How to Close a Sale? Generate Urgency! In my previous post we provided 3 closing techniques for getting a client invested in the deal. Today I will review creating urgency in how to close a sale.  The Close of business deals can be frustratingly slow. The solution is to generate urgency at every juncture so that you create action that moves the deal forward and, in turn, builds velocity toward the Close. Consider the complexity of many sales initiatives and the stakeholders involved in decision making. To elevate the urgency, you need to understand what the triggers and dynamics are internally and then build upon that. Risk is a huge trigger for many clients. While they might consider the risk involved in going forward with a project, you can focus on the risk of not taking action. If you can quantify the risk of not moving forward, that’s even better because that elevates the sense of urgency around action, which gets people to mobilize and commit. For example, we have recently worked with a company that has a relatively high Net-Promoter score. In this scenario, they want to go from good to great, and to do that, they have to engage with their clients in such a superior fashion that it clearly differentiates them from their competitors. The problem is there has been some leakage in scores that could impact their future. The level of urgency for action is high, based on a competitive and changing market that is becoming more aggressive. The longer they put off doing something, the more time they lose to make a difference. Another consideration is timing. Often, the urgency is around making something happen in the current fiscal year. The risk, therefore, comes from acting later rather than sooner. With many clients, you have to figure out the specific risk that arises from action, or inaction, and create the urgency for them. Just because people work within a certain industry or company doesn’t mean that they understand all of the risk. It will help if you could identify how this delay can hinder their achievement of current targets. Another way to do this is by relating stories that are based on experience. For example, we recently had a conversation with someone in which we encouraged a client to get approval from her CEO to secure the budget for the entire project, not just phase one. We did so by telling her about another client who didn’t do it that way, and when roles changed in executive-level management, phases two and three of that project were taken off the table. We warned her about the risk of losing momentum by missing the window of opportunity to get the budget needed to complete the project. It’s interesting to note that the biggest indicator of success in helping clients understand risk and urgency is the positive impact on their careers. Once you understand what your clients want to accomplish, and you create a vision together, very positive things can happen to them career-wise when you help them to fulfill that vision. By lighting a fire under your clients to create a sense of urgency, you can benefit from faster closes while they benefit from implementing your solutions. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Urgency Creates Velocity in How to Close a Sale appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Becoming Hardwired to Close Deals One could argue that the whole point of selling is to close deals. That’s often easier said than done. Many sales professionals struggle with asking for the business or next steps to maintain momentum on sales opportunities. This hesitancy is why Richardson includes "Closing" as one of its Six Critical Skills within its Consultative Selling Framework. From my own experience working with sales professionals, I know that by the time you get to the Close, you should already have created such strong sponsorship within the situation that it’s hardwired for the Close. In fact, we tend to think about the collaboration leading up to the Close as just as important, if not more so, as planning for the Close. The situation we recommend that you are in at closing time is this: your sponsor and you should be in it together. You are creating a plan for how you are going to execute and make the deal happen, going well beyond just getting the right signatures on a contract. There are several things you can do throughout the sales cycle to put yourself in this superior position to close deals: Find the right sponsor. Look for someone on the decision-making team who is invested in moving the deal forward. They typically have a lot on the line in terms of wanting to see this through and achieve the desired results. Be proactive in looking for someone with the ability to be a change agent. Don’t hitch your wagon to the wrong horse. Another element of finding the right sponsor is not making the common mistake of choosing one with little credibility or authority within the organization. A sponsor must be someone who is respected, can make decisions, and is in a position to help get things done. Map all stakeholders. Many people may be involved in the decision-making process. The best way to identify potential sponsors is to map all the players. Then, begin to build an understanding of their motivators and their influencers. Understand your sponsor’s motivations. Invest the time to understand your sponsor, whether it’s one person or several, then build a story or vision around how your proposal supports their success. You might focus on how it can make them look smart, elevate their career status, or meet whatever aspirations are important to them. These are things sponsors don’t necessarily talk about, but by understanding their motivators, you can reinforce how the deal can help them achieve their goals. Convey the real importance of the Close. To your sponsor, the Close should become more than just an approval of the deal. The true importance of the Close should be about the results that you get from collaborating with this person or this team. Throughout the sales process, you should be creating so much value with and for your sponsor, the team, and the company, that the Close becomes a non-event. All should be eager to get started on the project and be invested both in wanting you to win the deal and in achieving the results your proposal has promised. