Rick Page's Blog

You can win without a strategy; it's called luck. But we don't pay salespeople a lot to be luck, we can do that on the web cheaper. We pay salespeople to make things happen, to control the opportunity as much as they will allow, to influence the competition, the politics, and the decision process. Some people and sales organizations don't think that way. They quote and hope; price, propose and pray.

Historically a strategy is a plan to apply our strengths to the opponent's weaknesses, creating advantage that results in winning. Strategy fell out of military strategy to business strategy to sales strategy. The ancient military strategies are: Direct, Divisional, Fractional, and Delay.

Not everyone thinks in terms of models. So we at TCS have brought it down to today's relevant language that relates to the deal that they must win tomorrow.

In order to win a complex sale, you need a:

Solution Strategy - what problems will we solve with what capabilities we have? How can we differentiate ourselves? What operational and strategic value do we offer?

Competitive Strategy - Who prefers our competitor and why? How will they plan to beat us? How can we anticipate and neutralize their tactics?

Political Strategy - What role will each stakeholder play? Who will pick a vendor and who influences them? How do we win each vote or live without it? Can we build trust with the powerful people?

Closing Strategy - What is the approval process for this deal? Who will become involved and what do they need? Is there a source of urgency?

Finally, all strategy must be executed at the individual stakeholder level. To earn their preference you must either solve their problem or build a relationship, or both.

Perhaps the most important piece of information in devising a successful sales strategy is knowledge of what the client's decision-making process is for their evaluation committee. And yet this is the most difficult thing to determine because quite often the client doesn't know what it is themselves! And it can change dramatically during the sales cycle.

In competitive evaluations, the first steps are usually a logical process of gathering information and perhaps narrowing the field down to a shortlist. Then comes the hard part - now they have to pick a vendor. This is when their process breaks down and often becomes an emotional and political power struggle because they have failed to arrive at the hoped-for consensus that they sought. This is the phase of the sale that we refer to as the "crucible".

As one of our clients said, "They don't know how to decide when they can't decide." They don't have a Constitution, any bylaws, Roberts Rules of Order or any other process predefined at this point. The real process can take several forms during this phase.

Consensus - this is what they hoped-for but rarely happens. Quite often after gathering information and seeing presentations, there are divided camps that prefer different vendors. This can result in intense power struggles. At this point you'd better be riding the strongest horse in the race - a politically powerful sponsor that prefers your solution.

Autocratic - this means that there is really only one vote that matters. Perhaps the owner or department head to whom the entire committee reports. Everyone else is the recommender or influencer.

Straw Vote - these are not really votes. They are individual recommendations which are not really counted. One person will make the decision to seek the opinions of others.

Algebraic Democracy - this is an informal description of a political decision. Some people's vote counts X, some 5X, and some 10X. And someone may be powerful enough that their vote is the sum of the parts +1. They can override the whole committee.

Power Struggle - we have seen shouting matches, resignations, blackmail, horse trading, sabotage, and frozen decisions in the crucible. Sometimes the salesperson has no control except through their sponsors at this point. You should've gotten the most powerful people on your side and demonstrated that you can solve the most strategic business problems by this time or you just take chances.

Sometimes there are scorecards or matrixes for the evaluation. But they rarely last. Good competitors can raise issues that the buyer has not yet considered. Clients change the weights of items to fit their decision. And executives rarely stick to the list - they are looking for solutions to strategic problems which can gobble up all of the technical issues.

It has been said that sales is either the lowest paying easiest job or the highest paying hardest job you could have. Over the last 20 years we have taught salespeople how to use sales process to control (as much as possible) competitive evaluations and major accounts.

Hunting salespeople use strategies to develop early preference for their solutions and their companies including: consultative selling to solve business problems, selling strategic solutions, building relationships, positioning, and differentiating. They know how to change issues and enlist stakeholders at the right time or quality out where yhey can't. Some salespeople make it happen, some watch it happen, and some wonder what's happening, is a slogan we've seen on motivational posters.  It's true.

In over 300 speeches to major sales organizations about trends and transformations in the world of selling, and despite extensive discovery and qualification, often we come across groups of salespeople who are really not expected to influence or control the customer's politics, decision-making process, or the competition.

When I speak to sales forces about the thirty or so strategies and tactics that "hunters" deploy to win competitive committee evaluations (where they don't tell you if you're not winning) we sometimes get a "deer-in-the-headlights" look. When we ask them "what are the cues you get when you're not winning and they won't tell you?" and all they can say is that "they don't return your phone calls" (there are actually 12 or more signals), you realize that these salespeople are not expected to influence the decision-making process at all.

