First, Let Your Customer Finish Their Sentence, Then Ask Three Questions

Yesterday, I had a discussion with "Mark." Mark is one of the best sales/business development professionals I have ever met. In the market segments in which he sells, he is truly an expert. He's spent many years in understanding the industry, the players, the key issues facing everyone in the value delivery chain. Customers seek and respect Mark's opinion. He's helped customers achieve great things with his company's solutions.

Coupled with that, Mark has a very high level of enthusiasm and energy---it's infectious. Meeting with Mark, or seeing customers with him is always interesting. It's often hard to keep up with the ideas.

Imagine my surprise when Mark asked me for some advice today. While he is the highest performer in his company, he was having some challenges with closing deals. He said he was getting sales to a certain point and then they seem to stall. We were talking about what was going wrong.

Fortunately, I had been on some calls with Mark. I've seen how he interacted with customers. I've also seen Mark in conversations with his peers in his company and we had had many conversations between ourselves.

Mark has a problem---it's a problem I've seen many bright, high energy, and high performing sales professionals have. I noticed that Mark rarely lets anyone complete their thoughts. Mark's mind is racing ahead of the conversation. Before the customer has had a chance to state their issues, Mark knows the answer and is presenting a solution. He's eager to solve the issue, his enthusiasm and energy causes him to interrupt and to start presenting a solution.

Since Mark is truly an expert in the industry, more often than not, he is focusing on the right issue and presenting a powerful solution. However, this creates a real problem -- one the Mark is totally unconscious about.

The customer never gets to tell their story, the customer never really feels that she is being heard. Mark has not given them the chance to explain their issues.

The problem gets worse. A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting with Mark and one of his customers. A few sentences into the discussion, Mark could read where things were going and jumped in to talk about the issues, their impact on the customer and their customers and potential solutions to resolve the issues. He wasn't pitching, but speaking from his expertise and experience --- an in many senses was very credible.

The problem, however, was that wasn't the issue that was bothering the customer. By interrupting the customer, Mark had cut off the chance to hear the real issues that were bothering the customer and address those. While Mark eventually discovered this and corrected it, it took some time. Fortunately the customer was generous and forgiving, giving Mark the opportunity to explore the real issues.

I see the same scenario too many times, with some of the best, most knowledgeable and experienced sales people.

Going back to Mark's and my discussion. He asked me what to do. I started to tell him, then he jumped in......

After I stopped the discussion, I said: "Mark, here is your new mantra: 'Let the customer complete their sentence or thought. Never, never, under any circumstances interrupt her. Then, before you respond to the customer, ask her three questions. If you do this, you will see profound changes in your effectiveness.'"

Mark paused and thought about it. He made a few comments, stopped himself and said he was being defensive. We started discussing it. Somethings we concluded:

• Everyone wants to be heard--they want the chance to express their views and know
  they are being listened to. They want the chance to tell their story---and they
  need to tell their story to someone who is listening.


• As smart as we are, until we have heard the customer's view, until it comes from their mouths, we are just assuming---and we know what assumptions make us.
  If we give the customer a chance to complete their thoughts, we will learn something new.


• If we ask the customer three questions before responding, the quality of both our listening and our knowledge increases exponentially. We can then respond more
  appropriately and have an engaged customer.
  

I could tell Mark took it to heart. He wrote it down on the front cover of his notebook. He wanted to see it before each call with a customer.

Before we concluded, Mark asked me, "What are the three questions I should ask?" I have a specific answer for this, but I'd like your ideas and views---so please comment.

For any of you who are very curious---email me, I'll give you the three key questions you might ask in these situations. Just send a request to me at dabrock@excellenc.com.

Table Stakes Are Changing -- How Do We Up The Ante?

I just finished a conversation with a client. He is the EVP of Sales for a high performing sales organization. We were talking about the challenge of setting his company's offerings apart from the competition---continuing to differentiate their solutions.

For a few moments, we spoke about the "good old days." We reflected on how things had changed, what used to set them apart is now a common expectation---all the competitors deliver the same capability or experience, the customers now have new expectations -- the table stakes have changed!

Table stakes are constantly changing, the ante is continually increasing. If we aren't changing--in fact driving the change, we will not win. Thinking about the good old days doesn't close sales.

The new reality of competing in sales, the new (or at least today's) table stakes are:

• Customers are better informed than ever before and will continue to be well
  informed. Before you have ever met with the customer, they have "pre-screened"
  you through Internet research--you won't get in the door unless your company has
  represented itself well in the electronic-Sale 2.0 world.


• Your product/service doesn't count. By the time you are meeting with your customer,
  probably any of the alternatives they have "short listed" will meet their need.
  Focusing on pitching features, functions, feeds and speeds just wastes their and
  your time.


• Some of the other things we relied about in the past like quality, delivery, logistics may not be the differentiators they once were.
  

When you are invited to the table, all of these are already on the table and roughly equal for all participants, how do you up the ante? Some thoughts:

• The biggest: What do you do for the customer---both the enterprise and the individuals involved in the decision? How do you help increase profits, grow their business, increase the loyalty of their customers? Frankly, the customers don't care about you, your products and company, they care about what you can do for them.