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Becoming Hardwired to Close Deals appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Preparation Is Key to a Successful Questioning Strategy Asking good sales questions is a derivative of good preparation. That’s a given in my book. And I’ll give you a personal example that proves the point. I was working on a sales opportunity with what has become one of Richardson’s largest clients. We were nearing the final presentation and would be going head-to-head against a major competitor in our industry. Our team would be presenting to a dozen people, and so we focused considerable energies on preparation. Before we even entered the room, we wanted to know what those 12 were thinking so that we could be sure to address their expectations in our questioning and presentation strategy. I contacted each one of the 12 and was able to speak with ten people. In these individual conversations, I thanked them for their time and assured them that it would be time well spent because what is important to Richardson is what is important to them. I told them that I wanted to hear their individual views before meeting en masse so that I could understand their critical objectives for the meeting, what would be important for them to hear, and what they needed to walk away from the meeting knowing in order to make their decision. When we all sat down together, our team had a good idea about the level of questions that we needed to pose and the insights that we needed to bring. We weren’t flying by the seat of our pants; we weren’t throwing out trial balloons; we were addressing what they told me they wanted to know. Our presentation was laser focused, and we were able to link different points to the specific issues raised by individuals. We won the business, largely because we talked about what was important to the customer, not by talking about what was important to Richardson. We won because of thorough preparation that informed our questioning and presentation strategy. At Richardson, our model for preparation has three layers: Strategic preparation — thinking about the objectives of the meeting and visualizing the meeting at every stage, from Opening to Need Dialogue through to Solution and Close Client preparation — understanding the client’s objectives, strategies, and political dynamic, which involves understanding the individuals involved in the meeting and their company Technical preparation — knowing the features and benefits of your products and company, the industry, and the market As I prepare for any client meeting, I always have a collection of questions that are top of mind. But, my plan is to be in the moment and ask what’s relevant at that point rather than sound scripted. If I show up with a list of set questions, and ask them one after another, then I’m an order-taker. Anyone can do that. Instead, I prepare questions in basic categories that are designed to get to the client’s root issue. Some key questioning areas include strategy, infrastructure, culture, knowledge, attitude, and skills. With thorough preparation and a carefully crafted questioning strategy, salespeople are better positioned to conduct a dialogue with clients in which they sound well-informed, thoughtful, and credible. Clients can see through a lack of preparation. They spot when salespeople are winging it. They dismiss those who "show up and throw up," just doing a data dump on their own company, often with a generic presentation. The analogy I use is trying to build an airplane while flying it. It can’t be done. You have to build it on the ground and then fly. With client meetings, you have to prepare thoroughly before each one. That’s the only way to craft an effective sales questioning strategy that adds insights and builds credibility. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Preparation Is Key to a Successful Sales Questioning Strategy appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Why Sales Training Reinforcement is a Must-Have Richardson recently partnered with the Aberdeen Group to provide you with complimentary access to its newest research, Once is Not Enough: Why Sales Training Reinforcement is a Must Have. This report is a "must-have" that identifies the organizational best practices that "post-training reinforcement" companies invest in to emphasize how sales training is not only as an event, but as a lifestyle, that can achieve measurably better results. Here are some key findings that we thought you might find some of the data interesting: 34% more of first-year sales reps achieve quota at organizations with post-training reinforcement Companies that perform post-training reinforcement see a customer renewal rate of 74% Post-training reinforcement companies are 64% more likely to collect sales lessons learned on the fly by the entire team and incorporate them into their sales methodology to promote cross- and up-selling If you would like to access the entire report, please click on the banner below. If you would like to discuss how a reinforcement process might help you gain better results from your training initiatives, please let me know. Thanks in advance, The post Complementary Research Study - Why Sales Training Reinforcement is a Must-Have appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Winning Sales Approach - Asking vs. Telling Over the past year, I’ve been involved in a number of significant sales training initiatives at Richardson with companies that had first invested heavily in other types of sales performance improvement programs. Each had been trying to make fundamental changes in their sales approach to match the constantly evolving B2B buying environment. As one of our clients, a recently relayed chemical distribution company’s salespeople had taken another flavor of sales training, and while they liked the training, there was no sustainment of the learning. They weren’t using their new skills or changing their behaviors. Implementation and execution had suffered, and so they approached Richardson for sales training in blocking-and-tackling skills that could help in delivering the expected results. When I have asked other clients about their experiences and why they’re interested in Richardson’s Consultative Selling Skills, they say things like this: "My guys have been trying to provoke new thinking and ideas, but they don’t have the credibility. They’re 24-years-old and trying to tell executives how they should run their business instead of asking good questions and establishing a meaningful dialogue. They just end up sounding arrogant." Age isn’t the issue here; it’s strategy and preparation. At Richardson, we believe that the strategy of telling vs. asking, especially without the proper preparation, can chill many deals. We are, after all, human beings, and we typically prefer a dialogue over monologue. A consultative selling strategy is steeped in meaningful dialogue with thought-provoking sales questions and strong objection-resolution skills. Salespeople take control but in a different way than other sales approaches advocate. They know what they want to accomplish at every point in the dialogue, taking the time to probe, learn, and gain a thorough understanding of the customer’s needs, decision criteria, and other relevant information before discussing any product. My overall sales questioning strategy is like a funnel. At the top are open-ended questions that show some insight and preparation. It’s not coming in and saying, "Tell me about your business." That type of question will only win a quick exit out of the door. A good high-level, open-ended question is one that gets the customer talking. "I see there’s an effort underway to change the financial regulations in a manner that could have a significant impact on how you do business. Several of my clients are quite concerned about this. What has been the reaction in your company?" The next question will depend on the customer’s answer, which means listening closely and intently to what is said and, if possible, determining if there’s something left