Chris Whyatt thinks...

A White Paper: Sales Readiness; the heart of sales excellence

Introduction

The consistent execution of all key elements of sales readiness in harmony leads to true sales excellence.

 

Mentor Group and Practical Bid Solutions have come together to put sales readiness at the heart of Mentor’s ADE (Assess, Develop, Evaluate) approach to drive salesforce effectiveness for clients.

This White Paper explains what sales readiness is, where it fits in a sales organisation, what the key elements are, what the different levels of capability look like, and the business value they deliver.

Premise for Sales Readiness

The premise for sales readiness is that successful selling has become more important and more difficult. Suppliers need to improve their sales capabilities or die.

If you would like to read the rest of this White Paper please email Chris Whyatt.

Announcing the Get to Great Account Management model

I am pleased to report that we have now developed a Get to Great Account Management model that covers the following 12 aspects of, naturally, account management:

1.   Understanding your Customers - How well do your Account Managers engage with their clients and prospects to understand their business strategy and requirements?

2.   Understanding your Capabilities - How well do your Account Managers understand the products and / or services they sell to clients and prospects?

3.   Understanding your Competition - How well do your Account Managers understand their competition and therefore their competitive position?

4.   Creating Opportunities - How well do your Account Managers proactively create opportunities?

5.   Qualifying Opportunities - How well do your Account Managers qualify opportunities throughout the sales process?

6.   Developing Win Strategies - How well do your Account Managers develop win strategies (win price, solution and differentiators) and define business value for individual opportunities?

7.   Proposing & Presenting - How well do your Account Managers propose / present solutions to clients?

8.   Negotiating & Closing - How well do your Account Managers negotiate and close opportunities to maximise revenue, margin and ensure mutually acceptable commercial contracts are in place?

9.   Reviewing & Learning - How well do your Account Managers review and learn from the success or otherwise of individual opportunities?

10.   Sales Processes - How well do your Account Managers follow the company sales process when creating, developing and closing opportunities?

11.   Leadership & Support - What level of leadership and support do Account Managers receive to enable them to maximise their sales performance?

12.   Sales Skills & Time - How well do your Account Managers understand the sales process, and do they have the skills and time to contribute?

Like our other models, it allows stakeholders to assess their current position rating and their aspirations against five levels of capability.

If you want to know more please let me know, as nothing is online yet at www.gettogreat.com.

Get to Great? Most people would be happy with Get to Survive!

Today I was discussing Get to Great with Jim Moffat, a new acquaintance, and he made the comment above.  How true!  I hereby copyright the phrase Get to Survive(tm) for here and eternity. 

Get to Great Launch 7th November in Bracknell UK

We are launching Get to Great in Bracknell on 7th November stating at 8am (bacon butties naturally) and going through until 10am.  We will be running through the Sales Readiness model so everyone who attends will go away with a prioritised scorecard for their organisation. 

If you want to attend please contact Pauline Crozier on 0870 421 5150. Places are limited.

PS. There is a London event planned for 21st November.

How to make pipeline reviews 100% more effective...

In my experience, successful sales teams regularly review their pipeline, perhaps on a weekly basis.  Several companies I have worked with schedule this for every Monday morning, enabling each sales person to dial in one by one from a far away lay-by to answer the usual questions from their manager.  All well and good; and the benefits are obvious.

 

The one flaw or oversight I find in this is the failure to include opportunities won or lost since the previous Monday.  Why bother I hear you say, after all, they are not in the pipeline anymore?

 

I think you should ‘bother’ because otherwise the pipeline review is not ‘informed’ by previous wins and losses.  Imagine a professional sports team ignoring the result from their last game, and just planning how to win the next one – unthinkable – or is it?

 

So start your next pipeline review with a look back at opportunities won (why you won, who you beat etc) and opportunities lost (why you lost, who beat you etc) and then see how much better informed you are to pass judgement and offer advice on the live opportunities in the pipeline.  Naturally, your CRM system will provide all the data you need – or will it?

 

Do you do something similar? Does it work for you? If not, why not give it a try?

An offer too good to refuse - and we will give £1 to charity for those who accept!

Over the last 10 years my passion for convincing suppliers that bidding should be considered a key business enabler within the business development lifecycle has overflowed into a number of articles. For no particular reason, now seemed like a good time to compile them into one document and make them available to insomniacs everywhere. The articles include:

·         Bring order to the chaos! How suppliers can improve the way they bid for business.

