Mastering the Complex Sale to Compete and Win_3

Assumption#2:TheComprehensionTrap 39 to act. He has entered the market because he knows there is a problem at some level and there are solutions available that likely address it. For the sake of discussion, let’s place this customer at around 60 percent on the decision prog-ress axis. The average customer’s knowledge of his or her company’s problems and the possible solutions to them are less complete. On average, customers have some under-standing of the nature of their problem, may have done considerable Internet research, and spoken to colleagues to learn more about the possible solutions, but they don’t have a significant depth of knowledge in either area. Let’s place this average customer at the 40 percent mark on the knowl-edge axis. When I plot these points on the graph, this customer’s area of comprehension fills just 24 percent of the field (see Figure 2.2). Clearly, he is not prepared to make a high-quality decision. FIGURE 2.2 The Decision Challenge 40 AVOIDING THE TRAPS OF SELF-COMMODITIZATION In other words, the ability of your customers to con-nect your solutions to their businesses is very limited. They recognize that they may have a problem, but they don’t have a clear understanding of what that problem entails, the risk they face, or how the solutions in the market can resolve it. A customer who does not compre-hend a solution will probably not buy it, will certainly not buy it quickly, and won’t be willing to pay a premium price for it. Assumption#3:ThePresentationTrap The negative consequences of the first two assumptions are exacerbated by a third assumption: presentation is the best way to educate customers and communicate in a sales process. Sales organizations devote a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources to the preparation and creation of compelling presentations. Everything salespeople do in the early stages of the sales process—the prospecting, con-tacting, and qualifying of potential customers—is aimed at creating an opportunity to present their solutions . . . and the sooner, the better. Everything they do after the presentation—including the preparation of proposals, overcoming objections, negotiating, and closing—is de-signed to support and reiterate the presentation. The irony is that most of this effort is lost on customers. As the deci-sion and comprehension traps suggest, most presentations are a waste of time. I’m not saying that presentations do not have a place in a viable sales process. They are, however, plagued by three fundamental problems: content, timing, and audi-ence. Salespeople tend to present too much, too soon, and to the wrong people. Assumption#3:ThePresentationTrap 41 Salespeople hate to hear this: Their companies have provided them with the tools and skills to prepare presenta-tions as the key weapon in their sales arsenal. It is their se-curity blanket, their comfort zone, and they fear giving it up. ‘‘Wait a minute,’’ they protest, ‘‘our presentations are aimed at educating customers. They will not buy what they don’t understand.’’ That is exactly right, customers will not buy what they don’t understand. Even though a presentation can lift the customer’s level of comprehension, it is one of the least ef-fective methods for accomplishing that goal. There are three reasons why: 1. A presentation, no matter how glitzy and sophisti-cated, is just a lecture. The salesperson is the teacher and the customer is the student. The salesperson teaches by telling. The big problem with teaching by telling is that we don’t remember even half of what we are told. People retain only about 30 percent of what they hear. The use of visual aids (e.g., a PowerPoint slide show) boosts retention rates to 40 percent, but the generally accepted rule of thumb among learning experts is that more than half of even the most sophis-ticated presentation will be lost.2 2. The vast majority—80 to 90 percent—of the typical sales presentation is devoted to describing the sales-person’s company, its solutions, and the rosy future being sold. Rarely do I see a presentation that devotes more than 10 to 20 percent of its focus to the customer and the customer’s current situation or problem. Therefore, while a presentation may raise the custom-er’s comprehension level, that gain is mainly centered on the solutions being presented. As we’ve already seen, however, customers are very often not aware of the existence or exact nature of their problems and the 42 AVOIDING THE TRAPS OF SELF-COMMODITIZATION cost of those problems. As a result, while customers may be greatly impressed with the offering being pre-sented, they still lack a clear understanding of two crit-ical connections: how the offering applies to their situation and the value the offering will deliver to their business. They do not know why they should buy, what risks they face if they do, and thus, lack a compel-ling reason to change and move ahead with the sale. RealityCheck IsYourProposalOffBalance? What percentage of your sales presentation/pro-posal is devoted to describing your company, your solution, and the company’s future? What percentage of your sales presentation/pro-posal is devoted to clarifying your customer’s busi-ness situation, problems, risks, and objectives? 3. There is a third reason that presentations are a waste of time in complex sales: Your competitors are likely fol-lowing the same strategy. They are also busy present-ing. Unless you have no competition, your customers will be communicating with them. They have meetings arranged with you and one, two, or even more of your competitors. In each meeting, a sales team is presenting the best side of its solutions. Your team is telling the customers that they need the solutions that only your company offers, and your competitors are making the same arguments about their solutions. In every case, the presentations are heavily skewed toward the seller and the solutions and the customer is often left out of the equation. Assumption#3:ThePresentationTrap 43 Look at this from the customer’s perspective. Based on what we learned so far, it is highly likely that two-thirds or more of the information that customers hear fall outside their area of comprehension and they don’t remember over half of what they hear and see. Further, what they do hear during multiple presentations sounds very much the same. It focuses almost exclusively on the solutions and is not connected to the reality of their unique situations. Leaving the customer to make these connections on their own is a perfect recipe for self-commoditization. How do customers then respond to competing presen-tations when they all sound so amazingly similar? Often, they attempt to make the complex understandable by weighing those elements that vendors’ offerings have in common and eliminating those elements that do not fit neatly into an over-simplified comparison chart. When this happens, the salesperson’s ability to differentiate his or her company’s offerings from the competition is subverted, and price, the one common denominator of all offers, again raises its ugly head and is likely to become the deciding factor in the sale. Customers may also respond by not responding. They listen politely as you ‘‘educate’’ them, thank you for your time, and promise to get back in touch when they are ready to make a decision. This is the setup for the Dry Run. Finally, some customers may actively respond. They may ask you to justify the information that you have presented or challenge the viability of your solution. This is the response that every conventional salesperson is conditioned to expect and trained to counter. The customer objects and the sales professional goes to work overcoming those objections. This sets the stage for the final and most lethal assumption of the Era 2 sales process. ... - tailieumienphi.vn