unsaid that needs further probing. Through active listening and observation, salespeople should be able to pace the dialogue, moving between asking questions that seed understanding or seek confirmation, and providing insights that seed new ideas or influence thinking. At Richardson, we call this the Sales Conversation Pendulum. There’s value in provoking thought and being a bit disruptive, but to be effective with customers, such provocation has to come from the right questions and insights. If the foundation isn’t there, the salesperson will likely be hammered with objections. And, while the Richardson model includes a multi-step model for resolving objections, it’s better to be prepared and avoid going down that path if you can. As the dialogue progresses, and depending on the level of people involved, the salesperson may get to what I call the bottom of the funnel questions. These explore the specifics related to things like strategy, infrastructure, attitude, and culture. Whether asking sales questions at the top or the bottom of the funnel, all should be designed to provoke a rich conversation that does two things. First is to demonstrate that the salesperson has done the homework, is well prepared, and has earned the right to be listened to and considered. Second is to show that the salesperson possesses real knowledge and insights that are relevant and timely to the customer, making them a good choice as a business partner. This kind of consultative approach, with good questions and insights, creates a strong foundation for interacting with customers and executing more productive sales calls. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post A Winning Sales Approach - How Sales Questions are like a Funnel appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Richardson is completing a research project on teamwork in selling, and we are interested in your views. Please click here to complete this ten-minute survey. After completing the survey, you will have a chance to enter your contact information to receive a copy of the report, and to become eligible to win a Nike Fitbit.  Thank you, in advance, for your interest and participation in this survey. Survey Link - http://hubs.ly/H019W9_0     The post Teamwork in Selling Research appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Providing a balance between asking good sales questions and providing good insights Back before the days of Internet searches, salespeople could start conversations with, "Tell me about your business and what keeps you up at night." Now, the answer would be: "I’m not here to educate you. I don’t have time to be your onboarding department. You’re supposed to know this stuff." If you ask sales questions that are too basic, to which you would have known the answer if you’d done your homework, you risk annoying the customer. And, if you ask too many questions, even good ones, one after another, it becomes an interrogation. In sales dialogues, there needs to be a balance between asking good sales questions and providing good insights. The customer doesn’t have the time or the patience to do what essentially is onboarding, but they often make time to reason together if you bring them value and provoke thought in meaningful ways. The catch with insights is that you can’t sound perceptive without the right sales questioning strategy. If you ask too few questions, you can end up presupposing things that may or may not be true. You also risk coming across as arrogant or self-servicing in your insights. A better approach is illustrated by the Sales Conversation Pendulum, which swings between asking and sharing question-led dialogue and insight-led dialogue. In between the two is the essential skill of listening. Listening is a critical skill that just makes common sense. Although, as the saying goes, common sense is not so common. It’s certainly not common practice. If you go into a meeting with six great questions on a topic, but after the first one, the customer indicates that’s not an area of interest, it’s madness to go forward with the next five questions in your pocket. That’s why listening is one of Richardson’s Six Critical Skills, along with questioning, checking, relating, presence, and positioning. An effective process involves asking open-ended questions, listening, checking, and so on. It takes planning and practice, especially when wild cards are thrown in. Salespeople need to be able to react in the moment, and being able to switch from Plan A to Plan B becomes seamless when these critical skills are second nature. Gauging how well your questioning strategy is going in real time also includes the ability to read body language. That’s why face-to-face meetings are preferable to conference calls. When sitting in front of a group of decision makers, it’s easy to see the interactions between people in the meeting. Are they looking at you, at each other, or at their watches? You can tell if they’re paying attention and engaged or whether you’re missing the mark. By watching body language, you can follow the reactions and interactions as you drill down in your sales questioning strategy. You want to make sure you’re asking two or three layers of clarifying questions to make sure you understand not only what they’re saying but what they actually mean — and to confirm that what those words mean to you reflect what they mean to customers. If, for example, someone says, "I want this initiative to be highly successful," my response would be, "Tell me what the desired level of success looks like to you." That kind of checking is important because we may have totally different ways of defining success. Asking a clarifying, follow-up question makes sure that we’re both on the same page looking for the same result. Asking, listening, clarifying, providing insights — it all sounds easy in theory, and it can be. All it takes is planning, preparation, and practice of your sales questioning strategy — over and over again. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post The Danger of Asking Too Many, or Too Few, Sales Questions appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Not meeting expectations hurts salespeople during the sales process... and foursomes that don't have a fourth. Last Friday, I was looking for one more person to round out a foursome for a Saturday golf date. That evening I bumped into an acquaintance, mentioned we needed an extra, and he agreed to play.   The next morning as the clock struck eight, three of us were on the first tee, ready to go.  The friend who agreed to play the night before was nowhere to be found with no message or explanation for his absence. He stood us up. Behavior like this drives me crazy and it sets a precedent for how he’s going to act in the future.  I’m certainly never going to invite him to play golf again. Saying one thing and doing another can be devastating to your sales effort. Continually setting, and meeting, expectations is one of the easiest and most direct ways to build the strong, trusted relationships you need to close deals. However, in the heat of the chase - or in the warm glow of a Friday evening - promises are made, but never kept.      

