Sales Process & Communication

Rajesh Sengamedu

01 August 2006

Presentation Objectives • Who is a sales person?

• What is the generic sales

process?

• Communication pitfalls

• Improving

communication

• Summary

Disclaimer Statements & Request

• I BELIEVE, contents of this presentation is NOTHING NEW to any one of you

– I will only reinforce what each one of know about how to win more customers, gain customer satisfaction

• Listen to this presentation with your gut-feel /instincts

– This is practical & common-sense approach

– I use it consciously most of the time

• My objective is to share my experiences in sales

– I am NOT intending to teach /preach

– Anybody who wishes to take vigorous ‘notes’ is going to miss my point

• REQUEST: Time is short, BE INTERACTIVE

– This is NOT a one way traffic

Let’s begin with SIMPLE QUESTION

• What business is your company into?

SIMPLE QUESTIONS, SIMPLE ANSWERS

Making Money!

HOW?

• We have to find ‘somebody’ who will give us money• In exchange for ‘something’

– They would value– They need

• NOT in exchange for ‘something’– We have– We can give

• ‘Somebody’ = Customer• ‘Something’ = ?

– Tough to define!!• Our Product?• Our Service?• Our Reputation?• Our Roadmap?

– Usually it is a combination of all that wins us customers

‘EXCHANGE’• Exchange is a sale

– Customer signing the PO!!!

• SALE is the most important step

– To get customers

– To make money

– To get our salaries

– To invest in new products

– To get more customers

– To make more money

• Ignore SALE

– Reverse of the above!! VICIOUS

VIRTUOUS

ALL OF US HAVE TO BECOME SALES GUYS!!!!!

RIGHT / WRONG?

Who is a sales person?

WHO ?

ACCOUNT MANAGER

FAE

CUST. SUPPORT

ENGG./ MKTG.

GM / CEO

Who is a sales person?

ACCOUNT MANAGER

FAE

CUST. SUPPORT

ENGG./ MKTG.

GM / CEO

Everybody is a sales guy!!• Degree differs

• Everything we do should focus on customer

– Not engineering

– Not technology

– Not product

• Winning and growing customer base is like

– Playing football OR 4x100m relay race

– Teamwork & Coordination is the key

• Focus on ‘outside in’ rather than ‘inside out’

The Generic Sales Process: AIDA• Attention

• Interest

• Desire

• Action

• Questions:

– Is AIDA the responsibility

entirely of a ‘sales’ guy?

– How can the team contribute

in the sales process?

Communication

• Our only tool for AIDA

• Methods

– Email < Telephone < IM <F2F

– Other methods: web,

tradeshows etc

• (this is not focus of this

presentation)

• Understand customer needs

by listening / active

participation

– ‘Outside-in’ approach

– Helps in presenting our value

appropriately

Customer Your company

Six Critical Relationship Skills

• Presence– Communicate Energy, Interest

• Relating– Build rapport, use ack, empathize

• Questioning– Will talk in detail in next slides

• Listening– Will talk in detail in next slides

• Positioning– Demonstrate value and apply by customizing product knowledge to

customer needs

• Checking– Get feedback– Validate Assumptions

• ASSUME: Remove ‘U’ and ‘ME’ and you will become one if you assume

Common pitfalls in communication

• One-way traffic– ‘I will dump all the info I have on to the customer’

– Let him sort, collate and make sense of the info

• I have a short meeting, but SO MUCH to talk– Dump, dump, dump!

• Not listening to what the customer is saying– No attempt to understand his problems

– No attempt to understand seriousness of his concerns

– Customer saying that he is going to be in a soup if we do not deliver that bug-fix by 3 days!

• Not sticking to our simple committments– Ex: Customer expects response in 2 days and we don’t

– Ex: Calling customer later than agreed time

– Ex: Promising a customer he will receive our email by end of the day

• Not communicating value appropriately– Value implies, solution meeting customer needs, not product that we

have

BALANCE & SEDUCTION• Build

– Personal Equity

– Organisational Equity

• People buy from people they respect

– Attention to small things will increase their respect for you

– Call customer when you don’t need him

• Emotional bank balance

– Debits /credits keep happening all the time

– Trick is to increase credits for winning respect

• Seduce your customer to go to bed with you!

Why are we afraid to ask questions?

• No time

• I will lose control

• Customer may think I am not prepared

• Customer will object

• I risk offending customer

• I have to answer

• Worse of all, I know all his problems!!

Improving communication• Remember Ganesha!

– His ears are bigger than his mouth– Listen twice over: Talk Once / 2:1 rule

� Ask questions to understand customer needs� 6 WIVES, 1 HUSBAND

� Use Open Ended Questions beginning with

� WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, WHICH, WHO, HOW

� Information sharing� Each one of us knows some but not all

aspect of customer needs

� Customer knows his needs better

� We have to team-work to learn his needs

KEY MESSAGES

• LISTEN, LISTEN: TALK

• TEAMWORK ALONE CAN SCORE GOALS

• DELIVER YOUR SMALL COMMITMENTS

• SET UP TO SCORE GOAL

– PLAN, TIME IT, PASS THE BALL, SCORE THE GOAL

Call for Action

• Request your feedback

– Just email me your ‘A HA’: One liner, good enough

• Jot down in a piece of paper

– What are the top 3 things you would do

differently?