Yearly Archives: 2015

Many people have both succeeded and failed at reinvention.

Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten have unsuccessfully tried to morph into leaders.

Bruce Jenner successfully transitioned into Caitlyn Jenner.

Now, Jarryd Hayne has achieved success with his monumental reinvention from Rugby League to American Football (NFL).

But in our wonderful world of business development the opportunities for reinvention are taken about as often as Donald Trump’s Mastering Humility Classes.

There are three key areas from which we could gain a lot of revenue and growth.

1. Stop controlling the sale

Controlling the sale was invented by a bunch of narcissists and perfectionists around the time your grandfather was receiving corporal punishment for not completing his cursive writing correctly.

‘Tell the client this, steer them here, deliver these three key messages, ask a few questions, then qualify them hard, ask for the order, overcome their objections, did I mention three key messages yet and make sure it’s in the system by Friday or the CRM fairy will visit you at midnight and sprinkle soot in your mouth’.

The only people who want to be controlled are paid up members of Masochists Anonymous and British Tory MPs.

Nobody else wants to be steered and controlled, least of all by a person with the title of BDM, Sales Manager, Account Director or even Intergalactic Head of Sales.

How about we just have a professional business conversation with all its imperfections and see where it goes.

2. Role Blindness

Apparently we can’t promote or hire Stacey or Ashley because they haven’t specifically sold 4mm elongated grey gronks and flanks to enterprise level clients, especially in Financial services on Wednesdays.

I’ve seen 23 year olds and 53 year olds with a huge variety of skills and experience being overlooked for sales roles because they didn’t meet perceived exacting criteria – the same criteria that has led to stagnant growth for the past two years.

The next comment is ‘ Why can’t we find good people and get some fresh thinking in here’

Er..perhaps you need to hire, promote and train them to find out.

3. Selling to the same people the same way

 OK, so you’ve sold your widget to a particular industry and they like it so you decide to target more clients in that industry.

By all means, go your hardest and you’ll probably win some new deals.

But what if the rectum falls out of that industry (see Mining) or the sales cycle ends up being longer than the US Primaries.

There are loads of new opportunities out there like:

• Go Direct/Channel or vice versa
• If you’re SMB focused, try Enterprise and vice versa
• Change the mix of your solutions so it appeals to different markets
• Change the inside sales/field sales model
• Change your suppliers/vendors/channel partners – you’re not married to them and divorce is legal anyway

Rather than deciding for yourself who your clients should be, ask one important question ‘Who needs you right now’ Go there first.

Jarryd Hayne threw away a million dollar NRL contract to pursue a career that had a greater chance of failure than success.

You don’t have to have the same appetite for risk but take a look at what you could change as to what you sell, who sells it and who buys it.

It’s not that scary, the rewards are huge and anyway helmets are available on eBay.

Elliot Epstein is a leading Sales Expert, Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Corporate Trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Computershare and CUB.

He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are creative, engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets. 

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and children who are subjected to reading this blog before you.

For a hard-working, resilient, fun-loving nation we Aussies have not exactly led the world in innovation.

Yes…we have pockets of ground breaking success such as the Cochlear Implant, Penicillin, the Pacemaker and even the Wi-Fi you’re using right now.

But we don’t have a Silicon Valley or an Israeli Technology Culture.

So, we import stuff like Ikea furniture, European cars and…sales methodologies.

We deploy these methodologies despite a glaring mismatch between the natural, conversational Aussie style of communication and the prescriptive methods these techniques and templates recommend.

We do not have the formality of France, Germany or even the UK.

We do not inherently have the ‘control the sale’ mentality of Donald Trump’s America.

We also do not have the hierarchies and reverence of China, Singapore, Japan or Korea.

So, why would we change our language, style and approach simply because we’re engaged in selling?

In fact, we should be exporting our conversational style to the world because in B2B Sales today, clients are sicker than the Donald’s hair at being pushed, challenged and sausage machined to buy.

Those of you who have been through one of my Salient Programs know that it is liberating, exciting, natural and engaging for clients when you speak like a real human being rather than sounding like Stephen Hawking reading a sales playbook.

