Mastering the Complex Sale to Compete and Win_4 pot

But there are three major skillsand their associated tools that span the entire selling process.These skills and tools help successful sales profes-sionals answer a critical set of quest

traveled through the Prime Process have a clear standing of their challenges, and they know what the bestsolution will look like In fact, they have become co-authors

under-of that solution That is why sales prunder-ofessionals who use thePrime Process, and have not disqualified the customer byits final phase, experience exceptional conversion ratios.That is also why the final step and ultimate goal in the De-liver phase is not to close the sale, but to maximize the cus-tomer’s awareness of the value derived from the solutionthat is being implemented

The tasks in the Deliver phase begin with the tion and discussion of a formal proposal and the customer’sofficial acceptance of the solution The next steps includethe delivery and support of the solution and the measure-ment and evaluation of the value that has been delivered.The final task of the Deliver phase is to serve the customerand grow the relationship

prepara-In the Deliver phase, we want our customers to see us

as dependable We literally do what we said we were going

to do and deliver on the value we promised As we completethe sale, our customers should be thinking: You are here for

me and you will take care of me I can depend on you nowand in the future

  The four phases of the Diagnostic Business Developmentsystem—the Prime Process—represent a fundamental re-engineering of the conventional sales process The processeliminates the inherent flaws in the sales processes of previ-ous eras, directly addresses the gaps in our customers’ deci-sion processes, and helps ensure that sales organizationsconnect the value of their companies’ solutions to their cus-tomers’ situations It is a process done with the customer in

a very transparent fashion, not a process done to the tomer in a covert manner

cus-A Value-Driven, Diagnosis-Based System for Complex Sales 63

The Right Set of Skills for Complex SalesThe second element of any profession encompasses theknowledge and skills that its practitioners need to achievetheir goals and the tools that support the skills In DiagnosticBusiness Development, most of the skills and tools are ap-plied in specific phases of the Prime Process, and I will dis-cuss them in later chapters But there are three major skillsand their associated tools that span the entire selling process.These skills and tools help successful sales profes-sionals answer a critical set of questions that are present inevery Era 3 complex sale:

 How is value created within your customer’s business?

 Who should be involved in determining the existenceand financial impact of the problem?

 What are the problems the customer is actually

expe-riencing or the risks to which he or she is exposed?

 How are those problems impeding the customer’sability to accomplish his or her business objectives?

 How are the problems affecting your customer’scustomer?

 How will the customer achieve successful businessoutcomes?

 How are those outcomes connected to the son’s solutions?

salesper- Who should be involved in the design and the mentation of the solution?

imple-The answers to these questions can be stated in theform of an equation that must be solved to successfullynavigate a complex sale:

Right People: Managing the Cast of Characters

In Era 3, salespeople must be skilled at identifying andassembling the network of people who are needed inorder to answer the questions mentioned previously andreach a quality buying decision The single decisionmaker, as we saw in Chapter 1, is a myth So too is theidea that the customer, without assistance, can assemblethe best group of people to be involved in this work.Logic dictates that if our customers don’t have qualitydecision processes, they won’t be able to identify and as-semble the right decision teams

There is another reality that sales professionals mustrecognize A customer’s decision team is not just a group ofpeople who have the power to say ‘‘yea’’ or ‘‘nay’’ to thesale A quality decision team must be far more comprehen-sive, including people who can assist in the diagnosis oftheir current situation and the identification of the bestsolution Thus, the task of assembling the right team ofdecision makers, advisors, and influencers is now moresophisticated and complex than ever

One telling observation from the field is that when itcomes to identifying and interacting with a network ofdecision makers, advisors, and influencers in a complexsale, the most successful salespeople don’t passivelyaccept the decision team identified by their customers.They take an active role in building the optimal ‘‘cast’’with their customers They seek to identify the important

Right People: Managing the Cast of Characters 65

cast members in the customer’s organization, involveeach in the decision process, and ensure that each has allthe assistance required to comprehend and quantify theproblem, the opportunity, and the solution and its results.Effectively managing the decision team is a job that spansthe entire sales process.

A very important characteristic of the cast of ters in a complex sale is perspective In every sale, there aretwo major perspectives: The problem perspective includesmembers of the customer’s organization who can helpidentify, understand, and communicate the details and con-sequences of the problem The second perspective, the so-lution perspective, includes those who can help identify,understand, and communicate the appropriate design, in-vestment, and measurement criteria of the solution

charac-The challenge of casting the complex sale doesn’t stophere We need decision team members who can bring tothe surface the problem and solution perspectives available

at different levels within the organization, such as executiveand managerial levels, and operational and functional lev-els Sometimes, depending on the sale, we may also need toinclude cast members from outside the customer’s com-pany, such as the customer’s customers and business part-ners who might also be affected by a decision

Why go through all this work? The obvious answer isthat there is no other way to ensure that you are developingall of the information required to guide your customer to ahigh-quality decision There are also other less obvious rea-sons For instance, would you prefer to present a solution to

a group that has had little or no input into its content, orwould you rather present a solution proposal to a groupthat has already taken an active role in creating it? Wouldyou prefer to deal with a newly installed decision makerwho has replaced your single contact in the middle of thesales process, or would you rather face that new decision

maker with the support of all the remaining cast membersand with full documentation of the progress already made?The answers to these questions should be clear.

