The art of cultivating business relationships – A must have for a sales evangelist

So the direction of this blog and my newsletter will now official head in the direction of my expertise. We will focus on the startup sales person and what I define as the Sales Evangelist.

Sales Evangelist – One who shares the good news of a new offering without pandering or preaching; a salesperson with deep seeded beliefs in the value that their organization and its offering bring.

Today I was on a call for one of my clients. It was a simple discovery session that involved learning more about a reporting system. My client has a strong relationship with our contact and led off the call. When I was introduced, I mentioned that long ago, I had interviewed with his VP of Sales, and that a couple of my old co-workers were employed there. One, he knew well, as she worked closely with his team. This little back and forth took around 5 minutes, however in that short amount of time my stature with this prospect grew tremendously.

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Sales Training: Gaining Commitment – Conditions of Purchasing

“Under what circumstances will you buy what I am offering?”Excuse me? You want me to ask someone this question? Yes I do, yes I do. Not only that, I realize that you may not want to, and the first few times you do it, your skin will crawl. I had the same experience, but I can sure you, when this question becomes part of your pre-proposal repertoire, you will spend a lot less time spinning your wheels post proposal, and a lot more time developing business relationships with profitable customers.Once you have exhausted your discovery tactics and you feel you understand everything you need to know about your prospect, their company, their requirements, and the players it is time to confirm. Run through the list as you understand it and make sure that they agree to every point. Then the question comes in, and I suggest asking a variation every time. Here is the first:“So if I can meet all of these requirements what will happen next?”Once you get an understanding of that, the next question should resonate:“If we can meet all of these requests, when will you be ready to buy?”Then:“Is there anything else you need to make a purchase?”“Are there any points we have not discussed?”And finally:“If we meet all of this, then what will happen?”If you do not end up with “No” for the ‘anything else’ questions, and “we will buy” from the ‘what will happen’ questions, then somewhere you have yet to uncover all of the purchasing conditions. Review what you have and look for more. It is also quite possible you are not connected with the real decision maker, in which case you have spent too much time in discovery and need to start again somewhere else. Chances are that this is not the case if you were gaining commitment along the way.

Book Review: “Selling To Vito the Very Important Top Officer” – Anthony Parinello

Delivery: 7

Anthony Parinello is a master trainer and salesman. He attributes all of his success to a turning point in his career. This moment is when he decided to start at the top of the food chain with “VITO”. He developed a system that will get you meeting with the top people in an organization and aid you in developing lasting relationships.“Selling To Vito” might be the worst name in history for a book, but what Parinello lacks in witty phrase turning; he quickly makes up for in compelling ideas with strong messaging to back it up. This is another top of the read list for anyone with the courage to heed his advice.A few minor complaints:

1. He likes to coin phrases and name his prospects a little too often. He dilutes his message a bit with the touch of cheese and his 1980’s style vernacular. This will quickly turn off the young sales reader, and it will be a shame for his concept and messages are pure.

2. There is not enough “story” in the writing. It is a bit too much system and not enough substance. Again, this makes it hard to keep turning the pages. If I could make one suggestion to a legend of the circuit, and it is pretty ballsy of me to critique a master, but since this is a review I have to speak from the heart. My suggestion would be to add more tales of success that utilize the process and remove a bit of the spoon fed instructions. At times it feels a bit insulting.

3. While the baby boomers are still in power, they are slowly starting to retire. When the 60’s and 70’s babies start take control of the corporate world, the electronic real time super highway reality of life will eliminate his mailing methods. My generation is plugged in, and it will take talented e-mails that are permitted to get through to make your point. While communication is getting more and more immediate, it is also getting harder to get messages through the gateway. While Parinello will probably attest that this is why to send a printed letter, I can assure you that my colleagues trash every letter we get. Personally, if it is not a bill or a check, my mail is meaningless and gets filed in the cylinder.To any young readers out there, I recommend fighting your way through these potential read stoppers and get through to the substance of this book. Find ways to get your message to the top.

Concept: 8

Parinello’s methods are not exactly original, but what he does is create an easy to follow system that will work for anyone with the smarts and guts to do it. My only concern with his concept is how little he stresses the ability to collaborate with groups. I believe when you are working with the top people, it is imperative to work every contact to the north, south, east, and west. He mentions many times how “VITO” has his trusted advisers, but never suggests using them as partners as well.He defines the technical members of the team as burdens to the sales cycle. There is a disdain and trust of these members of “VITO”’s team. I think there is some truth in his opinions, and heeding his advice will serve you well. I would only add that if you develop ways to maximize your relationship with everyone in an organization, you will only continue to prosper.This one point aside, Parinello’s concepts are spot on.

Message: 10

Listen to the man and adopt a strategy that gets you to the top of the corporate hierarchy. Parinello is absolutely, ABSOLUTELY, 100% COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CORRECT when he says that this will speed up the hierarchy and win you bigger and better sales. It will also speed up the “No” process by eliminating endless time chasing deals that were never there, or you never had a chance of winning. My favorite point that he makes is one of my favorite mantras (My quote):“A Sales Champion does not close deals, but opens the door to long term relationships.”He states this many times in his book and every time it made me smile. He had a quote that, may be my new favorite. It speaks to the work ethic of a Sales Champions:“If you want to win all the awards and enjoy the prestige and commission checks that it brings, then begin to do your sales work part-time; start working half-days. That’s right just pick twelve hours each and every day and work ‘em.”

