Trust As Sales strategy .

In an uncertain world customers are looking for certainty. Trust between buyer and seller helps to create certainty and an environment where purchase decisions are made.

In this blog I recommend three proven tactics building trust between buyer and seller.

Intuitively we know that trust between buyer and seller creates the environment to do business in. After all, would any of us do business with people or businesses we do not trust? The opposite is true instead: people buy from people they trust.

In today’s rapidly changing world full of uncertainties, trust is even more relevant as a successful strategy for sales success. Once trust has been established, the opportunity to sell will come along whether it is in shape of a tender or a next conversation. Trying to sell before trust has been established, is a dead end track.

Here are three tactics to start creating and maintaining trust with prospects and existing customers.

Sales people should position themselves as experts.

B2B salespeople should position themselves as experts in order to build trust and credibility with their prospects and customers. When prospects and customers see a salesperson as an expert in their field, it is easier to build a strong and lasting business relationship. An expert salesperson is also better equipped to provide the best advice and solutions for their customers’ needs. Additionally, positioning oneself as an expert can help differentiate the salesperson from their competitors and increase the perceived value of their services. Today customers still expect to learn from sales people as well as buy from them. Although 27% of buyers do extensive online research before speaking to a vendor, they do expect additional valuable information from the sales person. In addition Gartner* found that buyers are 2.8 times more likely to buy from vendors who have helped them with useful information during the buying process. Sales people need to make certain they know their products and services inside out and so building trust.

Here are two examples:

1) In the payments industry we saw additional focus on transaction disputes between consumer and retailer due to the impact of COVID-19. Retailers will turn to their payments providers for insight and advice to navigate through refund rules while minimising refunds where possible.

Payments sales professionals will need to know about chargebacks and refunds and why payment schemes introduced these features in the first place. This will help merchants in their decision making and develop further trust with their provider. That in turn will open up more sales opportunities in due course.

Do not oversell

Customers want feature rich products and solutions that are future proof, available now and cost effective. It is all too easy for a sales person to not tell the truth at the point of clinching the deal. Overselling or over-promising has a huge and sometimes irrecoverable impact on company reputation, future earnings, and also individual reputation. Any trust built up will soon vanish and may irrecoverable losing the customer. B2B salespeople should not oversell because it can lead to customer dissatisfaction. When a customer is promised something that cannot be delivered, they will feel misled and may be less likely to continue doing business with the company. Overselling can also cause customers to lose trust in the salesperson and the company, making it difficult to build long-term relationships. Finally, overselling can lead to customer complaints, decreased customer loyalty, and negative reviews which can damage the company’s reputation.

On the other hand, customers will appreciate a vendor that is clear and upfront about their solutions suitability. Of course, salespeople should be encouraged to push the line without crossing it, but they need to know where the line is and how far it can be flexed. When training salespeople, product knowledge, internal processes and selling techniques are all equally important to prevent overselling and build trust.

Ask questions and collaborate .

Trust can be developed by finding out what challenges a customer has. Asking questions is a powerful technique often underutilised by sales people. Here are ‘trust creating’ questions:

  • What are the challenges?
  • How are these challenges impacting the business, employees and customers?
  • Why are they seen as challenges?
  • Where do the challenges originate?
  • What are the current workarounds?
  • What has been tried to address the challenges so far?
  • What should the ideal solution look like?

These questions expose pain or gain points during the selling process and also create trust. Sales people who ask questions like the ones above, allow customers to reflect on their situation or position. In addition, good questions ensure no money is left on the table during the selling process.

Working together on the challenges, options and agreeing next steps are signs of trust between buyer and seller.

conclusion

Certainty is in short supply in a rapidly changing world. Building and maintaining trust with customers is even more important now.

I work with sales professional developing and executing sales strategies with two objectives in mind: creating more sales opportunities and closing more deals. Get in touch to find out how I can help your sales team do the same.

sources used:

*Gartner ‘the new B2B buying journey’

Sales and the Impact of overselling

Sales leaders recruit, train and motivate salespeople to push the line on anything that can be sold without crossing that line. That is what businesses want and is the difference between growth and exponential growth.