At the account level we call these "caretaker reps". At the opportunity level, they are know as "quote and hope" salespeople. Some sales forces work through distributors, seldom see the end client, and are "channel cheerleaders." Some reps still sell commodities; althought many of these jobs are now either handled through call enters or Internet auctions and networks loke those provided by Ariba. Some salespeople just take orders for additional equipment or licenses.

These sales forces can become an endangered species if the CEO or CFO ever decides that they cost more than they bring in. Then we see companies go direct to the consumer through television or the Internet such as Progressive, Amazon, Geico, or Travelocity.

About 15 years ago, the consulting industry realized that it needed to be more proactive in its selling efforts and started developing better sales processes and strategies. People in this industry are very smart, collaborative, and service minded. But most of them do not come from competitive or selling backgrounds.

One of the first things we had to deal with in working with these companies is convincing some project and account managers that not only were they allowed to influence the client's buying process, they must do so in order to win the business because their competitors sell this way (assuming that they had a solution that was good for the customer). When we defined selling as "solving and serving", those that never thought they would be in sales found it not only acceptable but worthwhile. Competitive selling isn't negative selling; you can be competitive and still maintain high professional standards of integrity.

Our Principals do a lot of deal and account coaching. One of the frequent mistakes that we see is spending too much time trying to salvage the vote of stakeholders that are already too far gone. These people have already made up their mind which vendor they want earlier in the process and although you can bring political peer pressure to change their vote you're probably not going to change their mind.

Inexperienced salespeople tend to try to change the preference at this point by sending them more and more information. It either goes straight in the trash, or worse, straight to the competition. Psychological research shows that it's up to 10 times easier to help someone make up their mind in the first place then it is to change it.

Positioning is the art of saying it first. Unless the stakeholder has used another solution at another company, their mind is somewhat a blank slate for you to write on. By good consultative selling, salespeople can build preference by aligning personalities, asking the rights questions in discovery, knowing their industry, building relationships and linking solutions to business problems.

Some salespeople actually gain the lead in the first meeting during the discovery phase. If your competitor has been better at this with an individual stakeholder, you either have to have a strategy to change their vote or live without it.

Depending on the decision-making process, you may not need all the votes. If you have the votes of the more powerful people you can still win. They may vote by department. it might be a two-tiered evaluation where you only have to make the cut and executives will pick the vendor (and in issues can change).

A stakeholder analysis could be a software plug-in to your CRM system or it could just be done on a cocktail napkin. What is important is to identify who has influence and which pains are more strategic. Knowing the decision-making process of the client will tell you whose votes you need; the salesperson that identifies them first and builds preference early has a very high percentage of winning. Otherwise you quickly becom column B or C, but you won't know it because the customer never tells you.

In order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy. It is about not only what you do, but who you are.

Trust is built on dependability of a win-win relationship - that you would never do anything to your gain and my loss. Your behavior is driven by your principles - the decision rules you have learned throughout life so far. We learn our principles from family, culture, religion, law, school, teams, and the companies we work for.

We begin a relationship with alignment. The seller must match their body language, loudness, familiarity, humor, and dress to that of the buyer to prevent visual differences from interfering with our messages. The first decision a buyer makes is about the rep.

Next we move to rapport. Knowing their industry terms and best practices is a good start to relating to their problems. Consultative selling research tells us that the best salespeople are the best listeners not the best talkers. Focus on their need not your product.

As we demonstrate how we can understand and solve their problem better and with lower risk than the others, we start to build preference - to the point that they will tell us where we stand and what it would take to win.

Finally, we must deliver on our promises, perform to exceed expectations, and make our sponsors look good for recommending us. We must also bring value beyond just friendship - innovation, competitive advantage, customer satisfaction, or productivity.

When they start asking you questions about their own company, people, or industry trends then you have earned trusted advisor status. Never trade trust or quality for money, or after a while, you will have neither.

In order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy. It is about not only what you do, but who you are.

Trust is built on dependability of a win-win relationship - that you would never do anything to your gain and my loss. Your behavior is driven by your principles - the decision rules you have learned throughout life so far. We learn our principles from family, culture, religion, law, school, teams, and the companies we work for.

We begin a relationship with alignment. The seller must match their body language, loudness, familiarity, humor, and dress to that of the buyer to prevent visual differences from interfering with our messages. The first decision a buyer makes is about the rep.

Next we move to rapport. Knowing their industry terms and best practices is a good start to relating to their problems. Consultative selling research tells us that the best salespeople are the best listeners not the best talkers. Focus on their need not your product.

