Brad Lewis Consulting » Sales

Have you validated your growth strategy?

brad7180 — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:40:37 +0000

Have you validated your growth strategy? Growth strategy is not a mystery and does not have to be as experimental as you may think. Conventionally, CEO’s have generalized about investing in new and existing markets based on high level trending and assumptions about their culture and core competency. Although this approach often produces marginal results, the fine tuning process can be quite expensive and time consuming. The keys to efficient sustainable growth are out in the field, in the answers provided by the people that pay the bills, your customers.

One secret to creating a predictable strategy is gathering field data from a market segment in such a manner that you gain valuable insight. You might hire a 3^rd party to objectively ask your clients and prospects what they want to buy instead of what you think you want to sell. Your clients will tell explain in their words (by vertical) for their reasons with their data about their problems. Clients actually love this process because they realize that you are trying to give them exactly what they want. In essence, we can capture what they want to buy from whom at what price. They will even provide clues to help package, price, and deliver your offering. The interviewer must have a neutral intention and be compassionate and capable of root cause analysis. These valuable pearls can help create the roadmap for a sustainable growth model. Objectivity and empathy is paramount.

For Example: I was recently hired to evaluate an industry specific selling strategy to determine if the brand, culture, services and sales strategy were aligned effectively against the segment. With comprehensive primary research and behind the scenes analytics we were quickly able to determine the feasibility for investing in new and existing verticals. This exercise resulted in reallocating a 7 figure investment from a lagging vertical to a high growth vertical where the returns are much higher. The information will allow you to hedge your bets for growth especially where there is a limited window of opportunity. Lesson learned: ability to see from the buyers lens what is most important and learn more about effective packaging and pricing to provide the products and services they want to buy; helpful to align your people and process around a winning strategy.

Tips: Questions to ask yourself:

Do I understand the buying behavior of my clients and prospects?

Have I validated how to package, price, and deliver my offering for my clients?

Does my analytics by market segment affect my growth strategy?

Can I validate that each market wants to buy what we want to sell?

Explaining the steps is easy, HOW you objectively question and get to root cause is a skill.

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Does your sales strategy align with your buyers?

brad7180 — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:38:38 +0000

Does your sales strategy align with your buyers? It is more important to know what your clients want to buy than what you think you want to sell. Most traditional selling strategies leave the client feeling pushed into buying for reasons other than their own. We often see cases where someone sells something without a deep understanding of the problems, how these problems impact the company and the individual by role, and quantifiably what happens if they decide to solve the problem or NOT. The sales cycle is shrinking and there is limited time to build rapport and understand the key objectives and motives of your prospects. The new economy is about helping consumers buy, not selling products and the chest thumping big EGO’s of the world will not survive in the new economy.

The internet empowered the buyer with relevant information to educate themselves and self qualify. Now selling requires empathy and a deep understanding of the business case drivers and motives that cause prospects to take action. The word “Empathy” is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Empathic Questioning with the intention to help the client do what is best for them IS the key to shifting the focus from selling to helping people buy. It is a long term proposition and there is no room for EGO here. We believe that customers buy for their own reasons and we should be aware of these motives whether it benefits us or not. The sales process is thoughtfully facilitating communication such that you ask your prospects and clients to take a deeper look at their challenges to decide if they want to go to the mat to resolve them. You must create a pleasant buying experience if you expect to get repeat business.

Example: I worked on a project several years ago and the sales team was using the traditional solution selling method and the competitive win ratio was 26%. After carefully interviewing the client and prospects it became obvious that what they were selling was not what the client wanted to buy. AND most of the post mortems showed that the clients did not feel understood and pushed into buying for reasons other than their own (manipulated). We installed components of a unique sales methodology and the win ratio hit 61% and the deal size went from 45k to 247k.

Tips: Questions to ask yourself:

Do I understand my client problems at Root Cause?

Do I understand the impact to them as individuals?

Quantifiably, what happens if they solve their problem or NOT?

What happens if they do nothing?

Explaining the steps is easy, HOW you objectively question and get to root cause is a skill.

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