Yet, if salespeople oversell a product feature or benefit, the future relationship with the customer and more is in immediate danger. Not only will it require valuable management time and intervention to re-align the relationship, it also affects the deal, revenues, profitability, and crucially company reputation. A damaged business reputation can have huge business impacts, but for the salesperson they will most likely find it more difficult to generate and do business with other customers as his/her reputation has been tarnished along with the business reputation.

There are good levers to prevent overselling and overpromising by salespeople, whilst allowing salespeople to have the autonomy they need to thrive.

Having the right team, training them well, and providing the right motivation such as appropriate compensation plans, effective and slick sales processes, and supportive sales leadership, make a powerful mix to not only prevent overselling, it will also increase sales across the board.

Anyone in sales knows how expensive and difficult it is to acquire a new customer and build a lasting relationship. Depending on what industry you are in, it is 5 to 25 times more expensive to win a new customer than to retain one. In addition to this, profitability from existing customers is a big motivator to nurture them. For example, in Financial Services a 5% increase in customer retention translates in 25% increase in profitability because customers tend to buy more products from the same company over time. They are happy to pay a higher price too to avoid having to find a new supplier. On the contrary, overselling affects a company’s ability to build lasting relationships with customers and miss out on future profits. The reputation of the business and the sales rep becomes a negative factor instead of a positive one. In the traditional bricks and mortars sales world, reps will find it harder to communicate with customers, leaving an opening for the competition. In SaaS, trials will not be converted, fewer deals will be closed, and subscription rates will fall.

Training

Training salespeople beyond the traditional sales techniques can help to prevent over selling. The onboarding of new salespeople is often driven by the overriding objective to have them selling as soon as possible. But; a fine balance needs to be struck in keeping costs of onboarding low and letting salespeople potentially damage your company’s carefully crafted reputation. For this can have profoundly serious consequences. One company we worked with was extremely focused on the ‘get them selling ASAP’ objective. The initial training consisted of selling techniques only. Product knowledge was not part of the curriculum. After one week of intensive sales training salespeople were sent out to potential customers. They had just two objectives: understand any needs and gain clear commitment. Back in the office, the sales manager would analyse the facts gathered and select the right product for the salesperson to present. This method presents a huge risk and inefficiency. The salesperson wasn’t knowledgeable on the product, features, and benefits, therefore they didn’t know when to dig a little deeper, to get clarity and uncover the real problem, and if or how their product could provide the solution. And of course, the sales manager had to interpret the findings of the inexperienced salesperson in order to present the right product, and much like a poor phone signal, details and clarity got lost in the communication. It was also a practice that contributed to churn, high sales staff turnover, in addition to a large mis-selling scandal and significant reputational damage.

Training is not an event, it is key in order to have a sales team that are knowledgeable, present your company as you would want it presented, and uphold the reputation you have worked hard to build. Training is a continuum where learning is encouraged throughout the workplace. Salespeople should learn about the products they sell, the benefits for the customers (and their customers) so that their customers see them as experts and trusted advisers. This should be complimented with a knowledge of the supporting business, how the product or service a customer has ordered actually gets to them or becomes available, and the process it takes. Knowledge and application exams should be considered as part of the induction programme. Salespeople should also learn why overselling or selling products their company do not have causes major problems with their co-workers and the rest of the organisation (see related article/related on The Reputation Impact of Overselling LINK). They should spend time with other departments and experience how even small errors or overpromises on their part affects the rest of the business.

This is not a one-way street either. The live sales situation is often a high pressure one where compromises must be made on the spot to win a deal. Salespeople should be encouraged to take co-workers to customer meetings to experience these pressures, ask for feedback, and review how these can be dealt with without overselling or over promising.

Conclusion

Overselling or over promising has a huge and sometimes irrecoverable impact on company reputation, future earnings, and also individual reputation. Salespeople should be encouraged to push the line without crossing it, but they need to know where the line is and how far is can be flexed. When training salespeople, product knowledge, internal processes and selling techniques are all equally important to prevent overselling and protect reputation.

