Mastering the Complex Sale_6 docx

In this ini-tial phase, we establish a profile of the ideal customer that isderived from the value capabilities of our offerings, howvalue is created within our customers’ businesses, an

The Four Phases of Diagnostic Business Development

Discover the Prime Customer

Entering at the Level of Power and Influence

Discover is a critical phase in the complex sale because

it is when we create the foundation upon which the tial opportunity and the long-term relationship with a cus-tomer are built Unfortunately, salespeople often overlookand underestimate the power of a solid foundation Thegreater our ability to customize and personalize the engage-ment strategy and approach for individual customers, themore likely it is they will see that we are speaking directly totheir situations and their individual job responsibilities Thisenhances the probability that we will be invited into theirorganizations and they will see our offerings as relevant andhaving a substantial impact

ini-The goal of the Discover phase of the Prime Process is

to identify those customers who are most likely ing the issues our solutions address and are missing thevalue we could provide; therefore, they have the highestprobability of buying our products and services In this ini-tial phase, we establish a profile of the ideal customer that isderived from the value capabilities of our offerings, howvalue is created within our customers’ businesses, and thepotential constraints in their ability to achieve the value ofour offerings We then identify a specific customer who fitsthis profile and craft a customized engagement strategybased on a value hypothesis that is relevant to that customer

experienc-A value hypothesis is the first step in the Value Life Cycle

It is about the customer and the potential risks to whichhis or her company may be exposed It invites the customer

to explore that risk as part of a collaborative effort Finally,

we discuss the value hypothesis with the customer and, ifwarranted, agree to test its validity by moving into Diag-nose, the next stage of the Prime Process The Discoverphase encompasses all of the preparation activity before

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the formal diagnosis Think of it as the discovery processthat an attorney undertakes before going to court.

In their zeal to get face-to-face with customers, toomany salespeople put far too little time and effort intopreparation An alarmingly high percentage of salespeoplecontinue to ‘‘wing it’’ as they approach high-level execu-tives In fact, the typical attitude toward preparationusually runs along these lines: If the customer walks like aduck and quacks like a duck, a good salesperson should beable to sell him anything made for ducks or, for that matter,anything made for birds The problem is that this one-size-fits-all attitude toward customers just doesn’t fly, norshould it It is unprofessional, disrespectful, and certainlyineffective

Customers shut down when they are approached in thisway with good cause First, they know that in the salesper-son’s eyes they are simply another target among many Theyjustifiably suspect that any salesperson who sees them as onemore target among many is highly likely to subject them

to a long-winded, one-sided presentation, high-pressureclosing tactics, and other transparent and annoying salesmanipulations Further, because their unique characteristics,job responsibilities, and situations have been largely ignored

by salespeople who behaved like this in the past, customershave little basis for believing that whatever this salespersonwill offer will create any value for them at all Thus, theybelieve that any time they spend with the salesperson will bewasted and they feel completely justified in resisting anylevel of engagement

The fact that customers actively resist generic proaches is only one of the reasons that salespeople shouldavoid them It is also logically flawed The commonly ac-cepted idea is that to maximize their success, salespeopleshould maximize the number of prospects they see and thenumber of proposals they present If you extend this logic,

ap-it suggests that you should spend less time preparing toengage customers in order to see more prospects and givemore presentations Of course, it doesn’t work that way.Spending time with prospects when you aren’t prepared toengage and who are unlikely to buy is both inefficient andineffective.

If you want to maximize sales results, you cannot ply engage as many prospective customers as possible andallocate your time equally among them Instead, you mustconcentrate on customers who have the highest probability ofbeing negatively impacted by the absence of your solution and,therefore, will have a correspondingly high probability of beingreceptive to your solution The identification of these poten-tial customers, and the preparation required to create com-pelling and ultimately successful engagements with them, isthe purpose of the Discover phase If you rush through thisphase, you end up gambling your time and resources onvague and unsubstantiated opportunities and, subse-quently, your sales results will be less robust, random,and unpredictable

qualifi-an engagement strategy that customers believe couldnot have been crafted for any other person butthemselves

