Black Sales Journal

Even the number one business in its field has problems in need of solutions.  The best of breed businesses and industry leaders struggle to find solutions so that they can stay on top.

As a sales professional, implicitly what your customer pays you to deliver solutions.  Many times those solutions are underpinned by your own product or service, and sometimes it is the packaging and perception that gives them value.

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If you are the sales professional for a firm, and you are ignorant about hat they need, you cannot produce solutions.  You have to ask.  You must gather from them enough information to “make a difference.”  Know how to make your product and services convenient for them.  It is called “ease of doing business.”  If you give the customers an easy way to interface with you, you will make a difference.

Diagnose The Issues

The only way to know what would provide ease of business is to listen and probe deeply and frequently.  Communication is at the root of this diagnosis, and action is the result.

• Investigate – Seize every opportunity to ask your customer what are their greatest opportunities and threats from a business standpoint.  As companies determine these in their SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis you can focus on what your organization can do.
• Strengthen Your Knowledge – Know your company’s industry, and have a strong knowledge of the customer’s industry.  Know how you can use your current product offerings packaged differently to satisfy needs.
• Record – Keep a good record of customer’s problems, and take time to group problems of like-customers together.  If you do this well you can pick where to spend your time trying to develop superior solutions.
• Research – Spend time researching the best way to solve problems, once you have determined what can efficiently be solved.  Use your competitor’s ideas, your imagination, and yourexpertise as you research how to solve.

Stand and Deliver

Once you have determined what can be solved efficiently and have researched the solutions that can be used, you have an excellent opportunity to be a “star” if you deliver it correctly.

I am going to give a practical example of how this works:

An office products sales professional recognizes that his list of clients includes a large number of non-profits.  Much of his customer list had similar needs, and similar restrictions from the standpoint of finances.  Non-profits are similar, although not the same.  Knowing this market segment, he began to structure a program that had some unique offerings.

Realizing that many of these non-profits buy many of the same products, he began the process of packaging them.  He came up with unique “offerings” that were mainly packaging that satisfied a need regarding the products purchased, and the way they were consumed.

He then lobbied for unique credit terms (trade terms) that he could offer, knowing that they would need to stretch out payments for a longer period based on them being funded by governmental agencies and donations.  Once he got them, he made that a part of his “Non-Prof-Pak”.

He then worked to do that which you can only do if you know the buying habits of your customers.  He worked to do a separate mailing to his customers (“Non-Prof-Pak) with the most frequently purchased products in it.  This was based on his research of what products were being purchased by all of them.  His mailing amounted to a specialized catalog of items that were most used by non-profits including some items that his organization did not carry; yet he knew they needed.  He arranged for those items to come from a “friendly” competitor that allowed those items in the mailing.  It was “win-win”.

The result was that his customers did not have to search for their most common items.  Someone who “specialized” in non-profits sent them to them!  We know that it was the way it was packaged, and received.  They did not have to hunt through a long catalog; someone had marketed directly to them.

This sales professional picked up business from this sector, and attained a certain stature in the business community.  This individual has retired since then, and there are not catalogs for the most part with on-line marketing, yet the example is solid.  Packaging is important, marketing is important, and specialization is important.

Product and Promotion

That is a question only you can answer.  There is a possibility that you can identify a group of customers who have a similar need and operating pattern.  Examples are storefront merchants, Black churches and religious organizations, truckers, printers, publishers, and a host of other semi-homogeneous groups.  You want groups with more in common, than differences.

Structure them with an eye toward what solutions they need, then deliver it.  Your research is important, so do it correctly.  You can figure out what makes them the same, and market to them with the application of some of the steps above.

Remember the 5Ps of Marketing:

• People
• Place
• Product
• Promotion
• Price

In this effort, you are concentrating on the product, or perceived product and promotion.  Your packaging of the product promotion makes all of the difference in the world in this case.

You can only do what your organization lets you do; yet there is some latitude here.  Remember some of the discussions in Black Sales Journal 12/20 – Your Customer Needs an Expert- Let it be You.  We are not talking about you being a sophisticated expert here, yet your ability to package and promote will be the ultimate asset.