Clients don’t want your canned, qualifying questions – they know what you’re trying to do.

They don’t want your hubris, when you tell them you know better when they have 25 years experience in their own industry.

They want someone they can trust to listen (and I don’t mean for buying signals).

They want someone who can pitch an idea only when it’s in full context of the client’s overall success.

They want someone who says ‘Mate, you haven’t got enough budget to do what you really need to do’ as opposed to ‘I’ll see what I can do on the price to get it over the line’

They want someone who is authentic, not doing a really good job of pretending to be authentic.

I’m calling it AUSthenticity….now that’s not only going to help you win business wherever you are in the world, it’s actually worth bottling and exporting.

Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate trainer who gets sales results rapidly.

He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi, Computershare and CUB.

He is internationally renowned for being refreshingly engaging, brutally honest and relevant to winning business in highly competitive markets.

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and two increasingly expensive children.

E: elliote@salientcommunication.com.au

www.salientcommunication.com.au

There are three certainties in life. Death, Taxes and a manager asking if you’ve sent the client a proposal yet.

This unsolicited proposal behaviour is getting worse, not better with many CRM systems requiring a tick in the box for a sent proposal before it recalibrates the magic opportunity management machine.

There are two massive opportunities to differentiate, save time and give the client what they really want to make decisions.

1. Stop Offering to Send a Proposal

You’re on the the last dregs of your coffee in a meeting with a potential client and the words come out of your mouth like a boring politician ‘on message’.

‘How about I send you a proposal’

‘Sure, says the client’ . After all it’s not going to require any work on his/her part and it can be deleted faster than SnapChat if it’s not interesting.

So, there you are at 7 pm in the office, your boss proudly looking at how hard your working.

You’ve made the perfunctory call to your spouse to say you’ll be a little late and spoken to the one kid who’s there or awake about how tunnel ball was fun or how the maths teacher was too strict.

Then you get back to your ‘unsolicited proposal’. What’s in it?

Mostly, there isn’t enough diagnosis of the client’s real needs established so you default to a mix of your company overview and the fact you have $40 Billion behind you and a global presence  (or at least an office in Perth).

You add five heaped tablespoons of product, a teaspoon of services, a very mild seasoning of the perceived client’s issues together with a dash of testimonials and a pinch of estimated pricing/fees.

It’s about as tailored and well fitting as a $99 suit….in microfibre.

It’s taken you three hours to do two or three of these, you’re tired and you’ve got 129 emails still banked up. But your CRM box is ticked!

The client receives this wishy washy effluent and reads a quarter of it if you’re lucky and then the tedious game of ‘Did you get the proposal?’ begins.

It’s worse than watching ‘Family Feud’.

If you’re doing any of this, please ‘STOP IT’ . Go home. Have dinner with a client or radically, even your spouse if you’re still talking to them.

NEVER ask if they would like a proposal.

If they want one, they’ll ask for it at which point please say ‘ Sure, what would you most like to see in it?’

If you really want to send them something, have a tight 5 slide/page credibility document that you can send in 1.4 seconds and set their expectations for what it is.

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2. Only Ever Write Customised Proposals Written In The Client’s Language.

If the client asks for a proposal and you’ve double checked what they want, by all means spend a bit of time and ensure :

• The Executive Summary is about what’s in it for them, not you.
• Your biggest, fattest testimonial or logo takes up a whole page.
• The language is about their people, their processes, their challenges.
• The pricing is clear and has options.
• Use pictures of their plant, equipment, locations, maps.
• You deliver it in person or over video conference( based on a size of deal you nominate).

Alternatively, they may just want a one pager or a simple quote. Yes, really.

Unlike McDonalds profit enhancing Fries Question, asking the client if they want a proposal simply wastes your time, possibly theirs and potentially your family’s.

If CRM and Sales Manager pain persists, see a doctor… or call me. I’m unlikely to send you a proposal.

More on Salient Sales Training Courses Melbourne

 Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Computershare and CUB.

 He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are creative, engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets.

 Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and two expensive children.

US Comedian, Jerry Seinfeld suggested that the tuxedo must have been invented by women on the premise that ‘Men are all the same, might as well dress them the same’.