Discover the Prime Customer 93

How can you identify your best opportunities? Through

a more comprehensive and creative approach to the Discoverprocess—an approach that enables you to achieve the follow-ing goals:

 Develop a clear understanding of the market for yourcompany’s unique and differentiating value

 Design the most effective strategy, including a valuehypothesis that is both highly relevant and material,for the executive in the customer company with whomyou will engage

 Conduct the initial conversations in a way that quicklyestablishes value relevancy, encouraging the executive

to invite you in and provide access to the right peopleand substantive information

Key Thought

Is There Someplace Better I Could Be?

Top performers keep the profile of the optimal tomer front of mind by continually asking themselves

cus-a simple but fundcus-amentcus-ally rcus-adiccus-al question: Is theresomeplace better I could be?

They understand that the best place to be is wherethey can leverage the value of their solutions to maxi-mize the performance of their customer’s business,which will, in turn, maximize their sales results Theyare always navigating toward that optimal engage-ment They accomplish this by continually gaugingthe evidence that supports a quality decision and rec-ognizing that when that evidence decreases to thepoint where the odds of success become more attract-ive if they engage a new customer, that is exactly whatthey should do

 Establish a diagnostic agreement that sets the stage forthe next phase of the Prime Process.

A good way to manage goals of the Discover phase is

to divide it into two stages: In the first stage, sales sionals prepare for the initial engagement by building thevalue hypothesis, and in the second, they enter the engage-ment and execute their strategy Let’s take a closer look atthese goals, how they are achieved, and how they add up tosuccessfully complete the Discover phase

profes-Understanding Your Distinctive Value

Before salespeople attempt to understand their customers’worlds, they must develop a full understanding of theirown environment and capabilities More specifically, theyneed to understand their offerings and the value they candeliver, their potential markets, and the quantitative andqualitative levels of activity they must attain to reach theirpersonal performance goals This is the proper basis for aguiding vision that sets the best sales professionals on thepath to defining the ideal customer

The vision begins with the value proposition inherent inthe goods and services that you are offering customers Inthe context of complex sales, when I talk about value prop-ositions, I mean the positive business and personal impactsthat your offerings are capable of creating for your cus-tomers This value represents your competitive advantage

in the marketplace It also forms a baseline from whichyou can begin to measure the connection between yourofferings and the impact it can have on your prospectivecustomers’ business performance

The unique characteristics of your offerings help youdefine the ideal customer If you are selling a logistics

Understanding Your Distinctive Value 95

software package that allows a company to manage and ordinate tens of thousands of small packages with differentdestinations, the best place to spend your time is not with acompany whose shipping patterns indicate that it trans-ports full containers to only a limited number of destina-tions Obviously, this customer will not be able to achievethe full value offered by your solution.

co-The analysis of the value proposition yields valuableconclusions about the characteristics of the most qualifiedcustomers for our solutions For instance, if your company

is a leader in innovative solutions, you should be looking toengage customers who exhibit the characteristics of earlyadopters in your target markets If you are the high-valuesupplier in your industry, you should be looking for cus-tomers who are positioning themselves as high-value sup-pliers in their respective markets Value propositions tell uswhat segment of the industry is most likely to buy, whatsize company we should contact, and who we should seekout inside those companies This information allows us tobegin constructing an external and internal profile of whatour ideal customer looks like

This is common sense, but it is surprising how often Ihave seen companies change their value propositions with-out integrating those changes into the way the sales forceoperates, how often changes in the selling environmentrender an existing value proposition ineffective, and/orhow often salespeople simply don’t understand the valueproposition they are offering

Think of the value proposition as the description ofthe type of value that you can bring to a specific segment

of customers That segment will have similar external andinternal profile characteristics (A value proposition, how-ever, is only a starting point Eventually, it needs to betranslated into a value hypothesis; that is, a statement that

is crafted specifically for an individual customer, whichmust be tested before it can be accepted as valid.)

