If you are a salesperson I have written this for us. If you are the Vice President of Sales or the ‘C of something’ you should read this also. 

A salesperson has to manage several ‘sales’.  I’m going to give a glimpse into each, tie them together, then I will sign off.  It will take you about 7 minutes to read.

Sales to the prospect:

To most prospects the difference between your product and ‘theirs’ is indistinguishable.

• Yours does ‘this’, so does theirs, no big deal
• Yours can do ‘this’, theirs can’t, no big deal
• They can do ‘this’, yours can’t, no big deal

If it’s not important to them, it’s not be important to you.

But if you let ‘it’ become important they will use ‘it’ as leverage. Acknowledge the difference, ask if it’s important to them. If it is important, is it a deal breaker if you can’t do it. If they say yes ask them if there is a workaround. Let them come up with the solution, if they can figure on out, or if they want to put the ‘sales’ burden back on you, offer th workaround that from your experience your clients have found to be perfect.

Always give the prospect the opportunity to walk away from the ‘deal’, it gives the power back to the salesperson. If there is an issue that could hinder a sale, let them enlist you in finding the solution with them.

To be the best salesperson we have to turn the ‘sell’ of that prospect into a mechanical process and trim the fat. Small talk is ok but it can become distracting. It’s useful when trying to ease tension and connect in that human intimacy way, but a little too much and you’re done.

Keep the process clinical. If you become their friend you are applying a faulty tactic on a flawed strategy, you are trying to compensate for a weakness of some sort by introducing a personal relationship and informality. This tact will lengthen the sales cycle and cause a Mexican standoff.

Be the nice bulldozer, and sometimes, don’t be nice.

The prospect wants to be told why you are better and they do not want the burden of figuring it out.

Prospects want short bullet points that train their attention to an actionable item.

What you tell them they will synthesize and make it their own. If you give them confusion, too much irrelevant information, too much personality, they will go where it’s easier, to the next salesperson that makes their choice easy.

To the prospect they are jumping out of an airplane and want to know the parachute will open and they will land safely and unharmed. 

The differentiator is the ability of the sales person to manage the process of presenting, being responsive, setting proper expectations, managing the signing of the contracts and on boarding with the least disruption to their operations and to their people.

Its survivor (my favorite show and I want to be on it) and you have to make big moves and play to win. To win you have to be willing to let prospects go, if you hold a prospect too precious it will affect your emotional well being and career durability. You must have a full pipeline of quality prospects and continually replenish.

Think of an assembly line and your job is to move them along, from station to station. Everything has to be a process. Basically all the client questions are the same and if you have written responses properly you should endlessly copy and paste when appropriate.

You have to turn your concept of your job from ‘sales’ to managing the sales process.

Prospects want sales reps who have ‘been there, done that’ and give them confidence that this time, they’re just ‘doing it again’.

If a sales meeting is over an hour, something has gone wrong.

Every meeting in business must have an agenda sent to all the participants days in advance.

Each proposal should also have an outline of the requirements to close the deal and sign the paperwork (or e-sign) and it should be ‘simple stupid’.

The warm and fuzzy is a deception. If that’s your character in a sales environment, stop doing it. Be the sales person they trust to get the sale done and if things go wrong you will get it resolved quickly. That’s the sale.

Understanding the relationship with a client is crucial. You do a good job of presenting, managing process and being responsive. They have an obligation (post sale) to provide referrals. It’s okay to define this parameter early in the relationship, the quicker it’s in their head, the better. That’s giving the prospect an acceptable amount of bitcoin currency.

Sales to Service

Service people are different than sales people.

• Salespeople are willing to be confrontational and they are driven by urgency
• Service people are driven by resolving conflict and their job role requires patience and being even keeled

Service and sales don’t play well together.

I have seen YouTube videos of bears cuddling dogs but the usual outcome of bear and dog is not good for the dog.

Service has to be ‘sold’ on a prospect.

Service doesn’t understand the assembly line of sales. They want to nurture and they emotionally attach themselves to the client and oftentimes feel that they become an extension and advocate of the client. 

Don’t ever make service an uncompensated sales person. They resent this and will often escalate an issue beyond you – and this is never good.

Service people should know the details of a prospect, it eases their performance anxiety. They put extra value on a friendly smile and an extra few minutes of schmooze time with you. It’s a mechanical process, train yourself how to slow down.

Selling yourself to the president, VP or C of something

These folks measure a sales rep on their willingness to be trained, meeting sales quotas and discretionary effort.

The end?