·         Hunters, farmers and that prized contract up for renewal!  How to retain a valued contract against stiff competition.

·         Closing a sale with a proactive proposal.

·         Customer proposals – a necessary evil? Why suppliers often feel this way and how to cure the feeling.

·         Writing a persuasive and effective sales document.

·         Bidding to Win – the 10 critical success factors.

·         Why ½ + ½ = Won! How proposals AND presentations must be joined up.

·         The Pursuit of Certainty. First two chapters of a new series yet to be completed.

If you would like a copy, or know someone else who would, please email Pauline Crozier and she will send you a PDF version by return.

For everyone who says yes to this offer we will donate £1 to charity, up to a limit of £1,000.  The money will be shared between an overseas charity (Resolve International, who focus on poverty in Nepal) and one home charity favoured by our friends at Women in Property (Construction Youth Trust).

 

I hope that this meets with your approval and that you enjoy the compendium of articles.

Please let us know.

Stop me if you've seen this before - pun intended!

My good friend Sharon Pink of Screen Idol sent me this wonderful link - once you have viewed it I think you will agree you have all been here before, usually when trying to write a management summary by committee.

Stop sign designed by committee!

Brilliant!

Management Summary or Executive Summary? I say neither!

The debate rages (OK, some people occasional discuss) whether the words at the start of a proposal should be called either Management Summary or Executive Summary?  I personally hate the word ‘executive’ – it’s a family trait as well; my Dad even had a letter published in The Times newspaper about the damn word!  His argument was around why something like a briefcase, a pen or an umbrella needs the word ‘executive’ in front of it.  I have to agree Dad; why indeed?

So what does ‘executive’ mean?  The Free Online Dictionary states:

ex·ec·u·tive

n.

1.    A person or group having administrative or managerial authority in an organization.

2.    The chief officer of a government, state, or political division.

3.    The branch of government charged with putting into effect a country's laws and the administering of its functions.

adj.

1.    Of, relating to, capable of, or suited for carrying out or executing: an advisory body lacking executive powers.

2.    Having, characterized by, or relating to administrative or managerial authority: the executive director of a drama troupe; executive experience and skills.

3.    Of or relating to the branch of government charged with the execution and administration of the nation's laws.

Love the reference to ‘drama troupe’ in the second list, point 2!  It often seems like you are dealing with an amateur dramatics society when you deal with some buyers.

In the context of business development and proposals, 'executive' usually means someone empowered or who has the authority to make a decision (buy), or to make a recommendation to buy, so the word works well when referring to an ‘executive’ summary, as that is who it is aimed at!

So what about ‘management’?  The Free Online Dictionary states:

man·age·ment

n.

1.    The act, manner, or practice of managing; handling, supervision, or control: management of a crisis; management of factory workers.

2.    The person or persons who control or direct a business or other enterprise.

3.    Skill in managing; executive ability.

Again, I think the business development version would be as with ‘executive’, so not sure that one word is better than the other; what do you guys and gals think?

Personally I think there is a simple answer – just call it the summary; one simple, single word!

So what does the dictionary say?

sum·ma·ry

adj.

1.    Presenting the substance in a condensed form; concise: a summary review.

2.    Performed speedily and without ceremony: summary justice; a summary rejection.

n. pl. sum·ma·ries

1.    A presentation of the substance of a body of material in a condensed form or by reducing it to its main points; an abstract.

I think that their definition says it all and would suggest that anyone writing a summary bears in mind the points made above, especially the words ‘concise’ and condensed form’!  The golden rule – no more than two pages please.

Perhaps the debate will rage now? Over to you!

 

Closing a sale with a proactive proposal! An article from 2001

I wrote this article back in September 2001 and was lucky enough to get it published in Salesforce magazine.  Click on this link

Download closing_a_sale_with_a_proactive_proposal_dynamic_proposals_sf_sept_01_p15.pdf

for the edited article from the magazine.  The original version is below.

Closing a sale with a proactive proposal!
Most ideas that help close a sale have a large degree of common sense written all over them.  So suggesting that sales people should use a proactive customer proposal to support their sale certainly falls into that category.  But if that is the case, why don’t more of them do it?  This article examines proactive proposals and suggests a simple way to produce them.

What is a proactive proposal?  A proactive proposal is a document produced by the selling organisation at a key stage in the sales cycle to try and close the business.  It is produced with the cooperation of the customer, specifically the project sponsor, who is ideally used to test a draft version with prior to formal submission.  A proactive proposal is primarily about demonstrating understanding and capability, as well as exerting influence.

