How Does Walmart Affect Your B2B Sales Opportunity?

So, you are selling a multi-million dollar health care plan covering nearly 100,000 lives and right in the middle of things, Wal-Mart throws a wrench in the works.

How can that be? Wal-Mart doesn’t sell health insurance. But, still Wal-Mart becomes the pivotal factor in a sales loss for Vision Care:

Primary Intelligence: What were the primary reasons you did not select Vision Care?
Vision Care: “We were impressed with Vision Care’s overall solution and bid, but it just did not provide that much in addition to what we had with the incumbent, FocusCare. The costs and plans were very close, but we did not really see anything in the Vision Care plan or the Vision Care pricing that would compel us to make a move.

We weren’t unhappy with FocusCare. One thing that was a bit of a concern with Vision Care was one of the major vendors that our employees use, Wal-Mart, was not in the Vision Care network. If our employees don't get much of a break, but have to change their provider, that costs the company.”

Everything else being nearly equal, Vision Care loses because it doesn’t have the right providers in its network. All other value propositions were met and the rates were competitive.

If Vision Care wants to be a serious contender, selling to multi-billion dollar enterprises, this information has to be pushed up to the executive boardroom immediately. This feedback, delivered in a timely fashion, will make a huge difference in the future.

What are you doing to consistently collect sales intelligence? How far does this information travel within your organization?

Let’s talk about Primary Intelligence’s ability to provide feedback on all of your sales opportunities. Your prospects are waiting to tell you how to win next time. (801-838-9600 x5050 - Chris)

The Essential Qualities Of Successful Sales Leadership

Any sales leader knows that leadership is a combination of science, art and skill. Jonathan Farrington published some thoughts on the idea of sales leadership (and probably, leadership in general) and I found his insights… insightful.

While the concepts certainly aren’t new, it always seem to find simple reminders of powerful concepts to be interesting and valuable.

Mr. Farrington lists the six most essential qualities as:

1. Enthusiasm
2. Courage
3. Self Confidence
4. Integrity
5. Interest
6. Humor

Personally, I enjoyed his thoughts on integrity to one’s self, the company, superiors and associates and the requirements that places on the individual to uphold that integrity:

“A leader keeps promises. They keep their promises to their associates as meticulously as those made to their superiors. They keep promises made to themselves, which are the hardest to keep and failure in this is the easiest to rationalise. They can keep all these promises because they never commit themselves rashly; but always within the limits of reality and their present capabilities in terms of personal ability. Part of this matter of integrity is certainly, unquestioned loyalty to their organisation - to its reputation as well as their own. Also they must have loyalty to their products and to their associates and loyalty to their industry.”

If you have any alternate ideas on leadership, post a comment and let me know.

A Thought on Winning More Sales from Brian Carroll

Brian Carroll of InTouch Lead Generation challenged attendees of the Sales Shebang to forget about selling and concentrate on becoming thought leaders in their field.

Today, potential buyers are really busy with a lot on their plate. They're trying to make the best decision for their company, but they don't always have the time on their own to do exhaustive research. They're also delaying meetings with sales people until the really late stages of the buying process.

For sellers, this is a problem. There's no time to nurture a potential buyer through the sales process, or even to develop trust that their product/service is the best fit for this situation.
In fact, sellers even run the risk of antagonizing their potential buyers. A friendly call to check on the buyer can easily be interpreted as pressure to buy.

Brian told attendees at the Sales Shebang that they needed to change what they know about selling.

Sellers today are more effective not when they contact someone who is ready to buy, but when they contact someone BEFORE they're ready to buy.

http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling/2007/11/sales-shebang-l.html

Competitive Intelligence Newsletter – Dave Stein Talks About Sales Intelligence

This week, we took the opportunity to speak with Dave Stein about the role of competitive intelligence in the world of sales training and sales performance enhancement. His insights into his experience with business leaders that “get” the intelligence side may help jump start your next conversation about strategic planning and tactical improvement.

As always, if you would like to a no-cost semi-weekly subscription to the Primary Intelligence Competitive Intelligence Newsletter, send an email to info@primaryintelligence.com with your name and email address. You will receive the next issue.

Cover Story
Competitive Intelligence Makes Sales More Effective – 5 Questions with Dave Stein
By Chris Dalley, Primary Intelligence
In today’s competitive marketplace, skills and bravado are not enough. Sales effectiveness leaders are continuing to espouse the need to understand how the competition sells, how they position themselves against you, what they offer in specific situations and where they are vulnerable...(For more, click here)

BlogCentral
Competitive Intelligence – Helping Sales Aim its Artillery
Only 56% of sales managers claim competitive intelligence as one of their tools. A higher percentage of sales reps (68%) say that they use competitive intelligence to sell. All this seems to beg the question… why isn’t the sales department organizing competitive intelligence initiatives more often...(For more, click here)

The A-List Archive
Pinnacle Systems Chooses RightNow to Satisfy Customers
Originally Published in May 2005.
When Pinnacle Systems discovered that its Asia sales region was using a sophisticated sales automation system, the company decided to evaluate technologies to implement throughout its entire operation...(For more, click here)

Objective Feedback for the Sales Team

The sales VP, CSO or manager is almost always in the unenviable position of having to attempt to apply science to the art of selling.

Now, that’s not quite as fair a statement as it may have been years ago. Today, plenty of science exists around the sales effort. CRM systems, consultants, performance measurements, evaluations and quota attainment are all part of the toolkit available to create improvement in sales performance.

One component that is often overlooked, or at least, measured in an inefficient manner is performance feedback taken straight from the prospect and client. Most would refer to this as win loss analysis.

