Dave Stein Bio/Archives

Before founding his sales consultancy, The Stein Advantage, Inc., in 1997, Dave Stein served for more than 20 years in various corporate executive sales and marketing roles. Now, through his coaching, speaking, writing, and training, Dave provides companies with substantial diagnostic and remedial expertise enabling them, among other capabilities, to readily overcome tough competitors, refocus their selling efforts resulting in new levels of credibility and differentiation with high-level executive buyers, and to hire the right sales professionals, all leading to greater and more consistent revenues. Dave is the author of the Amazon best-selling business book: How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition and Win the Big Sale, (Dearborn Trade Press, May 2004). Dave also writes the monthly “Smart Sales” column for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. For more information go to his website, www.HowWinnersSell.com, contact his office at info@HowWinnersSell.com, or call (845) 621-4100.

Profess Process - Revisited

I just reread Dale's post, "The Real Impact of Extended Buying Cycles."  (As an aside, I love Marketing Sherpa.  Ann Holland and I had a dialog several months ago about how people pirate articles (lots of mine, unfortunately) and posts, then publish them as their own.  Nasty business.  Illegal in many cases as well.  I've got a few little tricks that will enable you to know when that's being done to you.  If you're interested, let me know.

But it's the process thing that got me.  Dale is spot on.  As buyers get tougher (or more confused with options, or afraid to make decisions due to increased management and shareholder scrutiny), and the selling environment becomes more complex with bigger and bigger hurdles over which one has to jump, the only thing that provides a straight path to deliver on a goal is a process.  A component of that goal is closing business within the timeframe originally specified by the owner of that opportunity, usually the sales person. 

I've seen sales masters fall flat on their face when something changed in their environment because they had been selling as unconscious competents -- not really understanding how they were doing things -- just selling by the seat of their pants.  Those are the folks who claim selling is an art.  (I believe it's 90% science and 10% art.  Science is all about process, when you think about it.)

When a person or a sales organization employs a process, and then something changes in their environment, such as the entry of a new competitor, or a shift in the way customers buy, or the company for whom they sell has an "issue," the way to overcome that is to adjust the process, and then align the salespeople behind that through training and coaching.  What too many sales executives do when they recognize a change has cause them to miss their targets to wring their hands and leave it up to the salesperson to figure it out.

When you think about it, this all comes down to one thing in sales: either you plan or you don't.  If you plan, then you are, by definition, following a process. If you don't plan, you stumble through a random series of tactics never having a strategy to pave the path.  No wonder your selling cycles are getting longer.

It the most basic sense, every organization that sells must have a sales methodology (a set of processes) that been designed for and proven to work for them.  Sales education provides the opportunity for the people that sell to learn about and understand those processes.  Sales training enables them to practice using those processes.  Ongoing coaching supports their use in the field.

All of this is mission critical and quite strategic to a company's success.  Sales executives who have a kickoff meeting coming up and look on the Internet for someone to fill a two-day slot with some "training" don't really know what they are missing.  I do.  Process.

Dale, I profess process.

Posted by Dave Stein on December 1, 2005 at 07:38 PM in Business Growth | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How Do YOU Get the Most out of Sales Training?

For years now (going on 25), first as a sales rep, then as a sales executive, then as a sales consultant and coach, and always as a businessperson, I've wondered why, in many, many cases sales training doesn't work. 

My research shows that 72% of B2B sales people are not using a formal sales methodology or process.  But ask most senior executives or sales VPs and they will tell you that they believe that adherence to a formal methodology is a critical success factor for their team to achieve quota.

I'm not judging or condemning those who do the training, nor their students, nor those sales peoples' managers, nor the executives whose companies share the vision of more sales and therefore make those investments.

I work with numbers of companies, some of whom have invested literally tens of millions of dollars in training their people, installing sales methdologies, and generally trying to change the way they do business and a large percentage of them just don't get the return they expected.

There are standard reasons sales training (or sales process implementation) doesn't work.  Here are just a few:

• No executive buy-in (how few times senior executives (or even sales VPs) are in the room when their reps are trained;
• The Sales ESP (Sales Effectiveness Solution Provider--training company) doesn't understand their client's requirements, or if they do, they can't satisfy them;
• The client doesn't understand how to pick the right Sales ESP;
• The change required within the organization is not managed or even identified;
• Reward and compensation systems are not in place which align with the new behavior required for successful adoption;
• Many sales people (gotta love 'em) are, by nature, seat-of-the-pants type folks -- 180 degrees opposite of engineers.  Show ten average reps a step-by-step process and five will run the other way;
• New sales processes are not integrated with the rest of the operation (such as as marketing, post sales support and service).

What are the real issues behind the relative lack of success in adaption of formal sales processes?  Is it like losing weight?  Lots of people know they have to do it.  They know how.  They just don't have the discipline to do it right?  Or perhaps they are misinformed.  What they are learning doesn't provide what is required to sell successfully in today's hypercompetitive, buyers' market.

I'm interested in your opinions.

