Call or Email

Call or Email

Which is the best channel of communication with your prospects and clients, a phone call or an email?

Advantages of a phone call:


1. A conversation allows discovery.

This is perhaps the most important advantage of a phone call. Your clients or prospects will hardly volunteer any information on an email. But a phone conversation can usually uncover more information like roles and responsibilities, hints on budgets, buying processes, timelines.

2. Clients always behave better on a call.

This goes in the following order, client always behave better in person than on a call, and always behave better on a call than in an email.

3. The human touch.

The tone of your voice speaks more than the characters on an email.

Advantages of an email:

1. Information which can be used as references in the future.

Emails are great for collection and capturing of useful information which can be filed for future references. This includes address, phone contacts, or even documents like proposals and white papers.

2. Does not show anger.

Similar to point #3 of the advantages of a phone call, the tone of your voice can give you away if you are not in a great mood. When you're in a foul mood, but still need to revert, it's better to avoid a call. In this case, a short email response is much better.

3. Non-urgent correspondences.

In a typical business day, you can assume everybody's calendar to be filled with back-to-back appointments. The more senior the person you are corresponding with, the more unlikely you're going to reach him or her on the mobile or desk line. In fact, some of my clients are always traveling. In this case, emails are great as a tool to communicate important but not urgent messages.

Simplifying for my clients?

Simplifying for my clients?

B.G. (Before Google): Sales person provides all product information, reviews, and technical know-how.

A.G. (After Google): Client can find out everything he needs to know about product information, reviews, and technical information himself.

While I do not think the Internet has killed the Sales occupation, the role of the sales person is more challenging than before. It is no longer enough to be the "catalogue". In this age where information is readily available on the Internet, what do you think is the most important value a Sales person bring to the table?

Amongst the various possible answer, I believe the ability to simplify is one of the top value.

In today's world, before a prospect enters office on Monday morning, his Inbox is already filled with more than 50 unread emails. He has to rush off for his internal meeting by 915am, and his boss calls for an urgent evaluation of a project. He needs to delegate 3 jobs, and has to fire-fight when a server goes down. He is chasing his current vendor for SLA while his internal users are calling his phone non-stop to report about the server down status. He requests for a solution, and 5 vendors spin 5 different stories about why they are the best answer to his problem. He posts his problems on his online peer group, but is too busy to read all the replies. And before lunch time, 7 different sales person cold-called him to pitch their products and services.

Welcome to the world of information over-load. While the Internet has "connected" everybody and makes information more readily available, it has also created an overwhelming barrage of "noise". So much so that if you visit any decent forums these days, many posters append their posts with a TLDR paragraph at the bottom. What's TLDR? Too-Long-Didn't-Read. It's a one sentence summary of the entire post.

How many times have you seen a Sales proposal which appends 5 pages of "Company Background", 10 pages of a comprehensive coverage of all products and services provided by the company (i.e. the company brochure), and another 10 pages of impressive looking tables and charts, but all not-related to what the prospect needs? And very commonly, these are mandated by the company! I.e. All proposals going out to clients *must* include these information.

I've been guilty of sending 40 pages documents for very simple services. And a lot of times, the clients get back to me asking...

"So what exactly are you providing?".

Well, it's all in the proposal, if you refer to section 16, item 2.

"And terms?"

Section 18, item 1.

"Any exclusion clauses?"

Section 21, item 3.

"I still don't get it. It seems so complicated and I'm afraid to sign off to this in case there's some hidden clauses that I missed..."

Why so much noise? Most of the proposals I've seen can be summarised in two sentences.

1. In return for paying me $X, I will provide Y to you, within Z days/months.
2. How we're going to do this is by....
   

So I propose, the best way a Sales person can bring value to the client, is to simplify the buying decision for the client. Make the proposal as simple as it can be.

Gatekeeper, Influencer, Decision Maker & the Champion

Gatekeeper, Influencer, Decision Maker & the Champion

Have you ever met a decision maker who cannot make the decision to buy?

I do. All the time. It seems that the bigger the corporation, the less likely the buying decision is done by one single individual. Every multi-million project that initiates from the CEOs office must go through rigorous buying process. It must be veted by the domain experts, then presented to management, and sometimes, pass through one or two rounds of user-testing, before being presented back to the decision maker... hopefully for the sign-off.

Decision makers do not decide until his team members have done thorough analysis of the purchase. In short, decision makers do not decide alone.

If that is the case, why is "decision maker" the holy grail of every lead-gen exercises?

Perhaps it is because it is more comforting to make ourselves believe that just because we lined our products infront of as many decision makers as possible, we will sell more. The more senior sounding titles in each sales campaign the better. CIO, CTO, COO, Regional Director, Country Manager, Network Director, SVP of Infrastructure... All big sounding titles that we wish for in every campaign.

