Can we win?
Will it be good business?
Used to be, "great selling" referred to the ability to sell anything to anyone – freezers to Eskimos, as the saying goes. Now, we see that as classic Vendor-talk. Used to be, too, that salespeople believed any business was good business – more Vendor-talk.
The Business Resource knows that both of those beliefs lead to disastrous results. The former makes customers mad as hell; the latter creates customers from hell.
Throughout these columns we’ve exhorted salespeople to think about how they can create value for their customers. Selling freezers to Eskimos is, of course, the polar opposite of creating value. No need for much discussion on that. It’s the second notion we’d like to speak to here.
You’ve got a feeling in your gut, eh?
Think for a second: What criteria does your sales organization use to determine how many resources to give to the pursuit of various sales opportunities? Too much "gut feeling" involved? Or, are the criteria tied almost exclusively to your company’s ability to meet the technical specs for the job?
While technical qualification is better than gut feel, both approaches end up as costly propositions – very costly!
Step back and calculate the direct cost of the time and other resources that go into working up proposals for customers who are just kicking tires or fulfilling an internal requirement to get a third bid or, for any number of other reasons, are never going to buy from you. It happens every day in every sales organization in the land. In fact, it’s probably the top frustration of executives of our client companies.
And the cost of over-resourcing bad opportunities is only the tip of the iceberg. The real cost is below the surface – under-resourcing good opportunities. Our observation is that upwards of 80% of salespeople’s time (and by extension, their company’s other resources) is spent on opportunities whose outcomes – win or lose – were connected only slightly to the actions of the salespeople pursuing those opportunities. That leaves only 20% of their time to dedicate to opportunities whose outcomes depend critically on the actions of the salespeople pursuing them.
The customer isn’t always right
Why is this phenomenon so pervasive? Like so much about selling, it goes to mind-set. Vendor/Problem-Solver salespeople have a "customer-is-always-right" mind-set which, on the surface, seems like a noble thing but which leads to the indiscriminate pursuit of opportunities. Business Resource salespeople, on the other hand, have a "mutual value" mind-set. They look for shared value in sales opportunities and do so by using objective criteria. What’s more, they let customers know about it.
Where does your sales organization weigh in on this critical philosophical point? Sure, most of your salespeople, no doubt, are mindful of the financial success of their own company. But do they have the guts and the savvy to communicate that to customers? Communicating this philosophy to customers is among the greatest points of departure between the Vendor/Problem-Solver and the Business Resource. The era of the salesperson as the customer advocate or free technical resource is over. Salespeople must build mutually valuable customer relationships.
In a recent Wall Street Journal story, a senior executive for Federal Express said, "You have to be willing to suck it up and walk away," referring to prospects and customers his company doesn’t want to pursue or keep. In other words: Should we pursue? Can we win? Will it be good business for both companies?
Here’s a question for your sales team
In subsequent columns we’ll discuss some of the criteria for answering these three questions. But the criteria won’t do salespeople any good unless they have the right mind-set. So we’ll leave you with this suggestion. Poll your salespeople with the following question: "Which best describes your own thought process as regards how much of your time, and other of our company’s resources, you are willing to spend with a particular customer:" Here are the three responses to choose from:
1. I always want to appear responsive, so I probably err on the side of being overly accommodating.
2. I’m protective of my time and my company’s resources and I want my customers to know this.
3. Neither of the above describes my thought process.
You probably already know the right answer. Next month, we’ll explain the responses (including the "right" answer) and tell you how most salespeople answer this question.
Jerry Stapleton and Nancy McKeon are with Stapleton Resources, LLC, a sales force effectiveness practice based in Waukesha. They can be reached at 262-524-8099 or on the Web at www.stapletonresources.com
Nov. 22, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
