Why Johnny (and Janie) Can’t Sell

Authors:

Tim SullivanSales Performance International

Michael NickROI4Sales

Bob KantinSales Proposals.com™

Why Johnnie (and Janie) Can’t Sell

Most companiesrecognize that the worldand their buyers’ buying

process have probablychanged forever.

In the last few years some organizations have found that their sales processes havegotten more challenging while the performance of some of their sales professionals

who were past stars has deteriorated. Selling complex products and services,versus selling commodities, has always been more difficult and sales professionals

must have different skill sets as illustrated below.

COMMODITY-TRANSACTION SALE

Simple product or service—perceived as acommodity by the buyerOne or two calls—perhaps telemarketing

One or two apparent decision-makers

Low riskRelationships less important—buyer viewsthe sales professional as vendorTechnique sellingPrice quote

Price and availability more important

COMPLEX SALE

Complicated product or service

Multiple consultative calls, demonstrations, andpresentations—perhaps technical sales supportMultiple decision-makers—executive committeeor board-level decisionHigh riskRelationships very important—buyer may viewthe sales professional as a business consultantValue-based sellingProactive sales proposal or response to aRequest for Proposal (RFP)Return on investment (ROI) very important orrequired

Other factors in most complex sales also have contributed to process andperformance problems:

• The economy - companies don’t have the funds to buy

• Fallout from the late 90’s - companies no longer buy products andservices without first completing in-depth analyses

• Required value proposition - sellers must prove that their proposedproducts or services make or save money

Most companies recognize that the world and their buyers’ buying processes probablyhave changed forever. But, some companies haven’t recognized the need to makechanges in their sales forces. They wonder why Johnny can’t sell like he did in thepast. Perhaps Johnny and many other sales professionals don’t have the skills ortools needed. Here are some questions a company might ask to assess their salessituation.

Do our sales professionals . . .

• Follow a consultative sales process designed specifically for our uniqueproducts or services?

• Have the ability to calculate an ROI for our specific products or services thatis accurate, unbiased, and plausible?

• Write customer-centric sales proposals that help buyers make informedbuying decisions?

Sales professionals fall intotwo classifications:

eagles and journeymen.

If the company uses a contactmanagement or customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) system, it needs toask one additional key question. Doesour CRM or contact management systemtie our consultative sales, ROI analysis,and proposal production processestogether?

Following a Consultative SalesProcessSales professionals fall into twoclassifications: eagles and journeymen.The majority of sales organizations arecomposed of journeymen who rely ontheir knowledge of the company and itsofferings in sales calls. Journeymen aremost comfortable talking about theircompany’s capabilities. They make lotsof statements about their capabilities, inhopes that something will resonate withthe buyer. In general, journeymen seetheir job as a facilitator of transactionsbetween their company and itscustomers.

While representing less than 20 percentof most sales teams, eagles produce thebulk of sales revenues – in some cases,more than 80 percent. What makeseagles so much more effective thanjourneymen? Eagles focus on thecustomer and their business issues andhave intelligent conversations about theircustomers’ challenges. In general,eagles see their job as capturingpertinent customer information,diagnosing customer issues, and thenprescribing the most suitable solutions.

Customers view journeymen as salesagents or vendors only. However, theyview eagles as consultants, becausethey provide value in every meeting.Customers will buy from journeymen ifrequired, but in general, they buy a lotmore from eagles – as much as fourtimes more. And they like buying fromthem.

The good news is that journeymen can betaught to behave more like eagles. Themethods and techniques used by eaglesales professionals can be captured in arepeatable process. But, this processmust be tailored to the unique productsand services of each selling organization.

Once established, the process can betaught to everyone in the sales team.

With a consistent sales process,journeymen will know how to engage inconsultative selling behavior on everycall. They can have customer-focusedconversations designed to gather theinformation needed to diagnose thespecific challenges of that customer.Then they can prescribe the mostappropriate product or service to addressthat challenge and develop a supportingvalue proposition.

Most importantly, by following aconsultative sales process, salesprofessionals will capture information thatcan be used to differentiate themselvesfrom competitive alternatives. In otherwords, the sales professional can gain acompetitive advantage by what they selland also by how they sell. Specifically,eagle sales professionals excel injustifying the value of their proposedsolutions and communicating thatpotential value to customers in their salesproposals. They can do this becausethey have diagnostic conversations withcustomers focused on the customer’sissues and challenges. They also canhave sales tools and systems thatreinforce and integrate with theircompany’s unique sales process.

With a consultative sales process, asales team will produce better ROIanalyses for its customers, and improvedsales proposals that are customer-focused. A consultative sales process isan essential first step in turning yoursales team into a competitive advantage.

Using an ROI Analysis SystemROI and Value Justification are becoming“must-have” components in the sellingequation. The ROI Insider onwww.searchCIO.com states that, “morethan 80 percent of IT buyers now rely onvendors to help them quantify the valueproposition of solutions.” In fact, manyCIOs now elevate the ability of a vendorto proactively justify their solutions to oneof the top five most important selectioncriteria.