Am I saying that decision makers are not important?

Not at all.

In Strategic Account Sales, these are the "common" types of people.

1. Gatekeeper
2. Influencer
3. Decision Maker
4. Champion

I find that while decision maker is very important, there are two other groups of people who are equally, if not more important. They are the influencer and the champion.

Influencer is easy to define. Basically every worker in the organisation who are in the loop of the buying process. They may be the users, the managers, the in-house domain experts, or the purchasing manager (person with the budget). These are the people who will breakdown every proposal you wrote, every presentation you gave, and every quotation you sent. They will ask you every questions imaginable from every angle possible. Answer one question wrongly, and you might be out of the game.

So who is this "champion"? I define the champion as anyone in the organisation who is able to "champion" your cause. Basically, they are your sponsor. I believe in every major sales, there must be a champion within the organisation who is on your side, and believes in your product or service. This champion can be anyone from the influencer group. Or he can be out of this group, but with direct connection with the decision maker, or key influencer. Or this champion may be the decision maker himself!

Whatever the case, I believe that conversion of champions is the key of any major sales.

p.s. What about Gatekeepers?

In my personal experience, Gatekeepers are only important for Cold Accounts. I.e. you need to do a cold call in. They might be your first contact with the company.

So here, I propose a Sales Objective for Strategic Accounts:

1. Get pass the Gatekeeper and identify the Influencers and Decision Makers as soon as possible.
2. Identify potential candidates to convert into your Champions.
3. Sell.

Seller-based or Buyer-based Sales Process?

Seller-based or Buyer-based Sales Process?

Have you ever wondered why for some deals, sending a proposal means you're a few days away from closing the deal. But for other deals, the customer usually come back three or four times requesting for more information? And decision making is no-where in sight?

The most common sales processes I've seen are all seller-based. Typically this means the following:

1. Prospecting
2. Qualifying
3. Meeting
4. Proposal
5. Close
6. Win/Lose

Very common. In fact at least two sales CRM I've seen uses something similiar to this. This seller-based sales process is like a to-do list for the account. Have you done the prospecting? Have you qualified the account? Have you set up a meeting? Have you sent a proposal? Are you trying your absolute best to close the deal now? What is the outcome?

The question is, why does sales management track sales person on this process? It conjures an image of a team of farm animals sales executives not trusted by management to do their professional duties. Is this necessary? Is this effective?

Can I propose the buyer-based sales process?

1. Why do I need to buy?
2. Who can I buy this from?
3. How is buying from you different from buying from your competitors?

Or very simply:

1. Needs.
2. Options.
3. Concerns.

Every buying decision goes through these steps. And matching the sales process to these buyer-based stages is a more accurate estimate for the management team than using the seller-based process.

Here's why.

Say a sales person reported that for this particular account, he is at the Proposal stage. Under this model, it is very easy to assume the sales is already at the late stage. Management would think that the decision to go ahead or not would probably happen within the next two weeks.

Unfortunately, a proposal can be sent to the buyer during any of the three buyer-based stages, Needs, Options, Concerns. A proposal sent during the Needs phase will not see decision making any time soon.

Another important thing. A proposal sent during different stages of the buyer-based model must sell different things.

In the needs phase, the selling is on displacing the status quo of the buyer. The buyer must be sold that what he is doing now is not good enough. Or there exist a simply better solution than what he is doing now, at a cheaper price.

In the options phase, the selling is on the solutions itself. This is the part where the sales person has to displace competitors solutions, or "products" not sold by him. An irrefutable conclusion that this one particular solution will meet the needs of the buyer.

In the concerns phase, the selling is on convincing the buyer that you are the right partner to work with. You can meet their payment terms. Their global processes. Their service-level. You are available to support them based on their requirements. Your company will not fold down next year. You will still be around next year, or someone else will be there.

Only after these three phases, can the buying decision happen.

And in B2B sales, the sales person may have to follow through to the implementation stage. I know I do. I very often do the sales, pre-sales, set up the project kick-off, and sometimes even do some project management.

Digressing a bit further. I think I can safely claim that I have yet to close a deal solely based on the proposal alone. Almost all of my selling is done face-to-face, online with the customer. And often, a very long period of time is spent addressing their "final" concerns.

A seller-based sales process does not tell you when will the deal come in. It does not let you know at which stage of the customer's buying process the deal is in.

A buyer-based sales process lets you know exactly where is the buying process. It also tells you what you should be focusing your sales effort on.

What is your organisation's Sales Process?

[Sales 101] If you walk long enough, sooner or later you'll step on shit

[Sales 101] If you walk long enough, sooner or later you'll step on shit

I take cab a lot. I find that all many cab drivers have foul mood. It irritates me when I get on a cab to have the cab driver complaining this, cursing that, rattling on and on.

