Thee Keys to Business Outcome Selling · 3/4/2019 · Change the conversation from product selling to outcome selling 2. Build bigger pipeline 3. Reach your next revenue milestone

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chrisbennettsalestraining.com

Thee Keys to Business Outcome Selling

How to Change the Conversation to Drive Revenue Growth

w/ Chris Bennett

Presentation for The Channel Company

March. 4 2019

5cs ©

https://chris-bennett-training.teachable.com


Objectives & Agenda 1. Change the conversation from product selling to outcome selling

2. Build bigger pipeline

3. Reach your next revenue milestone sooner

4. The big mistake

5. The art of asking questions

6. Big scenario selling


3 action items to take back1. Stop making the big selling mistake

2. Ask better questions

3. Big scenarios open audit and managed service opportunities


Proven


Proven


Proven


Proven


Biggest Selling MistakeWhat is the biggest selling mistake over the past 50 years?


Biggest Selling MistakeToo many sales pros talk too much & sell too soon.

Research shows the problem is alive and well.

“The # 1 complaint about sales people: they don’t ask enough questions.”

• Gretchen Gordon

# 1 reason sales pros fail: they spend too much time talking and not enough time listening.

• Spiro CRM study / Adam Honig

The# 1 mistake sales pros make is not enough understanding the prospect’s problem.

• Grant Cardone

•


Biggest Selling Mistake• The # 2 biggest complaint buyers have about their vendors is they don’t take the time to fully understand their

business.

• The Challey Group

“Deals are won and lost on (asking questions) discovery”

• GrowthPlay

•

• The # 2 biggest mistake sales reps make is “they don’t listen to my needs”.

• Harvard Business review

• The # 1 mistake sellers make: “they talk too much”

• Sales Hacker January 2018 based on a one million call study


Biggest Selling Mistake• # 1 selling mistake – “failing to uncover the buyer’s goals”

• Trainingindustry.com June 2018

• The biggest selling problem is alive and well.

• Today we get back on track.


The 5Cs: A Questioning FrameworkOutcomes Conversations5Cs in a word are:

1. Circumstance: facts

2. Challenge: struggles

3. Consequence: pain

4. Change positive: benefits

5. Closing: buying process

Most sales pros do not know this.

The foundation of customer focused outcome selling.


The 5Cs: A Questioning Framework

Customer focused outcomes:

3 ups and 1 down

1. Sales / profits

2. Costs / risk

3. Productivity

4. Customers

Ask, understand and then align solutions to desired outcomes.


5Cs: Circumstance questionsCircumstance questions:

Objective: understand the situation you are working in.

✓ Identify goals & projects.

✓ Blueprint capabilities.


5Cs: Circumstance questions1. How’s business?

2. How many employees?

3. Does your company have more than one location?

4. How have you set up security? (# of devices, brands, cycle, management)

5. How do your current security tools let you; detect, contain and remediate threats?

6. What security solution are you currently using?

7. Is your current security meeting your needs?


5Cs: Circumstance questions8. What types of devices do you manage?

9. Do you have an IT team/person dedicated to security?

10. Do you outsource any of your security operations today?

11. Are you looking for the best security or easy to deploy and manage security?

12. When is the last time you reviewed, tested or updated your DR plan?

13. How can you scope: What's been infected? What was taken? Future risk?

14. What are your main goals in terms of security?

15. What other non security projects do you also have to finish this year?


5Cs: Circumstance questions1. Who are you using for storage? How do you add?

2. Have you looked at converged infrastructure?

3. Where are you at with that? Any projects planned?

4. Have you moved any work to the cloud? What? Outcome? Cost?

5. What type of voice system do you have?

6. What tools do you use for conferencing and meetings?

7. How do you use video?

8. Where are you in your re-fresh cycle? Telephony, servers, route/switch, wifi, security, desktop?


5Cs: Circumstance questionsGuiding principles:

1. General to the specific

2. Less is more

Be direct:

• What is important to you?

• Why?