As we demonstrate how we can understand and solve their problem better and with lower risk than the others, we start to build preference - to the point that they will tell us where we stand and what it would take to win.

Finally, we must deliver on our promises, perform to exceed expectations, and make our sponsors look good for recommending us. We must also bring value beyond just friendship - innovation, competitive advantage, customer satisfaction, or productivity.

When they start asking you questions about their own company, people, or industry trends then you have earned trusted advisor status. Never trade trust or quality for money, or after a while, you will have neither.

You can win without a strategy; it's called luck. But we don't pay salespeople a lot to be luck, we can do that on the web cheaper. We pay salespeople to make things happen, to control the opportunity as much as they will allow, to influence the competition, the politics, and the decision process. Some people and sales organizations don't think that way. They quote and hope; price, propose and pray.

Historically a strategy is a plan to apply our strengths to the opponent's weaknesses, creating advantage that results in winning. Strategy fell out of military strategy to business strategy to sales strategy. The ancient military strategies are: Direct, Divisional, Fractional, and Delay.

Not everyone thinks in terms of models. So we at TCS have brought it down to today's relevant language that relates to the deal that they must win tomorrow.

In order to win a complex sale, you need a:

Solution Strategy - what problems will we solve with what capabilities we have? How can we differentiate ourselves? What operational and strategic value do we offer?

Competitive Strategy - Who prefers our competitor and why? How will they plan to beat us? How can we anticipate and neutralize their tactics?

Political Strategy - What role will each stakeholder play? Who will pick a vendor and who influences them? How do we win each vote or live without it? Can we build trust with the powerful people?

Closing Strategy - What is the approval process for this deal? Who will become involved and what do they need? Is there a source of urgency?

Finally, all strategy must be executed at the individual stakeholder level. To earn their preference you must either solve their problem or build a relationship, or both.

"The answer then, is a question" - Zig Ziglar. Questions are the tools of the trade for salespeople. They gather information like a radar or sonar ping. But consultative selling, whch has been trained since the 70's, stresses asking questions about need well before showing the product and they are right.

But in a complex sale with multiple decision makers a good "hunter" must also ask questions about other areas - Power, who has it? Preference, who is neutral, who like us, who likes them? Process, how will they make a decision? Who will be involved? What roles will each person play? Who will actually have a vote on a vendor?

I suggest you string these out a bit so it doesn't seem like a spolighted interrogation. If you can align personalities, build relationships of trust, and differentiate yourself on how you can solve their problem best, you may win the deal on the first call. We know that they must continue their selection process, but at some point fence-sitters start jumping onto your side or the other as momentum shifts.

Speed and accuracy of information drives speed and accuracy of strategy drives competitive advantage.

"The answer then, is a question" - Zig Ziglar. Questions are the tools of the trade for salespeople. They gather information like a radar or sonar ping. But consultative selling, whch has been trained since the 70's, stresses asking questions about need well before showing the product and they are right.

But in a complex sale with multiple decision makers a good "hunter" must also ask questions about other areas - Power, who has it? Preference, who is neutral, who like us, who likes them? Process, how will they make a decision? Who will be involved? What roles will each person play? Who will actually have a vote on a vendor?

I suggest you string these out a bit so it doesn't seem like a spolighted interrogation. If you can align personalities, build relationships of trust, and differentiate yourself on how you can solve their problem best, you may win the deal on the first call. We know that they must continue their selection process, but at some point fence-sitters start jumping onto your side or the other as momentum shifts.

Speed and accuracy of information drives speed and accuracy of strategy drives competitive advantage.

If you have read my book or been to our class you know that I have more P words than any other letter. I chose Personal Agendas because these are powerful but invisible requirements that impact deals and you may never know it.

Personal Agendas are outcomes that a stakeholder wants out of a project or initiative that benefits them. It may be good for the organization; it may not. These hidden needs won't come out in a discovery session with anyone else around. They are personal and political. You have to build a strong enough relationship in order for a prospect to share them with you. You may have to ask about them when you have the prospect alone at lunch or outside the office.

Every stakeholder has personal agendas and they don't appear in an RFP. It may be a promotion, obviously. It could be for recognition that they brought in a hit solution. It may be job security by getting experience with your product on their resume. It may be for more leisure time. It may be an issue outside work. It may also be illegal in the case of a kickback.

"What does this deal mean to you, personally? What would success look like to you in this project? What's next for you?" are some of the questions you might ask. If you are too familiar too fast (which differs in parts of the world) you could be considered too nosy. But if you ignore these personal agendas, you do so at your own peril.