The Customer Has Changed; Have You?

Sales Excellence is the final frontier for executives to gain a competitive advantage. Business leaders have spent the last 30 or so years focusing on building a better product, offering a better solution, and reducing price. Most companies are now competitively equal on those fronts. Sales excellence is truly adding continual value and serving the customer the way they want to be treated. Sound familiar? The final frontier of sales is the challenge of implementing the Platinum Rule: “Treat other people the way they want to be treated.” In sales, that means, “Treat you customers the way they want you to treat them.” Are your sales in good health? Most people get an annual health checkup, but only few organizations get an annual sales checkup by a third party. Many CEOs attribute poor sales to the economy or increased pricing competition. From my observations, even if the economy improves, many organizations’ sales do not. The economy is not the only issue. Outdated sales strategies and processes are causing such sales problems as alienated or frustrated buyers, delayed or canceled purchases, or outright rejection of the sales rep. Today’s successful sales organizations focus on the customer’s needs, desired outcomes and how the customer makes a buying decision, not on how the vendor wants to sell. All sales strategy and processes should be targeted to this fundamental change! That fundamental change is what this book is about. Developing an effective organization that lives and breathes true Customer Aligned Selling is the final frontier for most executives. The Old Way Doesn’t Work Are you basing your sales strategy on what worked in the past? As Marshall Goldsmith said, "What got you here won't get you there." The sales strategies and processes that previously worked for sales organizations are failing. Many sales leaders and CEOs, think that what worked in the past will work now and in the future. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Times have changed, and so have people’s preferences. Everyone is inundated with advertising, social media, and other distractions. The 21st century buyer has rejected the process of being “sold to.” Because of this fact, most sales organizations need a sales “physical” or assessment to determine if their strategy and processes align with the way customers want to buy. The good news is that people still like to buy! Customers want to do business with companies who understand their business and can help them solve a problem, satisfy a need, achieve a goal, improve effectiveness, save time, and reduce expenses. They do not want simply to be sold some product or service to meet some sales rep’s quota. Think about how you like to buy. If you were the customer, would you buy from some of your sales reps? Impact of the Internet In the past fifteen years, there has been a fundamental shift in the way buyers purchase. Much of the buying process has been automated. Information Technology (IT) now plays a major role in everything from manufacturing to customer service. IT has eliminated many of the functions that a sales rep used to perform. The identification of a need, product research, and initial vendor selection can be all done without ever talking to a sales rep. With the Internet, customers do most the technical research online. They can shop for suppliers, and even compare companies via blogs, online ratings, and testimonials social media. Before the Internet, the role of the sales rep was to educate a prospect through a presentation. If the presentation generated interest, the sales rep would qualify the prospect and then focus on closing the sale. The buyer welcomed cold calls and product presentations since that was the only to keep up with the latest developments in the market. From the seller’s perspective, everything about the sales process was related to creating a need, giving an opinion of how their product or service will meet the prospect’s need, and then close the deal. The old way of selling has very little effectiveness; due to the Internet and cultural shifts, people and the buying process have changed. Cold calling is no longer accepted. The buyer can now get much of the technical details and even compare products and offerings down to the smallest of technical levels. Buyers can get pricing and other comparisons online. In many sales situations, the Internet has virtually eliminated the need for a sales rep during the first stage of the buying process, mapping the need to a particular solution. The very complex sale still requires a lot of technical discovery, but the buyer is very educated and most likely has already done a substantial amount of preliminary work. According to many sources from International Data Corporation (IDC) to Harvard Business School, anywhere from 50 - 70% of a decision to buy a product is made from Internet research without ever talking to a sales rep. Of course, the more complex and technical the sale, the less able the buyer is to decide from online research. But the buyer will do their research on the company, the reputation, and even the integrity of the individual sales rep. Social media can have a huge impact on a customer’s selection of a company. For instance, LinkedIn is a great place to check on a sales rep’s reputation and credibility. Facebook can give clues to a sales rep’s, or even a buyer’s, personality and ethics. A seller’s Tweets can reveal what they deem important. Not only is the customer empowered, but now the sales rep is wise to make a call with knowledge about the company, its buying practices, departmental structure, and even the prospect’s reputation. Hoovers, Manta, Data.com, and other websites and blogs are rich sources of such information. The rep should not be doing basic discovery of the prospective company’s business, product lines, industry issues or other general business knowledge during the sales call. With the Internet, the rep should do that before the sales call. LinkedIn can provide valuable information as to the prospect’s job history, who they know, and any key experiences to which the seller can relate. Facebook can tell you key things about their friends, family, or hobbies. In fact, buyers expect that the rep has done his or her preliminary call preparation before the first sales call. The buyer does not tolerate such a waste of time from a rep who asks for information that can be found on the web. This relates to not only business but also personal information. Do the basic customer discovery before the sales call. No More Cold Calls In the majority of business to business sales (B2B), cold calling is either dead or breathing its last! Because of the Internet, very few buyers are tolerant of cold calls. I define a cold call from the customer’s perspective: “I don’t know who you are or why you are calling. I don’t know if you offer any value. You are therefore a risk and will probably waste my time.” To most buyers, a cold call is a waste of their time. The biggest challenge with a cold call is that the sales rep is calling a prospect with no reference that he or she can deliver value to the buyer. In other words, there is no trust in the relationship. From the prospect’s perspective, by accepting the appointment, he or she is immediately at risk of wasting valuable time. Cold calls present risk, and beginning a relationship based upon risk is not a good way to start.