Sources:

1. Harvard Business Review

2. Bain and co, Frederick Reichheld

3. Are you overselling? Forbes 2017

About:

This article is part of the Sales and Operations Dynamics series that explores business challenges from both the sales and operational perspective. To help business leaders, sales leaders, operational leaders, and teams understand how to align these functions through understanding, process, structure and collaboration.

Other articles in this series:

The reputational impact of overselling

About the Authors:

Gert Scholts: I help sales professionals and their leadership create more sales opportunities and close more deals. After 30 years in sales and sales leadership roles, transforming large sales and account management teams at BUPA, Bank of Scotland and Travelex I founded www.salescoaching.pro in 2012. I believe corporates can learn from start-ups and start-ups can learn from corporates. This particularly applies to the natural tensions between sales teams and other functions in organisations.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/b2b-sales-strategy-training-coaching-fractional-salesleader-gertscholts/

Sonya Kimpton de Ville: with 20 years of experience in operational design and leadership I have seen and dealt with first-hand the challenges due to disconnect between sales and operations, and the impact on customers and the broader business; and have coached teams and leaders on how to work more effectively together. Now founder and CEO of my own technology start-up Grapvyn (www.grapvyn.com), I am helping businesses become more efficient and work smarter, to increase the opportunity, accelerate sales, and drive business growth.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonyakimptondeville/

The reputational impact of overselling

Business leaders know that reputation goes a long way in impacting a sales outcome, in fact 25% of market value can be attributed to reputation, and reputation is closely linked to cashflow; this is why – more-so than ever – reputation will be critical as businesses open their doors following the catastrophic disruption of Covid-19, and with customers being more selective.

Of course, in the current climate, with businesses recovering and rebuilding, the temptation, (understandably) will be to sell what the customer or prospect ‘wants’, close the deal, find a way to deliver it, get the revenue, and nurse that damaged bottom line. Regardless of whether the ‘want’ is something your business already has in its portfolio or feature set.

And surely, if your business is adding product features to meet the needs of every customer, this is going have a positive impact on reputation, cashflow, and bottom-line right? Wrong.

Deloitte reports that 41% of businesses say that the biggest impact of a negative reputational hit is revenue, with a further 41% citing brand value; therefore, being overly accommodating and negatively impacting reputation can cost more in future sales opportunity than the value of the single sale.

It is easy in theory to say (or write) that your business should only sell what you already offer, but, in reality all businesses need to have an element of flexibility, especially now – but how can this work in practice?

In order to balance the ability to flex and increase revenue with a structured portfolio and supporting operational infrastructure, you have to understand the trade-off between effort and impact.

Effort versus Impact

Standardised services, products, and product features are a known entity within your business (or they should be), people know how to manage and deliver them. At a foundational level, your salespeople should have solid product, service, and feature knowledge (see this article/link on Sales and the Impact of Overselling), and the rest of the business should have product and service knowledge at a level that is appropriate for their role. This means orders can go through your existing delivery or on-boarding process in a standard way, as fast as the process allows (even standard practices aren’t always efficient), with few or no unexpected hurdles.

As soon as you allow your business to creep from your standard products or feature-set you introduce friction into the process, create unknowns for your delivery teams, slow delivery tasks down, and increase the effort required to deliver. All of this extra work and effort is referred to as process ‘noise’. Process noise uses up time that the standard portfolio doesn’t, and a 20% variation in orders can require anything around or beyond 10% more resource to manage and deliver. This creates a backlog of orders and lengthens lead times – and not just for the exception orders, but potentially for all of your business’s orders.

The impact of the ‘noise’ becomes tangible in your business and bottom line when you pay for extra resource (whether it’s additional staff or overtime), to keep the lead time steady; develop new features; or to resolve queries with the client and internally. If your cost-of-sale starts to increase, your profit-margin is likely to decrease, and then you consider increasing prices which are passed onto customers.

