Sales reviews, the bane of everyone’s lives. The sales manager has so many to do. The sales professional has to answer so many intrusive questions… and it all takes so long!

As the old adage goes… ‘time is money’… and as so eloquently expressed by the Romans all those years ago… ‘tempus fugit’… so time flies and the problem that causes is amply summed up by another old adage… ’so much to do, so little time’.

So, in the spirit of time is money, time flies and so much to do… then the shorter you can keep your sales reviews the happier everyone is going to be. Therefore, here are the only 3 questions that you need to ask…

1. Show me how you are going to make your number.
Following our pipeline methodology makes asking this question really easy. The sales exec is either going to show you how the number is going to be made, in which case move on to question 2, or not. If not, find out what they are doing to close the gap.

2. Show me how you are going to close your committed deals.
The committed deals make up the forecast and follow the binary method of forecasting – these are the deals the sales exec says will close. So, make sure the close plan is robust for these deals, everything else is incidentally because if these deals close the target is achieved… don’t waste time on incidentals!

3. Show me how you are filling your pipeline.
Lastly, s sustainable pipeline requires a full sales funnel. What is the sales exec doing to proactively fill the funnel? An empty funnel will lead to problems later.

There you are, 3 simple questions to help manage your team… I could have written a lot more, but kept this post short as time is money!

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Most, if not all sales methodologies talk about getting to the decision makers. It’s a good thing to do, but not necessarily wholly the right thing. In simple psychological terms it is far easier to stop a deal happening then make a deal happen. If you are only covering the decision makers then you may be losing out.

So, for all your must win deals, get the sales reps to develop relationship maps showing all the people who can stop a deal from happening for each of their deals. For example the CEO and CFO may not be making the decision for a certain purchase, but they sure can stop it from happening. Equally, you may find people lower in the organisation that can stop a deal from happening, for example, a technical expert. These people can’t make a deal happen, but they can sure stop it!

Action… make sure you show all the stoppers on the relationship map.

Now for each of the stoppers show how well you know them and / or how they can be influenced. If you have no influence over them, then the deal is at risk. I’m not saying you can’t win it, just that you are at risk because you don’t know how they are thinking. This is all part of qualification and qualification is about managing risk.

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Ever heard anyone say something like…” we need more people able to close… you need to teach us closing skills…”

Like me I’m sure most of you will have a book on the subject of closing deals and by reading these you can become learned in the black art of the trial close, the story close, the alternative close, the assumptive close, the price close, the direct close, the indirect close, etc, etc… it goes on and on.

These techniques may work on the general public; they are sometimes very set piece and rather tardy when used business to business. Closing starts a long time before the end of the sale and the reason why most deals do not close is more to do with the way they are opened, rather than not being able to close.

If you have people who can’t close then do some analysis on their pipeline.

Let’s assume John needs some help.

The place to start is by reviewing all the deals that John has not managed to close. Sort them in to two lists.

• The first list is for the deals that did close, but with another firm – let’s call this the closed list.
• The second list is for the deals that have not closed with anyone – the open list.

If you have lots of deals listed under ‘closed’ then John does indeed appear to have a problem with closing. If however, there are a lot of deals list under ‘open’ then the problem may not be so much as closing but more of qualification – you can’t close a deal if the prospect is not that convinced they need the solution.

Why deals don’t close is a big subject, but here are some early pointers…

For deals that would fall under the ‘open’ category you first need to focus on the customer’s Business Imperative. This is looking at their need and why they must address it now. It is about linking pain and pleasure to their business and developing strong questions to ask that will make the prospect think. Making them think adds value and develops trust and respect. – this is all good groundwork for closing. You also need to make sure the deal is properly qualified and again ‘open’ deals would suggest poor qualification.

Now we turn our attention to the ‘closed’ list. Sub divide this into two further groups:

• The first group we will call the incumbent. This is the list of all deals that were given to the prospect’s incumbent supplier.
• The second list is all that closed deals that did not go to an incumbent.

Winning against a trusted incumbent is difficult. The incumbent has the trust, the respect and would be considered low risk. These deals need careful qualification. A negative strategy may help – you get the prospect to convince you that you will be given equal opportunity. If they want you to bid then you need full access to their personnel to build relationships and to build trust. If you don’t get the access, then qualify out as you will not win.

Now the last list – deals that have closed and not gone to an incumbent. If this is a large list, then you do need to look at the skills of your sales person. First of all are they confident, do they radiate with confidence in their ability and the ability of the firm? Would you buy from someone who is not confident? Do they let the prospect know that the deal is important to them, that it is personal and that they want to win it? They have to ask for the deal. They have to show that it is important. These qualities have to be there or closing will become difficult.

