The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Not long ago, I had the chance to watch a role-play workshop. The consultant from The Center for Sales strategy was playing “the client,” and an account manager was playing “the salesperson.” 

A few minutes into this hypothetical needs analysis, a light bulb turned on in the account manager’s head. It was as if the clouds parted, and a ray of inspired genius shone down on the salesperson from high heaven. (Or at least, that’s how the salesperson felt, based on the look on his face and the way he started fidgeting.)

Unable to contain his enthusiasm, he interrupted the client with, “Hey! I have an idea. You know what we could do…?” And of course, he dove into a thorough explanation of his epiphany. The idea was okay but not great. The client was patient and polite, but her reaction was subdued; not nearly as positive as the account manager had clearly anticipated. So the seller re-approached: “Yes, but you don’t understand. The reason this is a great idea is…” And he repeated his idea three times, in three different ways. Each time, the client was becoming less patient, less interested, and understandably less polite.

This week's writing was really interesting! Mike's post about great salespeople hitting moving targets really resonated with our readers. I loved Brittany's post about who should be using target personas. Kurt's post (and slideshow) gave us five reasons to stop talking about features, and I shared what I learned from a blogger's conference. Read below, and have a great weekend!

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Mike Anderson told us that the very best salespeople can hit a moving target.

• Tuesday morning, Brittany Ransonet gave a comprehensive response to the question, "What is a target persona?"

• Tuesday afternoon found us hearing from Jim Hopes about the future of sales and marketing. This post included a two-minute video of Matt Sunshine explaining inbound marketing.

A friend of mine in sales was recently frustrated with the lack of response he'd been getting. Suddenly, it seemed, the tried and true sales methods he'd become accustomed to weren't working anymore. He sat down next to me, and said, "I think it's time I moved beyond selling benefits and features to my prospects."

I smiled, and said, "welcome to the club."

I've been in sales my entire career, and encourage everyone, not just my friend, to move beyond selling benefits and features. Below are five reasons why.

We hope you had a relaxing and safe long weekend last week. We certainly did! This week, we came back refreshed and wrote about a variety of topics. We wrote about different kinds of salespeople, concentration, motivating prospects, and managing your expectations regarding inbound marketing.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Mike Anderson told us that we suceed in sales, but we have to concentrate. More options is not better.

• Tuesday, Harry Tomasides asked us what kind of salesperson we thought we were, and gave us a series of interesting questions we should ask ourselves to give ourselves a gut check.

Over the last month I read four articles that kept coming back to the same theme: The impact technology is having on traditional sales organizations.

Consider this:

1. Procter & Gamble recently announced that by the end of 2014 they want to buy 75% of their U.S. digital media programmatically—and just to make sure we’re on the same page here, programmatically means untouched by human hands.

2. Publisher Conde Nast announced it was merging programmatic and direct sales together.

3. Andrea Mitchell, in a piece on bizcommunity.com, said “It is predicted that programmatic media buying will soon replace all traditional ways of media planning and buying—not just for digital, but for all media channels.”

4. While showrooming has had a tremendous impact on retailers, human interaction still matters. It is still a vital driver that explains why, in certain cases, consumers still prefer to purchase products in-store versus online. For example, a 2012 Nielsen poll indicated that 69% of its respondents thought in-store purchases were "most reliable," and 68% said it was the "easiest" and the "most convenient" way to shop. 

Recently, I had the chance to observe a sales meeting where all of the current revenue initiatives of a company were being reviewed by management. And there were lots of initiatives. There were incentive programs, inventory priorities, special promotions, new product introductions, price-point packages, and a new website and workflow system to support all of the above. 

The point of management was obvious: “You have so many different things to sell, how can we possibly not hit our numbers?!”

But what the sales team was hearing was also obvious: “You have given us so many things to “focus” on, how can we possibly hit our numbers?!”

Look, I know I’m not going to—nor do I want to—talk anyone out of innovating new products, promotions, and sales ideas for their team. But I think it would be smart to reflect on the rules of concentration of force.

Clients of The Center for Sales Strategy know that it’s more important to know your prospect than your product, and that well-defined needs lead to the most dramatic revenue opportunities. But finding customer needs is not enough.

What you’re looking for is an assignment.

The Difference Between a Need and an Assignment

A need is a way you can help (and chances are, you’ll find a lot of these). But an assignment is an important need for which the client has said they want your help. 

Consider narrowing the list of needs to the client’s most urgent and important priorities in order to sell bigger with questions like these: 

• “We’ve talked about a lot of areas where it sounds like I could be of help to you. If you had to narrow it down to one or two priorities that are important right now, which would they be?” 

• “If we could only focus on this list of needs by working on one thing at a time, which item would come first?”

This week's posts touched on a lot of things: easing writer's block, helping with our online brands, mosquitos (!!!), and the reason people won't give us the time of day. Enjoy the variety!

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Dani Buckley helped unstick my writer's block by teaching us how to create lead-generating headlines for blog posts. Bookmark it, and refer to it when you can't think of something to write about.

• Tuesday, Greg Giersch taught us three ways we could build (or batter) our online reputations. I know I learned something about my brand, did you?

The short answer:  There’s never enough of it.  (Time, that is.)  But the more elaborate answer will help you get prospects to make time to see you.

It’s important to understand that people don't grant appointments based on whether they have the time.  (Not the ones worth seeing, anyway.) They allocate their time to people who they believe have the capacity to understand and help with their priorities.

So the question becomes, how can you figure out, in advance, what some of those priorities might be?  Their company priorities are likely to be conspicuous at the company website (look on the home page, the press/news release page, and in the annual reports or investor section of the website, if that applies to this prospect).  You might find some insights as to the prospect’s professional priorities by snooping around on their LinkedIn profile, or other networking sites.  And perhaps their personal priorities might be clear when you look at their Facebook, Twitter, or other social sites.   Finally, dig around for some industry news or consumer trends that might be relevant to this prospect… and dig for other research that speaks to challenges they might face or opportunities they may have.

If the prospect matters, it’s worth your time to figure out what matters to the prospect.  Find their priorities, and they’ll find the time of day.