If you choose not to implement additional resource then you may have to accept longer lead times, which is felt by your customers when expectations are not met, or you are slower than the competition.

Of course, the other option is to mandate to your teams that they deliver within the same standard timeline. The risk here is that delivery is rushed, mistakes are made, and effort is spent on rework and remediation, manifesting itself as dissatisfaction with your customers, and frustration for your teams.

We have seen all three approaches used, and whichever route you take the customer experience is often negatively impacted, and you will suffer reputational damage that will propagate throughout your existing customer base, market, competition, and future customers, as well as having a long-term impact on your reputational resilience. 95% of customers are likely to share a bad experience, compared to 87% of good experiences, and it can take only one bad experience to break years of good experience and reputation.

Enabling Structured Flexibility

So, whilst you need to have some flexibility, there still needs to be some structure around it:

  • Is the addition to, or amendment to, a product feature something that is a one-off, or is it something that can become part of your standard offering? One-off requests are going to have a longer life-time cost than something that can be integrated and offered to all customers to drive incremental revenue.
  • Does the additional product feature deliver sufficient revenue to cover cost-of-sale and gross margin targets for the next 6 months, or 1, 2, 3 years?
  • Are you truly understanding the customers’ needs, or are they potentially not understanding the breadth and depth of your existing products and services? It’s remarkable how often the customers interpretation of their problem – and solution – isn’t what you should be solving for, and your team need to guide the customer through this exploration.
  • What are the delivery implications of the additional product feature? How much additional resource is needed? What is the impact on the rest of your orders commitments? And are you willing and able to absorb these impacts; be them operational or financial? Of course, you should not be absorbing anything that is damaging to your reputation.

If you can consider all of the above you can make an informed decision, you can accept or reject additional product feature requests with eyes-wide-open, for the right reasons.

At a foundational level, your teams – sales, operations, finance, need to be on board, so that they can sell, deliver, and support your products and services. They are likely to be aware of some of the challenges of selling outside of your standard offering, but often unaware of the bigger implication around reputation and cashflow. Conversely, your business functions also need to understand that an additional product feature, or product variation may be necessary in some cases, and can have a really positive and long-term benefit to the business. If they [where appropriate] are involved in the discussion, and understand how decisions are made, then they will be best placed to deliver your products and solutions as you and your customers want it delivered.

And, when it comes to measuring, if you measure Quality as well as Quantity and Customer Satisfaction you will be able to understand whether you have the right level of flexibility. Has productivity reduced (quantity), have queries increased (quality), has your customer satisfaction changed, and is revenue increasing and profit margins steady? If all of these KPIs are stable or going in the right direction then you are enabling structured-flexing.

Conclusion

Building, maintaining, and protecting your reputation doesn’t have to mean being everything to everyone, it is ok to decline some business in the same way that it is ok to flex for other business.

Your businesses Reputation does precede your business, and once damaged can take years to recover, therefore it is crucial that you make your decisions in a structured way, being consistent, and executing with consideration.

Sources:

1: Deloitte 41% of businesses surveyed

2: World Economic Forum

3: Customer Thermometer

About:

This article is part of the Sales and Operations Dynamics series that explores business challenges from both the sales and operational perspective. To help business leaders, sales leaders, operational leaders, and teams understand how to align these functions through understanding, process, structure and collaboration.

Other articles in this series:

  • Sales and the Impact of Overselling

About the Authors:

Sonya Kimpton de Ville: with 20 years of experience in operational design and leadership I have seen and dealt with first-hand the challenges due to disconnect between sales and operations, and the impact on customers and the broader business; and have coached teams and leaders on how to work more effectively together. Now running my own technology start-up Grapvyn (www.grapvyn.com), I am helping businesses become more efficient and work smarter, to increase the opportunity, accelerate sales, and drive business growth.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonyakimptondeville/

Gert Scholts: I help sales professionals and their leadership create more sales opportunities and close more deals. After 25 years in sales and sales leadership roles, transforming large sales and account management teams at BUPA, Bank of Scotland and Travelex I founded www.thebestsalescoach.co.ukin 2012. I believe corporates can learn from start-ups and start-ups can learn from corporates. This particularly applies to the natural tensions between sales teams and other functions in organisations.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bestpracticeforsales-gertscholts/

Photo Credit: Linus Nylund – https://unsplash.com/@doto

Copyright Grapvyn Ltd. 2020

Learn how to sell a commoditised product as a value proposition

n this revealing interview you’ll learn how monetisation transforms commodity type products become tangible value for prospects.

