Читать книгу Critical Selling - Kane Nick - Страница 7

Maybe it's changing technology. Maybe it's the still-recovering economy, which in some sectors has yet to bounce back from the Great Recession. Maybe it's increased competition. Whatever the reason, it's useless to deny that sales is changing – and in dramatic ways. Researchers note, for example, that “[c]ompanies are reporting longer sales cycle times, lower conversion rates, less reliable forecasts, and compressed margins.”1

If the selling landscape is changing, so too is the buying landscape. Buying behavior is changing in numerous ways. Of course, today's buyers have always been and will always be different from the customers of yesterday. From the production era to the sales era to the marketing era to the information era, selling and buying have progressed, evolving with changing times, changing needs, and changing technology. It's no different today – except, perhaps, for the pace of change.

Back in the day, sales professionals held all the cards. If a customer needed something, the sales rep provided all the information, educated the customer, and drove the selling conversation. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Today, customers are in large part driving the selling conversation. In fact, many studies have shown, and thought leaders agree, that customers are much further along in the buying process before engaging the sales professional; some reports indicate that customers are as much as 60 percent of the way through their decision-making process by the time they connect with a sales rep.

The implications of these findings are no less than earthshaking. In addition to changing technology, a challenging economic climate, and increased global competition, sales professionals today now must deal with customers who are much further along in the decision-making process, who are much more educated, who are technologically savvy, and who are busier than ever. Customers often know what they want and have an idea of what it should cost as well as how long it should take to get it. They know what you and your competitors can offer, and they might even understand how the products and services you can provide vary from your competitors' products and services.

As a result, it's becoming harder and harder to differentiate yourself and your organization by what you sell. Products and features, options and benefits, prices and specials – despite all the various nuances that might make what you sell at least a little bit different from what your competitors are selling, the truth is it is much more difficult to differentiate on these points. Therefore, today's sales professionals face an important challenge: how to differentiate themselves from all the other sales professionals out there who are selling similar products and services for similar prices.

This is a critical point: in order to succeed, today's top-performing sales professionals must find ways to differentiate themselves. They do this by providing value in how they sell, not just by what they sell. They differentiate themselves by how they build credibility with their customers, by how they nurture customer relationships, and by how they become trusted advisors. In doing so, they can better sell to today's demanding buyers.

Throughout these pages, we'll discuss how these changes have affected the selling conversation, and we'll look at how applying the steps in the Critical Selling framework will help you accelerate the sales process and close more deals, all while remaining focused on the customer. We'll look at planning, opening, discovering, presenting, and closing. And we'll look at overcoming objections. But for now, let's focus on what it takes to sell to today's customer. Because the bottom line is that, despite all the changes, selling is still all about the customer.

That means that today's sales professionals have to focus on the customer. Our research has shown that top performers do several key things to remain customer-focused: they use the right sales approach in dealing with customers at whatever stage they are in their decision-making process. They understand how customers perceive them. And, finally, they work to become trusted advisors. But before they can do any of that successfully, they first have to recognize (and accept) the fact that buyers have changed.

Recognize That Buyers Have Changed

Yesterday's paradigms and yesterday's customers and yesterday's selling approaches no longer apply. Sales and selling are evolving, largely because buyers and buying are evolving. In many cases, buyers are bringing sales reps in much later in the process (the extent to which this happens depends in large part on the complexity of the sale). By some measures, most of the traditional sales process is already done by the time a customer even contacts a sales rep. Forbes recently noted, for instance, that about “57 percent of the sales process [has] just disappeared.”2

Faced with such data, it is useless to deny the facts that sales is changing and that customers have changed. Today's customers have little desire to have their hands held by sales reps who usher them through a lengthy decision-making process. Rather, buyers already have access to a lot of information, and chances are they've figured out their needs (or at least they think they've figured out their needs) before they've even reached out to you. Many likely have even already begun considering specific products or services that could meet their needs, solely based on what they've learned about your company.

Customers can do this because there's so much information out there. Your website; your competitors' websites; industry websites; online social media; traditional media; online, personal, and professional references; and so much more: all of these sources provide customers with avenues to conduct their own research in order to determine what products and services are available to meet their needs. As such, customers are doing much of the legwork that sales reps used to do. And, as a result, the customer may well be further along in the process than sales professionals are used to.

Not only have customers done much of the research but they're also often crafting their own solutions. The research they've conducted and the information they've gleaned from various sources allow them to identify their needs and determine what products and solutions will meet those needs. Today's customers know what they need, they know what they want, and they know how to get it. Furthermore, today's buyers not only know that there are various options available to them but also may even understand how they vary from one another. They have the ability to do the research and at times can determine what the points of differentiation are on price, features, and benefits.

In addition to all of this, buyers are busier than ever – just like everyone else. We're all doing more with less, working on tight deadlines, solving problems in a 24/7 world from which we can rarely, if ever, disconnect. Like the rest of us, buyers are busy and demanding. They have less time to spend (and less inclination to spend time) with salespeople.

1

Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman. “Dismantling the Sales Machine,” Harvard Business Review. November 2013. Retrieved April 29, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2013/11/dismantling-the-sales-machine

2

Scott Gillum. “The Disappearing Sales Process,” Forbes. January 7, 2013. Retrieved April 29, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2013/01/07/the-disappearing-sales-process/