As I mentioned, closing is a big subject. Sales process is important and process starts with good qualification. Couple this with the Business Imperative, a good Value proposition and being in a position to influence then these are all the right ingredients. Qualification Analysis, Business Imperative Analysis, Value Analysis and Relationship Analysis are all parts of the sales process. Mix these with good communication skills and closing will become easier.

In summary, closing starts at the beginning of the process and requires solid sales foundation. There is no silver bullet for closing. It’s the general sales skills at fault, not closing skills.

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All great salespeople begin as great question askers. Small companies that ask great questions can beat big companies that don’t

Your value to your customer is not measured by what you know, but by the questions that you ask. You add value by making your customer think. The way that you ask questions will differentiate you in the way that you sell. In the ever competitive environment that we are in, when products and services are becoming commodities, the way that we sell can be our biggest differentiator. Add value during the sales process. Ask the right questions and your prospect will be only too pleased to give the time that you need to make the sale.

Knowledge is power and the more you know about your prospect’s company, business needs, decision matrix, personal needs / wants, problems / opportunities and your competition then the more likely you are to get the sale. Effective questioning, probing and listening will enable you to get the critical information you need to qualify the prospect, plan your sales calls, produce presentations and close the deal.

Asking questions of the prospect also puts them at the centre of attention and show that you care enough about them. You are looking to learn more about them, more about their problems, more about their opportunities and most importantly, you are getting the prospect to think. By asking questions, you move forward.

Generally, you should aim to speak no more than 30% of the time in a meeting, unless of course you are giving a formal presentation.

Effective questioning can:-

1. Provide you with the opportunity to help crystallise the prospect’s thinking.

2. Help you build rapport and trust by showing that you understand and show that you value the prospect’s opinion. Questioning also allows you to use their language, which in turn helps build rapport.

3. Allow you to gather vital information about the sale.

4. Enable you to control the meeting effectively.

5. Help minimise harmful misunderstandings that can occur.

6. Help reduce the resistance to the sale.

Here is an example of the power of questioning. This is an exercise we use in our workshops to demonstrate process and the power of questioning. Opening and closing a deal in 4 easy questions!

You will need a volunteer to work on….

a) Ask your volunteer what they would like to own that they do not already have. (use the word own, not buy)

b) Ask them what owning this product would do for them. How their life would be improved by owning this product. (they are telling you the benefits to them)

c) Ask them how much they would be prepared to pay for this product – name their own price (they set the price point)

d) Ask them – that if you had this product and you could sell it to them for the price mentioned would you have a deal (the close – and they should say yes)

The power of this simple set of questions is that you have conducted a successful sell. You have achieved it by only asking questions. The customer has done most of the talking. You have sold the product and not mentioned anything about it… you just asked questions - it’s what good selling is all about.

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Now and again I answer questions posted on LinkedIn’s question and answer section. Today I saw a good question asking members what would be the one piece of advice and/or wisdom they would give to entrepreneurs such as those found in professional services who start their own business and have to sell. Here is how I answered that question…

Most of the professional service providers you are talking about have a fatal flaw when it comes to selling their services… I’ll explain by sharing an experience…

I was invited last year to speak on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) at a lawyers conference in Vienna. I therefore had an international audience from across Europe and Americas of the smaller law firms. In my experience, lawyers are pretty much a very confident group of people and my audience of different nationalities were no different. Lawyers are generally very intelligent, articulate, quick thinking and possibly a little aloof… particularly this group when they had to get up and experience a few NLP exercises. However, they did it with good humour and at the end of the session their natural confidence was still high… and then came the close of the session…. However, before that, let me put into context the close…

One of the main themes I teach on NLP is that behaviour follows intention. Whatever a person’s intention it will come out in their behaviour – we are human and we can’t stop our intention flowing out of our behaviour. Most people can pick up if something is not right, for example, sales people who only have their own interests at heart will come across as such. We don’t trust them and back away. Therefore, if your intention is to sell, you will come across as selling. If however, your intention is to help someone to buy this will equally come across and be more successful.

So, having shared with my audience many aspects of NLP and human behaviour, I asked my audience how confident they felt at selling their services and I think I had a unanimous vote of high confidence. I then asked how many of them were confident and comfortable about explaining their fees to their clients. Immediately the atmosphere in the room changed and many people suddenly did not look confident and again most said they were neither confident nor comfortable about asking for their fees… and here I closed them…If you are not confident in asking for your fees, why should the client feel comfortable about paying them! If you come across as thinking it is wrong, why should your client think it is right!

The lesson – be confident in asking for your fees, or the client will feel something is wrong!

