The end of solution sales

The hardest thing about B2B selling today is that customers don’t need you the way they used to. In recent decades sales reps have become adept at discovering customers’ needs and selling them “solutions”—generally, complex combinations of products and services. This worked because customers didn’t know how to solve their own problems, even though they often had a good understanding of what their problems were. But now, owing to increasingly sophisticated procurement teams and purchasing consultants armed with troves of data, companies can readily define solutions for themselves.

In fact, a recent Corporate Executive Board study of more than 1,400 B2B customers found that those customers completed, on average, nearly 60% of a typical purchasing decision—researching solutions, ranking options, setting requirements, benchmarking pricing, and so on—before even having a conversation with a supplier. In this world the celebrated “solution sales rep” can be more of an annoyance than an asset. Customers in an array of industries, from IT to insurance to business process outsourcing, are often way ahead of the salespeople who are “helping” them.

But the news is not all bad. Although traditional reps are at a distinct disadvantage in this environment, a select group of high performers are flourishing. These superior reps have abandoned much of the conventional wisdom taught in sales organizations. They:

• evaluate prospects according to criteria different from those used by other reps, targeting agile organizations in a state of flux rather than ones with a clear understanding of their needs

• seek out a very different set of stakeholders, preferring skeptical change agents over friendly informants

• coach those change agents on how to buy, instead of quizzing them about their company’s purchasing process

These sales professionals don’t just sell more effectively—they sell differently. This means that boosting the performance of average salespeople isn’t a matter of improving how they currently sell; it involves altogether changing how they sell. To accomplish this, organizations need to fundamentally rethink the training and support provided to their reps.

Coming Up Short

Under the conventional solution-selling method that has prevailed since the 1980s, salespeople are trained to align a solution with an acknowledged customer need and demonstrate why it is better than the competition’s. This translates into a very practical approach: A rep begins by identifying customers who recognize a problem that the supplier can solve, and gives priority to those who are ready to act. Then, by asking questions, she surfaces a “hook” that enables her to attach her company’s solution to that problem. Part and parcel of this approach is her ability to find and nurture somebody within the customer organization—an advocate, or coach—who can help her navigate the company and drive the deal to completion.

But customers have radically departed from the old ways of buying, and sales leaders are increasingly finding that their staffs are relegated to price-driven bake-offs. One CSO at a high-tech organization told us, “Our customers are coming to the table armed to the teeth with a deep understanding of their problem and a well-scoped RFP for a solution. It’s turning many of our sales conversations into fulfillment conversations.” Reps must learn to engage customers much earlier, well before customers fully understand their own needs. In many ways, this is a strategy as old as sales itself: To win a deal, you’ve got to get ahead of the RFP. But our research shows that although that’s more important than ever, it’s no longer sufficient.

To find out what high-performing sales professionals (defined as those in the top 20% in terms of quota attainment) do differently from other reps, Corporate Executive Board conducted three studies. In the first, we surveyed more than 6,000 reps from 83 companies, spanning every major industry, about how they prioritize opportunities, target and engage stakeholders, and execute the sales process. In the second, we examined complex purchasing scenarios in nearly 600 companies in a variety of industries to understand the various structures and influences of formal and informal buying teams. In the third, we studied more than 700 individual customer stakeholders involved in complex B2B purchases to determine the impact specific kinds of stakeholders can have on organizational buying decisions.

Communication in international marketing

A salesman of Coca Cola returned from his assignment to China


A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Chinese?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch.  But I had a problem.  I didn't know how to speak Mandarin.  So I planned to convey the message through three posters.

First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand totally exhausted and fainting.


Second poster: The man is drinking Coca Cola.


Third poster : Our man is now totally refreshed.


And then these posters were pasted all over the place.


"Terrific!  That should have worked!" said the friend.


"The hell it should have!" said the salesman.


"No one told me they read from right to left!"