Sometimes it’s just easy. You meet a person and connect. Conversation flows. You find common areas professionally and personally. Ideas bounce back and forth, and you start talking about how you can work on something together. Before you know it, work is under way, and the collaboration is the definition of one plus one equals three. Sometimes it ain’t easy. You meet a person, and they’re all business. Getting them to engage with you in any sense is slow. Painful. You open up and share, provide great ideas, and work hard to get the other person to see the value in working with you. It should be plain to see, but it’s not. You’re met with aloofness and suspicion. You try to engage on a personal level and ask, "How was your weekend?" His reply, "Fine." Then dead air...      

Imagine for a minute you sold everything you should be selling across all of your firm’s capabilities to your existing clients. If all the buying centers bought all of the capabilities they should be buying, how much would your key account sales increase? When people spend time analyzing this carefully, they find the potential to expand sales to existing clients is huge. Given the great potential for growth, many companies give proactive key account sales quite the effort, but few achieve the results they should. The problem is they can’t, or for some reason simply don’t, create their own opportunities.      

Negotiations are everywhere. From negotiating important sales opportunities to negotiating with our kids at bedtime, we’re constantly working to reach agreement with others. In this game of give and take, it’s too easy to get stuck, make mistakes, and lose big. Are you... ... getting beaten up in negotiations? ... dealing with savvy corporate purchasing departments? ... getting pushed to focus on price over value? ... losing deals you should have won? ... unsure how to respond to common buyer tactics? ... making an effort to "win-win" and still losing?      

