Great Sales Sins – Spaghetti Selling

Spaghetti Selling is one of the reasons that former programmers make lousy software sales guys or why former bank examiners, or worse, consultants, usually stink at the revenue generation profession. Why?

Well first let’s clarify what we mean by spaghetti selling. You know when you cook spaghetti the easiest way to tell if the noodles are done is to throw on against a wall and see if it sticks, if it does its done. In spaghetti selling, you throw everything you know at your prospect and hope to hell something “sticks”. You pray for the “oh that’s interesting, I didn’t know you did that” moment.

Imagine you wanted to buy a car, and so you go to the dealership. When you get there two people sit you down and tell you the history of the automobile and the dealership, going into great detail about who invented the gasoline engine, when the dealership was started, how the pretty flags got hung in the parking lot, etc. Then after about 30 minutes, they start with the first car you come to and then show you ever other car on the lot. Then after the last car, you leave, they proclaim “call us if you want to buy us something”.

When our teams competed against the bigger names in the business, a common complaint would be “they spent an hour talking about the history of their company, our CTO left after thirty min”. We loved these types of accounts!  We also found that our teams who kept their presentations relevant and focused on the needs of the client where far more successful than those who spent the first 20% of the meeting talking about the history, management, and market position of our company.

One of my prospects, who is now a client, shared with me at the start of our first meeting “What is it with you sales guys?  You are all the same.  I’ve had three presentations start with “Hey we are going to blow through a few slides then get into the good stuff.”  Then the first thirty minutes are spent talking about the least relevant and boring things.

I quickly turned to my Sales Engineer and said “Ixnay on the ideslay”.  We started the meeting with a dialogue with the client team and let that guide our presentation.  Not only was it far more effective for us, but we were able to expand the project so that it more closely fit our solution.

I am a big proponent of having only one slide dedicated to intros about you and your company, quite frankly the prospect has access to Google and can know everything they need about your company within a few clicks, don’t waste their time discussing the obvious.

To test your sales pitch for “spaghetti” find a big dude, someone bigger than you, to sit in on a practice pitch. The reason you want them bigger than you is because after a few minutes your desire to kick the crap out them will be overwhelming, and smaller people have a tendency to sue when you do that to them.

After each point in your pitch have the big dude yell at you “So what?”  Ex. “We have a virtual XML layer native to our architecture.”  Big Dude “So What?”  You “This will provide the ability to get broader distribution and use out of your content quickly and more cost effectively than other systems”.  If you do not have a credible reply, remove the point from your presentation.

Of course, this starts with effective listening. Know why the prospect is talking with you.  What problem is the client trying to solve?  What is the pain they are experiencing now? What are the direct and indirect costs of this pain?  Do they have written requirements? Whose budget will pay for this?  Who is the executive in charge of that budget?  What is their timeframe for making the decision?

To get you started, build one powerpoint slide with three bullet points and the title “We are to here to talk about….” With the following bullet points:

• How we can help you <insert solution to primary problem> Example “How we can help you make your web presence more effective while lowering your operating costs
• <secondary problem> How we can help you stay compliant with internal and external audit requirements, while speeding the flow of information internally
• <monetary benefit> How we can allow your organization to accommodate future growth while maintaining a constant cost of ownership

Three bullet points that is it.  Trust me, the first time you build this slide it will be exhausting, because you will really have to dig deep into the client’s mindset to build this slide.  But once you do, you will have the attention of everyone in that conference room (or webex).

Good luck.

The Wisdom of the Gatekeeper

One of the daily challenges for any sales warrior is trying to manage the position of the gatekeeper. These trained professionals a.k.a. “The Sales Prevention Team” are highly skilled at keeping us from sharing our incredible value with some of the most important business leaders in our territories.

After much begging, pleading, cajoling, and water boarding (just kidding), one of our favorite gatekeepers agreed to share a small amount of her infinite wisdom on how we should treat those who stand between us and our decision makers.

-From Michele Doucette – Gatekeeper Supreme

Having been a “hardcore” Gatekeeper for over 20 years, I have been asked many times, How does one get past the Gatekeeper? So many sales types are expecting that there is some set of magical words or phrases that will make me abandon my responsibility of protecting my executives and grant open access to some of the most important people in our organization.

Well, that’s not happening.

However there are some key “do’s and “don’ts” that will determine if your company gets included in one of our multi-million dollar projects or if you burned the bridge so badly we wouldn’t include you on a RFP for urinal cakes.