Several key concepts discussed belowprovide insight into using ROI Selling and

By following a consultativesales process, sales

professionals will captureinformation that can be used to

differentiate themselves fromcompetitive alternatives.

Value Justification in the selling equation.These concepts also support the whyJohnny can’t sell proposition becausecompanies don’t give their salesprofessionals ROI analysis tools theyneed.

1. The right questions for the rightdecision maker – Too often when a salesprofessional gets an opportunity to meetwith a decision maker he doesn’t have alogical, relevant, and consistent set ofquestions to discuss. He may havegathered data that is inconsistent,irrelevant, or not pertinent. A salesprofessional should have questions anddata that will enhance the conversation,not delay the opportunity. Thesequestions should be an integralcomponent of a consultative salesprocess and some of the buyer’s answersto critical, key performance questionsbelong in a customer-focused salesproposal.

2. The longer a sale takes, the lesschance you have of winning theopportunity – Sales process researchconsistently shows the longer a saletakes to close, the greater the risk oflosing the sale to a competitor, or worseto no decision. Using value justificationand ROI helps reduce time to revenuebecause this financial information definesthe buyer’s cost of delaying the decisionor maintaining the status quo. A salesprofessional should be prepared to usethese buyer costs in the consultativesales process and in the sales proposals.

3. Quality of ROI model separateswinners from losers – An objective,substantive ROI analysis tool integratedinto a consultative sales process is farmore credible than a lightweight ROImarketing ploy. Using a value justificationtool during the sale and a valueassessment program after the salecreates paradigm shift for the buyer—theseller is a business partner not anothervendor. Brian Sommer, VP at Aberdeen,told us once “everyone will figure out thespreadsheet ROI, but no one will put apost contract program in place andmeasure the milestones.” It is critical to asuccessful sales team to follow-up andmeasure the value delivered.

4. Documented decision making –Some products, especially intangibleslike software, are subject to scope-creepafter the sale. As one vendor put it, “Thecustomer buys based on an 80% fit totheir needs, and then quickly focuses onthe 20% that they knew wasn’t therewhen they bought it.” A consistentselling method, a sales proposal thatclearly defines the proposed softwareapplication and ROI model, and a valueassessment measurement program afterthe sale can keep the buyer focused onthe key requirements and benefits thatoriginally drove the purchase decision.The bottom-line: Happy customers andquality case studies for use on the nextopportunity.

Ted Matwijec of Rockwell Automationsaid it best, “Using ROI in the salesprocess has changed the paradigmbetween salesperson and vendor. We arenow subject matter experts and canclearly articulate to our customers thatwe have their best interests at heart. ROISelling has turned the vendor / customerrelationship into a partnershiprelationship.” Sales professionals mustbe prepared to use value justification inthe sales equation.

ROI Selling is a program that includes allof the concepts discussed. Eachcomponent is equally important to asuccessful selling campaign. Further, itis critical 1) to use Value Justificationduring the consultative sales processand sales proposal creation and 2) toassess the value delivered after the sale.Ignoring the need to provide salesprofessionals with an integrated ROImodel may result in limited success.

Using an Automated ProposalProduction SystemSome companies don’t give their salesprofessionals the tools they need to writewinning proposals. Often there are nodefined content requirements, standards,or guidelines for writing sales proposals.Some sales professionals can writeproposals without getting managementreview and approval. For many salesprofessionals proposal writing is a time-consuming, cut-and-paste task that often

ROI and Value Justificationare becoming “must-have”components in the selling

equation.

“ROI Selling has turned thevendor / customerrelationship into a

partnership.”

produces a document disconnected fromthe sales process. A low Proposal CloseRatio might more closely reflect a salesprofessional’s writing skills or poor use ofa word processing system rather than hisselling ability.

A company must ensure that its salesprofessionals write sales proposals thathelp buyers make informed buyingdecisions. Equally important, thecompany must ensure that its salesproposals:

• Are customer-centric

• Contain the pertinent customerinformation gathered during theconsultative sales process, including theresults of the ROI analysis

• Reflect the sales organization’s qualityand branding standards

The bottom-line is that a proposal doesn’thave to be good, just perfect! Perhapsone reason Johnny can’t sell is becausehe can’t write that perfect proposal - he’stoo busy being an eagle. Maybe he’s notthe best writer, or maybe he doesn’t havethe time or inclination to take six totwelve hours of Microsoft™ Wordtraining, or maybe he isn’t getting anyhelp from the company.

