July 29th, 2003

Last Saturday morning Lance Armstrong drove the route between Pornic on the western coast of France and Nantes about 30 miles inland. He wanted to get a final look at the race course before the individual time trial that would decide the winner of the 2003 Tour de France. In comparison, his arch rival, Jan Ullrich, viewed a videotape of the course in his hotel room in Pornic.

What Jan missed in his videotape review of the course was the heavy rain and treacherous roads that contributed to his fall in the final kilometers of the race. Lance, with his better knowledge of the course, was able to safely navigate the slick roads and complete the day's race without mishap.

The result - Jan blew his chance to best Lance's time in the time trial and was relegated to second place, just over 1 minute down in over 83 hours of racing. Lance, on the other hand, confirmed his position as the winner of the centennial Tour de France and his fifth win in a row of the most important cycling event of the year.

What will you do to ensure a win?

Many companies count on formal selling "systems" to drive their business. These systems include Professional Selling Skills, Sandler Sales Training, Bosworth's Solution Selling, Zig Ziglar, and more. Most of these system are based on the premise that "selling is king", a concept that drove the growth of the U.S. economy from the 1930s to the 1980s.

What these systems leave out is the preparation for effective selling, for targeting the "best customers", for laying the groundwork that leads to high close rates, for previewing the race course before the big event.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of formal sales training.

Training and the related formal selling structures and processes assist in moving a prospect through the selling process. But for a sales organization to be effective, their activities must be built on good marketing practices.

Focusing on selling as the single tool to "win" is similar to Ullrich's jumping on his time trial bike in Pornic and racing off into the rainstorm. He didn't know what lay ahead for him, didn't know how to safely navigate the course, didn't know what it would take to win. Lance took the time to review the course, to prepare . . . and since he followed Ullrich by three minutes, he also had the benefit of receiving the report of Ullrich's fall via his on-bike radio and was able to further prepare for the road conditions.

Want to wow your prospects?

Know what it takes to win.

What this looks like to the customer is sales collateral and marketing material that speaks to his or her business problem, success stories based on the customer's peers and competitors, sales people who understand the dynamics of the customer's business and talk the language of that business.

To the customer, it looks like a natural fit. To the customer, the question is "why haven't we done business before?"

To the sales person, it looks like a natural sale . . . like a well choreographed dance in which he or she leads and the customer follows in synchronization.

To the company, it's marketing providing a well-founded umbrella of services that help sales to be more productive.

What does it take?

Winning requires a thorough understanding of the company's one or two primary target markets, the dynamics of those markets, the key players, the "up and comers" and all the influence points for those markets. It also requires a translation of that understanding into marketing and sales tools (collateral, presentations, marketing campaigns, etc).

Many, perhaps most sales processes start with this time-honored sequence:

1. Make some kind of presale preparation on the prospect or customer and what you intend to sell
2. Plan how you will open the call
3. Know how you will handle expected objections
4. Be sure to complete your pre-planned presentation
5. Attempt to "close" the prospect when it seems appropriate
6. In the event the first close doesn't "take" retrench and try again
7. If that doesn't work, retrench and close again, etc., until you recognize that it's time to leave and plan anew

This sales process counts on breaking down the defenses of the prospect . . . continuing to wear the prospect down until he or she simply gives in. The bad news is that prospects today go to sales prevention training and they know how to sidestep most of the traditional selling process entirely.

Prospects will not avoid the sales process, however, if you connect with them and you're offering something of value.

Getting through

Remember the A - I - D - A sequence we discussed in our previous newsletter? Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action! Now that is a marketing- oriented selling process. Let's see how it compares with the sales (only) process outlined above.

First, we must create awareness in our target prospects. We can leave that to the salesperson or we can employ marketing to create awareness. A salesperson can call on a prospect and hope that he or she is remembered. He can show the prospect his company brochure or catalog, talk about it and leave. The sales person will hope that the prospect reads the literature and will file it when it can be easily retrieved when needed.

Alternately, marketing can build awareness through a variety of subtle (or not so subtle) techniques. A well written article in a trade journal, a success story, a direct mail campaign, a reference by an analyst . . . all these can subtly build awareness and credibility.

Developing interest is a game. It's a bit of a tease . . . getting the prospect to picture the use of the product or service and how it solves a specific business problem they have . . . without bonking them over the head and asking them to buy your product. It's not time yet.

Desire must be carefully cultivated, and a savvy sales person will know when to focus on the two emotions that drive all sales - fear and greed. The sales person will know what "buttons to push" to get the prospect to build their desire and to move to action. But desire cannot happen before awareness and interest, and again, it's the job of marketing to take the prospect through the process in the right order and at the right speed.

When a sales organization suffers from low conversion or closure rates, it's probably facing one of four basic problems:

• Lack of sales skills (least likely)
• Sales management trying to rush prospects through sales cycle too quickly
• Marketing organization not working in synch with sales activities
• Unique selling proposition and marketing message are weak or non-existent (most likely)

In our experience, the last problem is usually the root cause of poor sales performance and companies try to "fix" this by taking short cuts. In fact, taking the time to conduct some primary customer research will ultimately solve the problem and lead to better results (you know, talk with the people you want to sell to).

Personally, I continue to be surprised by the companies that don't conduct this basic market research to understand the cares and concerns, pains and business challenges of their customers. Instead, they assume that they already know this, and build their marketing or sales campaigns on their assumptions.

What will it take to win

You've got to know the route and the dangers that lie around the next corner. Make sure that your "marketing umbrella" has a solid foundation and covers all the primary aspects of creating awareness-interest- desire-action with your "best prospects.

This assessment can be difficult for organizations to conduct internally and many find it useful for an objective outsider to conduct a thorough analysis and jumpstart the process of building or enhancing a strong marketing foundation. Overall, this investment will save time and money and result in more productive selling activities.

Thanks for reading!