Call it what you like: solution sales, consultative sales, consultative selling—at the core of each of these concepts is diagnosing and connecting the "pain" of the buyer with the products, services, and overall capabilities of the seller as "solutions." Pain + Diagnosis + Offerings as "Solution" = WIN! While this concept is still alive and necessary today, it has changed in 3 very important ways.   3 Ways Consultative Sales Methods Need to Change Understanding vs. Diagnosing Needs In consultative sales, there’s typically a heavy emphasis on the seller "diagnosing" the needs of the buyer. The need for diagnosis implies that the buyer doesn’t have a thorough understanding of why they find themselves in their current, undesirable situation or what to do differently. Through diagnosis, the seller figures this out like a doctor might with a patient who feels unwell, but who doesn’t know what they have or what to do to get better...      

Lots of things have changed in the world of sales, but some things have not. Building trust was important 50 years ago, and it's just as important today. When buyers trust sellers, they depend on them, listen to them, give them access, and spend time with them. Trust is critical for sales success. But today's buyers are busier than ever and, at the same time, have access to more information and choices. This makes their time harder to get, and their trust harder to build. While researching our new book, Insight Selling, we found that building trust is one of 6 key drivers of client loyalty and one of the top 10 things sales winners do. Yet most sellers agree they could do a better job of deepening and strengthening trust. Trust in sales is built around three factors—competence, integrity, and intimacy. Following are seven ideas for building trust in each...      

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season with peace and cheer in the New Year. RAIN Group is pleased to make a charitable donation on behalf of our clients to the Heart Center at Boston Children's Hospital, which is at the forefront of pediatric heart care and research.      

I received a call the other day from someone selling website tracking software. We already use a marketing automation tool like this. I mentioned it to the seller. He then went on a rant about how he visited our website, recognized the tool we use, and how we weren't doing it right. I don't know this guy. He knows nothing about our marketing and sales process. He knows nothing about the types of customers we're trying to reach. He knows nothing about our sales cycle or marketing philosophy. Yet he felt he knew enough to tell me we're doing it all wrong. I know there are always ways to improve what we're doing, and I look forward to critical feedback. In fact I often seek out experts asking them for their advice on how we can do things better.      

The world around us is shifting—in virtually every way. Savvy sellers have caught on to the fact that B2B buying behavior is changing as well. The economic downturn has had a lingering impact on the market. Corporations have caught on to new ways of staying lean and reducing costs while maintaining productivity. Coupled with the rise of the Internet and the abundance of information available to buyers, business is being conducted differently than it was just twenty years ago. As a former buyer, corporate executive, management consultant and trainer, I've been at the forefront of observing these changes as they happen. And make no mistake: the world of buying (and selling) will never be the same again. If you're still longing for the "good old days," perhaps now the time has come to move on and embrace the new reality. So what exactly has changed? Here are 5 changes in B2B buying behavior you need to know about and how you can deal with each.      

While companies spend billions of dollars on sales training each year, 90% of sales training fails to have an impact after 120 days. It's time for an entirely new way of approaching sales education; an approach that changes the way sales training is conceived, designed, and executed over the long-term. An approach that drives real behavior change and results. Watch our new animated video to learn more.     Related StoriesWhat Sales Metrics Should You Track? - The Essential List [PDF]Sales Team Training that Produces Real ResultsOn-Demand Webinar: 5 Elements of World-Class Sales Training Programs 

Only when you have a good sense of what's going on in your organization can you decide which buttons to push to make the greatest improvements. Even small efforts to track key sales metrics can quickly drive better results. Yet many organizations fail on this account. In their recent benchmark report, Hubspot found that 74% of companies who were falling short of their goals weren't tracking their lead or sales opportunity numbers.1 In our sales consulting work, we've seen literally hundreds of sales metrics—some important, some not so much. Of course, every company is different and no company tracks them all. The list below, however, while deliberately not exhaustive, contains the sales metrics that tend to be important for leaders to track and know. Click to download The Essential List of Sales Metrics PDF.       Related Stories[New White Paper] World-Class Sales Training: How to Build and Implement Your Own Sales UniversityHow to Set Up the Best Sales Training[New Video] Transform Sales Training - Your Sales University 