5Cs: Challenge questionsChallenge questions; issues, concerns, obstacles, worries, frustrations, problems, difficulties, headaches, complaints, troubles, struggles…

1. Challenge questions must include a challenge buzz word.

2. The mindset for asking challenge questions is…where does it hurt?

3. “ I’m worried about…” “We’re struggling with…” “My problem is…”

Only question type that builds pipeline.

Asking challenge / fishing questions is one of the highest impact sales activities.


5Cs: Challenge questionsWhy are challenge questions critical to success?

A1. No problem = no sale.

A2. Bigger pipeline.

A3. First sellers are problem detectives. Second they are solution sellers.


5Cs: Challenge questions1. What types of difficulties does your team having setting up video conferencing?

2. Does your staff struggle with the VPN or connecting to head office while on the road?

3. What are your 3 biggest headaches collaborating between different locations?

4. Do you worry that if you had to restore a data back up it would take too long / be complicated?

5. What types of challenges do you have with storage & memory during peak times?


5Cs: Challenge questions6. What concerns do you have about security?

7. Do you worry that your staff has too many jobs and not enough time?

8. What types of issues do you deal with trying to manage all the servers?

9. What are your two biggest concerns defending against malware?

10. What is your biggest obstacle moving more work to the cloud?

11. What is your biggest complaint about outsourcing?

12. How hard is it for you to keep up with everything?


5Cs: Challenge questions1. What kinds of issues do you face growing; sales & profits?

2. What concerns do the executives have about the customer experience? Churn rates?

3. What part of the business is struggling most with cost control?

4. Which one of the dept. leaders is frustrated with employee productivity?

5. Which one of your business processes has the most problems?


5Cs: Challenge questionsHow many fishing questions are you / your reps or channel sellers asking every week?

Typically sales managers or channel leaders are not tracking.

High impact activity.

Inputs = outputs.

If not fishing for problems = light on pipeline.

• Mandatory

• Tracked


5Cs: Challenge questionsGuiding principles:

1. Buzz words

2. Multiple directions

3. Clear vs. fuzzy


Challenge Questions


Challenge Questions


5Cs: Consequence questionsConsequence questions = pain.

The mindset for this type of question is that of a pain detective.

Pain in what context? ___________


5Cs: Consequence questionsThe objectives of asking consequence question are:

1. Reveal the financial pain of living with their # 1 challenge.

2. Create urgency to shorten the sales cycle.

3. Gather numbers to build a business case and ROI based recommendations.

4. Differentiation; seen as a professional advisor vs. a seller.


5Cs: Consequence questionsSequence is a critically important key to the discovery meeting interview.

Consequence follows challenge. It must.

What do we want to do to with the # 1 challenge the prospect just told us about?

M_______.


5Cs: Consequence questionsMonetize it.

What are all the costs of living with the # 1 problem they just to us about?

- the problem costs more than the solution


5Cs: Consequence questionsquestions

The prospect told us her biggest challenge is they are not up to date with security.

Limited and undertrained IT staff can’t keep up.

The transition line from challenge to consequence is…

Q: If you don’t get that security issue fixed what are the risks to the business?

A: At least 3 major ones: 1) we get hacked, 2) get a virus & lose data, 3) employees damage, destroy or steal data.

Q: What are the costs if that happens?


5Cs: Consequence questionsA: The costs could range from inconvenient to millions.

Q: Are you worried about your it?

A: Yes of course.

Q: How much time are you dedicating to trying to stay up to speed?

A: Too much, I’m falling behind on other jobs.


5Cs: Consequence questionsQ: How do you mean?

A: Network performance. We are getting user complaints about application performance at peak hours.

Q: Does that reduce productivity?

A: For sure.

Q: How many people are affected?

A: 100


5Cs: Consequence questionsQ: How much time is lost?

A: Maybe an hour per week.

Q: What is the value of a loaded hour of wages?

A: $35

Q: So a 100 hours per week x $35/hr… what does that work out to?

A: $3500 per week


5Cs: Consequence questionsQ: What is that over a month?

A: $14,000

Q: A year?

A: $168,000 a year

Q: Are you saying you are losing $168,000 a year in lost wages plus the on going threat of potentially millions in losses?