What’s the difference between a proactive proposal and an unsolicited proposal?  The author would define the difference as being the level of cooperation and involvement of the customer; the customer (as defined above) ‘sponsors’ a proactive proposal, whereas an ‘unsolicited’ proposal is more of a shot in the dark or a kite flying exercise!

What are the benefits of a proactive proposal?  A proactive proposal should deliver the following highly desirable benefits:

• Demonstrates that you understand their business pains and the solution they seek
• Demonstrates your organisations capability to deliver a compliant solution
• Exerts influence over the customers business need, strategy and requirements
• Sets the agenda, creating the need and the case for action
• Tests the customer seriousness, budget, expectations and timescales – a positive response is an early buying signal; a negative response will save you a lot of time and money!
• Tests your assumptions
• Enables you to gain a better understanding of the politics, buying process and sign-off requirements etc
• Gives your coach a return on investment for all the time they have spent with you
• Gives your coach something to sell internally on your behalf, justifying his belief and sponsorship of you and your solution
• Gives your customer hard facts and figures to base a decision on, rather than a perception
• Puts you one ahead of the competition, who will probably be trying to do the same as you
• Sets an expectation with the customer of how you plan to do business and deliver your solution
• May remove the need for a tender, which will save both parties a lot of time and money
• If it does go to tender, will influence the requirement and content

So what should a proactive proposal contain?  The most important thing to weave into a proactive proposal is understanding; understanding of the business your customer is in, their issues, their constraints, their timescales and everything you have learned from working with them to get to this stage.

Rudyard Kipling is quoted as saying:

" I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew).  Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."

Keep this quote at the forefront of your mind when crafting your words.  Demonstrate to your customer that you understand the answers to all six questions.

I would suggest a document structure as follows:

• A front cover naturally.
• Standard proprietary stuff for your organisation (disclaimers etc).
• Table of Contents.
• Introduction – a paragraph on the purpose of this proposal.
• Background – what led up to this proposal, i.e. meetings, demonstrations etc.
• Management Summary of a maximum of two pages covering the following 6 points:
  1. Define your understanding of the customer's business requirements and issues – talk about them and don’t mention your organisation
  2. Define your understanding of the customer's required solution – the same rule applies, talk about them NOT you
  3. Define your understanding on the benefits and return on investment sought by the customer, same rule applies etc
  4. Define your proposed solution – what, where, when, how, who and save why for the next paragraph
  5. Define WHY your solution is right for them – three or four compelling reasons to buy your solution to meet their business requirement
  6. Define your costs, the timescales and the next action.
• Proposed Solution – an overview in a few pages of point 4 in the Management Summary.
• Proposed Costs – self explanatory, but ensure you give them choices if they need them, i.e. understand their budgetary position etc.
• Assumptions – state any assumptions that you have made or agreed that would effect your proposal if they were not to be.
• Options – talk about solutions that you want them to consider after this solution has been sold and delivered
• Appendices:, to include
  

• Solution Detail – a section that people can skim read that covers the widgets of your solution, i.e. standard marketing words and more
• Company Overview – talk generically about yourselves here because if they don’t know most of this you should be doing this now anyway

Depending on the complexity and value of your solution, such a document should take anywhere between one and ten days.  A lot of content should be what is known as ‘boilerplate’, i.e. standard product or service descriptions.  We have worked with a number of organisations to create this content, as well as creating a standard template to present it in, which helps to enforce a standard approach to this type of sales marketing, and make life easier for all concerned.

During our involvement with IBM/Lotus, we used the above approach with one junior sales person who set an example for us all to follow.  She took the first three points in the Management Summary (the ones that didn’t mention Lotus) and developed the words hand in hand with her coach, getting his input and approval BEFORE submitting them to us for inclusion on the final document.  This approach demonstrated initiative and a great relationship with the customer – and delivered the business!

Written by Chris Whyatt, Managing Director of Practical Bid Solutions, September 2001

 

The launch of Get to Great...

I know a blog is not meant to be a direct sales pitch but here goes anyway...

Today (Friday 11th July) saw the launch of Get to Great, which is (hopefully) explained fully at www.gettogreat.co.uk so please take a look and let me know what you think.

If you 'like' the video I might be persuaded to share the bloppers version with you.  Just ask.