing the deal.

Whatever the case may be, find out what the most successful person does differently to get the result they do.  You might have to role-play, have someone go out on the road with them or record them, to really hone in on what they do differently that gets results.

When you have identified the success factors, design a system around them and use it.

Set yourself and your sales people apart

Have your sales people add value wherever they can.  Supply them with information that can be given to clients to show them how to use your product or service to get more business, improve efficiency or whatever. Provide them with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that keeps key data per customer.

Be a consultant to your clients, not just a sales person.  Build and maintain an ongoing relationship with your clients, inform them, educate them, create partnerships based on trust and concern for their success.

Now that you have a plan for your sales team, it’s time to look at your business.  You should:

1. Know who your clients are and what they want
   Establish a CRM database of key information and keep it up-to-date.  The more you know, the better you can target your efforts. Go to your customers and ask them what you could do to make purchasing from you easier and more attractive.  Ask them what you could do to improve the way they are treated. After these VALUE Encounters, put together a list of changes that you think should be implemented, ask your team for their input and their commitment to make the changes.

2. Focus on the profitable customers
   Use the Pareto Principle – the 80/20 rule.  It goes like this:  80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients.  Analyse your own sales records.  You will more than likely find that this is true for your business.  If that is so, focus on the 20% of clients who give you the 80% of your business.  These are your “A” clients.  They are more loyal, less trouble and usually, most profitable.  Look at your “B’s” too.  How can you make your “B” clients into “A” clients?  Think about what it would take to do that and go to it.

3. Measure so that you can manage
   You will need the following vital statistics:

   • Number of enquiries

   • Conversion rate (how many enquiries do you receive to make one sale)

   • Margin on each sale

   • Average dollar sale

   • Number of sales per customer

   • Life time value (on average) per customer

   Record these regularly: they are invaluable to you when you do your sums.  If you are converting one in ten at a certain sales value, how many enquiries do you need to achieve your target?  What would happen if you could convert more?  What about if you could increase the average sale value?  Work through each scenario and use them to set your sales targets.

4. Get a clear brief
   Before visiting a customer, make sure you (or your sales team) do their homework first.  Be prepared.  What is the purpose of the visit?  Are you there to get to know them better, to learn their needs, how they make decisions?  Are you there to close a sale from a previous enquiry, establish a relationship, introduce a new product?

   If it is a business you are dealing with, do you need to know who else will be involved in the decision making process?  Should you know who the decision will affect?

   Are you sure of your customer’s needs and wants? Do they know what they really want? 

   Clarity and education are two of the secrets of successful selling.  The clearer the brief you get from a client, the easier it is to help them.  Create a VALUE Encounter template with questions you need to ask, you can come back and present a proposal or quote to get the result you want.

5. Packaging your product or service

   When your customer buys from you think about what else they need.  Can you provide more of a total solution than your competitors by packaging your products or services?  Will doing this save your customer time, money or inconvenience and give you a competitive advantage?  If so, do it.  If you cannot provide the total package, joint venture or partner up with some other businesses to do that.

6. Know the value of upselling and how to do it

   Every time a member of your sales team does this you make more money with very little extra cost and you lift your average dollar sale.  Make everyone aware of what all of your upsells are.  If you do not have any, create some, if not with your own products, use someone else’s that are complementary.  Create scripts and systems for your team to use to upsell every time they make a sale.

7. Scripts

   Why is it that some promotional offers or sales calls get a better result than others?  To get the best result each time, develop scripts for people who sell either in person or over the phone.  In fact, most procedures in your business can be scripted.  

   Instead of coming up with off-the-cuff answers when someone says, “that seems expensive” (which may or may not result in a sale), script an answer with a list of reasons why the product or service is worth the price and noting the value it adds.  Do this for all common objections.  

   Remember that your people are individuals; allow them to personalise the scripts you use.