The successful sales professional assembles and chestrates the group of players who have the most informa-tion, insight, and influence on the decision to buy Thisshortens the sales cycle by effectively reaching the rightpeople, creating a sense of urgency, and helping them makehigh-quality decisions A full cast also helps sales profes-sionals overcome the unexpected surprises that sink sales,enhancing predictability and increasing the chances of asuccessful engagement

or-Right Questions: Quality Conversations,

Vital InformationAll salespeople are taught to use a variety of questions inthe sales process, but most use them in ineffective ways and

in dubious pursuits They ask questions to get their tomers to volunteer information that they think is critical

cus-to win the sale, such as, ‘‘How will you buy?’’ and ‘‘Whatwill you buy?’’ They ask future-oriented questions thathave little connection to the customer’s current problemsversus present-oriented questions that tap into the evidence

of urgent problems and risks Worst of all, the questionsthey ask subvert the most valuable use of questions—todiagnose

The most successful sales professionals are skilled andsophisticated diagnosticians They understand that toeffectively and accurately diagnose a customer’s situation,they must be able to create a conversational flow designed

to ask the right people the right questions The diagnosticquestions that these salespeople use to understand andcommunicate customers’ problems include:

Right Questions: Quality Conversations, Vital Information 67

1 A to Z questions, which frame a customer’s process andthen enable the salesperson to pinpoint specific areas

of concern within it

2 Indicator questions, which uncover observable andquantifiable symptoms of problems

3 Assumptive questions, which expand the customer’scomprehension of the problem in nonthreateningways

4 Rule of Two questions, which help identify preferredalternatives or respond to negative issues by giving thecustomer permission to be honest, without fear of ret-ribution from the salesperson

These diagnostic questions, which I will detail in thechapters that follow, are purposely designed to avoid turn-ing our conversations with customers into rote interviews,useless fishing expeditions, or worse, irritating interroga-tions Instead, they help salespeople develop conversations

in which the customer’s self-esteem is protected, cation is stimulated, and mutual value is generated (Silenceand listening skills, as I will describe later, also play impor-tant ancillary roles in diagnostic questioning.)

communi-Most importantly, they enable sales professionals toask questions that customers have not thought to ask them-selves These questions expand the thinking of customersand their comprehension of their situations Therefore,they stimulate the decision to change and create excep-tional credibility for the salesperson in customers’ eyes

Right Sequence: The Bridge to Change

and Value ClarityJust as complex sales involve multiple decision makers,they also require multiple decisions The content and

sequencing of those decisions is what allows us to connectour customers and the problems they face (or the value theyrequire) to the value inherent in solutions we are offering.

In short, this creates value clarity To accomplish this goal,

we need to establish an ordered, repeatable sequence ofquestions that will guide our customers through a series ofhigh-quality decisions

The sequencing of questions must be custom designedfor your solutions and it must be navigated in differentways according to the physical reality of each individualcustomer All sequenced diagnostic mapsTMare based on ageneric format that I call the Bridge to Change (see Figure 3.2)

FIGURE 3.2 Building the Bridge to Change Right Sequence: The Bridge to Change and Value Clarity 69

The Bridge to Change is patterned after the tools andmethods that physicians use to diagnose complex medicalconditions and prescribe appropriate solutions It guidessalespeople by establishing a question flow, in a decision-tree format, that is capable of leading their customersthrough complex decisions More importantly, it allowssalespeople to pinpoint the areas in which they can con-struct value connections that will benefit their customers.The bridge has nine main links; each increases thecustomer’s value clarity It starts at the organizationallevel by examining the customer’s major business objec-tives or drivers and the critical success factors (CSFs)that must be attained to achieve those objectives It seeks

to identify the individuals responsible for each CSF and

to understand their job responsibilities and personal formance objectives The bridge prompts the salesperson

per-to identify value gaps by probing for the physical dence of performance shortfalls and risk, uncoveringtheir causes, and quantifying their consequences In itslast links, the bridge helps define the expectations andalternatives for solving the customer’s problems and thennarrows the search to a final solution

evi-When the Bridge to Change is customized for yoursolutions, it serves as a decision tree that maps value.You and your customer can follow this decision tree todiagnose missing value, create solution parameters, andfinally, identify the metrics that indicate value achieve-ment The value of a decision tree is that only thebranches that are relevant must be followed Thus, itoffers a very effective means of quickly homing in on theareas in which your solutions offer the greatest value tothe customers When each relevant branch of a decisiontree has been completed to a customer’s satisfaction, all

of the potential objections have, by definition, been solved In fact, when you hear customer objections, what

re-you are actually hearing is a lack of value clarity, the rect result of a skipped or incompletely followed branch.The customer can, of course, still refuse to buy/change,but it is unlikely that his or her refusal will be based onany reason within the salesperson’s control.