Too often, sales managers conduct a debrief with a sales rep or account manager to try to understand why they lost a specific deal in their pipeline. Really, what is the incentive of a sales rep to explain where he was unable to communicate value? And, even if integrity is not an issue, how can a sales rep possibly understand all of the client-side dynamics that were in play? Is the game of sales not unlike a shell game with both parties withholding some bits of information until divulgence is absolutely necessary? Price and competitive positioning come to mind as items that may or may not be shared in complete openness.

So, even if your sales reps are willing to participate in a post-sales interview, the story is obviously going to be influenced by the sales rep’s perception of the dynamics. While something is often better than nothing, are the perceptions of a sales rep valuable enough to be productive?

For 2008, you should consider a formal feedback process such as win loss. It makes sense to understand the sales team’s performance from the only perspective that matters; the one who is in a position to write you a check.

If done properly, a win loss program will provide you with an objective point of view, comparisons with the competition, evaluation of value proposition and a measurement of the expected impact of sales and marketing ideas versus their actual outcome.

Sure, the process costs a little money and will require a bit of time to completely implement. But, the upside is very lucrative. What if this type of feedback were to increase your sales win rate by 5-10% over a year’s time? What would the additional revenues mean? What would the additional profits be? Would 5-10% increased effectiveness (with the same people) make a difference in market share?

Just some thoughts to consider as plans are being made for 2008. Look for objective feedback and learn from your prospects.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Treat Strategic Accounts Like One-time Customers (10-10)

Today is the last in a 10-part series on why sales teams win and lose business. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

10. Treat your strategic accounts like one-time customers.

A final category of problems occurred when respondents felt that they were being slighted because their companies were not as large as others. The account managers in these situations failed to remember that customer relationships are not static and should not be gauged solely on the size of the account at the time, but also on its potential. It is extremely difficult to recover from the hard feelings caused by treating a customer as a “second class citizen,” as this respondent pointed out:

“The mid-sized companies need love, too. We went from platinum to a mid-sized account company and the attention [is awful]. When I was at [a larger company], if we yelled loud enough, we got problems fixed. With a mid-sized company, however, we get shuffled under the rug. I don't really understand that, but it might indicate that somebody with a bigger sale came along, so my sale wasn't important.”

An account manager can miss out on opportunities by forgetting that, just as large accounts can become mid-sized, those mid-sized accounts can also grow into the most profitable of strategic relationships. By continuing to ignore smaller accounts, there is also the very real possibility that the company and account manager will suffer from negative word-of-mouth advertising and poor references, making it difficult to win future sales in competitive situations.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Rely solely on face-to-face interactions (9-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

9. Rely solely on face-to-face interactions.

In the movie “Jerry Maguire,” a sports agent is referred to as the “King of the house calls. Master of the living room.” It seems that many sales representatives see themselves in this same light, assured that they can make the sale as soon as they can get some “face time” with the customer. However, you can’t be a master of the living room if you don’t get invited into the house, and according to many of the respondents, the most common invitation that gets lost is the RFP. The complexity of a strategic account requires a well-thought-out plan, and many customers determined the organizational skills of a supplier by the proposals that it submitted. By treating the RFP as a mere hoop that must be jumped through, account managers damaged their chances of success.

Some of the responses indicated that problems in response to an RFP were a sign that the supplier did not understand the situation or the project requirements, that the supplier did not have experience creating proposals or, as one respondent explained, that the supplier was trying to hide something:

“When we issued the RFP, [Company 1] was the only one that declined to offer pricing. It presented a nice package, but declined to give us this information. When I saw the pricing, after I threatened to reject them out of hand, I understood why it didn’t want to give it to me.”

In cases like these, the account managers would have to work extremely hard to rebuild the confidence and trust that was lost due to poorly constructed responses. Personal interactions are important. You cannot build a strong relationship without them. The opportunity for a personal interaction may never occur, however, unless you have built a strong case for why the customer should consider meeting with you in the first place.

Why Do Sales Teams LOSE? – Failing to Do Homework (8-10)

As mentioned, I’m going to present reasons why companies win and lose sales deals. These reasons were outlined by Ron Sathoff, a colleague of mine, in a great article for SAMA magazine called “Five Ways to Bolster Your Strategic Account Strategy, and Five Ways to Sabotage it.” (The article is available for download HERE)

This article was written to help answer the ultimate sales question, “How can we win a lot more deals?” In order to find the answer, Ron started by addressing the questions, “Why do we win and why do we lose?” Each of these points were taken from a library of thousands of win loss sales debriefs and compiled into performance rankings.

8. Fail to do your homework.

Another criterion associated with the Strategic Account Manager that had a negative gap was understanding and addressing the customer’s business needs. As with responsiveness, meeting the business needs of the customer was more often noticed when something went wrong. In these cases, account managers damaged their chances of a success when they failed to take the time to research the customer’s industry, company and particular situation. As one respondent commented, the first step to understanding the business needs of a customer is asking the right questions:

“I sat down with [Company 1] and said, ’Here are the 17 technical things that I am concerned about.’ They came back and asked more questions to understand how we do business and then gave me responses, whereas when I sat down with [Company 2], they said, ’Yes we can do that,‘ and I just didn't feel that same comfort that it was really taking the time to understand how we do business.”

By choosing not to take the time to fully understand the needs and requirements of the customer, an account manager can ensure that his or her organization will not be selected, or that there will be major problems later on if the company is selected. On the other hand, account managers who do their homework about the needs of the customer and the problems it faces can address those issues directly, reinforcing the value of the offering.