Quote of the week

If you work for a man
In heaven's name, work for him
Speak well of him
Stand by the institution he represents
Remember, an ounce of loyalty
Is worth a pound of cleverness
If you must growl, condemn and eternally find fault
Why not resign your position
Then when you are on the outside
Damn to your heart's content
But as long as you are a part 
Of the Institution
Do not condemn it
If you do, the first high wind that comes along
Will blow you away
And you will probably never know why

[Elbert Hubbard]

Prospecting for new clients - Part IV

[Continue from Part III]  How much more sensible and productive to make a list of the companies you want to deal with and focus on them. If you approach them in a way that is not annoying, even if they don't buy this time, you can still go back to them again and again. If you annoy them, you can't approach them a second time.     After a while, because your approaches have all been appropriate, you will eventually catch them when they have been let down by someone and they will be able to say, 'Well, this person is certainly consistent and they have never wasted my time, and they are always there with a solution even if I haven't taken them up on it. I think I'll give them a try.' And they come to you, knowing you already, even though you've never actually spoken.     Every message you send out from your office says something about you. And people hear that. They form an opinion about you and they base doing business with you on the opinion they develop. And this happens without you even knowing about it! This is what is so damaging about spam. So, What will You  Do?     Why don't you make a concerted effort on less damaging methods of prospecting than spam, and see what those better methods can do for you? Methods that Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca and Oprah Winfrey would use if they had your job to do.  Update from 'Bill' — "Example B....that is what I am focusing on now, and it gets great results for me. I send it either as e-mail or fax, almost exactly worded as Frederick says. Now I find if I send a few of these a day, with no sales pressure in the text, I get plenty of decent leads to work on. and usually its a pretty hot lead! Now to me that sure beats, 4 hours of cold dials to get a few leads, and it feels a lot nicer!"

Prospecting for new clients - Part III

Wong was happy with his 5 new leads. Ah! The old small business cycle comes round again! While the small business owner is doing his usual unpleasant type prospecting, he complains about it and makes half-hearted attempts at other methods. These half-hearted attempts only produce half-hearted results. After a bit, business from the unpleasant methods slows because, being unpleasant, they are cut back when business is to hand. When the business is done and new business slumps panic sets it. The half-hearted results from the half-hearted attempts at better prospecting methods is not enough so a blast on the old unpleasant methods is re-instituted -- and the cycle begins again!      If only our regular small business owner would apply as much effort to the better methods as he does when using the old unpleasant methods in panic, he would be so much better off. But it's really hard to let go of something that works, even poorly, in the hope that something else will work better.  What Would I do?      So I started thinking, what would I do in Wong and Iskandar's situation? I wondered about Welch and Co. What would they do? This is what I would do - I think it's what they would do, too --      1. I would create a website which includes a description of my new business, some industry information, tips, helpful hint, my résumé, and a signup page for an XYZ industry report. I would invite people who want to hire XYZ-people and XYZ-people who want to keep in touch with the industry for when they are ready for a new job, to sign up for my report. I'd optimize the website to get good rankings on the search engines.      2. I would make a list of 100 people I know.      3. I would divide them into groups (A) people I know well enough they would say, "Oh, Hi, Frederick! How's it going?" (B) those who would say, "Who? Oh! yeah!" and (C) those who would say, "er...ok, I don't really remember you but I remember the event."      4. Starting with A, and then moving through B and C, I would telephone each person, explaining I am starting a new business, this is what I am doing, I need some help to get started, I need to contact people who work in XYZ-type companies - Would you give me the names of one or two people you know who might be able to help me get started? I'd tell them about my website.      5. Then I'd call the referrals and ask if they have need for what I offer - either a job or an employee - now or in the future? If YES-NOW I'd do my best to help them.      6. I'd also ask them what industry news they would be interested in hearing about on a regular basis, and ask if I can put them on my e-mail list for occasional industry reports. I'd also tell them about my website.      7. This would give me a few people who want my services now and some who might want my services in the future. I'd also get a few people who would like to keep in touch with me by way of my industry reports.      This would get the ball rolling nicely and start producing regular business in an orderly fashion. Not the feast-to-famine process than many small businesses generate with their spamming techniques.  Let's get specific      No matter whether you call it spam or not - I think sending a 1,000 messages all the same (in other words, bulk e-mail) to people you don't know will be received differently to 1,000 messages sent one at a time to people you do know. Sending an *individual* message or fax addressing the recipient by name, referring to their company by name, and noting something specific about their company is a legitimate approach, in my view.      Specifically:      A) Dear IT Manager, If you are looking for Help Desk personnel or other IT staff, we have several well qualified applicants available right now. We are blah, blah, blah...and offer blah, blah, blah...Please contact me.      B) Dear Mr. Johnson, I understand Woodson Computer Services is looking for Help Desk staff for your IT Services division. I have three people available who seem to meet your stated requirements, and I would like to send you their CVs. I am an IT recruitment specialist, and work alone so that I can give you my personal attention and a fee scale 50% less than major staffing companies. Please contact me.      In terms of labels, to me A) is spam, B) is not. A) will annoy people, B) won't. If you send lots of A-messages, in time recipients will get to recognize your name and will be disinclined to want to do business with you. No matter how many times you send B-messages, recipients will not be annoyed and will always remain open to doing business with you.      The idea of, It doesn't matter if some people are annoyed by my methods, they won't do business with me anyway, is false logic. It means you must keep searching, searching for new companies and new people to approach. And every approach is a new, cold approach.  [To be continued ..... Part IV]

Quote of the week

Stupid mistakes are always made by others ......

