22 February 2010 | Uncategorized | Miller Heiman

Ask your sales team this question to move sales forward:

When do you begin negotiations?

Negotiating can be difficult. In a long sales cycle, professionals often tiptoe around contract length, customization or price conversations hoping they don’t get snagged by a potentially nasty exchange that could result in a bad customer relationship.

The best way to put those scary thoughts to rest is to understand that negotiations should start at the beginning of the engagement and it should involve more than just price. Sales professionals should be upfront about what both parties could stand to benefit or are looking to accomplish as a result of implementing the proposed solution. If discrepancies arise, it’s easier to work through them over the course of the sale than to stumble into them at the last minute.

Options that satisfy shared interests or meet both sides’ interests are the ones most likely to be agreed upon. Learn more about negotiations here.

Have a question for Miller Heiman? Leave a comment or ask @MillerHeiman on Twitter.

photo credit: jennlynndesign

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17 February 2010 | Uncategorized | Miller Heiman

Ask your sales team this question to move sales forward:

Do your contacts perceive a challenge to their business in the first place?

When contacts at potential customer organizations don’t perceive a challenge within their business, getting them to understand how your solution can help is a bit like running into a brick wall.

What you can do is demonstrate a discrepancy between how they perform now and how they could perform with your services. If you can illustrate their company could potentially be in trouble without your solution, or how they could stand to grow if they invested in it, you can change their perception.

Staying close to what the customer wants to accomplish is key. If you know how your product can help a customer, you also know problems it could likely create without it. From there, you can demonstrate the potential business challenges the company may face, and make a stronger case for your solution.

Have a question for Miller Heiman? Leave a comment or ask @MillerHeiman on Twitter.

photo credit: tangywolf

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10 February 2010 | Uncategorized | Miller Heiman

One of our Twitter followers recently asked how to address customers who say, “Show me a demo of your product,” even if it’s not the best idea. If something is telling you that they’re rushing into a product demonstration, try to uncover the reasons behind it and track back to what they are looking to accomplish, fix, or avoid in their organization. From there you can either guide them in the right direction or look to differentiate your solution if necessary.

How To Ensure You Get it Right
There are a few ways to get eager customers to stop from rushing into viewing a product that might not be the best fit:

• Circle back to the customer. Before getting into a situation that could have a negative outcome, consider a response that brings the conversation back to them. For example: “I look forward to demonstrating our solution for you, but before I do that, I’d like to learn more about what you are envisioning this solution would do for you and your organization. Describe what the ideal situation would be after a solution is implemented.

• Ask where they are in their buying process. If they’re already asking for a demo, they may be farther in their buying process and ready to make a decision but are likely tasked with searching for vendors to compare with their preferred solution. There may be an opportunity to get in the game if you are able to differentiate your solution and show the value you can bring. However, it will take work to get customers to willingly back up in their decision process and let you spend time understanding the results they anticipate as a result of investing in a solution. If they are unwilling to share this information, it may be a sign that they’re taking your valuable time to demo a product they don’t intend to buy.

In any engagement, the focus needs to stay on the customer. Learning their real concept for what needs to be accomplished will help you guide them toward an appropriate solution. Leave a comment, ask a question, or follow @MillerHeiman on Twitter.

photo credit: David Boyle

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08 February 2010 | Uncategorized | Miller Heiman

Ask your sales team this question to move sales forward:

What are you doing to keep your funnel from drying up?

If you’re in sales, there’s probably no better feeling than closing a sale. And there’s no worse feeling than having no prospects.

The key to avoiding a dry funnel is to consistently feed the top with potential opportunities. To reduce how low you go into the valleys of your sales cycle, prospecting must be a top priority – right behind closing business. Try keeping this tip posted close:

Every time I close something, prospect or qualify something else.

Consider incorporating consistent prospecting efforts into your daily efforts. For example, rather than devoting a specific amount of minutes, try making five daily attempts to generate or qualify leads. Or, if you like using your calendar, block the first and last 15 minutes of each working day to make prospecting calls or researching those you’re planning to reach out to. And don’t forget, some of your best prospects for new business are those you’ve worked with in the past. Look for opportunities to contact past customers who may be experiencing new challenges.

Consistent prospecting is vital to a healthy sales funnel, and the success of the sales organization. Pay attention to the sales that need to be closed, yes, but don’t forget about rounding up new opportunities too.

For more tips about creating opportunities, check out
“The Miller Heiman Prospecting Guide: Best Practices for Maximizing New Business Development.”

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

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01 February 2010 | Uncategorized | Miller Heiman

If you could only ask one question of your sales team this week to move sales forward, ask this:

What are your sales calls accomplishing?

Have you ever spent 30 minutes on the phone with a prospect or customer, only to have nothing to show for it? Not only did you waste your time, you also wasted their time. And think about it – you really only have so few selling hours in a year, right?

To move any sale forward, you’ll need to ask for incremental commitments. Comments like “let me think about the proposal” or “I’ll get back to you next month” are too vague to hold anyone accountable. The key is to end every call with a commitment from the customer to do something by a specific date. A good commitment from your customer would sound similar to this:

“I’ll present this information to my boss by during our meeting next Friday and get back to you on Monday.”

But customers won’t always volunteer to do things so be prepared to ask for commitment.

“You mentioned you are meeting with your boss on Friday to discuss this initiative.  Will you present the information we discussed and get back to me with her feedback on Monday?”

At the beginning of a sale, these actions may be small in nature, but as the relationship builds, it is possible to begin asking for larger commitments. Without asking your customers to engage with you, you’re doing the heavy lifting yourself and wasting their time. If that continues, the opportunity will eventually flop. Asking for customer help will go a long way to securing business.

photo credit: Bug-a-Lug(”,)

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