7 Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople

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7 Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople

• February 1, 2006
• Brian Demoe
• Atrio Systems, Inc.

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Sales Covers the Customer Lifecycle
Sales Planning
Prospecting
Customer Management
Opportunity Planning Tracking
Channel Management
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Overview

• Seek to understand
• Adopt a sales process
• Learn to like prospecting
• Know your products
• Find pain and deal with it
• Learn to love technology
• Invest in your customers

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1. Seek to Understand - Yourself

• Selling is the combination of attitude,
  behavior, technique
• Overcome the fear of rejection
• Be resourceful
• Build credibility
• Measure progress
• Prepare, prepare, prepare

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1. Seek to Understand Your customers

• Who are they?
• How do they buy?
• Who are the buying influences?
• What adds value to their business?

One thing that weve discovered with certainty is
that anything we do that makes the customer
more successful, inevitably results in a
financial return for us. Jack Welch
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1. Seek to Understand Buying Influences

• Five Buying Influence types affect the purchase
  decision
• Economic Buyer
• Technical Buyer
• User Buyer
• Coach/Champion
• Dominant Influencer
• Adapted from Miller Heiman, Inc.

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2. Adopt a Sales Process

• Prospects have a buying process
• You should have a selling process
• Create your sales process
• Align with your prospects buying process
• Steps, activities, and deliverables
• Create, document, and share it
• Explain your process during discussions
  presentations

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2. State your Value Proposition
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• For (target customer)
• Who (statement of the need or opportunity)
• The (product name) is a (product category)
• That (statement of key benefit - that is,
  compelling reason to buy)
• Unlike (primary competitive alternative)
• Our product/service (statement of primary
  differentiation)

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3. Learn to Like Prospecting

• Reduce the hills and the valleys
• Increase your pay
• Leads come from many places
• Referrals, trade shows, trade magazines, web
  site, networking, purchased lists, etc.
• Meet to explore the fit between organizations

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Sales opportunities x close ratio (NOxCR)
Lead Generation Prospecting
Repetition Training
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3. Learn to Like Prospecting with Referrals

• Best source of leads
• Pre-qualified credibility
• 3 reasons for no referrals
• Not WOWed
• Doesnt know you want referrals
• Cant explain your differentiation/VP
• Be generous giving referrals

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4. Know Your Products

• Value proposition (elevator pitch)
• Use reference stories to build credibility
• Know how your products solve pains
• Provide proof to build credibility and reduce
  buyers perceived risk
• Help calculate a return on investment

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4. Sell the Total Product
Core Product
Possible Product
Expected Product
Augmented Product
Adapted from Marketing Imagination, Theodore
Levitt
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5. Find Pain and Deal With it

• Difference between reality and expectations
• The more the better
• Buyer must admit pain
• Product features and benefits are only important
  to you!

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5. Understand Impact of the Pain

• How much does this cost per year?
• Whom does it impact?
• Who will be involved in fixing this pain?
• When does the pain need to be fixed?
• What happens if it doesnt get fixed?
• Does a budget exist to pay for it?

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5. Focus on Solution to Pain

• Paint a picture of your solution solving their
  pain
• A benefit is one that addresses a prospects pain
• Seek to create life changing events
• Products belong in your back pocket
• What if , Would it help if ...
• Prepare by creating Pain Sheets

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6. Learn to Love Technology

• Automate non-value added activities
• Choose a level appropriate for your business
• Maximize customer touch time
• Improve retention

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6. Technologies to Adopt
Multi-dept. Sharing, collaboration, up-sell,
cross-sell
Small groups. Manage notes, history of contact
Enterprise CRM Siebel SAP
Individuals. Tracking contacts, appt, tasks
CRM Microsoft SalesLogix Goldmine
Contact Manager ACT! Outlook BCM

• Nice to have
• PDA, BlackBerry
• Corex CardScan
• Dymo LabelWriter

PIM Outlook Palm Desktop
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6. Technology Implementation

• 2/3 Process, 1/3 Technology
• Define your objectives
• A well defined implementation process increase
  probability of success
• Assign the right people

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7. Invest in Your Customers
6080 of lost customers report to be Satisfied
or Very Satisfied prior to defecting
It is 6-7 times more expensive to acquire
customers than retain them

• Customers are a companys most valuable assets
• Invest in your best customers

A 5 improvement in customer retention rates
will yield between a 25 to 100 increase in
profits
2/3 of customers leave us because they feel
neglected
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7. Insurance for Best Customers

• Insure your most valuable assets (invest in your
  customer relationship)
• About 20 of accounts provide about 80 of
  profits A customers
• Calculate the lifetime value of A customers
• Spend accordingly
• Build a system for staying in touch

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Questions?

• Brian Demoe
• Atrio Systems, Inc.
• 28 North Saginaw St., Suite 801
• Pontiac, MI 48342
• 248.874.1758
• bdemoe_at_atriosystems.com