Sales training 2 - competition, analysis, strategy, value

Understanding the Competition and Compelling events

Questions to ask yourself?

• Is the customer simply "window shopping" with no strong buying motivation?

• Are there internal or external business factors presently influencing the customer one way or another?

• Does the customer have a predisposition, one way or the other, to doing business with you?

• Who in the you environment has been involved in discussions relative to the value basis?

• Is the customer "pushing" you to get things going at a faster rate?

• Is the customer sufficiently knowledgeable to make a meaningful contribution?

• Does the customer expect to be handed the answers as opposed to being involved as a team member?

• Can you overcome the tendency to pre-form opinions of how to best deliver value to the customer based on similar work with other customers?

• Does the language of the value proposition represent you thinking or the customer's?

• Can you list 3-5 compelling value elements the customer has agreed to?

• Who are the primary sources in the customer environment for researching the value proposition? What are their positions and roles?

• In what manner is value presently being tracked and measured on projects similar to this one?

• Is the customer currently seeking new and creative approaches to understanding and measuring this part of their business?

More Questions to ask yourself?

• How does our measurement approach differ from that of our competitors?

• Does the proposed measurement approach become non traditional in that it requires cooperation between organizational departments that have primarily worked in isolation of each other in the past?

• Does the customer's infrastructure facilitate or inhibit collections of information relative to the impact of the value delivered?

• Are both you and the customer willing to invest the time and resources necessary to do a proper job of documenting the impact of the value contribution?

• Do you know what information is needed?

• Have the factors with the potential to influence success been identified?

• To what degree are the factors which can influence success manageable and controllable?

• Are the measures of success "hard" or "soft?"

• Do you know how you are going to use the information when you get it?

• How much help can you count on the customer to provide?

• Will collecting the information you need result in unwelcome intrusions into the customers time and workplace?


•What is their strategy?

•What are they counting on to win?

•What are their “lose recovery” tactics?


At the end of this you will understand the rudiments of forecasting and why you must understand what is driving the

customer to act – the compelling event

You will also understand the basics of Opportunity Analysis

and the importance of understanding your competitors strengths, weaknesses, strategy,

next moves, and who (the person) you are competing with.

In the final analysis it’s

individuals that

compete … and in

most cases, the better

salesperson wins …

… regardless of who

they represent

Make point on marketshare

DID YOU EVER NOTICE ..... Most salespeople win orders because of

outstanding sales abilities . . . . but lose orders

because of _______________________(?)

(please insert the desired excuse)

-price too high - lack of support - company reputation

-product too limited - customer incompetence - product is too old

-lack of advertising - manager incompetence - product is too new

-lack of resources - co-worker incompetence - I’m not feeling well

-competitor is tough - economy is good - I’ve been too busy

-competitor is unfair - economy is bad - your special excuse (?)

The Timing of the Sale

• So lets talk about the timing of the sale

• There are two things that sales people fail on most

• They don’t understand the value of the solution for the

customer and they don’t understand when the

customer will order

Understanding the competition and compelling events

• In order to understand compelling events you need to understand a bit about forecasting

• Comparison of last forecast and this forecast, by quarter

Forecasting

Forecasting

Your forecast revenue/OI or whatever you are measured on must be +/- 5% on the quarter (next three months). It must also enable you to be on or above target at the end of each quarter or month.

Surprises

We don’t like surprises, that is changes to the forecast number, increases are maybe OK but shows you are not in control and decreases are unacceptable and so is slippage.

Lesson from the top

Make all the numbers in every sector. If you can’t make all the numbers make the overall revenue. If you can’t make the revenue, make the margin. If you can’t make the margin, cut costs – that’s you and me!

In sales – you are as good as your last quarter.

Forecasting

The most difficult aspect of forecasting is timing and we are continually slipping

deals from month to month. The customer will be driven by a compelling event. When you asks when the order is due, you must know when and why – you

must know the Compelling event.

The ‘Compelling Event’ is driven by the customers need to act to either:

– Solve a problem

– Take advantage of an opportunity

Note: There can be multiple Compelling Events

Questions to ask:

• Why does the customer have to act and by when?

• What are the implications of the project being delayed?

• What will be the quantifiable impact on the customer’s business?

• What is the effect if the customer does nothing – the low cost option?

Examine your prospect

• Assumptions – you have analysed the account and concluded

1. We can successfully compete

2. We have a good chance of winning

3. Competitive Positioning is Positive

4. There is a strong basis for mutual value

5. The decision to pursue is positive

• Geography, financial condition, money, competent, driving mechanism, there will be repeat business, good marketing value, profitable and low risk

• When will it close; year, quarter, month

• Before we go on to a clinical analysis of the opportunity, let’s consider the competition

The Competition

•They will find out you are in their account

•They will do something about it – but what?