Simon Chandramani is an expert payments sales leader. Payments products are often highly commoditised where fractions of percentages can make the difference to win or lose a deal.

Find out how Simon and his team:

☝️ get ready before contacting new prospects

☝️ apply monetisation creating merchant value beyond price

☝️ use CRM effectively recording relevant prospect info

☝️ learnt what ‘good looks like’ when fact finding

The beauty of advanced sales techniques like this is they are simple to apply so you can create more opportunities and close more deals too.

Watch the interview here

Name your price and win more deals

Just like selling to the right type of prospect at the right time, your product’s or service’s price is a prime qualifier in sales. If you mention price without having thought about where it best fits in your sales process or playbook, you are missing a big trick. Here are 3 insights why and what you can do about it.

1) Perceived value

From a buying and selling perspective price is a sensible discussion point. It helps both parties to decide a next step. Pricing can fluctuate immensely based on the perceived value the buyer puts on the product. A buyer may be turned off by your low price by discrediting it automatically, especially if the product or service he or she believes is important to their business. My earlier post related to Stella Artois is a great reverse example. Sometimes, expensive is a positive element in purchase decisions. Salespeople who understand the concept of perceived value, use it throughout their sales process and win more bigger and better deals.

2) The power of 9

Prices ending in “9” ( charm pricing) can be more appealing than others, which can work better for both low- and high-end ticket items alike. Good example are petrol and new build houses pricing. Plenty of ‘9s’ there! Salespeople who understand the power of 9, use it and win more business that way.

3) Timing

Salespeople can either reveal price in the beginning or near the end – it depends on the industry and the company. By revealing price early on, they can disqualify a lead that would otherwise consume valuable time only to conclude it does not fit their budget, while they could focus on other pursuits. By revealing price later, salespeople could build value and uncover needs that the customer might not say directly and you would only find out by proper questioning. Salespeople who understand the power of stating price at the right timing the sales process, make more sales.

I work with individuals and teams helping them win more business. Feel free to get in touch or book me for an initial chat.

5 tips to look and sound like a sales professional should on Zoom

1. Focus on your camera, not on your prospects or customers

Every presentation coach will tell you that direct eye contact is vital to reinforce your point and build trust. In a video call, this means looking into the video camera, not at the smiling faces of prospects or customers. Speaking into a cold black circle will probably not feel natural or comfortable. We are trained to look at the people we are talking to. Entertainers, influencers and politicians have been talking to the camera for decades. It can be challenging to focus on your camera for an entire meeting — especially while others are talking — but know that you increase the impact of your points when you look deep into the dot. Practice looking into your camera during video calls when you speak, even for brief moments. The more you use it, the more comfortable you will become with it.

2. Maintain a strong voice

Strong voices convey authority, credibility, and confidence. This concept is just as true in virtual sales meetings as it is in actual ones. So even though you are using an external or internal microphone and thus may be tempted to speak at a conversational volume, maintain a strong, clear voice as if you are in a large conference room. Using a loud voice will also keep you from mumbling and from speaking too quickly due to the amount of breath required.

