The State of Sales Best Practices in 2014: a Learning Memo

Challenge the Status Quo and Sell insights, Not solutions

Compiled from various internal materials from my company's (a leading Fortune 500 in software) structured sales methodology

60% of deal opportunities never go live because it's easier to do nothing. 

As a salesperson, you must call the prospect to action through a step-by-step rhetorical process:

• "Why change?" : challenge the prospect situation and highlight the risk of no action, showing how the customer's reality is worse than they thought it was. You must establish yourself as a subject matter expert

• "Why now?": Status quo is unsafe but your company proposes a safe path they can follow, starting soon.

• "Why us?": leverages on your company's value wedge: where it solves an important problem for the prospect, with a defensible approach, unique to your company. Use third-party data, testimonial, case study...

Forget PowerPoint

In nowadays' attention economy (valuable, scarce), you must differentiate your message by first efficiently grabbing the prospect's attention with an insight: you have 30 seconds to tell your customer something they don't already know. 

Then, you must deliver a message that will be remembered. You must know that a good Powerpoint should have as many visual elements as possible and less text, but at the end of the day: people who know what they are talking about, don't need PowerPoint.

You must learn and use the power of storytelling to engage your customer in a relevant and humane way: 

- think about "how can I tell them a great story?" and focus on the customer's world in order to engage them, not your world.

- offer a point of view that demonstrates your expertise in 2 steps: 

1- show them your understanding of their business 

2- give them insights about what is going to happen. 

- deliver with your heart, using a whiteboard. 

Learn the Art of Improvised Persuasion

From an interview webinar in SoundView with Steve Yastrow (www.yastrow.com)

• What is improvisation? 

It is not knowing what you are going to say next, and be totally comfortable with that. (Quote from Mike Napier, )

• Yastrow recommends to create a set of new habit to create persuasive conversations: 

#1: Think input about output: learn about your customer first.
#2: Size up the scene: figure out "who" before "what"
#3: Create a series of "Yes" (practicing the Yes, and technique...)
#4: Explore and Heighten: find out what the customer cares about and then take the conversation to the higher level, using the customer's preferred path.
#5: Focus the conversation on your customer: make the conversation 95% about the customer, not about your offering.
#6: Don't Rush the Story: ironically, you can slow the process if you rush too much. Don't tell them everything (only what they need to hear to advance to the next step towards closing) & create callbacks: refer to important issues for your customer at regular intervals.