Andy Paul's Blog, page 108

Should Your Salespeople be Generalists or Specialists?

 

Should your salespeople be generalists or specialists?

 

I have read a number of articles recently in which the authors have asserted that, as a sales leader, you will fail if you hire sales candidates with too much industry experience and too much product knowledge. The general contention appears to be that any candidate for a sales position with specific in-depth industry expertise or product knowledge will be, by definition, stuck in the past and will quickly be rendered obsolete by new developments in technology and the markets. In the eyes of many, it would appear that only sales candidates whose knowledge and experience was of a more general nature can be sufficiently open-minded to adapt to the ever evolving realities of the market.

A few years ago I started experiencing bothersome bouts of irregular heartbeats. These episodes became so pronounced that I needed to consult with a physician. The question was which one? Should I go see my regular internist or should I consult with a heart specialist, a cardiologist? The decision was a no-brainer. I consulted with my cardiologist because he had treated hundreds, if not thousands, of patients with a similar problem. Through his experience with a broad range of similar patients my cardiologist had developed valuable wisdom (knowledge tempered with experience) and asked the right questions that enabled him to quickly and accurately diagnose and treat my problem.

To put this in the context of sales, I had a pain point and my cardiologist possessed the requisite depth of knowledge and experience to perform the right discovery and resolve the pain.

Which kind of salesperson do you want to have helping your prospects and customers with their pain points? A generalist or a specialist?

Let’s examine two counterproductive beliefs that are held as articles of faith by many sales leaders about the types of sales candidates they should hire.

The first is that salespeople with a generalized set of sales skills and educational training are more likely to have a “sales aptitude,” possess superior questioning and discovery skills (because of their liberal arts major in college?) and are more adaptable and receptive to change than, let’s say, a salesperson with specific product and industry expertise.

I made a career out of coaching people with deep product knowledge and industry experience to become extremely capable professionals and business development professionals. The reason they became successful was that they were curious problem solvers by nature and by training. That is why they took the technical career path to begin with. In addition, in technical fields if you didn’t keep abreast of new developments you are relegated to working on less exciting projects (like sustaining engineering) and not on the hot new products. I preferred salespeople with product and industry backgrounds in front of my customers because when confronted with a new problem or request they knew how to synthesize the available data and formulate a potential solution that fit the problem. Without having to waste the prospect’s time running back to the factory for support.

The second counterproductive belief that sales leaders cling to is that salespeople who come from technical or product backgrounds do not possess the requisite “people skills” that customers value above all other traits in a sales person. Which just isn’t true. Customers don’t value people skills in a seller as much as they value answers. Think about what your prospects are trying to accomplish with their buying process. Their buying process is an organized search to gather the data and information they require in order to make an informed purchase decision on your product or service with the least investment of their time. What prospects value most in a salesperson is answers to their questions that move their buying process forward.

Put yourself in this situation. Let’s say you have a mole on your arm that is making you nervous. You have an appointment with your dermatologist who is a specialist in skin cancer. You’re sitting in the examining room, waiting, when there is a knock on the door and in walks two young people in white lab coats who introduce themselves as a resident and an intern (both doctors in training). They say that they, instead of your doctor, will be examining you today. What was your immediate reaction? Exactly. You were disappointed and maybe a little apprehensive and you said to yourself, if not to the young doctors, “When is my real doctor, the one with the knowledge and experience, going to see me?”

In 30+ years of sales management experience I never once had a customer call me to complain that an technical, less “salesy” salesperson with strong product knowledge didn’t know enough about selling and so could I please send someone over to talk with him who did. On the other hand, I have had prospects call me to complain that a salesperson didn’t know enough about our products or their business to really help them, so unless I wanted them to take their business elsewhere, could I send over someone who knew what they were talking about.

Getting the composition of your sales team correct in order to accelerate your customer’s buying process is a matter of correctly aligning your information resources with the information requirements of the customer. Each situation will be different in terms of the mix of specialists and generalists you need to optimize your results. The key is not to artificially and unnecessarily handicap yourself by clinging to outdated stereotypes of what specialists and generalists can bring to the table in terms of sales performance.

© Andy Paul 2013

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The Uncertainty Principle in Selling

 By Andy Paul               

[image error]Using Change to Your Competitive Advantage

You probably don’t consider the impact of physics on your sales efforts. But you should.

You should evaluate your prospects’ buying processes in terms of Heisenberg’s famous principle of uncertainty. Werner Heisenberg, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932, is most well known for his Uncertainty Principle in which he demonstrated that the act of observing or measuring a process will necessarily change its outcome. While Heisenberg arrived at his famous formulation through his work with the behavior of sub-atomic particles, I have always found that a variation of the Uncertainty Principle applies to sales as well.

My Uncertainty Principle of Selling states: The process of selling to your prospect invariably changes their requirements and decision criteria moving forward. The very process of discovery, of helping the prospect define their requirements, and providing the data and information in response to their questions, forces them to re-assess their needs and what the criteria will be that they use in evaluating sellers and making an informed purchase decision.

What happens when your prospect learns that your SaaS product provides a feature, and associated value, that they hadn’t anticipated when they first put together their requirements? Or, what happens when your prospect’s expectations for the new machine tool they are looking to acquire aren’t fully met by any of the products that they have evaluated? The trajectory of their buying process changes and necessarily forces immediate strategy adjustments on the part of the seller, otherwise known as you.