DO. Before calling, find the company’s website and see if they have a “Management Team” link in their “About Us” section. This way you may actually discover the name of the executive you need to reach BEFORE you contact the front desk. READ THIS AGAIN, absorb it into your pores, maybe even write it down. There’s nothing more annoying than hearing a LAZY cubicle monkey ask, “Can I speak to whoever is in charge of making your (fill in the blank) decisions?”

DO. Do speak to us nicely, we have feelings, and more authority than you can even begin to imagine. We deal with awkward phone calls and harassment ALL DAY LONG. We take a lot of abuse from telemarketers, recruiting agencies, irate clients, and occasionally our co-workers. Ask us how our day is going, how the weather is, etc. TRY to sound sincere; it can go a long way in helping you get where you need to go.

DO. Be aware of how Caller ID displays your company name. “Sell Co.” does not have a chance of making it through. If you block the name of your company with “Private Caller”, I will answer, keep you on hold while I Google the name of your company, and then tell you that no one is available. Sasser once suggested we try for “Free Beer, Hot Sex” as our Caller ID Badge. He really does think he’s funny.

DON’T. Don’t bother lying. Saying things like, “I’m returning (fill in the blank)’s call, or “I spoke with so and so last week and they asked me to follow up” just might get you through. BUT, if we find out you lied (the people we are paid to protect WILL let us know of our slipup), you will be our enemy, for life (this life term will not expire, we will remember you and your company LONG after we’ve left our current employer).

The next time you call, we will utter the words every salesperson loathes to hear, “REMOVE US FROM YOUR CALL LIST.” Ahhh, two years of silence from your pathetic spiels. We keep lists of who you are (I personally have a separate folder in my Internet favorites of each offending company’s website bookmarked for future reference) and we WILL contact the Better Business Bureau, the FCC as well as the FTC to file a complaint.

DON’T. DO NOT try to intimidate us. Many a salesperson (both men AND women, SHAME on you women) will revert to Neanderthal intimidation tactics when confronted by a diligent Gatekeeper. NEVER, EVER utter the words, “You’re just the receptionist” in anger, for this will be your death knell. The silence will be deafening just before you hear the almighty “click” of your last chance at getting through. EVER.

In your frustration and fury at my boldness for hanging up, should you feel the urge to call back and wish to speak with MY manager to complain about being treated with the same level of rudeness you instilled on me, (the Gatekeeper reports to EVERYONE, I can pick and choose WHICH manager to send you to), remember this…be careful what you wish for. I have no qualms whatsoever about passing you through, he/she will likely tear you a new one harsher than I because now you’re wasting both my time and THEIRS.

EXTRA CREDIT. If English is your second language and I have a hard time understanding you, YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT THROUGH. The kiss of death is to call, speaking in broken English, then ask for “whoever makes the decision on <insert topic here>”.

However, this may be a personal preference, but if you can affect an intriguing accent such as British, Scottish or Australian accent, you have a better shot at getting through a female receptionist. American women LOVE a bit of the brogue! Use words like lass, blimey, bits, ta, crikey, toodle pip and cheers. You will hear our voice light up! This will make it easier for you to “bond” with her while trying to “fish” for pertinent information.

A deep Southern accent, with a lot of “y’alls” and grammar that reinforces the fact that Georgia ranks 50th in SAT scores will not help. Mention that you have a blog, and I will hang up on you.

Thank you for calling and have a nice day,
Michele the Gatekeeper

Michele is currently protecting her executive team at a software company based in Boston, MA.

So we are re-launching

While the popularity of the first generation of the Sales Wars exceeded our expectations in popularity, fun, and the ability to connect with new people; we decided it was time to relaunch the site, and update it with more best practices and productive discussions laced with relevant, yet slightly-disturbing humor.

So we are starting with a clean slate, a new case of beer, and some friends of ours who made parole.

We will be launching soon.

 

Thanks for your interest.

 

The Sales Wars Team

The Back Button

Years ago, one of my Sales Engineers was involved in a bake off at financial services firm in Manhattan. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “bake off”, in the world of enterprise software is used to describe when a company, evaluating solutions, brings in a multiple vendors and submits their systems to a series of scripted tasks. The company’s evaluation team monitors the performance and attempts to get a handle on what they can reasonably expect from the system, and look for those hidden gotchas that may come back to bite them in the butt.

