One of the common complaints I’ve heard from Sales executives is that their people aren’t strong closers. To me this is a reinforcement of the fact that far too much emphasis is placed on closing. It’s as though a strong ending can salvage a poor 3-act play. Any seller that has seen Glengarry Glen Ross remembers Alec Baldwin’s advice on the ABC’s of selling:  Always Be Closing. If only it was that easy. Frequent closes in B2B sales can be highly offensive to buyers who don’t appreciate pressure applied by sellers. This insinuates that the seller is in control and driving the buying process, rather than the buyer.

Many peoples’ impression about selling and closing is based upon experiences they’ve had in B2C transactions. Whether a retail store, buy insurance or buying a car, chances are the buyer and seller won’t ever do another transaction. The realization that if you leave they will likely lose the sale causes them to use high pressure closing tactics.

B2B salespeople often enjoy the benefit of multiple meetings/conversations. They reap what they sow during buying cycles. The better job they do in uncovering buyer needs and associated value, the more likely they’ll win the business.

Before earning the right to close, I believe buyers need to be aware of:

• The business outcomes they want to achieve
• The reasons they can’t achieve the desired results
• The capabilities needed
• Some type of proof (i.e. references or a demonstration)
• The price of the offering being considered
• The cost vs. benefit to understand potential value and payback
• How competitive offerings compare in terms of functionality and price
• Any implementation/conversion plans /costs if needed

Sellers are under constant time pressure each month, quarter and year to achieve quota. These pressures increase when pipelines are thin. My belief is that sellers issue premature quotes or proposals and close before buyers are ready to buy, therefore pressuring buyers and potentially putting opportunities in jeopardy.

There are several aspects of closing that sellers are either unaware of or disregard because they have their own agendas:

1. Before closing buyers should understand their desired outcomes, why they can’t be achieved today, what capabilities are needed, the potential value and the price. In many instances they will want to compare at least 2 other vendors.
2. It’s demeaning when sellers try to close non-decision makers. It’s awkward to ask for orders if they aren’t authorized to commit.
3. Sellers make mistakes by not getting in front of decision makers to close. Some reply upon proposals they hope decision makers will not only read but also understand.
4. Sellers pressure buyers when they close prematurely. Some buyers will be “put off” and may decide not to buy. Those that are willing to buy will almost certainly expect incentives (concessions and/or discounts) for buying sooner than they expected.
5. There are few instances in B2B transactions when closing and discounting will work if sellers aren’t the vendor of choice. Some sellers rationalize that is makes sense to discount even if they can’t win because the winning vendors will accept lower prices. I believe putting low-ball numbers on the street can come back to haunt sellers.
6. Unfortunately the old concept of selling is alive, if not well. The thought is a seller can convince, persuade and pressure buyers into giving them the business. This flies in the face of the reality that people prefer to buy without high-pressure tactics.

A seller earns the right to ask for the business if and when a buyer has all they need to make a buying decision. One of the most powerful motivators for buyers is a clear understanding of the potential benefit on a monthly basis so they understand delaying decisions means deferring benefit. If sellers do a good job, placing orders can be a logical conclusion for buyers. Some will volunteer to buy but if they don’t, the attempts to close will go much better.

Featured picture courtesy of New Line Cinema’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992).

Salespeople have a choice in terms of the modus operandi they choose to employ to deliver results: they can either push or flog products at customers or they can build “intimate” relationships with them and trust that sales will follow.

Here’s the profile of each…

The pusher:

– is focused on short term success; it’s all about making the numbers
– flogs technology, emphasizing the cool things it can do
– loves to make speeches on how wonderful their products are; not too much listening here
– will try and force-fit their product to the customer’s problem even though the product is not be the “perfect fit” for the customer. – is motivated to sell product and not to do whatever it takes to solve the customer’s problem
– is a one-way communications artist. They are constantly in “the transmit mode”; they listen very little
– wants to get the sale and get out; the quicker the transaction the better
– is frustrated by the need for after sales service and devotes minimal time to it
– is driven by their annual compensation plan and dedicates little effort to medium and longer term issues
– spends copious amounts of time doing cold calls
– relies on low prices to express their value proposition; blames high prices when they lose a sale
– avoids personal accountability when a client is “screwed over” through a service mishap made by the company
– is super driven to win an annual sales award and get a trip to somewhere exotic

The builder:

– is a “server” with the innate desire and ability to take care of people
– is a highly engaging individual; believes that deep conversations with the client will expose opportunities
– wants to get paid by their compensation plan, but is willing to balance longer term needs with the short term
– drives the majority of their sales through repeat business from long term loyal clients
– creates “intimate” relationships with clients trusting that the relationship will yield sales over the longer term
– sells value at the highest price possible. Avoids commodity transactions where the sale goes to the lowest price supplier
– focuses on obtaining client referrals to grow sales; doesn’t have to cold call
– spends time trying to discover client hidden wants and desires – “secrets” – and employs this knowledge as a critical component in their sales proposition
– is a “recovery addict” ( doing whatever it takes to recover from a service mistake the organization made that caused client pain
– takes the role of client champion inside their organization “fighting” for them regardless of the issue
– has incredible listening skills which represent a heavy dimension of their personal brand
– uses a customer report card regularly to gather customer feedback on their performance; follows up to ensure improvements are recognized
– will lose a potential sale by recommending someone else’s product when they have a better solution to a client’s problem
– is very involved with marketing in the new product development process; ensures that their client’s unmet needs are addressed
– is viewed by their clients as partners; part of the client team

Which approach do you think will build customer loyalty and distinguish you from your peers?