Overall score: 8

Anthony Parinello does not need me to tell him he wrote a good book. I present this review to all of you that are struggling to get past the influencers and evaluators in the market. Jump start your career by reading this book and using some of his methods. The biggest point he makes, and one that you have to embrace to succeed is that you can establish equal business stature with top officers by speaking their language and understanding their needs. Give them benefits and they will give you business.

Sales Training: Quality in qualifying part 3- Getting to know how they want to do it

Intent; what is the prospect’s objective and what is their perception of how to get it done? So often a sales rep does not bother to investigate the inner workings of the prospect’s plan, and in the best of scenarios, ends up overwhelmed by an onslaught of objections. More often they find themselves on the merry go round of call backs and wishy washy answers. What may have prevented one of these frustrating outcomes? What could we have taught of budding sales champions to do?

When you are trying to understand the goals of particular purchase or acquisition, it is wise how your prospect sees it working. Ask them simply how they plan to do what they are trying to do! It seems so basic, but more often than not, a sales rep is afraid to uncover these facts. There is this assumption, that if they do ask the questions that will teach them about the prospects perception, it may turn out there offering is not going to work out. GOOD! It is better to find this out early, instead of starting an opportunity and working through the process of selling something to someone who cannot or will not use it.

So, how do we uncover this information now that we have learned who we are dealing with and what they are trying to do? Here are some example questions to ask:

1. How did you realize you could use (Your offering; in these questions, stick to the general offering, not your company in particular).
2. What do you think buying (your offering) will accomplish?
3. What challenges will buying (your offering) address?
4. If you purchase (your offering), are there any problems you do not see it addressing?
5. What particular company’s (offering) do you think best matches your requirements? Why?

Asking these questions will educate you on what you have to accomplish to obtain a customer. In most cases you will uncover some misconceptions about the industry, your product, and your competitors. This will give you an unbelievable amount of data for building a value proposition that allows your prospect to understand your positioning. It also cleans out the people you have no chance of working with. Again, some of these questions may seem intimidating and direct. I assure you that using them will cost you a bit of your opportunity pipeline, but those are the deals least likely to close, and will end up taking up the most of your time. Build the courage to ask these questions and narrow down the field of the people you are ready to work with.

Book Review: High Probability Selling – Jacques Werth and Nicholas E. Ruben

Delivery: 10

Before I begin this review, GO BUY THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW!!! If you have not read it, you should. If you do not like reading tutorials on selling, this is the book for you. Instead of having the author talking at the reader, in High Probability Selling, Jacques Werth and Nicholas E. Ruben instead choose to tell you a quaint story about a struggling sales representative that is hired by a packaging company and is taught their system. The book is barely 200 pages, and if it were not for the oversized font on the small pages, it may have been less than 100. The majority of the book reads like the dialog of a play. It is two people talking about sales, then eventually a sales rep and a prospect conversing. These factors make it an unbelievably easy read, yet in this simple format and short story, THEY DELIVER AN AMAZING SET OF PROCESSES FOR BECOMING HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL.

Concept: 8

The only reason their concept did not get a 10 is that it was designed for a saturated industry where tendencies lead to working with middle management. It did not lend itself to working in two of my favorite roles.

1. Start-ups or emerging technologies – To completely relate to the story in this wonderful book, you work in a saturated market where the prospect understands what you are offering and your unique positioning. It leaves no room for education of evangelizing. While I can see that they may have trainings facing these markets, or may argue that the high probability prospects will already understand if they are really high probability prospects, I suggest that their style would have to adapt to a process that allows for teaching.

2. Working with the top level executives in major corporations –I would say their frank style, accompanied with the mindset of letting the prospect disqualify themselves at any stage would fare well with the executive prospect. What I think would not work is the simple prospecting style of asking what they have is something they are interested in or not. The top executives will not be listening. Without grabbing their attention with DATA, or RELATING SUCCESS WITH PEOPLE THEY CARE ABOUT, you can more or less forget working with them.

Message: 9

Here it is in a nutshell, and I almost feel you should not be allowed to read my opinions before you read the book.

1. Only work with people that are trustworthy, willing to work on your terms, open up and share information, and allow you to talk to all of the people involved in the decision making process.

2. DISQUALIFY EVERYONE ELSE!

3. Make sure you treat your prospects as people. Get to know them on a personal level, before, during, and after the sales engagement.

4. Work with authenticity. You cannot work this process if you do not sincerely want to learn about the people you are prospecting. You cannot work this process if you are not trustworthy.

5. Before you move from one stage to another in the process, review the conditions set to get there. They call these the Conditions of Commitment and the Conditions of Satisfaction. If you truly engage with people in this manner, you will close AN AMAZINGLY HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF YOUR OPPORTUNITES!

Again, the message is fantastic. I have a couple of concerns about the abruptness in the language. While, I know it is merely examples, the harshness in the style will turn off many people. My suggestion would be to adapt the philosophy of the communication, but make the style a bit more embracing. Always allow for prospects, opportunities, and potential customers to opt out of the sales process, but do it in a manner that shows them a bit more respect than the dialog in this book.

For the younger sales person here are two important points. It is critical to remove the “pitch” from your sales habits. This is one of the greatest lessons of this book.

1. If you have to convince someone that what you are offering is what you say it is, you are dealing with a low probability prospect.

2. Everyone slips up, even the most talented and experienced of people. Michael Jordan shot a few air balls and had some turnovers, Tiger hits balls into the rough, Bill Clinton puts his foot in his mouth, Rosie fails as a magazine mogul, and you will screw up and slip back into bad habits. So what, move on.

Overall score: 9

READ THIS BOOK, READ THIS BOOK, STOP READING MY BLOG AND DO READ THIS BOOK.