Accounts – The Win Source

Sales Leaders,

You have done an amazing job of crafting your company’s sales process. You have trained your sales force, set up your support system, and now have an army of salespeople ready to hit the market. Well done!

Here is the problem: Your prospects have not agreed to adhere to your sales process. Frankly, they could care less about your sales process. They are focused on their business.

Your salespeople have not been coached on how to handle this. They are going to start exactly where you showed them- at the start of the selling process. They will assume the prospects are on the same schedule you are. The fact is, they are not. They are on their own schedule and it has nothing to do with you.

The reason for this disconnect is that there is a Buying Process. The good news is that the buying process is predictable and with a little work, it is pretty easy to align your selling process. The bad news is, if you haven’t taught your sales team the buying process they are wasting time and feeling less effective than they should.

[bctt tweet=”Even the best sales process pushed by the best salesperson will fall flat if it isn’t aligned to the customer’s Buying Process.”]

Lets work on fixing that, here’s how:

Your selling process likely looks something like this:

If not, call me. I can help. If it does, awesome! Let’s take a look at the Buying Process:

This is a sample. Your prospect may go through slightly different steps. I assure you though, there is a clear Buying Process. Your prospects have become smarter and more self-sufficient. They will have started the Buying Process with or without you. Their own industry knowledge and internet research has made it easy for them to get through the first few steps of the Buying Process on their own. That leaves us with three options:

Meet them where they are. Assume you are coming in at Evaluate Proposal. Have your value prop ready, you’ll need it. Let your prospect know that you assume they’ve done research and will be providing them with information to make the decisions easier.
Play catch up. Do some light discovery to find out where their heads are at. Be warned, if you come in at this stage and don’t acknowledge the Buying Process, your customer will assume you are a vendor, not a partner. “What’s your price?” will be one of the first questions your sales team gets. This is the customers attempt to bring you up to where they are in the Buying Process.
Align you website and marketing to meet their needs in the first few steps of the Buying Process. Hand them the information they need to make comparisons. Make sure your marketing materials and website are about them and what they are going through, not just the stuff you offer. That will set you apart.

Anticipating the steps of the Buying Buying Process will help your salespeople match your prospects step for step. Not only will your prospect believe that you have anticipated their actions, they will appreciate how well your sales teams relate to their current state. There’s huge value in that. They will pay you extra dollars for it. Aligning yourself to the Buying Process is a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, so few salespeople are wired to think that way.

Let’s fix this disconnect right now! I’ll get you started and the good news is you already know how to do it and it won’t cost you a dime.

First, map out your customers Buying Process just like you did the sales cycle. It’s ok to just ask your customers. At this stage it’s also ok to make some educated guesses. You’ll have to take a pass at defining each step of the process.

Next, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Ask “What do they need in order to move the decision forward?” at this stage?

Then, combine the two processes. Lay the customer’s Buying Process on top of your selling process. It should look like this:

Last, coach your salespeople. Once you’ve developed a map for your organization, coach your salespeople on how to safely merge into the Buying Process while it is in motion. Prospect already at decision-making? Great! Help them by providing not only your info, but also your competitors. Are they already meeting with your competitors? No problem, have your value prop ready and show them how you stand out. Better yet, use this Buying Process to determine an optimum start time to begin marketing to them. Get a jump on the competition by being the first person to remind of their own upcoming decisions. Talk about setting yourself apart, holy cow! Knowing your prospect’s business as well as they do will create value and turn them into customers for life.

The reality is that too many sales processes are developed from the inside out. They rarely consider the prospect’s Buying Process. This is a miss. Customers and prospects buy when they are ready based on their own task and personal motives. We may have some influence over it, but we do not control it. Even the best sales process pushed by the best salesperson will fall flat if it isn’t aligned to the customer Buying Process.

The most effective thing you can do is help your prospect through the Buying Process and make their decisions as easy as possible. Align your sales process to that and now you have momentum that no competitor can touch.

Sales Leaders- put the finishing touches on your selling process by identifying and coaching to your prospect’s Buying Process. Make your salespeople more effective by making buying easy.

Id love to hear your thoughts on this as you begin to outline your customer’s Buying Process. Keep me posted!

If you’d like to read more blog posts from The Win Source, you can find them here.

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Ideas, comments, and questions are always welcomed! Happy Selling!

Imagine the next call you get is from your #1 customer.

They are the customer that is at the top of your list every year. You’ve built budgets around them, you’ve received big bonuses because of them, you even made president’s club one year when they had that special project, heck you added a new deck to your house last year because of them!!

When the phone vibrates, you step out of your sales team meeting to take the call. These guys never go to voicemail.

Judy starts talking. She seems nervous and rushed. You hear: “I’m sorry” “new director and it wasn’t my decision” “pricing was a little lower” “looking to make some changes“…..none of the words are making sense, they have an open order. How can this be?? There is a long pause and Judy says “Are you there?” You reply: “Yes, I’m here, just shocked, do you mind if I stop by?” Judy replies”Why don’t you give me a call next week, we’ll have to square away final billing anyway. Again, I’m sorry, I’ve enjoyed working with you.”

Thats when it hits you- they’re gone.

Over the next few days you devise a plan to win them back. You aren’t going to just accept the fact that they are leaving. You enlist the help of your sales leaders, you get reports together to show the customer what a great job you’ve done, you pull data to show that you are well priced, you begin to make calls to various people in the customer organization to get info, you ask them for the opportunity to learn what you could have done better, you start a call campaign to set appointments with the customer’s buying team and leadership team, (to include people in the home office, that you’ve never visited) you ask their favorite service manager to stop by to see if he can do anything, and last, but not least, you send Marjorie at the front desk an Edible Arrangement. Whew! Lets hope this works. We’ll see. It may be too late.

I hope you never have to go through the pain of this call. I’ve been through it and it stinks. There is a way to prevent it, though.

I’ve taken this experience and turned it into a game. Ideally, this game will prevent you from ever having to live this nightmare.

Here is how it goes:

Pretend you got a call like the one above. Then, you should outline the plan to get the customer back. Be specific. Outline every action item with dates, who will do them, and the expected results. Think about who can help, what resources you need, what special considerations might be given, and what conversations you really need to have and with whom. Then, put the plan into action.

Anything that is outlined on that plan can be addressed now. Everything on that plan should be addressed now. Do it. Don’t wait for that phone call.

Too often, the things that cause us to get these unwanted calls are things we could have prevented, should have known, or could have gotten in front of. By being proactive, putting a plan together, and executing on a well thought out plan you may save yourself some heartbreak.

If you are a salesperson, you should play this game a couple times a year, using your top customers. Sales Leaders, if you aren’t playing this game with your teams, you are missing out. Getting them to think this way will save and grow accounts. You can take this hypothetical ‘win back’ plan and turn it into a proactive outline that will engage stakeholders, grow your relationship, produce more revenue, and keep that number one customer relationship thriving.

Gotta go…my phone’s ringing….

If you’d like to read more blog posts from The Win Source, you can find them here.

Please susbscribe to receive future posts directly to email.

Ideas, comments, and questions are always welcomed! Happy Selling!

Category: Accounts

Sales Leaders- Increase Sales By Focusing On Buying, Not Selling.

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