I met such a cab driver recently. He was cursing at this driver, cursing at that pedestrian, getting totally angry. Now that didn't really help me as I was on my way to a sales call. And this guy was really affecting my mood. So as polite as I could, I asked if I could share a story with him.

There was once two monks who left the temple on a chore. At the river, the two monks met a girl. She explained she was having difficulty crossing the river. The senior monk offered to carry the girl across the river. At the other bank, the senior monk bid the girl farewell and continued on his journey with the junior monk. The two monks continued on their way. They crossed two mountains, but the junior monk was very upset. He could not hold it anymore and he confronted the senior monk.

"Senior, I thought monks are not supposed to have any physical contact with girls. Why did you carry that girl across the river?" The junior monk was clearly upset and confused.

The senior monk calmly replied, "Junior, I had already let go of the girl at the river bank. Why are you still carrying her in your head even after 2 mountains?"

This story is about attachment. It applies to so many areas of our lives.

And it applies to the cab driver. The car had cut your path 20km ago, why are you still upset over that? The cab driver told me he had been driving a cab for more than 10 years. So really, the point is this: If you have been driving for more than 10 years, you should know that if you drive on the road long enough, sooner or later you will be cut by another car, sooner or later you will be cut by a pedestrian jay walking. If you are going to be upset by that, should you consider changing job?

How does this relate to sales?

You're in the service line. Sooner or later, you will bump into an unreasonable client. Sooner or later, you will have a "done deal" slip away. Sooner or later, you will close a deal but get no commission. You must understand that this is the nature of your job and accept it. I find this one of the hardest aspect of sales. Especially so in B2B sales, where we are supposed to be professionals. We are supposed to be "equals", sharing useful information and offering multiple solutions to the client's challenges. That is still true. But. If you walk long enough, sooner or later you'll step on shit.

Be mentally prepared.

When shit happens, wash it away.. and just let it go. Don't carry it in your head for the rest of the day.

[Sales 101] Get a pen

[Sales 101] Get a pen

"Hey, you have a pen?"
"Hi, can I borrow a pen?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't bring a pen."

How can you not have a pen? You do need your clients to sign on the dotted line, don't you? You do need to take down notes when you're having one-to-one with a CXO, don't you?

One of the biggest mystery of the business world, how can a sales person not have a pen? It's like a chef without his knife, a soldier without his gun, a dentist without his probe. You don't see a soldier asking his mate, "hey, can I borrow your gun? I didn't bring mine."

I have any number between 3 to 15 pens around all the time. In my short career in sales, I have colleagues who beg, borrow, or steal my pens.

If you want to be at least a half decent sales person, please get a pen. Get five. And make sure you have at least one with you all the time.

[Sales 101] Rule #1

[Sales 101] Rule #1

Rule number one of selling is to take 100% responsibility. Tom Hopkins once wrote,

Selling is the highest paid hard work and the lowest paid easy work.

If you are not prepared to work hard, do not get into sales. I figured, if I were to work hard anyways, why not work hard in a job that pays the highest? This is what got me into sales. When you work hard, you expect to be paid well. Money is one of the biggest driving force behind every commission-based sales job. But the problem I see among many angry sales people is that they complain too much:

• Our products can't sell.
• Our delivery team sucks.
• Our competitors are better and charge cheaper.
• We are not getting enough support materials.
• The client is too demanding.
• My accounts are terrible, they don't buy.

And the hot favorite of 2008-2009:

• The economy is terrible, everybody's budget is slashed.

While all these bullshit reasons may be valid factors to a tougher selling environment, there is one point the sales person must understand. Who is responsible for your happiness? Who is responsible to ensure you get your fat commission at the end of the month?

1. Not your boss.
2. Not your spouse.
3. Not your colleagues.
4. Not your subordinates.
5. Not your friends.
6. Not your mother.
7. Not your father.
8. Not your children.
9. Not your clients.
10. Not your vendors.

You are the only one who is responsible for the FAT commission you should receive at the end of every month so that you can be happy. Selling is a job where you have to take 100% responsibility. If your commission is too low, you can do something about it. If your closure rate is too low, you can do something about it. If your client has no budget, you can do something about it. Whatever is the case, whining everyday at the pantry and at coffee shops with colleagues are not helping you to sell more. So what does taking 100% responsibility means?

• Accepting it is your responsibility to find out what is your company's competitive edge.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to make sure your company delivers its contract terms.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to keep your clients happy.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to keep your clients informed about the advantages of choosing you over your competitors.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to respond to your clients as soon as possible.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to chase your clients for payments so that you can get your commission in.
• Accepting it is your responsibility to ensure you close enough deals to support the lifestyle you want.

Be the project manager if you have to. Be the debt-collector if you have to. Be the subject-matter expert if you have to. Be the delivery man if you have to. Make no excuses. Take 100% responsibility. Because no one else is responsible for your happiness.