Why is this “Uncertainty” important to you? Because too many sales people fall into the trap of thinking about their sales process, and their prospects’ buying process, like the instructions on your shampoo bottle: just lather, rinse and repeat.

You need to factor into your selling strategies the fact that your prospect’s buying process isn’t a linear, inflexible string of events. You should always make a detailed account plan for a sales opportunity. For instance, your account strategy can consist of steps 1 through N, that you believe will take the prospect through their buying process. But then, as soon as the customer has completed step 1, the situation will likely change and render your plans moot. This means that you have to be flexible in your approach to selling.

The second reason that the Uncertainty Principle of Selling is important to you is that it reinforces the necessity of being completely and rapidly responsive to your prospect in their search for the information they need to gather and evaluate in order to make a good decision. Studies show that if you can be the seller who provides the information that shapes your prospect’s “buying paradigm” or “buyer’s vision” then your odds of winning their business rise fairly substantially. It is always a much stronger position to be in if you are proactively shaping your selling strategy by providing the value to the prospect that shapes their buying process, rather than having to be completely reactive to the actions of your competitors.

Conduct a review of your pipeline and ask the following questions about each one of your qualified prospects:

1. What can I do for this prospect right now, this minute, today, that will have the maximum sales impact in the least time possible? Make a list of the actions you can proactively and immediately take to shape the buyer’s paradigm and use the Uncertainty Principle to your competitive advantage.

2. What can I do today that will create value for this prospect and differentiate my product, company and me from my competitors? Define one step you can take that will set your offering apart in a meaningful, tangible way. If this takes too long to figure out what this should be then you haven’t been paying attention to your prospect.

3. What information does this prospect still require from me in order to make an informed purchase decision in the shortest time possible? You should know what this is at any point in the sales process.

The key is to use the Uncertainty Principle to your advantage. Plan your account strategy but be alert and alive to the possibility of change.

© Andy Paul 2013

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4 Questions to Simple, Effective Sales Stories

4 Questions to Simple, Effective Sales Stories

Recently much has been written about putting the power of story to use in sales in order to better communicate the value of your product, service, company to your prospects. Despite the quantity of stories around the value of integrating stories and storytelling into selling, I am seeing very little storytelling put into action at the field level. Salespeople are still defaulting to telling the “story” of the features and benefits of their products and services, rather than learning how to relate the value of the same to a specific customer whose problem they solved.

The concept of using a story to sell is a great one. However, sales people are going to resist integrating stories into their selling if they believe that they are difficult to create or remember. Part of the problem lies with the sales trainers and thought leaders who make the subject too complex. 

Here are some basic tips and techniques to craft effective sales stories.

Keep It Simple

The key to a great story is to keep it simple and make it memorable. If you try to accomplish too much with a story, if you make the story too complex or too long, then the prospect won’t remember it. Or understand it. And neither will you.

Put The Prospect in the Picture

Stories become memorable if they put the prospect in the picture. Your stories must relate to the most common challenges and pain points your prospects experience. When they hear your story they will picture in their minds what it would be like if they were using your product or service. They will be taking a mental test drive of your product or service. What your prospect will remember is how you helped to solve the problems of a company just like theirs.

Illustrate A Defining Moment

Sales stories should illustrate the defining moments that your customers have experienced with your product or service that best communicate your value proposition.

Use Stories To Provide Necessary Context

Salespeople can fill prospects to brim with the raw facts and figures, and the features and benefits, of their products and services. It’s what they do best. But your prospects are looking for some context for all the content they have consumed. What does the content mean and how can they make sense of it to reach a fully informed purchase decision? Stories about why your current customers chose your solution and how they are using it to solve their problems and eliminate their pain points is one of the most effective sources of context for a prospect to use in their decision making.

Answer These 4 Simple Questions For a Compelling Story

Start crafting your effective sales story by answering these four simple questions:

1. What problem was your customer trying to solve?

2. Why was your expertise relevant to your customer?

3. Why did the customer order from you?

4. What value has the customer received from your product/service?

Where Do The Stories Come From?

These stories are company content. Who within your organization is responsible for creating content? Ideally marketing and sales should collaborate to identify the customer stories that will have the broadest relevance to your current prospect.

Use Detail to Draw In The Prospect

To make your stories more relatable and memorable use characters and dialog. Don’t start a story by saying “We have this customer who has used our product for two year and our main point of contact there is a big supporter of system…” Instead say “Larry is VP of Ops at ABC Widgets and has been a customer for two years. Recently he said to me ‘Andy, I love your product because…'” It is these details that draw in the listener and gets them to visualize themselves in the story.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Remember the old joke about “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The punch line is “Practice, practice, practice.” The same applies to your sales stories. They have to be memorized and rehearsed so that their telling is second nature to you. How do you use your stories to get to an order? Practice, practice, practice.

How Many Stories Do I Need?

I recommend that every sales person be equipped with 3 stories. This is enough to cover a wide array of potential prospects.

How Long Should My Stories Be?

Each story must be no more than 2 minutes in length. There are two reasons for this time limit. First, if the stories are any longer they will become too complex and difficult to remember. Which means that you and salespeople won’t use them. Secondly, if your story drags on for longer than 2 minutes your prospect will stop hearing your words and start hearing “blah, blah, blah.” Blah is not how you want the prospect to remember you, your product and your company.

The simple, well-crafted stories you tell are more memorable than any facts or figures you can provide to your prospects.

© Andy Paul 2013

 

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