SalesGrok

Killer Sales Questions

It's been a bit too long since my last post.  I should tell you that I've had my hands full with my new company.  I parted from my previous employer after 7 years to try something different.  It wasn't so much that there was anything wrong with my former employ (well there certainly were leadership issues particularly around vision, focus and technology...but that doesn't mean the grass is greener), it was just time to quit.  I'm feeling pretty smart right now because I now represent a fast-paced, high-growth company who truly understands the value of a heavy hitter sales force.  So I'm not getting the volume of inbound sales calls as I did as a Director, but I am doing a hell of a lot more prospecting...

So I thought I'd share some of the killer sales questions I've come across and why I think so.  Credit goes to various authors and sales gurus and I'll do my best to give credit where credit is due.  These are not industry specific, but you can refine each to "fit" your business.  Here goes...

1. On a scale of 1-10 how happy are you with your current provider? 99% of people you are prospecting already have something in place that does what you do.  This approach allows you to survey the contact in a non-obtrusive way.  If they are a "10", you've got little hope to close.  For more, check out www.johncostigan.com.
2. Why are you looking to make a change? (Why did you ask for information or download a trial?, etc.) I like "why" questions in general because they give tremendous insight into the motivations of the buyer.  I see a lot of salespeople avoid the why because they are afraid of obtaining information counter to their mission.  Would you rather know sooner or later if a prospect really has a chance in hell to buy?  Right on!  If not, see "Working for Free"! 
3. What are the top 3-5 business issues your organization is focused on addressing this fiscal year?  Position yourself as a trusted business partner with this question.  You will need to establish repoire BEFORE you ask this question, unless you have a strong referral.  Hopefully, you've done enough homework to ask it this way, "From your annual report, I understand that the company is focused on international expansion and M&A.  How does this impact your role (department, etc.) and what are the top 3-5 business issues you are focused on this fiscal year?".
4. Have you set aside money to address this issue? (or...fix the problem?)  Easy way to ask about the budget and how "real" the opportunity is.
5. How will you measure the success of the solution? This provides insight into value proposition (what is the current impact in terms of cost and revenue?) and positions the seller as a business partner.  It will also highlight the power of the contact since those with power will be measured on the spend and those with less will be less concerned. You might use this as a way to get access to power..."We should probably review this issue with your VP, would you get a meeting for the three of us?" Get more on selling value at www.valueselling.com. 
6. If we were able to demonstrate how we could solve your problem (deliver a solution, etc.), where would we go from there? This is a trial close that reveals the buyers purchasing process while planting seeds of collaboration.  Another form might include "...what happens next?"

By no means are these ALL the questions that you should have in your arsenal, but they are some of the most important. It is critical to get as much of this information as possible EARLY in the sales process.  The closer the prospect is to a decision, the closer this information will be held to the vest.  As well, salespeople never have more power than on the front end of the sales cycle...so use it! We'd love to hear from you about your killer sales questions so please share your best with us.

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Death by Corporate Overview

This post is brought to you by Peter Cohan, author of Great Demo! and founder of the Second Derivative, an organization dedicated to delivering innovation and consistent success to the process of creating and delivering software demonstrations.  Peter has over 20 years in senior management, sales and marketing roles so enjoy and take it to heart...for the love of the customer!

We often hear the question, “How much of our company’s corporate overview
presentation should we include in customer meetings?” Good question.

The answer: as little as possible! Many salespeople and technical staff feel comfortable opening a meeting with a “brief” overview of their company. Most customers refer to this as “Death by "PowerPoint”!

Why? Because at the beginning of such a meeting, the customer is not interested in the vendor’s history. The customer is interested is seeing if the vendor can help the customer address their Critical Business Issues (CBI’s) or enable the customer to achieve their objectives.

Making the customer wait and listen to 3, 6, 10 or more slides from a standard corporate overview presentation about the vendor is just cruel! Instead, start the meeting with a “Situation Slide”.  In the case of a follow-up meeting that takes place after an initial meeting, this slide simply recalls the information gathered previously from during qualification/discovery discussion(s).

You should list:
􀀹 The customer’s name and job title for each major player or department.
􀀹 The CBI’s, Reasons, and Specific Capabilities needed for each player or
department.
􀀹 The Delta for each situation (you may want to create a Situation Slide for each major player or department involved).