We only make unavoidable errors

Prospecting for new clients - Part II

"Bingo!" I said! This is the very point I had been trying to get them both to realize! What would Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca or Oprah Winfrey do if they were in your position? They would sell themselves, wouldn't they?! They certainly wouldn't be sending spam-faxes annoying people over the wasted paper, sending e-mail by the thousand ticking people off by clogging up their inboxes with unwanted messages. And they wouldn't waste a single minute cold-calling strangers who don't have time to talk to them anyway! Can you honestly see Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca or Oprah Winfrey taking their companies to the top with such methods?      Wong actually thought that Welch and Co. would fax, e-mail, call, direct mail, etc. on a massive scale. But Iskandar got it. "Yes," he said, "Selling yourself to your prospect as a person who is driven to 'do the right thing' for the client is big news."  So, what would they do instead?      Here's where I have a problem with Wong's answer - why would someone like Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca or Oprah Winfrey do something on a massive scale that they know would offend or upset the very people they want to sell to, if not now, later? To my way of thinking, that's like someone going fishing and starting off by throwing rocks in the river. (For non-fishermen, that would frighten all the fish away.)      How can you hope to sell yourself as a person who is driven to do the right things for their client, as Iskandar says, by starting off the relationship wasting their fax paper and adding to the spam in their inbox? It's not congruent. You set yourself up as a liar.      Somehow, I just cannot see Welch, Iacocca or Winfrey sitting at the telephone all day cold-calling, getting rejected, being put on hold, being transferred to voicemail, playing cat-and-mouse with secretaries and telephone operators. I just cannot see it. I'm sure they would try it, because, remember, we have dropped them into a field they (presumably) know nothing about. But I don't think it would take more than an hour before they say to themselves: This is a waste of time! I must find a better way.      As Iskandar realized, the small business owner's best advantage is themselves. They are the owner of the business - how often does the owner of a business personally attend to a client? People love that 'special' treatment - being served by the owner rather than an employee.      I believe Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca and Oprah Winfrey, would call their personal list of contacts and ask them "Who do you know that would need my services?" When given a name, Jack-Lee-Oprah would ask them for an introduction - you could do it on a three way call. After the relationship is established (i.e. you have shown them some value) ask your new friend "Who do you know that would need my services?"      Wash, rinse, repeat!      People tend to buy from people they like and trust a whole lot quicker than someone who cold-called them. You don't have to be a Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca and Oprah Winfrey to do this. Everyone knows at least 100 people they could call in this manner. Some of these would be remote, perhaps, but a few of that 100 would be people you have already helped. In Wong and Iskandar's case, IT people they have already placed and company HR people they have already served.      Without doubt, Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca and Oprah Winfrey would network their way to the decision makers they needed to reach. If you dropped them into a new business, that wouldn't negate their contacts in other businesses. In the same way, when you started out in your business, your addressbook of the people you already knew didn't go blank!  Leverage      It's called leveraging your pre-established relationships into new ones.      It's been my experience that a good portion of business is done this way at high levels, and it works well at all levels. The challenge for the small business owner is that most people don't have the courage to leverage their personal relationships for business purposes - they somehow think it's seedy. Or, if they do have the courage, their friends think they are somehow being 'used.' On the other hand wealthy people do it all the time because it is smart and efficient.      After my conversation with Wong and Iskandar, Wong reported having sent out a thousand unsolicited e-mails and 500 unsolicited faxes and that produced 5 new leads in a matter of a couple of days. It means, however, there are now 1,495 new people out there who were inconvenienced by that fax message or e-mail. Let's hope they don't remember who sent it!      Iskandar, in the meanwhile, started approaching people he knew for referrals. When calling the referral, he was quite nervous, he said, and that seemed to work to his advantage. He just told whoever answered the phone why he was calling and asked them if they could help him. He apologized for being nervous and said he wasn't a salesman or anything, he was just a person who found IT people for companies needing them. In no time, he was getting a client for every two telephone calls!    [To be continued .... Part III]