With another exciting year of sales and sales innovation in the books, it’s time to start thinking about the future: which tech and processes we’ll be carrying forward, which we won’t, and which game-changing trends and apps we have to keep an eye on so that, next year at this time, we’re bragging about another banner year of crushed quotas.

But this year, in a way, is different from all the others. Yes, we have new tools – like predictive analytics platforms – that give us more insight than ever before into the directions and tactics we should use to grow our businesses, but this year, we’ve also experienced the beginnings of a massive shift in priorities for businesses that will change everything about how we sell next year.

I’m talking about real, true customer obsession.

With the rise of AI and our ability to hyper-personalize and target customers all the way through the funnel, more traditional business processes – lead gen, for example – are starting to fall by the wayside in favor of customer experience and account-based marketing initiatives. As more businesses buy into this model (and they already have, in droves), this is the disruptive reality we’ll be facing in 2016. I hope you’re ready for it!

Here are three of the top disruptions we’ll have to work within 2016:

The Funnel Will Be Flipped by Account-Based Marketing

2016 is the year we’ll start talking about the funnel in a way that we never have before. Instead of filling it with hoards of MQLs – most of whom are entirely uninterested in our product and just wanted a piece of premium content or a webinar – and employing BDR teams to weed them out and set meetings for the tiny group of SQL remaining, we’ll take a hard look at our current customers.

Why? Because we’re going to start targeting other customers that look exactly like them one at a time. The essence of account-based marketing is this: targeting a specific business – along with a specific set of decision-makers with buying power – and delivering ads, outreach, and content made exclusively to connect the dots between their business and your product / service. And it works.

Instead of chasing down unqualified leads and focusing on quantity, you focus on building important, quality business, creating quality closes, and implementing processes that ensure each piece of new business you acquire stays for life.

AI Will Take Networking to the Next Level

Though not traditionally thought of as a sales driver, networking offers huge opportunities for sales, customer persona and segmentation exercises, lead gen (if you’re not quite ready to make the switch to ABM), and CRM data quality. And while that’s probably reason enough to start encouraging networking among your sales staff, I’ll do you one better: reps with better networks sell better because they’re better connected with people.

This will be the year that AI-driven apps rise to meet them. So many processes in networking – keeping contacts updated, remembering to follow up, knowing who you should reach out to, which contacts are the most valuable based on any number of data points – are pieces of info that are easily glossed over when you have a headful of client and an end-of-quarter date rapidly approaching.

AI changes all that. With apps and algorithms that read things like call frequency, signals sent through social and email, and common topics from previous conversations, this will be the year that address books update themselves, CRMs learn who you should reach out to and what you should say to them, and business card scanners can self-categorize, sort, and send new connections to the CRM. Armed with them, your reps will focus on creating amazing experiences for potential clients, not getting lost in the drudgery of busywork.

Predictive Analytics Will Bring Us All Into New Markets

It’s really easy to think that we know who we should be selling to CRMs go to sales, Marketing Automation to marketers, social listening tools to our social teams, etc. But as we’ve begun to dig into our customer data over the last year or so, those lines have become blurrier than we’d imagined.

It turns out that – even if a tool was built with an audience in mind – there’s always a secondary audience, even a few tertiary ones, and new and emerging markets where our products/services have great fits. Unfortunately, the internet is a big place, and it’s next to impossible to find the data we need.

Or, rather, it was until the rise of predictive analytics. Fueled by Big Data and driven by machine learning, predictive analytics platforms leverage enormous amounts of information to estimate future actions of current audiences and customers as well as opportunities that will rise in new markets. These tools exist to understand the landscape you operate in and work to help your sales reps bring your product (or versions of your product) to every available market with relative ease.

Inevitably, we’ll see many more disruptive forces explode in the early months of 2016, but I bet my bottom dollar (and you should too) that they’ll all be about creating better customer experiences, more personalized sales and marketing processes, and refined, personalized targeting strategies. This year in sales, we’ll have the opportunity to know our customers, our contacts, and the landscape we sell in better than ever before, and it’s on us to rise to the challenge and sell.

It’s no longer just the sales teams who are responsible for “sales.” Today – every person who interacts with customers is a part of the sales team and is in part, responsible for sales results.

Here are three tips for managers and executives to help the entire company become “sales centric:”

1. Focus: As the leader of your organization, your goal is to focus your entire group on the sales goals and insist that each member of your company can articulate where the company is headed and what their role is in achieving the company’s sales goals.
2. Accountability: Accountability is not just a benchmark of negative results. It can also be a standard for a positive sentiment in your organization. Of course we need to hold everyone accountable – but make sure you’re also using accountability to identify what your teams are doing right.
3. Tracking: If the whole team is responsible for sales, then revenue goals can’t just be limited to the sellers’ performance. On any project – members of every part of your teams should have assigned, measurable goals that relate to sales revenue.

Building a strong sales organization means that everyone is in sales and everyone is responsible and accountable for sales goals.