Most sales training and advice is based on a fundamental premise: the seller is in control. Think about it: a lot of what's taught focuses on what sellers should be doing to persuade, convince, and drive buyers toward closing a sale. The seller is responsible for bringing the deal to a close. Therefore the seller must be in control. The problem is, things have changed. Sellers aren’t in control anymore. Buyers are.     Related StoriesThe 6 Buyer Personas (and How to Sell to Them)5 Decision Roles in Every SaleRisky Business: 4 Areas Buyers Perceive Risk in Sales 

Big plays are major actions you can take to win your most important sales opportunities and grow your most important accounts. Read: What is a Big Play and When to Use One The first step in creating a Big Play is to define the goal you're trying to achieve. It could be that you need to: Strengthen your relationship with the key buyers. Create new relationships in order to win the sale or grow the account. Maximize the buyers' perception of the value of moving forward, or choosing you. Displace or win against a strong competitor. All four of these challenges can be overcome with the right Big Play. Here are examples of Big Plays that address all 4 areas.     Related Stories[New White Paper] Optimizing Sales Opportunity Management: 12 Critical Questions Sales Leaders Must AskHow to Win Big Sales Opportunities with Big Plays6 Ways to Build Client Loyalty 

I just read a great article in Training Magazine, L&D Best Practices: Tuition Reimbursement.  It isn’t often that I find an article focused on tuition assistance programs so this one caught my eye.  The article provided examples of how two companies that recognize the value of their tuition assistance programs are leveraging them to promote and reward employment, engagement, productivity and support continuous learning and development.  At a time when many HR and learning leaders are struggling to justify the value of their tuition programs this article demonstrated how simple it is to realize the benefits that are inherent in these programs.  Tips from the article included having a flexible, user-friendly, far reaching program, a well-defined policy,  and strong relationships with educational providers.  For more insights, please read my latest white paper titled "10 Tips to Education Assistance Program Excellence". If you have any tips of your own, please share! I’d love to hear them.

Going mobile is all the rage. It’s the technology of choice, and organizations are falling over themselves to get into the game. And why not? It’s a technology that consumers love. But, technology in itself is not an answer. It’s a facilitator. When implementing a strategy for mobile learning within an organization we need to consider the technology platform, the content that we build, and the people that will use it. Click the play button below for the full podcast.     

Sustainable change—it sounds like an oxymoron, but the phrase is creeping into our vocabulary more and more. It starts with the premise that change is constant. Once we admit that, it does not mean that we should just surrender. On the contrary, we should identify strategies and actions that are also constant to help roll with the changes and enable workforce adoption. Effective models to support changes to organizations, business processes, markets, the workplace, or even our compensation rely heavily on our leaders to facilitate the changes and employee adoption. However, our leadership ranks are just as vulnerable to attrition (voluntary or involuntary) as any other members of our workforce. Therefore, our strategies to sustain an environment with constant changes are more important than ever. The "leaders" of the day must embrace these strategies and make them work for their teams. Obviously, our leaders are important, but what must persist in our businesses and work environments is a solid, effective strategy to recognize the need to change, help the workforce enable their own performance changes, and measure the outcome. The phrase "sustainable change" now takes on the connotation of "sustainable change management strategies." The most effective leadership development initiatives I have seen have included this concept rather than managing the current business environment only. Is your organization ready for constant change? Are your leaders ready? Don’t Forget! On September 19th we will be adopting the GP Strategies name, logo and tagline. As a part of this transition, we will be migrating our blog with the GP Strategies blog, which means you’ll be able to get twice the thought leadership and industry insights in one place! Though we may look different, we’re still putting innovative learning strategies and transformative performance solutions into motion. Start following the GP Strategies blog today!

Mobile Platform Adoption ROI: Save Time, Remove Obstacles and Frustrations