Key Accounts: Strategic Sales Skills Pay Off

 

Do you experience any of the following when selling key accounts?

• Missing information, which if discovered earlier in the sales cycle, would either improve your closing odds or disqualify the opportunity?
• Difficulty gaining access to the ultimate decision makers?
• Stalls after proposals and quotes are submitted
• An increase in negotiation attempts
• Heightened competitive activity within the key account 

 

If you do experience any of these issues, a well-planned and executed key account selling approach combined with top-notch strategic sales skills, can be of enormous benefit.  Steps in this strategic sales approach should include:  

 

 1 – DEVELOP A TEAM PLAN:  Involve everyone who has regular account contact in developing key account selling strategies,  methods for improving key account intelligence, decision maker approaches, action plans and milestones.  Sales improvements will begin occurring as salespeople, customer service reps, technical people and managers follow a common strategy,  present a united front and convey a common message.  A streamlined account strategy and planning process is an important tool for team selling success.

2 – GAIN A SPONSOR:  Truly successful salespeople develop, within each of their target accounts,  ”champions” who provide inside information,  advice and direction.  With this extra intelligence on competition, budgets, buyiing processes and decision makers, these strategic sales professionals  craft winning  key account  sales strategies.  The bottom line is that having inside champions, along with well-crafted, well-executed, strategic sales approaches, is likely to improve your sales results.  

 3 – UNDERSTAND THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS:  Learn how prior decisions were made, what criteria were used and who the “blockers” are that can thwart decision-maker access.  If decisions are made by committee, make sure you know who is on the committee and what their hot buttons are when implementing your key account selling strategy.

4 – UNDERSTAND THEIR MARKET:  Your key accounts are impacted by the state of their marketplace.  Are they in a growing or shrinking market?  How does their financial performance compare with that of their competitors?  What are their key concerns and how will these issues affect their interest in and ability to buy your product or service?

5 – PINPOINT THE RELATIVE BENEFITS:  While your product or service may provide a big benefit (e.g. a return on investment of 150%), all benefits are relative.  Focused mainly on their own products, salespeople often fail to look at their proposals through the eyes of their client.  Clients may in fact have opportunities to invest their limited budget dollars in other projects that yield higher rates of return.  Indeed, a strategic sales approach, where financial justification questions are prominent, can help boost major account success rates.

 

In short, major accounts that see a solid financial benefit from your products, services and solutions are both more likely to buy and will make a purchase more quickly.  With our strategic sales skills training class, you’ll gain a highly-successful process for key account selling!

 

All Rights Reserved.  The Sales Alliance Inc.  San Diego, CA

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Discounting Sales: Don’t !!!

 

 

Customers are trained to asked for sales discounts and negotiate.  Why?  Because salespeople often oblige and fail to realize that the customer already perceives a benefit and wants to maximize value by getting these benefits at a lower price.  And salespeople, hearing repeated price objections, begin to themselves believe that their products and services are not worth the asking price. When we lack 100% confidence and conviction in the value of our solutions, it shows—and the end result is that customers succeed in negotiating sales discounts.  So, what can we do?

 

1. Quantify the benefits of your product or service to the customer and show the financial savings!  Develop an ROI (Return-On-Investment) worksheet. 
2. Reference other customers who realized savings quickly.  Clip relevant articles that support the benefits and payback of your product or service.
3. Avoid on-the-spot sales discounts as lowering prices can deflates the customer’s perception of the value you offer.  
4. If you do need to provide sales discounts, don’t do it without asking for something in return (e.g. a commit for certain quantities or shorter payment periods).  And if you need to give something to secure the order, consider including additional products or services in order to minimize the financial impact on your firm (e.g. you provide the customer with a $250 service that may only cost your firm $100 to provide).
5. If you have the ability to make concessions, don’t let the customer know, or you’ll invite additional negotiations.
6. If the customer does ask for sales discounts or concessions, determine his or her motivation prior to responding.  In many instances, granting sales discounts or concessions will not resolve the issue and will hurt your chances for the sale.

 

Possible Customer Motivations for Requesting Sales Discounts

• The customer is not sold and does not believe in the value of your proposal
• S/he is comparing “apples to oranges” and doesn’t understand why your product costs more
• The customer is sold but does not see how the benefits she’ll get justifies the price
• S/he is sold and as a good businessperson is simply trying to see if s/he can get a better price
• S/he is sold but wants a “personal win” (e.g. a “good deal” in order to look good to the boss)

 

Remember, while it is common for customers to ask for sales discounts and concessions, the best and most skilled salespeople are adept at securing orders by stressing value rather than reducing cost.

 

  
All Rights Reserved.  The Sales Alliance Inc.  San Diego, CA

 

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Generating Incremental Sales via Customer Service Teams

  

 

Companies facing sales challenges are finding innovative ways of boosting sales without significantly increasing their costs or staffing levels–how? They’re developing customer service sales training programs that allow their customer service and technical support teams to identify needs and leads, cross-sell, up-sell and help close key accounts. 

 

To pave the way for success, these companies usually provide their service people, who are always looking for ways to boost their earnings, with both sales training and incentives. A survey by Inc. Magazine supports this trend toward sales by non-salespeople.  More than 54 percent of the companies polled said that they “reward non-sales employees for their role in sales.”  Another study, conducted by Xerox, also showed that non-sales professionals trained in sales techniques often achieve impressive results. 

 

But, a word of caution is needed.  We’ve found that a number of service people are resistant to sales initiatives because they don’t like the idea of selling (after all, that’s why they’ve chosen a service rather than a sales role).  To address this reality, we’ve developed a comprehensive program that first helps motivate service people to sell and then provides them with appropriate “soft sell” skills and tools.  

 

Smart companies look for opportunities to capitalize on each and every customer interaction, regardless of whether the employees involved are in a professional sales role.  If you’re looking for ideas on how to boost sales and motivate non-sales employees to sell for you, please contact us for a complimentary customer service sales consultation. 

 

All Rights Reserved.  The Sales Alliance Inc.  San Diego, CA

 

 

 

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