Essential tools of sale by Paul Shoker at NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 47th session

Posted by Paritosh Sharma

at May 16, 2009

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The NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 47th session by Paul Shoker on Essential Tools of Sale, being LIVE Blogged! I have been blogging these session LIVE since 10 months now and well, am looking forward to the 50th session!

Okay so we are a go with Paul shaking hands with the entire audience and glad to start the session with Ankur Lal (Founder and CEO, Infozech Software Ltd.) Im always amazed with Ankur’s persona

“We always seek to go in front of a customer but when we are there, theheart bumps….we fall short of words”

- Ankur

So here we are starting with the session, interestingly enough we already have some real interesting questions by the participants. I wanna know what my clients are telling me, I wanna know what my customers are saying, I wanna know what my customers customers are saying…says Paul

When I first started selling I was 21 years old….and I still sell.

Im going to take you back to basics…Im in for the ride Paul!!

Where do you play
DNA of a consultative sales professional
Value proposition attribute you are competing on
Common sales cycle vs Consultative approach
Sales planning - approach and tactics
Suspect - prospects weighting
Common mistakes a sales professional can make

Well, this is what Paul is really going to share with the room! I have worked in almost like 20 countries. Everytome there’s been a different culture and a different sales cycle. So Paul is gong to share it all with the audience today!

There are four stages and at the end of the day we need to make a simple call:

Intent
Focus
Relationship
Value

The chart moves from left to right from Transactional (at stage I) to Collaborative (at stage 4)

Paul explains the pointers with an example! That of a telephone line. I was collecting 50 compliment slips from 9 to 6 in the evening when I was selling in London! Now i had to call each one of them the next day and I miserably felt shocked. And then I thought out of the box! And Paul shares some really amazing points here at this stage!

I went and met the finance head for Rollce Royce and I sold him nothing but, business issues!

It took me 18 months to close a 250million dollar deal…its does not come easy, trust me

DNA of a sales professional, Paul shares the real Gold now!

Confidence, self belief and passion
Hunger and have he ability to move out of a comfort zone
Pro active and self motivated
Focus and execution - too many people working on too many opportunities
Dream big and have a prize you wanna shoot for. Make it personal!

It took me 3 years to be a millionaire, I drove the best cars, lived in the best houses - why, because i made it personal

Believe in your company, propositions, its values etc.. and that all thse things add value to your customers entire value chain
Professional, articulate and personal

People aren’t punctual in India, and I have seen this!

Speak the customers language
Network
To effectively listen and communicate value

You go listen to your client and dotn say anything, you will be chocked what you will learn

What is the biggest attribute you will link your value proposition to?

Are you trying to sell on Quality
Are you trying to sell on Service
Are you trying to sell on Cost

What is the defferentiating that you are offering around, questions Paul to the room. This will help you to effectively set your sales strategy says Paul, and the entire room is listening with pin drop silence!

Paul is now sharing the differnece between a common sales cycle and a Consultative approach

The Consultative guy:

Qualifies the need

He knows what are their business drivers | Qualify yourselves | establish customers business drivers

Sales strategy and relationship mapping

How do I need to get to a decision maker - and Paul answers the question that you do not need to reach to the decision maker, there is probably an all together different person that you ened to reach out to

Setting traps and Mines

How do you thinkg BT, IBM, Capgemini are winning these multi million deals, coz their guys are doing the real consultative selling, they are reaching out to the influencers

Let your customers BUY YOU first and then your product!

Accelerate or De-accelerate

Paul is sharing the real code book of the high flying consultative sellers!

Negotiate, close or walk away

The art of a sales guy is to articulate his value

Sales Planning

Consultative sales professionals approach

Do we have a value proposition linkable to the customers business objectives?
Qualification analysis - analysis of opportunity from 4 points of view, each answering different questions:
- Can we add value
- should we pursue
- can we compete
- are we aligned to win
Competitive sales strategy
- identification of the four types of sales strategy
- direct
- indirect
- divisional
- containment
- development of a strategic opportunity plan
- development of a competitive counter tactics

We were competing with IBM on a big deal and we knew we cant go head to jead, thus the only thing we had was an indirect approach which meant changing the rules of the game! Which also meant that there is only one par of the deal that you want! We said lets just divide and counquer. I have actually sold purely on value, shares Paul!

Leveraging politics
- separating influencers from authoritarians
- identifying the key influencers
- how to develop a political sales strategy

Have we tried to identify the right influencers and design a god strategy around the politics, which by the way, every company has, big and small!

Some key internal questions you need to ask yourself, shares Paul

How is the competitive landscape changing?
What service could be under threat, why and which accounts?
1. You need to understand do I have a satisfied customer, and if not, well why not?
What is the key challenge that you may face to deliver?
1. the biggest of the companies make this mistake which is fundamental
What help do I need from executives or board member in the next 1-3 months

How to QUALIFY an account history?

customer name
established
market share
financials
customer base
who is their biggest competitor
how are they structured
what is their overall strategy
business drivers

Opportunities, Qualification and Tactics

qualification
- do we have a value proposition linkable to customer business objectives?
- how do we intend to differentiate
- who will be our competitors
- what is the size of the opportunity - at times too many assumptions are made
- so we have the financial resources to pursue
- can we compete
- are we aligned to win
- who are the key influencers
- who are the decision makers
- who are the show stoppers
- what sales tactic will you deploy

Impact selling

understanding the customers business INSIDE OUT and OUTSIDE IN

Mines and Traps - Paul is now sharing an intersting example which comes from his life, a cleint that he dealt with! I have set the mines becasue I knew the features that my competition could never give. I made it a point that I ask my customer who all are you seeing, and I liked to be the last one to approach the client, as I had to know my competition and I knew it as I am an expert in the domain, and well I was clear in my approach that I was here to sell in just a meeting and not ask for another session, and this is how I scaled up!

How your proposition can make an impact to the top or bottomline

Tactics

Mines and traps…eg so that could be an important feature?
Accelerate….speed up the sale to close
Decelerate…slow down…you need to change the ground rules
- This is where the art of negotiation comes in says Paul

Interestingly, Paul is now sharing about Proactive engagement! The slide on the screen is giving clarity on what a good sales guy is all about and Paul shares three fundamental magical words: Re-qualify, Re-qualify, Re-qualify

- this is the philosophy that I have used over the last 20 years

This is what I use - Suspect, Prospect weighting and this is especially for startups

0% fact findings
- linkable propositions and realtionship mapping
10% opening (Suspect or Prospect)
20% qualification
- how serious, budgets, decision makers
30% defining SOR
- lay the traps and write the RFQ
40% bid proposal
50% proposal presentation
75% LOI (letter of intent)
85% Contract negotiation
100% signature win

Paul is now sharing with the room the most common mistakes sales professionals make:

they fail to listen - trust me shut up and listen
- ask the right question and look at the body language
they fail to re-qualify
they fail to ask for an order - people fail to ask
negotiate
- be an entrepreneur, there would be more respect for being straight
- i cant give you a discount but perhaps I can increase this on the service levels
walk away - learn to walk away, the fear of loss for the customer, will make him ask you, what to do, dont be arrogant and just humbly walk out

Never knock your competition

The session is now in the QandA mode and well, I must add, I loved the session, coz I started as a sales entrepreneur and I share some pieces with Paul. Thanks Paul!