Real Selling Starts When the Customer Says "No"

This week I got the biggest NO of my entire sales career. It was delivered not from the official channels but through some personal relations, although from the “right people”. Question is what do I do now?

Before I share with you some thoughts on the subject, let me tell you what I did last time I got the BIG NO and see what we can learn from that experience. That case looked bad from start; we came in barely at #3 after a well know competitor, who was in the lead. Being a bit of an eagle salesman (at least when it comes to preparing…) I went to the customer and posted all the tools of Solution Selling on the presentation wall and walked them through the process. This impressed them very much. Then somehow we lost pace and precision in our proposition, so the deal was lost to this well know competitor, “company A”. Part of the reason for this was that “company A” had insiders who were top performers within the customer’s company, so the support for us was weak and limited to one person only. Despite the loss, as the weeks passed I started to call this customer again, just to check in and wish them well (maybe learn a bit or two). I was thinking also about how to reengineer their vision and create “FUD” (fear, uncertainly and doubt) in their minds. At the same time the customer was trying to close the deal with “company A”, but ended up in a long negotiation process, which stalled the deal. Finally one Friday, I went to meet my sponsor with a value proposition - by the book - and managed to turn the case around. We (my power sponsor and me) worked through the weekend and on Monday he went to his management team and “put his balls on stake for Solution Selling” (quote). We ended up winning one of the largest deals of my life at that point.

So back to the burning question; What do we (and certainly myself in this case) do when we get the BIG NO? Everybody loves a winner and everybody hates a bad looser. So my plan is to be the best looser they ever seen. I will still try to see all the members in the management team and discuss ideas. Now we are not a threat, we already lost. But what we can bring is fresh ideas, just to share. And maybe, just maybe, we can start reengineering the vision.

In conclusion; Sometimes you lose because you have not made the best sales effort, sometimes your product or price (or both) were inferior, and sometimes you were not with power. But as long as you have had the best intentions with the customer you can always comeback. Like one of my prospects put it: “Jens you never give up, do you?” 

Written by and posted with the permission of:
Jens Edgren, Lindgren Partners Solution Selling
+ 46 8 651 25 00
www.lindgren-partners.se

Solution Selling Essentials: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Parts of this post adapted from the Solution Selling Fieldbook (2005, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 978-0071456074) by Eades, Touchstone and Sullivan.

According to the latest survey of sales managers conducted by CSO Insights, almost half of salespeople (46.2%) need improvement in qualifying opportunities.

Salespeople’s Ability to Qualify Opportunities
(Copyright 2009, CSO Insights, used with permission.)

Although many managers believe their sales teams have a problem with qualifying new opportunities, we find that most salespeople have a bigger problem - they are increasingly reluctant to disqualify opportunities that they have been working on for a while.  That is, many salespeople wait far too long to qualify themselves out of deals that are going sour, especially when their pipelines are lean.  As a result, they waste their most precious resource - their time - in bad opportunities that they can’t win.

Both qualification and disqualification are important skills for sales professionals to master.  The skill of qualification is the ability to help bring an opportunity to an established standard - one where the salesperson has a good chance to win the business. Disqualification is the ability to disengage from an opportunity, if it does not meet the standard.

Why do too few salespeople disqualify out of bad deals?  We have found that most salespeople don’t understand what the standards should be to make a good decision to engage or disengage.

The biggest myth of qualification

We often ask salespeople this question: “What elements make an opportunity qualified?” Without too much variance, the answers we hear most often are:

• Budget – the project is funded
• Authority – a decision maker is in place within the prospective buyer’s organization
• Need / fit – your offerings match the list of requirements
• Timeframe – the prospective buyer has identified a date that the purchase decision must be made

Some people refer to these four elements simply as “BANT”. This is useful information, to be sure – BANT elements are very important in any selling engagement. However, using BANT as your sole qualification method may cause you to stay in opportunities that are better qualified for someone else. If a buyer can give you answers to these four elements, then they probably can tell you the answer to the more important fifth question – who they have already decided to buy from. If they already have a clear idea of BANT elements in their head, they must be “down the road a bit” in their buying process, and you are arriving into the opportunity late.

In other words, if a prospect can clearly describe their BANT elements for you, then you are most likely not in first place.  In fact, you are probably way behind.

So, should salespeople automatically walk away from deals in which prospects can articulate BANT?  Not necessarily.  Important information around “BANT” is critical for a salesperson to discover during a sell cycle, but real opportunity qualification should include some additional criteria as well.  BANT only provides some of the picture of a sales opportunity.  To qualify in or disqualify out, we need some additional information.

The Successful Sales Formula

The formula below expands the basis for qualifying opportunities. In addition to BANT, if you don’t have an affirmative answer to each variable, then the chance of a successful sale is zero.

Pain x Power x Vision x Value x Control = Sale

Let’s examine each of these elements:

• Pain - he basic principle “no pain, no change” speaks volumes about why this element is so critical to the successful sales formula. High priority pain, which also includes potential missed opportunities, helps answer the question “Is the customer likely to take action?”
• Power - simply defined, the person within the buying organization with the ability to make or influence the purchasing decision is power for this opportunity.  The questions to ask about power are: “Do we know who Power is?” and “Are we aligned with the Power people?”
• Vision – the prospective buyer must understand what your offering will allow them to do, but also be able to visualize themselves doing something different in the future.  The question to answer here is: “Does the buyer have a clear vision of how they can solve their problem with our solution?”
• Value – buyers must grasp the quantifiable value they’ll be receiving by making an investment in your offering.  The question to answer here is: “Can the customer articulate the value they will receive from our solution?”
• The term Control might sound a bit heavy-handed, but it is really about guiding your buyer to a good decision, not manipulating them. The question to answer here is: “Can we influence the buying process?”

If you don’t know the answers to any or all of these questions, then you don’t know enough to qualify yourself into the opportunity, even if you know all of the BANT elements.  Your decision to invest time and effort into the sales opportunity should depend on whether or not you can get these answers, and whether those answers favor you and your solution - or if you can influence the buyer enough to earn their favor before they make a buying decision.

Opportunity Assessment

Qualification does not happen just once – it is a continuous process. Every time you learn new information in an opportunity, reassess using the Successful Sales Formula. You may find a once-qualified opportunity become unqualified due to changes within the buying organization or other factors outside of your control. The only thing wrong about being wrong is staying wrong!

Good luck and good selling!