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Customer Agreed Close Dates. The first question I often ask sales reps when looking at specific deals is “when will it be closing?” The second question and often far more important is “Does the customer agree with you?” Any response other than a rock solid affirmative means the customer has not yet agreed. If the customer has not agreed to the date, guess what is likely to happen? – It’s not closing on the date in the pipeline. Get the customer to work toward an agreed close date. If you make a suggestion and the customer falls over laughing, then the dates probably wrong. Now, if you want to test the commitment to the date ask them “for how long they can delay the decision?” If you get an answer anything other than we can’t, then it is very probable the deal is going to be delayed. If this is the case, guess what’s missing? – The Business Imperative – for those that have read my previous posts may well have seen that I have written about this topic before – however, for those that haven’t here’s a quick summary…

What you need to do is to understand the customer’s business imperative. This is not just about understanding their need, it is about why they must address the need now. The name gives it away – Business – you must link the need to business issues. Business issues are to do with customer retention, development and acquisition; revenue creation; process efficiency; cost reduction and business continuity. The second part of the name – Imperative – meaning it’s absolutely fundamental to address now. You may often find a customer has a need, but it’s the imperative that is missing. See Business Imperative Analysis and download the full eBook… for free!

So, the most important question… “Does the customer agree with you?”

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Value, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. If what you have is not valued by your customer, then it is of no value to that customer. Therefore, when you seek to provide value, your value has to be determined separately for each different sales opportunity and only your customer can tell you if what you have provides them with value.

There are three areas of value to be considered, a return on the investment, uniqueness and personal value.

A return on investment is often considered to be a financial return. This viewpoint is particularly true for business clients, more so than consumer clients. Consumer clients may look more at what they are prepared to pay for what the product will do for them. In business, the easiest way to justify expenditure is to show a greater return. If money generated or saved is greater than the money spent on the solution then this will be valued. For a cast-iron return on investment proposal, it is always best to show a return that is attributable solely as a consequence of using your solution.

Secondly, unique selling points (USP) are of value, but often in the seller’s eyes rather than the buyer’s. You may have something that you believe is very unique and not offered by the competition. However, if what you have is not valued by the customer then your uniqueness is irrelevant. For example, some companies who have a multinational presence often like to attempt to show differentiation from their competition by making something of the fact that they are represented across many countries. If the prospect that they are talking to is represented in only one country and has no plans to expand then this uniqueness is irrelevant to them. There is no uniqueness of value. If your prospect is also represented in the exact countries, then this representation may also be of value. If it is, then it may also be a requirement.

Thirdly, always remember that you are selling to the individual and not the organisation. Therefore, you also have to consider what personal value you will be delivering to the decision maker. This is the icing on the cake. If you can show a return on investment, provide value that none of your competitors can and provide an element of personal value then you are in a very strong position to influence the decision your way. Personal value has to be something that the prospect values highly and something that can be delivered quickly. Another way of thinking of personal value is what ‘quick wins’ can be delivered. Personal value, as the label implies, is personal to an individual. However, for example, personal value is likely to include things such as making life easier, career progression, and change of emphasis of job.

The customer first needs to buy in to the return, once satisfied he will look at the why you and then to seal the deal he will look at personal value. Personal value is the strongest of the proposition, but it will only come into play after the previous two value propositions have been accepted. Look for the personal value.

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No matter how well you believe your solution will meet the requirements that address the need, you will not make a sale if you are not selected. The old adage ‘people buy from people’ is true. If they don’t like you, then they are very unlikely to buy from you. However, just liking you will not be enough; you also have to be able to deliver value. You have to be able to deliver value every time you meet your prospect. You add value by keeping your promises, by helping them solve their problems and, above all, by asking the right questions. If your prospect values your input then, by definition, you are influencing.

If there is more than one person involved in the buying process then you must make sure that they are working together and share the same view of the need, requirements and solution. To be able to do this you need to be able to influence. To influence is to communicate effectively. To communicate effectively means having the ability to understand what your prospect wants, to be able to understand what they are telling you even if they are not actually telling you, having the ability to establish a relationship built on trust and possessing the skill to advance their thinking through effective questioning. If you ever get stuck on a problem and you don’t seem to be able to progress, ask yourself a question about the problem and then answer it. The right questions are very powerful.

Therefore the understanding and skills required include:

1. Understanding how we communicate.
2. To develop acuity awareness.
3. To be able to establish rapport.
4. To be competent at effective questioning.

To be able to ask really effective questions you need to be in rapport. In order to be able to build rapport you need to be able to receive the non-verbal messages coming back at you - this is the acuity awareness, or to put it another way, you need keenness of hearing and sight. However, in order to be able to decipher the messages you need a good understanding of how we form our view of the world and how we like to express this - understanding how we communicate.

