Are You Still Talking?

In Third Core's work with sales teams, we have the priveledge of reviewing many different styles and approaches to conducting sales meetings. Through one of our services, we create extremely realistic simulations of sales environments and run salespeople through multiple role-playing scenarios with the opportunity to view Selling in Action.

I had the opportunity to observe a salesperson conducting an executive-level sales call with the CEO of a multi-billion dollar global retailer.

We have spoken on agendas already. I will not repeat myself here needless to say, the salesperson did not articulate an agenda.

What I found most incredible about this interaction was how the opportunity was utterly wasted. The salesperson spent 90% of the meeting pitching how his firm would be a "strategic partner" (I HATE that phrase), how HE would be the client's advocate - as though he has evenearned ANY shred of credibility and then proceeds to launch on a seemingly endless diatribe on the services and products HE BELIEVES the client needs! I was gobsmacked.

Not once did this salesperson attempt to understand the priorities of the CEO, no questions were asked that would drive to a deeper level of understanding on the CEO's issues, desires, wants or even his criteria for evaluating success or failure in a services provider. I was utterly amazed that the salesperson believed the interchange was 50/50.... Amazing how when we are thrust in a situation our perception may be different than reality.

The post-mortum with the CEO (and it literally was) indicated that there was no confidence in the salesperson or his company, that the CEO felt offended that the issues HE wanted to discuss were not even addressed and he felt he was being pitched.

So what can we do to avoid this? When we are calling on senior executives, please know your audience. Do not make assumptions as to their role, what they would be interested in or what their level of involvement would be in decision making and discovery.

Keep the discussion at a business level. An open dialogue about the client's priorities will win the day over 30 minute discertation on "Who we are and why we are great". As I like to tell folks, the CEO is interested in what the CEO is interested in. You had better understand what this is before you position any type of prduct, service or relationship.

Multiple choice question:

Your client is likely to be excited and feel positively about you and your company if:
a. You spend 1 hour describing you products and services in detail also articulating how you think you can work together
b. You spend 45 minutes understanding the client's priorities, painting a vision and then 15 minutes mapping your products and services to this vision with the client
c. You spend all of your time understanding your client's priorities, helping him/her paint a vision, understand the impacts of addressing the priorities and how this would happen.

I think we can write off A - at least for high-value high-impact solutions. B sounds good but remember the level we are working at - solutions will be meaningless without context. C allows us to understand much more about priorities and then allows us to map the right products and services to meet the need (and the benefit).

Bottom line folks - keep quiet as often as you can, allow the client to speak and give thought to how the questions you ask might generate new thoughts and excitement with our client.

As always - enjoy yourselves.

Cheers,

Steve