During my days as a sales manager I was often asked by fledgling sales professionals as to what they could do to compete with the wealth of sales professionals out there with greater experience and knowledge?  What could they do that could negate that experience and make them the sales professional of choice?

The answer may well be nothing! Nothing negates the advantages that knowledge and experience gives.  It is something that cannot be taken away from the sales professional and there will be a day that you all will be glad about it.

However, there are some actions that you can undertake that will put you in a position to win, and your ‘weaknesses’ will be your strongest assets.

Know Your Assets and Use Them

Know your most plentiful assets and know how to constructively employs them to make the difference in how the client/prospect perceives a sales professional.

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Question:  What does a new sales professional have in abundance over the successful sales professional?
Answer: Time

The new sales professional has the ability to spend mountains of time on individual prospects and clients, ultimately impressing them with his or her attention and presence.  Be wise about it; yet note the relationship building aspect of spending face-time and effort impressing the buyer and how this will pay dividends.

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Question:  How can you make the client ‘dependent’ on you?
Answer: Make yourself indispensable and memorable.

How can you use your ability to focus on the customer?  Create memorable moments (Black Sales Journal 2/3/2011 – Make Yourself Memorable) by sending personally signed cards and notes that share information about products, industry news, and economic data.  Share outlooks and comment on how that might affect your customer/prospect. Increase the customer’s dependency on you, and a relationship is created.

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Question:  Does your customer have a perplexing problem?
Answer:  Do Extensive research

Take on a project of solving a problem that could be a game changer.  I once was acquainted with sales professional that was asked to advise how to insure a totally new energy concept.  He researched, and researched, and once finished presented to the prospect and the prospects two biggest suppliers.  The project never got off of the ground, but the sales professional ended up winning the account for both of the suppliers (he already had the other principal) as a result of his spirited work.

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Situation:  You need to find prospects…now!
Answer:  Use your ability to access technology for a full-out prospect blitz.

Find new, untapped prospects using your ability to research online.  Most experienced sales professionals have a wealth of work to do with existing accounts, and they are also about the business of sourcing prospects.  They won’t have nearly the amount of time, and potentially technology background to do this.  I have seen it done often, and it is often difficult for the vets to keep up.

Sound too Simple?

It is simple.  The problem with sales is that cumulative sales and existing clients generate a significant amount of work.  The sales professional who is the beneficiary of that account either does the maintenance work, or delegates it to an assistant or inside sales person.

Sales professionals vary in their ability to delegate, but no matter what, it takes time to do the actual work, or to delegate.  The new, but lean, sales professional can use that time to develop prospects and relationships as well as source them by spending the adequate amount of time finding those that have not been claimed.

Use your intrinsic energy to master the prospect system, find the relationships and then deliver solutions so that you can sell.  Spend valuable time working at relationships as you have the time to do it.  It is still a lot of work, but this is what you can be doing.

Here is the time to put together a good plan regarding which prospects to attack, and what sales assets to exploit.  You have something to offer, and it does not work with every buyer/customer/prospect, but with many it makes a significant difference.

Being effective when you are new is important.  Your sales plan executed well is the true meaning of effectiveness.

Always be effective!

Your comments are appreciated.

None of us want to admit that we have  been out-negotiated!  But it happens often.  We know that you need the sale, but this very important post will discuss an important tactic, and reduce the chances that you get the wrong end of the deal.  You are your company’s negotiator, and your reputation is at stake.  Be prepared!

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Your prospective customer calls you to meet in order to discuss your product and whether your organizations can do business.  She sounds excited and you sense that this might be the precursor to a good sale.

After you arrive, after some warm-up, you get to the gist of the negotiations.  She wants better payment terms and this is a big issue.  You have been instructed that your organization is ‘losing’ on payment terms, obviously not collecting soon enough, and you know your bounds.

The negotiations go like this:

Customer: “This could be a deal breaker.”

You: “We can offer four (6) equal monthly payments with a 25% deposit.”

Customer: “We would like twelve (8) equal monthly payments with a 10% deposit.” She continues, “If we don’t get that, we may have to consider remaining with our current vendor.”

You: “I think we can get some movement here.  I spoke to my people, and we can reduce our deposit to 15%, but our installments will remain at 6 equal.”

Customer: (Twists her face and does not respond)

You: “We are a good fit for you.  I will see if there is any way that we can move to the longer term.”  After a moment on the cell phone, you respond, “We have a deal! 15% deposit and 8 equal payments.”

You shake hands and head off into the sunset.  You should not be smiling, as you were thoroughly out-negotiated!

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One of the roles of a sales professional is that of negotiator.  It is not a role that you occupy all of the time, but one of tasks that must be done is to finalize, which includes pricing and terms.

Negotiating is a good thing as normally if there are negotiations, there is some acceptance of the product and the relationship.  The problem is most often when a customer goes silent, many in sales give up their bargaining range to get them to talk!  That is what happened in this situation.

Silence is Golden – For the Silent One!

We can learn something from this customer that is priceless:

Most sales professionals are uncomfortable with silence!

Those who are anxious to please, and needing a sale, often give up their negotiating room without ever getting a “no”.   They move to the customer’s position, or very close to it based on silence, or in this situation, silence and the customer’s expressions.

Now, as sales professionals like to talk, I stress that we need to pay respect to those who have learned that silence, by itself, crushes many sales negotiation strategies, and you don’t want it to happen to you.

The facial expression is an example of a ‘flinch’.  The flinch with, or without silence causes many sales professionals to begin to surrender their negotiation room.  A flinch can be a facial expression, upper body movement combined with a drastic facial expression, or even reaching for one’s chest or head ‘in amazement’.

Seemingly indicating that one is aghast (shocked and amazed) that the offer is so bad or lacking, has impact.  What it does is to move someone closer to giving up his or her margin.  Don’t be out negotiated.

I know what you are thinking, “It’s not my money!”  Well it is your money!  Closing the deal with the best terms is what you were hired for.  Be ethical and effective in doing it and there will always be a job for you.  Also, think of what happens when you, the sales professional, give up everything that you have to offer, then have to deal with the client next year.  They will be expecting your ‘cave-in’ again, and you may not have any room to ‘cave’.

Silence by Any Other Name…

It goes without saying in this electronic age that silence has many faces:

• Not responding to a voice mail
• Not responding to emails or written correspondence

Here is a real life example:

I once had a position that required that I purchase personal computers for a training operation.  We needed 12 computers and I negotiated for them and was not excited with the price.  It was not that the price was high; it was that the resources were short, so I went to “beg” my funding sources for more resources to get the products.

I indicated that we needed to consummate the deal by Friday, and because of an illness in the family I had not responded by the proceeding Thursday.  On Thursday afternoon, my assistant handed me a message from the rep cutting the price significantly.   About the same time, I received a call indicating that we had the additional funds to make the purchase.

The sales representative reduced the price without me ever saying ‘No’!  I wonder if his boss knows?

A Good Suggestion

I think the best suggestion that I could give you is to take a good negotiation course.  All sales professionals should take a good negotiation course that also focuses on the ethical nature of negotiating.  There are many out there, and they are worth their weight in gold.  No different than the customer, you should be prepared to use silence as one of the tools in your tool box as well.

Your non-work life will benefit as well as there are few tasks that have as much value making sure you get the right deal.

We will cover some more negotiation techniques here in this journal, yet a course is the way to go.  You will thank me for the suggestion, as there is nothing that will make you more effective and efficient after you have done the heavy lifting like cleanly and clearly negotiating the terms.

Be effective and efficient.

Your comments are appreciated.