Out of ten initial vendors, we were selected for the final three and made it into the bake off.  There was a great deal of excitement around our office because this prospect was a major brand and to have them as a client would do wonders for enhancing our reputation as a major player in our field. Needless to say we threw our best people onto the project and sent out a small army to pull this off.

Each vendor was assigned two days.

Let me share a bit about content management systems. The beauty behind them is that they separate content from its presentation. This allows someone to simply fill out a basic web form and have it published into HTML, PDF, XML, etc. simultaneously with the proper tags, formatting, etc. The user interface is usually browser-based, so you could have two windows open, one where you are typing in your content, and the other as your content appears on your website.

At the beginning of first day, things were going along great.  We nailed every requirement, the interaction with the people was very positive and we were in the middle of showing how to create a press release when a member of the evaluation team stops us and say “Hit your browser’s back button now, I want to see what happens.”

“Excuse me?” came our reply.

“Hit your back button. I want to see if it saves what you have typed so far or you would lose everything when it goes back to the previous page”.

“Ok”. Our Sales Engineer hit the back button and navigated back one page. When he hit the “Forward” button the question was answered. Unless the user clicked on the “Save” button at the bottom of the screen, the newly typed content would be lost.

Awkward Silence.

The evaluation team left the room, followed by more awkward silence.

After 20 minutes, the head of the evaluation team came in, thanked us for our efforts, but politely dismissed us by stating that we have failed in one of the major requirements and that there would be no need for us to return the following day.

After our attempts to address the situation were politely denied, we left, and headed to the nearest bar.

Once a year, my sales engineer changes his Facebook profile pic to the picture of the name badge they gave us that day.

The bake off was held in Tower 1, World Trade Center. The date was September 10th, 2001.

Top Ten Signs One of Your Reps is about to Leave the Company

So you are a sales director or a regional manager and you have suspicions that some members of your team may be looking for a career switch. Here’s a quick reference to help you decide who is staying, and who is not.

Signs Your Rep is About to Leave

• During sales demo, explains that, while not proven, he suspects that your new software has contributed to global warming

• Shows up to work, exceedingly happy, like a lifer whose just been given parole

• During cold calls, refers to your cutting edge solution as “that crap we sell”

• On casual Fridays, shows up wearing “Atlanta Job Fair – Fall 2011″ T-Shirt

• Updates company email signature to include his personal email address sexmachine07@yahoo.com

• Instead of the customary “hey”, greets everyone with a hug and the instructions “come with me if you want to live”

• Asks for assistance in downloading sales database to his jump drive. The new one emblazoned with your competitor’s logo.

• Chats up the boss by asking if ever noticed that his (the boss’) Porsche Boxter is more of a chick’s car

• His LinkedIn profile has more personal detail than his DNA

• His last expense reports include items ranging from “Mileage” to “War in Iraq”.

Text Slang – Learn It, Love It, Use It

I am old enough to remember a time when if you needed to talk to someone, you had to pick up the phone.  But now Internet chat, texting, twitter, etc., allows virtual teams to communicate just as effectively as those in the same office.  And while these technologies have been great for communicating with team members in otherwise remote markets, it has introduced its share of challenges and has forced us to change the way we communicate.

While the key to effective communications is brevity, chat-based communications has taken it to an extreme.  For example, when someone types “BRB”, they mean “Be Right Back”, “TTYL” means “Talk to You Later” and the word “you” is often substituted with the letter “u”.  For those of us old enough to have fantasized about Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, this new lexicon can be difficult to grasp.

One member of our sales team “Sue” had an unusual perception on the proper use of the “lol” acronym. Instead of relaying the condition of “laughing out loud” she used it as more of an end of transmission designator. Much in the same manner that CB’ers would use “10-4″ or the military would use “Roger”.

Me: “Hey Sue, How’s it going?”

Sue: “Hey, LOL”

Me: “How did your doctor’s visit go?”

Sue: “After some tests, it was determined that I have a flesh eating virus, LOL”

Sue: “Crap, there goes my left arm, LOL”

Me: “Oh my goodness, Sue!!!”

Sue: “Oh yeah, the pain cannot be described with mere words, LOL”

Sue: “Oh heavenly father, please take me now and give me my sweet release, LOL”

While I’m not proud about it, I loved chatting with Sue, may she rest in peace.