(c) 2005 -- Dave Stein -- All Rights Reserved

Posted by Dave Stein on August 19, 2005 at 05:01 PM in Business Growth | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sales Representatives: Please Be Courteous

I came across this in a hospital in Concord, NH.

The tone of this sign really puts things in perspective when you consider the uphill battle we face as professional salespeople.  The hospital is the customer.  I believe they have a view of salespeople that many others have as well, but don't express it so openly.  Others may choose just not to buy from us.

Two questions: (1) How did things get to the state where salespeople, as 5% of the working population of the U.S., are categorized like this? (2) If we deserve this treatment, what can we do to change the view that many have of us?

Another thing to consider. A few months ago, I was honored to be a judge at the National Collegiate Sales Competition. I was awed by the professionalism and competence of the 100 or so college students who participated. There are apparently some 40 universities that have a course of study (or courses) in professional selling. But not enough. I quickly looked on the websites of the prestigious "B" schools. In fact I searched for the words "sale" and "selling" and only found those in the body of marketing courses. Graduates of most business programs these days have had not one minute of education or training on sales. Why is that?

We seek ways to differentiate ourselves from our competitors in the eyes of our customers.  Perhaps it's the basics on which we need to focus, with integrity and competence being at the top of the list.

(c) 2005 -- Dave Stein -- All Rights Reserved

Posted by Dave Stein on August 2, 2005 at 03:47 PM in Customer Dialogue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is a Sales Objection an Obstacle or an Opportunity?

Things have changed in sales. It wasn’t many years ago that we talked about overcoming sales objections. A prospect would say to a salesperson, “…but you have no customers in my industry.” Or perhaps, “…but the price is too high.” (What they are really saying is “I’d buy your product, but…”) The salesperson was taught that objections were good—that they showed interest on the part of the buyer, and that these objections had to be gracefully overcome to win the sale. When you’ve been selling for a while, you learn that these objections very often become the reason you lose. Then the word overcome takes on a new meaning. It connotes contention—the prospect has a concern or an issue and you’ve somehow got to convince them (or overpower them) to win the sale.

Understand What Objections Really Are

Sales winners have a deeper understanding of what objections really are. They most often aren’t questions or concerns—they’re obstacles. Winners know what objections their prospects are likely to have even before the prospect does. That takes experience and objectivity—the willingness to seek and handle the truth about one’s own products, services, and company, and how those are perceived by their customers. Winners are well versed at positioning what will be a concern later as a non-issue, if not an advantage. Here is an example of how not to handle an objection: With all the political machinations going on, New York City was unable to resolve the new stadium issue before the International Olympic Committee came to visit during the spring of 2005. Most New Yorkers knew that not having a solid plan for a stadium was a major objection that would likely cause the IOC to choose another venue. Even when plans for a new stadium were announced, well after the IOC’s visit, New York was in overcoming objection mode. Too late. Any excitement or momentum that had been built by enthusiastic New Yorkers from the Mayor’s office had dwindled. Now that London has been selected as the host city for the 2012 Olympics, we can look back at the stadium issue as a classic example of what happens when a shortcoming is left to fester into an insurmountable objection.

Understanding Objections Can Lead to Better Qualification

There is another valuable benefit that comes from understanding what objections your customers will raise. It’s better qualification. If there are insurmountable objections you face from certain categories of potential customers, you might be well-advised to qualify out of those opportunities. That will leave you with considerably more time to pursue opportunities you can win, and your win rate will likely increase. Small vendors selling to larger companies are often faced with objections about their size near the end of sales cycles. Although this is commonly the result of bigger competitors “playing the risk card,” the smaller companies’ qualification processes should include not only early positioning of the value of doing business with a company of their size, but hard questions asked of the prospect regarding the importance of company size as a decision criterion. Hiding the fact that you represent a small company doesn’t work. What might is, “Does your company have any policies regarding doing business with smaller companies?” And, “Are there smaller companies with whom you are doing business now? If so, what expectations do you have of them.” The answers to those questions will help you decide whether an opportunity is worth pursuing or just a waste of time and money.

Turning Objections Into Opportunities

Here is an exercise that will enable you to “overcome” the objection challenge. Collect all the objections you’ve been faced with during the past two years. Which ones became non-issues through you providing more a detailed explanation to the prospect? Which ones were insurmountable and caused you to lose the deal? Take the first group and make sure you re-engineer your approach so as to provide clear, concise, and compelling information about those areas during the course of your presentations, demonstrations, meetings, and sales calls. Take the second group and build questions around those deficiencies, perceptions, or issues for your salespeople to ask during the early stages of contact with the prospect. I would much rather find out early that I am likely to be eliminated because I have no references in a new industry than to try to convince a risk-averse buyer that being the first user of my product is a good idea. Waiting until objections are raised by your prospect is not effective selling. Understand objections for what they are, redesign your approach, and win more business. (c) 2005 -- Dave Stein

Posted by Dave Stein on July 19, 2005 at 05:20 PM in Business Growth | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack