After the last post some of you may be irritated with my assumptions that you can defer questions at presentation time. You think, “But I work with technical people, I have to show them the details.” or maybe it’s, “If I do not handle everything in the first presentation, I may not get another chance.”

Well guess what aspiring Sales Evangelist; if these are your concerns, you have missed the point of this entire series. Pipeline Management is about addressing the buyer’s needs. The problem is they do not always have a clear vision of what they need to see. If they did, well they would not need a sales person, just techies and product managers. You are there to clarify the message and coordinate the interactions of those who should engage. Those who should engage are the like minded people in each company. (more…)

Well, you are exhausted. That is to say that questioning has taken you as far as you need to go. You know who is involved, what they want, what they don’t want, and most of all what will get them running right onto the client list of one of your competitors. It is time to start putting together a presentation and showing your soon to be client what you can do for them. Unfortunately, the moment anyone in Sales Training says it’s time to present, sales people are all too ready to go in and give it their all.

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We have already covered the basic tenets of what it takes to decide a prospect is worthy of entering our trusted pipeline.
For review:

1. Get buy in from whoever you are talking to that you can communicate with anyone involved in the buying process
2. Get confirmation that there is budget
3. Uncover all of the problems, desires, wishes, needs, and other tidbits that will be part of making a decision. Get this from everyone involved.
4. Confirm that if you manage to answer to everything in #3, you will get a sale.
5. Build a timeline and get confirmation that this timeline is logical.

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This is a rant for the Sales Managers out there. OK, it is for the Directors, the VP’s, the CEO’s, and yeah you the sales rep too. So often we miss the point sales technology and the empowerment it provides. Sure sales tools help us manage our selling activities, but sales technology, even the latest sales 2.0 systems hardly help us manage the most important part of our pipeline.

Right now, the avid readers out there are wondering if this is the same blog they normally read. No, I have not allowed a ghost writer to take over, and this is not demonic possession. As much as I love sales 2.0 tools, using sales technology to become more effective, and embedding all of it in your sales process, I still refuse to believe that the B2B sales process is something you can completely automate. So calm yourselves and let me continue. (more…)

One of my least favorite activities as both a young sales representative and a young sales manager was reviewing pipelines. Why? Because as a young sales person I was never taught what opportunity really meant, and as a young sales manager I was not skilled at teaching others.

The problem in both cases was the same. The sales rep, even when it was me, was not willing to see that some prospects were not opportunity. There is a lot of bravado on a sales floor. Without a heightened sense of confidence and a healthy competitive streak, most sales people become overwhelmed by the constant clamor of the not interested non prospect. Unfortunately with this confidence comes folly. Sales people tend to confuse interest with opportunity and this stems from a belief that anyone who will listen is a potential customer. (more…)