3. Frame yourself wisely

Proximity plays a big part in how audiences perceive you as a communicator. The further away or more obscured you appear, the less engaging you will be. In a video sales call, your head and the top of your shoulders should dominate the screen in the centre. If your head is cut off at the top or bottom, you are too close. If your entire torso is in view, you are too far away. If only half of your head is in sight, please adjust the camera. Have your eyes and the camera at the same level rather than looking down at the camera. It puts you in a much better light too. Also be mindful of your background. The bedroom or kitchen background may have been ok a few weeks ago. But now we set new standards. Cluttered rooms make communicators seem disorganised. Distracting elements will pull attention away from you. Find an environment where the background is simple, reflecting your professionalism. Consider a large piece of board or position yourself close to a wall behind you. I recommend getting a green screen and a film light. These will enable using a virtual background allowing you to demonstrate products, concepts or show slides. Your company logo in a corner will add that professional touch. And a daylight bulb with diffuser will complete a simple but professional looking set up. After all, you are representing your company. Amazon and eBay will sell you what you need for less than £50. Another simple solution to helping to have a personal space is running a cat5 cable internet cable (cheap and can be up to 100 metres long with quality loss) to your shed or garage. That space can easily be made your personal video cubicle.

4. Do not become your own distraction

In a live meeting, you never have to worry about talking while muted, annoying ambient noise, or the interference of pets and children. But these are all common pitfalls of virtual meetings, and they can quickly sabotage your point. Your job is to make sure you are remembered for what you did right and your products, not what went wrong. Be mindful of the power you have over both your virtual and physical environments.

Start by training yourself to stay quiet whenever you are not speaking and listen to understand. Encourage your prospects to do the talking until they want to know about you, your company, your clients and of course, your proposition

Finally, if boisterous children (or pets) want to participate in your call, your colleagues will probably laugh or relate, so do not be worried about or embarrassed by spontaneous distractions. However, if you are tasked with giving a major presentation to prospective customers, try to have someone supervise them in another room, far from the temptation of your presence, or at least create an engrossing activity for them. Parenting and presenting cannot happen simultaneously, and truly important messages require not only your colleagues’ full attention, but yours as well.

5. Use the chat window as your partner

The chat window is a unique opportunity in virtual meetings to elevate your presence, add dimensions to your ideas, and demonstrate what you are all about. Links to product pages, agenda, next steps or even action points all show professionalism

Whether you’ve been participating in virtual meetings for years or just started in 2020, it’s important to realise that a video selling isn’t just a calling in over video — it’s an entirely new interactive experience, which requires adapting your perspective, habits, and tactics to make it work effectively for you as a sales professional.

Feel free to get in touch and book me to find out how I can help you sell more

Say goodbye to ‘It is too expensive’ objections with these tips

The beer maker Stella Artois used its higher prices compared to other brands as a positive differentiator in their sales pitches. It was a very confident move of a company prepared to fight for their product quality rather than lower prices. It was done in a fun way too. The ads belong to my favourites.

If you hear the classic ‘it is too expensive’ objection more than once in a while, read on.

This High Growth Sales idea is aimed at sales people who want to overcome objections like ‘it is too expensive’. I will give you a script as well as a tip to avoid the objection in the first place.

Before we jump ahead of ourselves, let’s have a quick look at what is actually going on.

For an unknown reason we have managed to focus the customer’s thoughts more on cost than anything else. The demo was great and so was the need finding. We even spoke to the right person and the timing was also right.

What is even more curious is the failure of the sales process.

A sales person’s single purpose is to convince a customer seeing more value than cost and subsequently buy. After all, if a prospect sees value without that help, the sales person is not needed in the first place. A brochure or video would do.

Here is a suggested script to overcome the objection ‘it is too expensive’:

‘I appreciate you saying this. Some of my clients felt the same way after the initial meeting. When we reviewed the key benefits again, they found it good value and move forward. May I suggest we look at how our product helps your business moving forward again briefly?’

So, how can we avoid the ‘it is too expensive’ objection?

Stella Artois positioned price as a differentiator by showing how much value drinkers put on a pint.

In sales we should do the same: Find out what problem our customers want to resolve and gain their commitment in doing so. We have to make it explicit and clear enough for all parties to be able to move forward. Do that and you will have seen the last of the ‘it is too expensive’ objection. You will make more sales.

If you like to be able to pitch as well as Stella Artois but would a bit more help, feel free to get in touch.