The “Critical Business Issue” (CBI) is a problem that the customer sees as important enough to invest resources to address. It is best to use the customer’s words, such as, “I’m concerned about our ability to achieve our forecasted revenues this year”, which might come from a VP of Sales. In your Situation Slide you would re-phrase this as:
• VP of Sales, Acme Software
• CBI: Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues

A “Reason” is the issue behind the top-level problem that makes it a problem. In our example above, a typical Reason might be expressed by our VP of Sales as, “The reason I’m concerned about making our numbers this year is that we are having difficulty closing the technical sale – there is miscommunication and misalignment between our salespeople and the pre-sales Systems Engineers, and their demos are simply not getting the job done!” Your growing Situation Slide would then look like this:

• VP of Sales, Acme Software
• CBI: Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues
• Reason(s): Not closing the technical sale, due to miscommunication and
unsuccessful demos
The “Specific Capabilities” are those capabilities expressed by the customer as needed to address the CBI. Our VP of Sales might say, “We need training to improve the communications within the Sales Teams and to enable our demos to generate a ‘Wow!’ response on the part of our customers.” The Situation Slide would reflect this:
• VP of Sales, Acme Software
• CBI: Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues
• Reason(s): Not closing the technical sale, due to miscommunication and
unsuccessful demos
• Specific Capabilities: Intra-Sales Team communications and
demonstration effectiveness training

Finally, the “Delta” is a measure of the difference between the way things are today vs. with a solution in place. In our example, the VP of Sales might share that, “Right now it looks like we are about $1,500,000 short of achieving our annual quota.” The complete Situation Slide would then look like this:

• VP of Sales, Acme Software
• CBI: Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues
• Reason(s): Not closing the technical sale, due to miscommunication and
unsuccessful demos
• Specific Capabilities: Intra-Sales Team communications and demonstration effectiveness training
• Delta: $1,500,000 in annual revenues

Situation Slides enable the sales team to “recall the facts” and start the meeting with the customer’s issues. By presenting the Situation Slide, the sales team can confirm that (1) their information is correct and accurate or (2) determine whether there have been any changes since the last meeting with the customer.

In the case of an introductory meeting, you would use the same format for the Situation Slide, but instead of listing the specific customer’s Situation you may need to list another, similar customer’s situation (known as a “Reference Story” and sanitized to remove any confidential customer information or specific names).

Once the facts have been recalled or the Reference Story presented, you have the choice either to drill deeper into qualification questions (particularly if the meeting is “Vision Generation” in purpose) or proceed directly into a demo or other method of offering proof.

When should you present the information in the corporate overview? The answer is when the customer asks for it, specifically. Once you have shown that you have capabilities that can help the customer address their business issues, then the customer will begin to ask questions about your company – and, the answers then have relevance.  For example, if the customer is contemplating a deployment into three countries, then they may ask, “Do you have sales and support offices in the U.S., Germany, and France?” Providing the answer at the beginning of the meeting makes no sense (particularly if your standard presentation describes showing sales, customer service, customization, and training offices in 54 countries around the world – the customer is only interested in the three regions they occupy).

Most corporate presentations are entirely vendor-focused. As an exercise, review your corporate overview presentation from a customer’s perspective. Ask yourself, “What information really captures my interest?” It is likely that the answer will be, “Very little!”

As a final tip, for sales and marketing teams that simply must start with a corporate overview, work to reduce it to a single slide that focuses on the top-level business issues that your tools address.

Focus on the customer’s interests first - and enjoy the rewards of crisper sales!

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SE Whisperer

Most of us tech sales folks have a partner who carries the water for us on the bits and bytes of the technology.  Whether your company calls them Systems Engineers, Sales Engineers or Solution Engineers; everybody knows and loves the "SE".  Let's face it, most of us would be lost without our SE.  Not only do they bring brainpower, knowledge and ideas, but also (and almost as important) gobs of credibility.  Unless your SE is a real whack job, customers tend to take their word as gospel. 

Acronym Hell

In the technology space it’s all too easy to get carried away with all the cool acronyms.   If I had a nickel for every abbreviated technology snippet I’ve come across in eWeek, Information Week, Intelligent Enterprise, CIO and all the other trade rags over the years, I’d have a private island in the South Pacific!  Some of the freaking articles never even provide the long form - thank goodness for Google, eh?