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This was a question that was posed by Jeff Blackwell of www.salespractice.com in his forum. It related to an upcoming book on selling by Paul McCord. Shown below is my initial response to the question. Paul McCord had something to say about my response! If you follow the link to the forum then you will see the full thread.
My answer…

In order to answer the question correctly we need to define the context of the strength and weaknesses and also the environment in which the selling tales place. For example, retail sales versus the complex sale. Someone with fantastic retail strengths won’t find a process that takes advantage of these that can be effectively used in the complex sale. In order to survive in this environment the retailer would have to pick up additional processes that they have not used before and therefore by definition they won’t yet be strengths.

To keep things simple, let me answer the question in terms of the complex sale.

There are basically two types of sales approach required – hunting (new business) and farming (account management). You will find people who are good at both, but mainly you will find people who prefer one or the other. Their strengths are in either hunting or farming. At the macro level the processes for these types of selling are different and therefore, in this context, you can have processes that take advantages of ones strengths.

However, within any salespersons remit are three basic elements to the job. They have to Fill their pipeline, they have to Manage their pipeline and they have to Close their pipeline – Fill, Manage and Close. Everything they need to do summed up into three words! Now if we look at strengths, I’ve known sales professionals who are fantastic closers, but useless at finding new opportunities. Equally I’ve worked with sales people who are incredible at getting in and opening new business opportunities, but absolutely could not close an open door to save their lives. In one case I’m thinking about, I split the sales role. One person opened and others closed. It was far from ideal, but we did use the strengths and only allowed them to use part of the process that matched their strengths. However, this was a one-off and I would not like to do it again as it caused too many problems… so overall, you can’t have weaknesses in the sales process and to be effective all three areas have to be strengths. You can’t really on being a good closer if you have nothing to close!

Within the sales role there are also different styles. The first one I’ll talk about is Reactive selling versus Proactive. I’m sure all sales professionals can do reactive, but many can’t do proactive. Proactive is about filling the pipeline. In a buoyant market most people will only have time for reactive selling and this may well hide their weakness of not being able to fill their pipeline. It may also hide their weaknesses in managing and closing… as they are basically oreder taking. So the strengths may be that the person is good at talking to people, good at treating them well, good at making them feel welcome – all good traits, but these strengths without the strengths in Fill, Manage and Close will not be enough when the market gets tougher.

The final part I would like to cover is Product Pitching versus Consultative Selling. You can follow a process for pitching products. You can also follow a process for consultative selling. Product pitching will be primarily aimed at the user, whereas consultative selling should be aimed at the CxO. Consultative selling will involve talking business benefit, results and what you will be doing to help the customer meet their corporate objectives. Product pitching will cover features and options of the product. Product pitching has no place in the complex sale, yet so many professionals engaged in this type of selling can only do this – this is their strength, their sales crutch and unfortunately this strength is not an advantage. What they need to do is address their weaknesses and turn the weakness into a strength – they have no option if they want to be a top performer.

So, in some long winded way what I’m saying is that in certain context there are processes that take account of ones strengths, but only in the narrow context of hunting and farming. For all other aspects of selling you have to be equally strong and if you have weaknesses these will need to be addressed. As I mentioned it is no good relying on fantastic closing skills if you have nothing to close!

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Selling is a profession and like all other professions it has a public image. Unfortunately, the public image of selling is often not good. Most people do not see selling as a good profession. They do not feel it is an honourable profession. Most of us will have heard people say this or similar things about salespeople. However, the entire well being of a company is dependant on sales ability to sell. The nation is dependant on businesses ability to sell… it’s how the governments generate tax income. Therefore, the wealth of the nation is dependent on selling. All our jobs are dependent on selling. Should we therefore not start seeing selling in a better light?

Selling has a bad name because we can all stereotype poor sales people. These people try and sell us something we don’t probably need. Many of us may well think of the second-hand car salesperson, trying to sell us a car that either does not meet our needs and / or is sub-standard. This is selling’s equivalent of the drug takers in sport. They are out to cheat. However, often when we see them, it does not feel right; something about them does not ring true. Our subconscious is at work picking up the signals, we find ourselves walking away, and our experience is stored in our memory, which we use to generalise about the image of salespeople. Generalisation is good, it’s how we learn, but like most things it can also be bad.

We may like to generalise about salespeople, but what we often don’t realise is that all of us are salespeople. Everyone sells. Even if we do not do it for a living, we still sell. Going for a job interview is selling, you are selling yourself. Every time you share your views, your beliefs you are exerting influence and influencing is selling. You are selling your ideas. Therefore, we are all salespeople in one form or another. So give those beleaguered sales people a break, you do it, they do it for a living and the wealth of the nation is dependent on them!

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