Unfortunately too many sales methodologies are based on similar thinking and if the tuxedo comment is sexist, I’m going to coin the phrase ‘Sales-ist.’

Like ice cream flavours, depending on your preference, you can choose a methodology that’s designed to build consensus or challenge decision makers or be customer-centric, be solution-centric, seller led, buyer led, forecast led, focused on large accounts, mid-tier accounts or even baby bear accounts.

You choose, Goldilocks!

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Now many of you will have your favourites and swear by them as is often the case when people feel it’s the methodology that has made them successful.

Whilst there are a lot of good principles in different methodologies, I think it’s more about you.

This week is my 12th birthday consulting and coaching leaders, sales people, pre-sales experts to win significantly more business. (Not counting the 15+ years before that actually doing it)

During this time I’ve coached thousands of people including the philosopher, the ego-head, the dyslexic, the self assured, the intellectual, the Year 10 dropout, the OCD, the introvert, the impostor, the sycophant, the drug addict, the 4 times divorced, the driven, the lazy, the unflinchingly decent and the self-esteem bandits.

They’re called human beings.

Each one has their own personal and professional background that they bring to the sales process and client engagement.

This is where there is still too much sheep dipping no matter how many times you see ‘tailored’ in the workbooks.

My mobile phone plan is tailored just for me too….just as I also believe Megan Gale will be interested in me some day.

So, unless you have 5000 reps selling soft drink, where a standardised methodology is a good thing, what are the options for you to develop consistent sales success in B2B Sales?

People learn from doing, not watching so here are three things you can do.

1.Only learn on live deals. Frameworks that use historical data are less relevant tofuture success.

Discuss, coach, guide on real opportunities where the sales person has a real voice on what’s going on and there’s a chance to do something about it.

Focus on the steps that are most relevant to that client at this particular moment in time.

So what if they skipped step 3 in the process, if it wasn’t the key issue?

2. There is more than one way to win a deal. Look around the office.

Jacinta sells very differently to Nathan, right? Learn from both. Leverage all the internal skills and opinions to see how real business is won.

Some sales managers say Jacinta is too reliant on relationships and Nathan is too technical – we need to change this and stick to a formula’.

Do we? Or do we just add new creative approaches, skills and ideas into the mix and coach them to try them rather than change who they are?

My Year 10 dropout for example, still said ‘Youse’ and hated filling in sales process sheets…not overly professional, but her success was borne out of courage in going deep across all decision makers and her understanding of her client’s real needs was outstanding.

My intellectual philosopher was considered a ‘wanker’ by some colleagues and he would reference Nietzche in his sales frameworks.

Yet he had a laser-like ability to dissect the commerciality of the deal so that clients clearly understood the whole story.

3 Too much process stifles creativity. The left field ideas, the courageous ideas, the game changers, the work to massively differentiate as opposed to producing flaccid sales messages is limited in rigid (tailored) methodology.

Finally, a voice from the customer.

After interviewing and befriending many Chief Procurement Officers and senior decision makers I discovered a little known game they play.

It’s called ‘Guess the methodology’.

Yes, these people who get pitched to every week have to do something to overcome the tedium of self indulgent meetings and poor presentations, so they grab a coffee and try to guess what the sales person has been trained in and then predict what’s going to happen next.

Hours of fun!

It doesn’t help you differentiate, though.

Amidst the noise of competition and sales messages out there, authentic, creative, human conversations focused on the client are the differentiator.

Combined with creative, fresh ideas and coaching, your human-ness is your differentiator.

As Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself, everybody else is already taken’

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Elliot Epstein is a leading Pitch Consultant, Keynote Speaker, Corporate trainer who gets sales results rapidly. He has coached and trained high profile corporates globally in presenting, selling, negotiating and pitching. He has spoken at over 1500 conferences and workshops for leading companies such as HP, SEEK, Avaya, Hitachi , Computershare and CUB.

He is internationally renowned for ensuring sessions are creative, engaging, interactive and relevant to winning business in competitive markets.

Elliot is based in Melbourne where he lives with his wife and two expensive children.

www.salientcommunication.com.au