• How do you create a compelling customer buying experience? Customer experience is the rage in product development and design. As sales professionals we need to start thinking about the customer experience in the buying process. How do we become facilitators in the buying process? How do we create a hassle free experience---both in the buying and the implementation processes?


• How do we, as sales professionals, become the differentiator that causes our companies to win?

Table stakes have changed, if we aren't constantly thinking about how we can up the ante, we will have to fold our hands, we may not even be dealt in. What ideas to you have to raise the ante?

Sales Is Changing, Are You Maximizing Your Impact?

Webinar: Driving Demand in a Demanding Market

July 15 11 AM PST / 2 PM EST

As a sales executive, you know how difficult it is to increase revenue while decreasing costs in today's selling environment. You’re under pressure to produce sales. Missed deals are costing you money. You need new ways to get smarter and more productive quickly – not more of the same. But which new sales strategies will help you uncover hidden demand and maximize revenue potential without breaking the bank?Tune in to our live webcast to hear a panel of experts discuss strategies on how to boost sales and cut costs to impact your bottom line right now.Join our panel of specialists to discover:

Tips to get your sales team smarter and more productive
How to identify the right deals and avoid wasting time on dead ends
Tools that help manage and measure critical sales performance metrics
The role Technology can play in making an impact on your bottom line

Brent Leary is a CRM industry analyst, advisor, author, speaker and award-winning blogger. He is co-founder and Partner of CRM Essentials LLC, an Atlanta based CRM advisory firm offering tools and strategies for improving business relationships, with a client list including RIM, Sage, Microsoft, Intuit, and Cisco. Recognized by InsideCRM as one of 2007's 25 most influential industry leaders, Leary is also a past recipient of CRM Magazine's Most Influential Leader Award. Leary blogs at http://brentleary.com/.

Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company focused on performance improvement in sales, marketing and business strategy. Partners In EXCELLENCE has trained over 100,000 sales professionals, globally, in how to outsell and outperform their competition. Dave is a trusted advisor to executives in the high technology, industrial products, and professional services, and has worked with the largest organizations in those sectors as well as start-ups. Brock blogs at http://partnersinexcellence.blogspot.com/, Partners In EXCELLENCE website is http://www.excellenc.com/.

David Bonnette is Group Vice President of Oracle's North American CRM sales organization, overseeing Oracle’s market-leading CRM portfolio for North American commercial markets. He leads a team of nearly 150 people and has built his organization around industry, segment, and product specialization. In transforming the culture to emphasize Innovation, Collaboration, his team is acutely focused on developing communities that create sustainable, material value for Oracle’s customers.

To register for this Webinar, click on this link: The Sales Game Has Changed, Are You Playing To Win?

Delivering Value Through Channel Partners

To many sales and business executives, developing channels, reseller relationships, or other similar partnerships is driven by finding cost effective means to covering markets or geographies. While this is compelling, I'd like to suggest a more effective strategy for developing and implementing your channel and partner strategies---if well executed, it will also be a cost effective way of reaching your customers.

Partners can be a key differentiator in developing, communicating, and delivering value to your customers. Today, no organization can deliver everything the customers need. Partners and resellers can be effective in adding to your total value proposition, better addressing your customer's needs and further differentiating your total offering from the competition. They can help fill holes in your value proposition, extending the strength of the total offering to your target customers.

In designing a value based channel,you should start with your target customer segments and work backwards. Make sure the value delivery chain you put in place adds to the value your offerings. Each partner should add value that complements yours and creates a greater value for the total offering to your customers. The picture below shows an example.

If your partners are not adding value and improving the total value proposition to the customers, they are adding cost --- detracting from your value proposition and competitiveness.

There are many ways partners might add value: relationships with customers is one area. Skills and capabilities that complement yours--for example implementation, installation of your products, local support, the ability to integrate complementary products for a richer solution, and others all represent potential value they might provide.

When building a channel that complements and enhances the total value of your offerings, make sure you understand one other element of value. What is the value that you provide your partners? If you are not providing them value, it is very unlikely the relationship will produce results. A way to think about this is illustrated below.



The decision to use partners should be driven primarily by filling gaps in your value proposition. If your partners add value in reaching your customers, and you add value to them, you will probably have an effective, efficient and high performing channel--creating great results for your mutual customers as well as for each other.

Partners In EXCELLENCE is the recognized leader in helping organizations develop and communicate differentiated value propositions. We are also recognized for our expertise in developing and implementing high impact partnering and channel strategies.

If you need to sharpen your tools, processes, thinking, and skills in value propositions, look at our Value Proposition Solutions, follow the link. For a copy of our free Value Proposition eBook, follow the link.

For our eBook, Partnering for Profitability, follow the linkg

For any other information about how Partners In EXCELLENCE can improve your organization’s capabilities in understanding, developing, communicating and delivering differentiated value, or i ndeveloping and implementing your channel strategies, please contact us at +1-949-305-7146 or dabrock@excellenc.com