8. Think your selling process through

   Create a sales track to train your team.  An easy way is to draw a diagram of the flow of a sale showing what needs to happen at each step.

9. Make it easy to do business

   Have all the tools, resources and technology you need.  Have processes outlined, systems documented.  Give your customers what they ask for.  Go out of your way to make doing business with you easy.

Quotes

Make sure you have a quick, consistent turnaround time.  Do not just give people a price.  Doing this forces them to choose on price alone.  Give them as much information as possible so that they can make a fully informed decision.  

Outline the other benefits of dealing with you.  Highlight differences in quality, delivery, service, follow up service and guarantees.

Expressions of interest/tenders

How do you find out the decision criteria when putting together a tender?  Ask!  Go to the people who issued the expressions of interest or tender.  Find out exactly what the process for decision making is. 

Who will be the decision makers?  What are they looking for as individuals?  What information do they need?  Would they consider a non-conforming tender?  What supporting information would help them make a decision? Ask whatever questions you need to know to ensure that you have the best possible chance of being successful.  

Complex sales

Sales become complex when you have more than one decision maker involved in the buying process.  

In any complex sale there are four types of buyers to identify. There may be two people fulfilling all four roles or one hundred people playing one of the four roles.  If you miss anyone involved in this buying process, or have missing information, the sale can be, and often is, sabotaged.  

The four types of buyers to identify are as follows:

1. The Economic Buyer

   This is the person who signs or finally authorises the signing of the cheque.  This person can veto anyone else in the process.

2. The Technical Buyer

   They check all the specifications, the pricing, the legalities of the sale.  They may well have been the one who called for tenders or expressions of interest.

3. The User Buyer

   This person is affected by or uses what you are selling in the workplace or in their work.

4. The Coach

   They may or may not be involved directly in the sale.  They may be internal or external to the organisation.  They know who the players are and can set you in the right direction to get you through the right doors.  The best coach to have is the Economic Buyer.

Ask yourself these questions in any complex sale.  What do I need to know, to know absolutely that this buyer will decide in my favour?  What information is missing?  What information does this decision maker/buyer need to make a positive decision in my favour?

There are also a number of approaches which can increase your success in identifying your customer/clients needs in such circumstances.  

Many consultants and salespeople in complex sales environments adopt the SPIN approach.  During the initial meeting they go through a process of questions directed at the following criteria:

• Situation

  Asking organisational questions and determining issues.

• Problems

  Identifying problems that give rise to the issues (suggestions put back and forward).

• Implications

  Identifying the implications of the problem remaining unresolved.

• Need

  Becomes the real area to be addressed by your product or service.

Without necessarily providing a definitive suggestion at the time, this process of careful questioning and selective feedback will increase the probability of you succeeding to secure this business with this client.  SPIN selling is, in effect, a highly consultative selling process, just like the VALUE Encounter.

Create a positive sales kit

Presentation in sales is very important.  Make sure your sales team has a sales kit that sets you apart from everyone else.

Warm versus cold selling

Cold calling is so much harder than selling to someone who knows who you are.  Always ask for a reference but observe the Trilogy of Trust.

Become an information provider

Make sure the information is of value to your clients.  Find out what sort of information your clients and potential clients want.  If you do not know, ask.  

A cautionary word about change - be very careful.  Some people are strongly opposed to change and to being told what to do.  Make the evolution of these new methods a team project.  That way the team will be working with you to implement the changes and adhere to new systems.

Take some time to put together your selling action plan based on the following points:

• Put a training and development plan in place for your team;

• Develop your sales systems, scripts and processes, like upselling;

• Differentiate your business.  Ask your sales team how you can help them to do the same;

• Research your clients.  Find out what they want and how they want it;

• Focus on your “A’s” – the 20% that give you the most profit and income;

• Measure the results you are getting;

• Set targets and do the numbers to work out what you need to do to achieve them.

• Become an information provider.  Give your customers valuable information to complement your product or service.