di-When we build decision trees for our clients, we verse engineer the Value Life Cycle We start with the myr-iad elements of value that can be delivered by theirsolutions Then, step by step, we track each element back tothe physical evidence that would be present and observable

re-in our client’s customer’s busre-iness if that value were notpresent This is the evidence that proves his or her perform-ance is at risk in absence of the solutions our client provides.The construction and design of decision trees is acomplicated process that becomes more and more diffi-cult and more and more involved as solution complexityrises For instance, when we created a decision tree forone client, it quickly grew to over 650 branches But therewards for undertaking this effort are correspondinglyhigh The decision tree provided our client’s sales teamwith just seven questions that the team could ask toquickly identify not only whether a prospect was a viablecustomer, but also which specific branches of the treewould offer the highest value to that customer Perhapsthe most interesting outcome of this effort was that byproviding its sales engineers with a standardized, consist-ent means of mapping customer value, the client was able

to reduce the time it took for a graduate sales engineer tobecome proficient and operate profitably from 5 to 7years to just 12 to 18 months

  The cast of characters, diagnostic questions, and the Bridge

to Change are the key skills of the diagnostic sales sional They also represent the three components of the

profes-Right Sequence: The Bridge to Change and Value Clarity 71

complex sales equation: right people, right questions, andright sequence.

The Discipline for Mastering Complex SalesThe final element of the Diagnostic Business Developmentplatform is the discipline with which top-performing sales-people approach their work In Era 3, this is perhaps themost critical component of their success Just as the flawedassumptions of Era 2 sales methodologies doom those whoaccept them to ineffectiveness and miscommunication, themental framework with which we approach today’s com-plex sale acts as the enabler of all that follows Without theproper mind-set or point of view, the best systems and skillscannot be consistently executed

Three statements summarize, in broad terms, the set or discipline needed to succeed in Era 3’s complex sales

mind-1 The most successful sales professionals recognizethat a sale is, first and foremost, the result of the customermaking a decision to change Thus, when they are workingwith a customer, they are actually helping the customernavigate through a decision process rather than a sales pro-cess This is a critical distinction in terms of the salesper-son’s mind-set: A decision process is aimed at assisting thecustomer in making the best choices A sales process isaimed at moving goods and services Further, all the deci-sions that customers make during a sales engagement add

up to one thing: whether or not to change

All too often, a sales professional uncovers a seriousproblem within a customer company, which the customeracknowledges and wants to solve They discuss the solutionoptions together, the customer agrees that the salespersonhas a solution that can eliminate the problem, and yet, thecustomer does not buy Why does this occur? It occurs

because the customer cannot or will not go through thepersonal or organizational changes required to obtain thevalue that the solution promises.

Every sale—whether complex or not—is based on acustomer’s decision to change In simple sales, the custom-er’s decision and the change process are often transparent,but they still take place Consider what takes place when Ipurchase copy paper: I notice that I’ve just loaded the lastream of paper into the machine I consider the conse-quences of not being able to make copies if I run out ofpaper and decide that I must do something about it now Ithink about the easiest way to obtain more paper I decide

to order it from an online superstore that offers low pricesand free delivery within 24 hours The process and decisionmay occur so quickly that I don’t even notice what I’vedone, but nonetheless, a sale has occurred only because Imade several decisions about whether and how to change

my situation

Of course, in simple sales, like buying copy paper, tomers understand the risk involved in the change andtherefore, their resistance to making the change is low Butwhat happens as the complexity of the sale increases? Thedegree of investment, the requirements for successful im-plementation, and the emotional elements of the sale, such

cus-as its impact on the buyer’s career and livelihood, create anescalating risk of change With higher risk comes greaterresistance to change This is why change and risk manage-ment play such major roles in complex sales

The more complex the sale, the more radical thechange that the customer must undertake, and the greaterthe actual and perceived risk becomes A salesperson, whohas a selling mind-set, is solely focused on presenting andselling his or her solutions and is ignoring the critical ele-ments of managing decisions, risk, and change The mostsuccessful salespeople, on the other hand, are noted for

The Discipline for Mastering Complex Sales 73

their ability to understand and guide the customer’s changeprogression (see Figure 3.3).

A key insight in the large body of psychological andorganizational research concerning the dynamics of change

is that the decision to change is usually made as a response

to negative situations and, thus, is driven by negative tions People change when they feel dissatisfied, fearful, or

emo-at risk in their current situemo-ations, and customers are morelikely to buy in those same circumstances Conversely, cus-tomers who are satisfied with their current situation are un-likely to buy

When salespeople ignore the customer’s Progression toChange (shown in Table 3.1), sales outcomes are jeopar-dized Here is a common scenario: The salesperson focuses

on presenting and selling the future value that will accruefrom his offering He does a wonderful job presenting, be-ing positive and enthusiastic and eventually lifting the cus-tomer to a euphoric peak with his company’s exciting andunique solution It is the perfect time to close and, of

FIGURE 3.3 The Progression to Change