By doing this you can provide an ease of doing business that others might have missed.  You can orchestrate the designing of product packages that hit the mark.  We all have seen it, known what it is, and still purchased because it had “perceived” value.

I think you can provide more solutions than you think.  You might be surprised.

Your comments are appreciated.

The profession of sales is a seductive art. I did not say it was sexy.  No matter how you try may to make it sexy, it still involves the nuts and bolts and rigorous work of someone moving a product by convincing an individual to do something that they otherwise might not do.  This is the essence of the chain of distribution.

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Is All Sales Just Sales?

There are those whose job is sales, yet the audience is different; actually it is much different, as they will not be the end-user of  your product. When you are selling products and services to those who have the responsibility of selling them to others, you are in an interesting situation.  Whether you are a manufacturer’s rep, a wholesaler, a distributor selling to retail, or another like role, you have a responsibility to recognize the subtle difference in a role that exist when you are not selling to someone who will then sell your product to the end user.

In most of these cases, you are selling to sales professionals who work under various titles.  These are the people that will ultimately sell to the end user, and most likely have characteristics (as sales professionals) that we all know quite well.  It is a group with personal drive and a quest for dollars (most of the time), and recognition (quite often).

You know a great deal about them because you, as a successful sales professional,  have many of the same traits.

What is Different?

When you are selling product to sales professionals, you must recognize some simple rules:

• You are talking to the “Star” when you talk to your customer (the dealer, sales rep, or otherwise).
• Time is of the essence so respect it.  Attention spans can be short, and getting shorter once you start talking if you are not getting to the point.  They need something from you, but don’t want to spend an afternoon getting it.
• Clarity of information is essential, know this and deliver everything in the clearest format possible.  As a sales professional yourself, you recognize that vagary causes you to move to consider another offering.
• The information you leave behind must be useful and in a format which gets interest and solves problems.  The information that you leave for the customer must be useful, or you have wasted print cost or development costs.
• If he/she cannot understand it, they cannot sell it! Be precise and simple in your explanations and characterizations of your product.

Why do I say “you are talking to the Star?”  Remember, the “star” is the one with the  relationship  That is the ultimate “star” because they can present your product the way you want them to do it, or the way they want to do it.  You obviously want them to present your product the way you want it, so recognize the need to make them look good!

Other Important Strategies

There are a couple of other things to remember that might work well for you in this endeavor:

• Recognize who is your “customer”. In most cases, it is not the end user; it is the individual who makes the decision to recommend your product.  This is a huge issue.  There is a difference between customer and end user, and depending on how you run your process and present your product, you could alienate your“customer”.  Don’t make that mistake, as your competition may be solid in this distinction.
• Be the best in customer service and support. This is an area that you are in control of.  Even if yourcustomer is a “prima donna”, it is your customer, and your compensation and ratings are dependent on, most likely, several individuals like him/her.  Make them look good, and you benefit; if you are remiss in giving proper support, you both suffer.  They don’t get the sale, and you might get the criticism.
• Always document well…but don’t use it as a hammer. When a sales professional works to procure business, they often read proposals from suppliers and vendors for hours.  As a matter of fact, they see so many that they often get confused.  Be clear in your documents and your presentation, and realize that they will make a mistake at some point; you just hope it is not an expensive one.  If you can, consider helping them, yet the clarity of the information and your documentation will protect you.
• Always be discreet. Do not discuss their business or affairs with any of your other customers or contacts.  Treat them the way you would like to be treated in that regard.

Get the most out of your contacts!

Your value to your customer comes in your knowledge of your product and process, and your ability to sell to them based on your understanding of what the customer needs. Your objective is to make this person successful, and thus a believer in you…then you will meet your production goals!

In the end, they will acknowledge you and your input into their success…or at least we hope they will.  Let’s put it this way, they will recognize it, and hopefully acknowledge it. The most important thing is that they will contribute to your success.

Your comments are welcome.