A: Absolutely.


5Cs: Consequence questionsQ: What impact does the slow network have on the sales?

A: Don’t get me started…OMG.

Q: How do you mean?

A: This is definitely costing us to lose some sales.

Q: How do you mean?

A: Reps on the road cannot access the quoting tool sometimes.

Q: How many sales do you think you miss?

A: 5, one per week per rep I’m being told.

Q: Average value of a sale?

A: $500

Q: So how much are you losing?

A: $2500 a week is $10,000 a month = $120,000 a year… it’s a lot


5Cs: Consequence questionsGuiding principles:

1. The Octopus drill: ask questions in different directions.

2. 10:1 Document the financial pain. Show the cost of living with poor performance.

Failing to buy our Pro Protect Managed Firewall Service costs them $168,000 in lost production, $120,000 in missed

sales and puts millions more at risk.

Invest $3000/month to save $168,000 + $120,000 ($288,000) = 800% ROI annually + reduce risk.

Do your quote include what they save or recoup and an estimated ROI?


5Cs: Consequence questionsWhat are all the costs of living with their # 1 problem?

1. Sales

2. Customers

3. Productivity

4. Co-workers

5. ?

The bigger the cost of pain the greater the sense of ________________ to buy. (protect your margins)


Speed up Sales CyclesHow often are your reps & channel sellers including the cost of the problem in their proposals?

When the cost of the problem is HUGE they find budget even where there is none.

Cost of problem = $1,000,000 vs. Cost of solution = $100,000

@ 1000% ROI no brainier territory and leverage the Contrast Principle.


Proven


Proven


Selling is not tellingWhen you focus on asking questions you cannot make the big selling mistake.

1. Circumstance: gather more facts

2. Challenge: what are the problems and struggles (avoid the trap)

3. Consequence: monetize the problems

Selling is not telling, selling is asking questions.


Thought leadership w/More than the obvious solutions.

❖ I never thought of that before

❖ I didn’t know that

❖We have not looked at it that way

❖ That is a new perspective

❖ That’s amazing

❖ That would be a big problem


Thought leadership w/ big scenariosWhat would happen to your business if:

1. Your main server went down?

a) How long would it take to rebuild it

b) How long would it take to test and get back on line

c) How many people’s productivity would be affected

d) What impact would it have on shipping, sales

e) What impact would it have on invoicing, receivables, payroll

f) Is there one day a month or one week a year it would be a total disaster

g) How many times a year are you testing your data recovery

You have to assume it is going to happen and you should know exactly how long to get it back on line.


Thought leadership w/ big scenariosWhat would happen to your business if:

2. You were the victim of a ransomware attack?

a) How would you operate

b) Would you pay

c) Do you have any bitcoin in an account ready to go

d) How quickly can your back up system come back on line

e) What if your IT person was on vacation and it happened

f) What are the costs to your business if you were totally off line for one week

Its just a matter of time, you will be hacked or attacked eventually.


Thought leadership w/ big scenarios❖ 10 year old switches

❖ Confidential corporate data on personal cell phones

❖Desk tops are not backed up

❖ Lap tops are not encrypted

❖Guests use your wifi network

So many big RISKS to review with owners.

What would happen to your business if….

Maybe an audit by an outside expert and some recommendations could reduce your risk of financial loss and help protect your business continuity. (reference letters)


3 action items to take back1. Stop making the big selling mistake

2. Ask thoughtful questions in sequence

3. Big scenarios open audit and managed service opportunities


My planWhat will you do differently back home?

1. ____________________

2. ____________________

3. ____________________

If you do not enable yourself, your channel sellers or your sales team to sell better how can they be expected to drive more growth?


Weight of this fish?

Get a free live overview of the Funnel Formula in action

https://youtu.be/l4rnnnGi1Go

Two-minute preview of Fishing Questions to fill funnels

https://youtu.be/noxsC0YpJ9k

Learn more about CB & the 5Cs ©

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Thee Keys to Business Outcome Selling · 3/4/2019 · Change the conversation from product selling to outcome selling 2. Build bigger pipeline 3. Reach your next revenue milestone