•What is their strategy?

•What are they counting on to win?

•What are their “lose recovery” tactics?

•How are they going to screw you??

Direct – “I currently dominate my territory, how can I maintain that dominance?”

Indirect – “My competitor dominates my territory but I

think I can over throw them.” Divisional – “Currently, I cannot determine how to

dominate my territory but I can dominate a piece of it.” Containment – “I am in danger of a competitor throwing

me out of my territory, how can I protect my installed base”

Based on your territory profile, what is your best strategy to win?

Opportunity Analysis

• To help you close as much business as possible, in a short a time as possible by telling you when and where to compete

• A way of grading your opportunities to prioritise allocation of resource. A method of forecasting by a points value system

• The quickest way of telling you where you are going to lose, why you are going to lose and how to defend against that

possibility.

Nothing in competition is more important than obtaining facts

Let’s look at something besides price!

What do we have to show the customer for them to justify paying you 7 to 14 times more than our competitors for the product?

You have to ask yourself, do you think we are more productive than the competition? If the answer is “yes”, then the next question is “Does the increased productivity offset the lower price?” The next step is to convince the customer of that VALUE!

Oh, by the way … if the answer is “no, we’re not more productive” … or “I don’t know if we’re more productive”, then the first person you have to convince is yourself.

Relevant Strategy

“You don’t have to be better

than your competitor, you

have to be more relevant”

The Chasm Group

The Competition

1. Emerging Salesperson - Little ability to manage a customer

and no ability to manage the threat of a competitor.

2. Traditional Salesperson – places great emphasis on

‘personality selling’, and establishing a rapport with customers,

but who may have a blind spot with regard to the competition.

3. Competitive Sales Professional – adept at managing both sets

of issues, achieves competitive advantage by the way he or

she sells.

4. Relationship Manager – their value is integral to the customers

success so they achieve competitive immunity

•Do you believe, really believe, in your value to your customer?

Do you truly understand the

Customer’s business environment?

Everything you say and

everything you do reflects

on you/your company/our

products

•BE CAREFUL!

Be careful of your thoughts,

for your thoughts become your words

Be careful of your words,

for your words become your actions

Be careful of your actions,

for your actions become your habits

Be careful of your habits,

for your habits become your character

Be careful of your character,

for your character becomes your DESTINY

Vertical Markets and Business Benefits

To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence

Pick on industries where you have a unique advantage, sister

companies, groups, etc.

Vertical Marketplaces

Overcome the enemy by wisdom, not by force alone

Don’t go head to head on features – it is the act of the stupid

Business Benefits

Losing the initiative means to be defeated, to be annihilate

If you are not in control, your competitor is. You make the running. You suggest the best way of evaluating, you suggest the visit to the states,

you suggest the user visit, get in the driving seat. Whatever level your competitor is at, strive to go

one level above.

•That’s why “X” company is unbeatable in Berlin and a “push over” in Manchester

Number one in Madrid and not even a contender in Oslo…

•Or sells at list price in an account in one part of Milan and can’t give away an order in another part of Milan

Everything is equal … except for the sales person involved!

Do you believe, really believe, in your value to your customer?

Do you truly understand the customer’s business environment?

To whom do you offer the value proposition?

Who competes?

Is a product a solution … and therefore a value?

Is you differentiated and if so does it impact the productivity … and profitability of the

customer?

It’s not enough to just list the advantages that WE think we have

The real measure of the VALUE of our advantages is the impact they have on the customer’s business … the productivity and consequently, the profitability

•“30% faster” or “25% easier” is meaningless to most customers. In most cases, they cannot, or will not determine the impact on their business.

•It should be stated something like this:

•“When we perform the X application, due to our advantages 1, 2 and 3, we increase the productivity over and above the competitor by approximately 37%. In your organization, this would amount to a yearly savings of $67,000 … a return much greater than the one time savings on the cheap price!”

The real difference is a

realization of a return on an

investment versus the incurring

of a cost.

•To move from the second to the third level, you:

• STUDY

• TRAIN

• PRACTICE

• APPLY

• … until you know what you need to

A Different Perspective on Selling

•If you cannot distinguish, what you sell by how you sell,

you can only differentiate by how

much you sell it for !!!


•“Salesmen do not plan to fail, they just fail to plan”

(Anon)


The Mark of a Strategist is to Think, Plan and then Execute

The Mark of a Tactician is to Execute and hope for the best


View From The Top P

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Executive

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Management

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Operations Level

Value

Cost/ROI

Significance

Must be Successful

Price Survive

Sales Cycle