New York, NY (May 2003) -So, you're playing in the big leagues now. You are involved in high stakes, high return, multi-faceted sales, but has something changed? Are you finding that the skills that won sales for you in the past just aren't working as effectively today?
If you sell business-to-business or business-to-government, chances are your transactions involve long sales cycles and require multiple decisions from multiple people at multiple levels of power and influence. The days of presenting and closing simple, specified solutions to buyers making simple, low risk business decisions are over. You have to juggle conflicting perspectives from a variety of people in several different companies, including yours, that may even cross country and cultural borders. You have made it to the high stakes world of the complex sale, and you are going to have to ratchet up your skills and disciplines if you are going to compete and succeed.
A new book by noted sales consultant, Jeff Thull (pronounced "tool"), will give you the tools you need to sell smarter in this challenging and complicated world. "Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes Are High!" (John Wiley & Sons; 2003; ISBN 0471431516; $24.95) shows even the most seasoned sales professional how to shift their approach to win and win big.
"When salespeople use a conventional sales process in a complex situation, they are like major league pitchers hurling 90 mile per hour fastballs at batters who may be at the plate for the very first time," Thull explains. "What are the chances that such batters will connect?" He continues, "In a complex sales situation, customers don't get up to bat that often. Yet, salespeople continue to pitch reams of solution data at customers, leaving them alone to try to comprehend, sort and connect all of that information to their world, on their own. A salesperson wants the customer to connect. But if he keeps hurling those fastballs, the customer is going to just keep striking out. And a strikeout for the customer, is a strikeout for the sales team."
In "Mastering the Complex Sale", Thull gives readers a systematic approach to turning complex sales solutions into winning proposals. He advocates a system called Diagnostic Business Development® -or "the Prime Process" -that is based on over 20 years of observing top-notch sales professionals bringing in the high stakes sales.
"Diagnostic Business Development is a meta-process that can be overlaid on any complex sale," Thull says. "It provides a navigable path from the first step of identifying potential customers, through the sale itself and on to expanding and retaining profitable customer relationships." He adds, "It is a reengineering of the conventional sales process and it directly addresses the challenges that salespeople face while trying to master complex sales in today's marketplace."
The Diagnostic Business Development process encompasses four phases: Discover, Diagnose, Design and Deliver.
Discover. Every sale starts at the same place -identifying the customer. In conventional sales, this prospecting and qualification often entails minimal preparation. If you are going after the complex sale, the Discover phase is your opportunity to set the stage for a compelling engagement and a continuing relationship based on trust and respect. Discover means pushing beyond the traditional boundaries of prospecting to create a solid foundation on which to build a long-term, profitable relationship. The edge in this approach is the level of research that can be done pre-engagement and the resulting credibility that sets the stage for a productive relationship. It entails a process that includes pre-contact research of potential customers and their industry, the preparation of an engagement strategy, and the initial conversation with the prospective customer. It is at this stage that the customer and the salesperson mutually decide whether the engagement should continue.
Diagnose. Unlike conventional selling, where the sale is made at the "close" and the needs analysis is more of a smokescreen for positioning your solution, the Diagnose phase is where the customer will make the decision to change / buy, and from whom. In the complex sale, the decision is more about should we change (the problem or lack of opportunity) than what should we change (the solution). Understanding how and why people and businesses change is the key to an accurate handle on the complex decision. In the Diagnostic Business Development paradigm, Diagnose is actually a process of hyper-qualification during which an in-depth determination of the existence, extent and financial impact of the customer's problem is pursued. It involves a collaborative effort to put the customer in a position to make an informed decision about whether or not they need to change. Diagnosis is meant to maximize the customer's objective awareness of their dissatisfaction, whether or not that dissatisfaction supports the salesperson's offerings. The salesperson assists the customer in understanding their situation and, as a result, reinforces his credibility by refusing to alter the customer's reality to fit his needs.
Design. Design is where sales professionals help the customer create and understand the solution. Where in a conventional sales approach; the customer is not involved in the creation of the solution, here design is approached as a collaborative and highly interactive effort to help customers sort through their expectations and alternatives to arrive at the optimal solution. In the Diagnostic Business Development process, the Design phase does not focus on a specific solution. Rather, its goal is to get salespeople and customers working together to identify the optimal solution to the problems that were uncovered and quantified in the Diagnose phase. Solutions are addressed by introducing and exploring alternatives, including alternative solutions offered by competitors. The goal is to create a solution framework that best solves the customer's problems and manages their expectations. At the conclusion of the Design phase, a "Discussion Document" is created, which provides a pencil sketch of the solution. This is the dress rehearsal before the final proposal and presentation is created.
Deliver. Where conventional sales spends an inordinate amount of time and energy teaching salespeople to overcome objections in order to close the sale, the Diagnostic approach encourages customers to evolve their own decision throughout the process. By now, the customer has a clear understanding of their problem and they know what the best solution will look like. They are co-authors of that solution, there are no "objections." This phase begins with the preparation and presentation of a formal proposal and the customer's subsequent formal acceptance of the solution. Next come the implementation and support of the solution and the measurement and evaluation of results. Finally, the Deliver phase includes the maintenance and growth of the sales team's relationship with the customer.
In "Mastering the Complex Sale", Jeff Thull provides concrete advice on how to avoid common sales pitfalls such as becoming an unpaid consultant or engaging in never-ending dry runs, both instances where time is wasted and sales are never made. He shows his readers how to make the transition from thinking like a salesperson to thinking like a business person.
According to Thull, conventional selling simply doesn't work in the complex sales environment. "The often ignored reality is that customers need outside expertise to help them understand the problems they face, and in designing the optimal solutions to those problems and in implementing those solutions." He adds, "It is up to you to provide the expertise and guidance your customers need. See yourself as a project manager that guides your customer through a quality decision process. That is one of the secrets to succeeding at the complex sale. That is how to hit a home run for you and the customer." |
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