As sales people we hear it all the time – it’s all about driving to The Close. When are you going to close that deal? What do you need to do wrap this up?
The majority of sales training for the last several decades has been focused helping the sales person close the deal. There are techniques to Trial Close, to Pre-Close, to Soft Close, and even to Reverse Close. That one is where you actually tell the client that you can certainly see that they are not yet ready to take advantage of this great offer, so let’s just forget it for now – a bit of negative psychology that sadly worked. And sadly many complex B2B sales people in this world are still doggedly working on their Close.
For them, for all of us, I have just two words – STOP CLOSING!
Wait, what?
Yeah, I just said that. Stop closing. You’re probably thinking, what do you mean, I should stop asking for the order? Nope, I did not say that. I’ll explain a bit later.
It’s time to make a mindset shift. Then we will shift our methodology. Shifting our thinking about The Close is critical. In the past The Close was seen as the grand finale. We all fell prey to that central theme. And while once The Close was the end, now it’s just another point on the way to this question: What’s next?
In past years, (for me decades), we have all been a part of or led sales training where a group of trainees is give a sales role playing situation to analyze, create a client pitch deck and then present a story to a panel of sales judges. The winners of the competition get the sales geek of the year award. Been there and done that a bunch!
As a trainer and a judge, I was always amazed by the groups of professional sales people that would do all that work and make brilliant customer pitches, and then neglect to ask for the order.
My experience has been that about half of the teams would not ask for the order. In my early years I saw this as a fatal flaw of the trainees. Teams that did not ask for the order were booted out fast. However, a role-playing simulation like this has a fundamental limitation: it cannot capture the scope of client engagement that needs to happen in the sales process. We were busy scripting a great pitch that ended with handing the client a pen to have them sign on the dotted line. The Close was also The End.
This is the real problem: we have assumed that the most important step in the selling process is the close. We see it as the end point of our client engagement –we “drive to the close” – when really, asking for the order is not the end at all.
Even in highly transactional selling like the Fuller Brush man or selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, the seeming end point of closing is really just the NEXT step in the never ending client engagement process. Right on the heels of getting the order, comes the Verification process where our aim is to clearly get a shared understanding of the value that has been created in the clients eyes by the work that you have done. From the verification process you escalate the discussion to other needs that that were identified through the journey in the first transaction. And the cycle of client engagement starts again.
There are 5 basic sections to the development and delivery of insight to a client and the drive to a closure is one of them. You’ve gotta ask for the order – it’s just not the end that it seems it would be. It is actually the springboard to the NEXT piece of business with the client. The door is never CLOSED!
Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric for 20 years gave us countless nuggets of wisdom as he grew GE’s value by 4000%. Amongst them are:
The element that applies most critically to the art and science of selling is about ACTION.
Jack said, “An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
The one thing that sales people must drive for is action. Every plan, every program, every call must be clearly centered around a defining action to be executed. And even if the plan is poor, the timing does not work out, or the client is not ready, we must conclude every interaction with action. Action needed to move the engagement further down the client decision-making process. Action by the client, supported by action by you and your client engagement team.
Prepare to the max. Plan to the hilt. Execute to perfection. Review for continued success. These are all ACTIONS and all are key to serving clients in an extraordinary fashion. In each of those various parts of the client engagement are nested hundreds of detailed and specific actions that dovetail into other actions. Resulting in outcomes that move us to new actions.
So in each engagement, each day, we need to clearly understand what actions we need to complete to move the plan along. One more time: PLAN – DO – REVIEW; all ACTION based.
It’s not more complex than that. Take ACTION! NOW, not later!
What’s your next ACTION?
The Circle of Life is known. The Circle of Seasons is known. The Circle of Beer may not be as well known (yes it’s real…google it.) And the Circle of Selling is probably the least known of all. But it is this specific circle that drives the best performing sales teams to exceptional levels of service and success. (Although some believe it is the Circle of Beer that works the best).
The Circle of Selling is simple, complete, learnable and teachable. It scales across small teams and large teams and it crosses all cultural and language barriers. It applies to simple sales, it applies to complex sales, and it applies just as easily to daily life. It deals with the before, the now, and the after, all equally. And it does not discriminate as it applies to all people, all roles, and all skills. Sounds darn near perfect. And to make it even more perfect, it’s just three words.
Plan.
Do.
Review.
It has a starting point, PLAN; a middle point, DO; and a conclusion point, REVIEW. Now the magic is that these three words are all action words and that they all feed one another – when you get to the end, you are back at the beginning.
So let’s play with the words a bit.
PLAN
Not too complex. Unless of course it is something that you seldom do, which is the reality in most sales professionals’ lives. Admit it! Planning takes time, takes effort, and it takes a methodology. Everything needs to be planned BEFORE it is executed. Every client engagement needs a plan, every territory coverage needs a plan, every effective sales call MUST have a plan. Not just most, but all, and not some, but everyone. That is only if you really choose to be effective. Your choice. I don’t care what method you use, but my preference is still the Challenger Sales Methodology. There are lots of good ones, just pick one, use it, and perfect it - and write it all down. Plans only work when you take the time to put them in print. Other than that they are just great dreams. To quote the great Yogi Bera, “If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.”
DO
Another seemingly simple word. And it is the one that most sales people are naturally the most comfortable with. They wake up each morning with a TO DO list of calls to make, appointments to keep, and things to get done. Now the question arises: to what end? Why do we DO all this stuff? The correct answer of course is to execute the PLAN. Doing has tools, organizers, reminders, software, and hardware all in support of the all mighty DO. It is our challenge to make sure that the outcome is guided and not just a random result of another very busy day. We are all DO experts. We multitask to extremes now with a pure focus on just getting things done instead of getting the right things done. DO requires skills of understanding and diagnosis so that we clearly take the right actions and DO the things that have the most impact. DO and DO well. Make and meet commitments. Go beyond the simple DO and exceed everyone’s expectations. Be so GOOD that no one can ignore you!