Implementing an automated proposalproduction system can fix a lot of theproblems and provide significant benefitsto the company and its salesprofessionals. An automated proposalproduction system:

• Allows the company to develop customproposal models for each of its productsor services to ensure content accuracyand consistency - factory-approvedwording

• Reduces the time needed for salesprofessionals to write a winning proposal- they only have to input customer-specific information gathered during theconsultative sales and ROI analysisprocesses

• Generates proposals that reflect thecompany’s quality and brandingstandards - no cut-and-paste orformatting tasks

• Provides management with informationto monitor sales production activities andmeasure results

Connecting the ProcessesWhen sales professionals integrate theirconsultative sales, ROI analysis, andproposal development processes, theyfind process connections - those buyerinformation areas where their selling,analyzing, and writing activities overlap.These process connections are in severalmain areas:

• General buyer information

• Business challenge information: Waysto reduce or avoid costs or to increaserevenues

• Product or service application: How theproposed product or service works in thebuyer’s business

• Value Proposition: Financial (ROI) andnon-financial benefits the buyer receivesfrom the product or service

• Implementation: How and when theproduct will be implemented and thebuyer’s involvement in the project

Process Connections Belong in a CRMor Contact Management SystemPutting process connections in acustomer relationship management(CRM) or contact management systemhelps ensure that a company’s salesforce sells consultatively because theprocess connections represent thecustomer information a salesprofessional must gather (and use) to sella product or service. If this information iscontained in fields on an “opportunity”screen in a CRM/contact managementsystem, then these fields also canbecome sales process guides—they

The bottom line is that aproposal doesn’t have to be

good, it has to be perfect.

reinforce the organization’s consultativesales process.

If a company uses automated ROIanalysis and sales proposal systems,then the process connections containedin its CRM/contact management systemstreamline the analysis and proposalproduction processes. Facilitating theROI analysis and proposal generationrequires interfacing the CRM/contactmanagement system with these twosystems. The interfaces pass theappropriate process connections neededto generate the customer-centric ROIanalyses and sales proposals.

For example, to sell an automatedpayroll system, a sales

professional certainly needs toknow how many employees theprospective customer has. TheCRM/contact managementsystem, ROI analysis system,and a proposal model in anautomated proposal systemwould contain matching

[Number_Employees] fields. Moreimportantly, the sales professional

also needs to gather otherconsultative information during the

sales process needed to calculate theROI and write a customer-centricproposal. This other customerinformation might include keyperformance indicators, improvementopportunities, application variables,customer-specific benefits, ROIcalculations, and implementationvariables — the process connections thatrepresent matching fields in the threesystems.

The diagram (Figure 1) illustrates how thefollowing four components interface andoverlap:

• Consultative sales process

• ROI analysis system

• Automated proposalproduction system

• CRM/contact managementsystem

The process connections represent: 1)the customer information overlap

between the four components and 2) mostof the matching fields in the CRM/contactmanagement and the ROI analysis andproposal production systems.

The Value Proposition for Integratingthe Sales Process Components

Integrating the four sales processcomponents results in several benefits fora sales organization:

• Defining customer informationrequirements, the process connections ,helps reinforce a consultative salesprocess.

• Selling consultatively builds rapport andrelationship with a prospective customerand also helps change perceptions - thisorganization’s sales professionals aremore like eagles and less like journeymen.

• Automating the ROI analysis processprovides the buyer with the much-neededvalue-proposition which can reduce thelength of the sales process.

• Automating the sales proposaldevelopment process reduces writing andproduction times and helps ensure theproduction of customer-centric,consistent, and quality sales proposals.

• Leveraging a CRM or contactmanagement system as the processconnections repository brings structure,accountability, and focus to the sales, ROIanalysis, and proposal productionprocesses.

• Integrating and automating theprocesses increases Proposal CloseRatios because sales professionals:

− Sell consultatively

− Gather and process the right customer information

− Produce accurate and plausible ROI analyses

− Develop customer-centric proposals that help customers make informed buying decisions.

With access to and benefit of the fourintegrated process components, Johnny

Figure 1

(and Janie) will have the tools and skills to achieve spectacular results. They willbe the eagles of the new millennium, better prepared to analyze, consult,differentiate, communicate, compete, and win.

Credits:

Michael Nick is President and founder of ROI4Sales and author of How to Build thePerfect ROI and ROI Selling. Michael speaks on ROI and conducts several publicworkshops and seminars throughout the year. His expertise has extended internationallywith companies like Rockwell Automation, Oracle Systems, GEAC, and Great PlainsSoftware.

Bob Kantin is President of SalesProposals.com™ which provides sales proposaldesign, development, integration, and automation services. Bob has written severalbooks on sales proposal design and integration including Sales Proposals Kit forDummies. SalesProposals.com™ offers Sales Proposal Builder, an Internet-basedsales proposal production and management system.

Tim Sullivan is Vice President of Product Marketing and Development at SalesPerformance International, a global provider of sales best practice consulting, trainingand tools. For more than two decades, Tim has been an analyst of what makes the bestsales professionals effective, and his findings on sales and marketing practices havebeen published in Marketing Management, SellingPower, VARBusiness Online andmany other trade journals.

www.salesproposals.comwww.roi4sales.comwww.spisales.com

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