Monday, September 19, 2011

Outsell Your Competitor's - The Easy Way!

Last week I was onsite with one of my favorite clients, a manufacturer in South Carolina. During a dinner meeting with the CEO and CFO, I heard a great sales story.  My client had been looking  for a new insurance provider.

Seems that the company they had worked with for years sold out to a larger organization, and their account was now being handled out of Texas. My client really wanted a firm with an office in their state, and a representative they could meet with in person. Sounded reasonable, so they started taking bids and interviewing providers.

This is where the story gets good. After two-months they narrowed it down to three candidates, and were close to a decision when out of now where they simultaneously landed two big contracts. All of a sudden Human Resources, the department overseeing this decision, was swamped having to recruit, hire and train new staff to handle all of the work created by these contracts. Needless to say the urgency to find a new insurance provider fell to the back of the line. So did two of the insurance providers desire to stay in touch, follow-up and keep in contact with my client.

Six months later, when the dust had settled and the new staff was in place and working, Human Resources was once again focused on finding a new provider. This time the decision was easy. Originally they had narrowed it down to three candidates, but by the end of this whirlwind of activity it was clear to them there was just one choice.There was only one provider who bothered to stay in touch, provide value, and routinely follow-up.

Besides keeping her name in front of her potential prospect, she built a relationship and ensured that when they were ready to make a decision she was top of mind.

If you want to outsell your competitor then you need to follow-up. I know it is not sexy, not exciting, but it is one of the most powerful ways to outsell your competitors. Research tells us that less than 81% of sales people make more than three follow-up contacts with a prospect. Research also show us that most prospects buy after the seventh contact. (I believe that is even higher now, given the shift in our economy.)
Most sales people “give up” because they have decided the prospect is not interested, or they simply don’t want to be annoying. Two very bad assumptions.

The point is, we really have no idea why a hot prospect suddenly goes cold, but more often than not it has nothing to do with us. Perhaps a bigger priority came up at work, they have a family issue, or they simply got behind due to a vacation or holiday. Who knows? You see people are busy, and rarely is what we are selling at the top of their priority list. The sales person who is proactive, makes things easy, and continues to follow-up is the sales person that will win the business.

And this whole idea of being annoying, well you are only annoying if you are making the follow-up contact about you and not about them. Too often, our follow-up systems consist of sending an email or calling every 30-days to ask if they are ready to make a decision. To follow-up effectively you need to keep the focus on the prospect, and follow these three simple steps:

Design A System – you need a process in place that reminds you when to follow-up, who to follow-up with, and one that can record important notes and ideas that you learn from each contact.

Make It Personal – follow-up needs to be customized and individualized to the prospect. Too often I see follow-up systems that are just that a one-size fits all.  Follow-up is about building relationship and establishing trust, so you need to take a very personal approach.

Add Value – however you choose to follow-up with your prospect, you need to add value. Articles
providing information about challenges, opportunities they have. Tickets to events they are interested in. Introductions to people they would benefit from knowing. Adding value ensures your client enjoys and benefits from the follow-up process.

My client’s insurance new provider did not win the business because she is smarter, had a better product or quoted a rock bottom price. She outsold her competitors simply by following up!

4 Easy Steps to Hold Yourself Accountable

Ever wonder why your sales team is not crazy about the word accountability? Well accountability usually sounds like this, “We’ve set your goals, we’ve bought a CRM (customer relationship management system) to track and measure your results. Please have your sales report filed by Friday morning at 8 a.m. and we will review first thing Monday morning at our weekly sales meeting.”

To a sales person this sounds a lot like  Charlie Brown’s teacher. All we here is Blah, Blah, I am going to micromanage everything you are doing, blah, blah, blah. No wonder we don’t like accountability.

But to master sales in a trust and value economy, you need to learn to hold yourself accountable. Accountability is one of the most misunderstood and misused terms in the sales process. Often it is used to catch people doing something wrong, rather than used to help people do more things right.

Yes you  still establish goals, determine behaviors, and track and measure for results, but instead of being focused on the results, you focus on the information you learn from those results. There is gold in that information, and gold in what you learn from reviewing it.

Let me give you an example. When I was working as a Retail Banking Executive, we started an initiative to get our tellers involved in the sales process. (Think I just dated myself!) Anyhow, we provided incentives, gave the tellers sales training, and tracked and measured their results. One teller’s results came back less than impressive every week. She (Tina) was diligently making all of her required calls, sometimes even more, but could not seem to close a sale. She was frustrated to say the least and a little scared about keeping her job.

One Friday, when she once again turned in her lack luster results, her manager asked to speak with her. First, she complimented Tina about doing a such a great job of consistently making her calls, tracking her results and turning in her sales reports. Then she asked Tina what the problem seemed to be, and why she felt she was not able to close a sale. As they discussed the issue, Tina’s manager determined that problem had to be either who Tina was calling or in what she was saying. Something she would not know if Tina was not tracking her results. So, Tina’s manager offered to listen as Tina made a few calls. The second call Tina made, her manager new instantly how to fix the problem. She offered to let Tina listen to her make a few calls. After two calls, Tina tried again, and wouldn’t you know it she easily got a referral.

Tina went on to win the Exceptional Teller Award in our region that next year. Something that never would have happened if she had not been held accountable, made to track and measure her results, and asked to share her progress at team sales meetings.

Now Tina was lucky, she had a great manager who was also a terrific coach. However, you don’t need a great manager or a terrific coach to benefit from accountability.

Follow these four steps to learn to hold yourself accountable:

1. Establish Goals – set both a number and behavior goal. While it is important to know the number of new clients you want and revenue you need to make, it is also important to clearly establish what types of behaviors you need to do to reach those goals. Behaviors such as number of prospects you need to touch, clients you need to follow-up with, or referrals you need to ask for in order to reach those goals.

2. Track and Measure – track and measure both the behaviors and the results. By tracking and measuring both, you will know if the behaviors you have established are leading to the results you want.

3. Review Progress – set aside once a month to review your progress. Quiet time when you can review the calls you made, clients you followed up with and actually reflect on what you are doing that is working and on what you are doing that is not.

4. Determine Next Steps – then establish what you need to change, adjust or get help with in order to continue to improve your sales process and overall success rate.

By following these steps, and holding yourself accountable you will expand your knowledge and sales skills, continuing to make sales fun, easy and incredibly productive!