Pinpointing the Prime Opportunity

Once we understand what an ideal customer should looklike, the focus of the Discover phase hones in on an individ-ual company The most successful salespeople first makesure there is a match between their ideal customer companyand the external profile of the company that they intend tocontact Then, they must begin to investigate the internalprofile of the company to ensure that it also matches Theyare looking for early warning indicators, that is, preliminarysigns that there is a connection between the customer’sbusiness situation and the value that they can deliver Inorder to establish the existence of early warning indicators,they identify the business objectives and critical successfactors within the customer, and the initial physical evi-dence that would suggest its performance is at risk As youmay recall, this is the first step in the Bridge to Change that

An external customer portrait tells us what customerslook like from the outside It includes their demographics,information such as the company size and revenues, indus-try and market position, and key characteristics that differ-entiate it from its competitors An internal profile hastwo dimensions: how and what the individuals within thecustomer company think—I call this psychographic evi-dence—and what they are actually experiencing—what Icall physical evidence

Pinpointing the Prime Opportunity 97

Psychographic evidence includes information abouthow a company’s leaders and employees approach and per-ceive their world—the organization’s strategies and busi-ness culture, its driving forces and goals, and the attitudesand beliefs that underpin the behavior and decision making

of management The physical evidence includes clues tothe tangible and relevant conditions within the companythat will likely drive a decision to change and, accordingly,determine the outcome of the sale itself

There are myriad resources that a salesperson can tapinto to gather both psychographic and physical evidencebefore they formally engage the customer, and researchbecomes easier every day because digital technologies haveplaced so much information at our fingertips There arecustomers’ annual reports, web sites, industry publications,existing suppliers of noncompetitive products, industry

Key ThoughtWhen Working with Limited Resources in a HighlyCompetitive Environment, Establishing Relevancy

Is Crucial

In a complex sale, we are dealing with organizationswhere access is constantly sought and is tightly con-trolled It is difficult to reach into the cast of charac-ters, and when we do engage, there is precious littletime to differentiate and establish our value Develop-ing a full understanding of the customer before wemake formal contact maximizes our chances of estab-lishing the relevancy required to achieve a constructiveengagement and develop the level of access required toaccomplish our goals

contacts, professional and social networks, employees inthe customer company the list goes on and on.

Today there is no excuse for engaging with a customerusing a generic approach Just as an example of the depth ofinformation accessible on very short notice, we recently re-ceived an inquiry from a global software company regard-ing our consulting services That same day, I visited anonline business networking site and searched for the com-pany name I found four individuals linked to my contacts

We were able to contact all of them—including a formervice president of sales and an executive in the company’sAsia Pacific region One of our managing directors wasthen able to return the call and discuss the client’s situationwith a considerable degree of understanding and ask somevery relevant questions

The quality of our research has just as much to do withthe content and analysis of the data we collect as its sources.One effective way to analyze an organization is in terms ofits business drivers, which are usually expressed as criticalsuccess factors, strategic goals, or business objectives (seeFigure 4.1) It is important to be able to align the value ofyour solution to your customer’s business drivers This isnot difficult if you think of the drivers in terms of threemajor categories:

1 Financial drivers are indicated by goals specifying eithertop-line growth via increased revenues or bottom-linegrowth via reduced expenses

2 Quality drivers are indicated by goals based on ing the satisfaction of the organization’s customers,employees, or, for those in heavily regulated indus-tries, regulators

increas-3 Competitive drivers are indicated by goals related tocreating innovative new products and services and

Pinpointing the Prime Opportunity 99

ensuring the availability of products and services tocustomers.

To identify long-term drivers, go to the customer’sweb site and read the corporate mission and vision state-ments For short-term drivers, read the CEO’s message inthe most recent annual report It is a rare message that doesnot include concrete statements about the critical successfactors driving the business currently and what will drive

it in the near future.1Next, confirm that the drivers fied in these sources are current (they can change fast)and ask yourself: To what degree are they at work in myprospective customer’s business? How do they connect to

identi-my offerings?

Then, work at understanding the corporate culture

in a customer’s company Personality and values trickle

FIGURE 4.1 Understanding the Business Drivers