REVIEW
Once planned, once done, its time to make sure that what happened is what was planned, which is actually seldom the case. The review must take the form of the post-mission analysis done by the US Air Force. And by that I mean Nameless, Rankless. A review must be done that is based on what went right and what went wrong and what it is that must be done next. It is not about assigning blame or pointing fingers. In fact the best REVIEW comes when everyone involved is inclined to self-acknowledge when things did not go as planned. Only when you are open to continuous improvement at the heart and soul of the process can true REVIEW take place. If it is done on any other premise it is just a shell game and will make no real difference.
This last phase feeds directly back into the start of the whole circle again as it is the starting point for forming the next part of the PLAN. And even when the outcome that has been targeted is achieved it is time to start over with the PLAN for the next outcome in the life of the relationship with the client.
The Circle of Selling is simple: Plan. Do. Review.
And repeat.
It's tough to not want to be right all the time. In fact it may even be genetically impossible for the male species. At least that is what I have come to believe. That little bit of wisdom, as they say, and a $10 bill will buy you a small plain coffee at your favorite coffee bar.
It is particularly difficult to hold back from proving you are right when your client is obviously wrong. It is just everything we can do to stop ourselves from jumping up and down and yelling “WRONG” at the top of our voice.
Many wiser than me have said that at times like these you have a choice: be right OR be effective. This can be true in many situations:
…be right or be HAPPY, when listening to an errant loved one.
…be right or be EMPLOYED, when listening to the boss make a big mistake.
…be right or stay out of JAIL, when listening to the kind policeman that just pulled you over for speeding a bit.
But hey, sales people are meant to be the bastions of information, the oracles of all data, and the ultimate purveyor of every product feature and benefit. We work hard to be very RIGHT. So how do we possibly deal with people that are WRONG?!
It’s simple - don’t disagree.
While this might preclude you from running for political office it is actually the very best strategy to get people to actually hear what you have to say, even when it might require a different perspective from their own.
So what do you do when you are in the midst of a client conversation and that terrible untruth is spoken? Perhaps they assert something like, “Your products cost 20% more than your competitor XYZ Co.”
Don’t blush, don’t blink, don’t worry. Simply acknowledge what you have heard. You can say, “I certainly understand how you might think that.”
And then pause. Pause again. Silence is golden here. Then continue with the pivot, which can be something like this: “If I can show you that our solutions will grow your revenue by 10% more, reduce your total cost by 5% more, and reduce your time to market risk by 15% versus XYZ Co, would you be interested?” That’s a pivot.
There is another derivative of that called the And Also Pivot. It is based on a heartfelt acknowledgment to the person that just made the statement that you wish to refute, but don’t want to put on the opposite side of the opinion fence. You have to have the belief that you do not know all that there is to know in the world and put that squarely on the table. This must come from the heart. In this case when you hear the statement of fact that you feel needs supplementing, such as, “Your competitor XYZ Co. has a broader product line offering than you do.” Pause, pause again. Silence is still golden here. You then acknowledge what has been said. “You know they do have a very broad product line - and if I can also show you how our specialization on your specific industry will grow your revenue by 5.1% in the first year, would that be of value to you?” That’s the And Also Pivot.
In both cases these are NOT tactics used to manipulate a conversation. These are just simple ways to keep the conversation open and alive, to allow you to better understand your client’s true needs and keep out of the competitive comparison traps. The sincere desire to help a client make a difference that matters to them is the motivational methodology that is behind this desire to understand and help.
Building blocks are not just for kids! Sales people need them now more than ever.
Let me expand and explain.
As sales people we are told to “just go sell”. Get more face time with our clients. Understand what they need and then deliver it. Simple, right? From that single perspective yes it is. And once upon a time that worked.
In the world of the complex “solution” sell of today it is no longer effective, and it never really was what the best of the best did in any case. The very best “sellers” have always had a lot more internal knowledge and intellectual curiosity, and just plain cared more than the average bloke. And it showed.
When the CEB published The Challenger Sale they did not invent a class of person that rose to the top. Their research simply identified a selling style that firmly and totally existed already. This selling style was the best combination of attributes that marked the best producers. What the CEB team did was label things clearly and define them accurately so that we could finally figure out how to search for, find, hire, and enable more of what we wanted in our teams.
(We are finding that hiring for attitude as Mark Murphy has taught us is the most important shift in hiring that we have ever made. We now hire for traits not skills. And it is making a HUGE difference. But, let’s go back to building blocks for the moment.)
As we hire for attitude and train to teach, tailor, and take control, we also find that the new normal in the co-creation and delivery of insight with our clients requires that our team have a total and detailed understanding of all of the elements of business as the client sees it.
Now to do the job we need to have all of the chapters of the book engrained in our soul. The fundamental elements of the trade now consist of having a full grasp of:
As any good builder knows the strength and stability of every tall building is its foundation that it is formed on, its baseline building blocks. They must be solid and well-defined. So must our knowledge of our own building blocks… ALL of them. To make a real difference with our clients we have to be experts at the client engagement process.
The sales world that we thrive in today demands uniqueness, but only if we want differentiation from commoditization. And where once that was achieved by having the best products and/or services, it is now achieved by the sales professional and their approach to serving their clients. Now, more than ever our best sales pros have a complete grasp of all of the building blocks that are a part of the complex mosaic of today’s business. Building blocks are now for big kids… like me!
