CHAPTER 1

The Silver Bullet and the Buyer's Perspective

"I found out that if you are going to win the game, you had better be ready toadapt."

—Scotty Bowman, most winning coach in NHL history

The key to avoiding the silver bullet is to acknowledge that the buyer has themoney and the seller does not. Hence, the buyers make decisions about you andyour solution, and they are in control of the sales process.

Therefore, no world-class sales process exists, only a world-class buyingprocess. The silver bullet is nothing more than superstition. In fact, the termsales process is misleading. The sales team does not drive theprocess—the buyer does. The key to mastering this process—to tamingthe tornado that often ensues upon embarking on a new sales process—is tolearn how to align your sales process with the buyer's process. This starts byyour understanding the buyer's perspective.

Unfortunately, salespeople and teams have a tough reputation to overcome. Weoften hear the following complaints about sales teams:

* "The sales team was arrogant. They kept telling us what they wanted to tellus, not what we needed to know."

* "The sales reps are always talking. They talk nonstop about themselves, theircompany, and their solutions. They talk, talk, talk, but they never listen,which means they do not understand our business."

* "Every time we ask them a question, we get a slightly different answer, whichmakes it hard to know the truth and trust the sales team."

This reputation stems from a central assumption: as sellers, we often assumethat because we want to develop strategic relationships with buyers, the buyerswant to develop strategic relationships with us. We are so besotted with ourawesome solutions and the sexy features that we believe the benefits areintuitively obvious to all of our buyers. As a result, instead of helping ourbuyers understand how the solution will solve their problem, we jump straightinto what vendors think is cool and ignore the buyers' perspective.

We neglect to understand what the buyer perceives or believes to be true.

Critical to the ability to develop a relationship is our ability to putourselves in the buyers' shoes, culture, and business. In doing so, we can beginto understand the buyers' perspective.

The Two Critical Questions

When sellers identify opportunities, they immediately begin obsessing aboutbudgets and deadlines, busying themselves by worrying about closing sales andmoving on to the next big deal. Though the seller might see the obviousconnection between her solution and the buyer's challenge, the seller'smentality does little to assuage the buyer's fear that the proposed solutionwill not address his specific need.

Instead, the salesperson inadvertently sends a loud message to the buyer:I'm going to love you and leave you by the side of the road.

The seller can begin to rectify this by asking two critical questions. The firstquestion is directed to the buyer.

"What Happened in Your Business That Triggered Your Need for aSolution?"

This question not only helps the buyer feel understood, but answers to thissimple question reveal the buyer's needs and goals.

Surprisingly, most sales professionals cannot name their top three buyers'business goals. Can you? If you were given the challenge of listing thebusiness objectives of your top three buyers, would this information beingrained in your mind, or would you struggle to come up with one of theirgoals, much less three?

Next comes the second critical question, which you—thesalesperson—must be able to answer.

"What Do My Prospects, Buyers, and Customers Think About My Solution, MyCompany, and Me?"

At the end of the day, your own opinion of your solution and company does notmatter. Your competitors' and colleagues' opinions do not matter. Yourprospects are the ones who will decide to spend money with you, or not.Your buyers are the people who will share opinions with prospects andcreate your reputation. Your customers are the people who will validateor dispute information about your solution and your customer service skills.

Such opinions are crucially important. Yet an astounding number of salesprofessionals lack insight into how they are perceived by these most importantpeople.

The Buyer's Perspective of Salespeople

The second critical question requires the salesperson to consider not only thebuyers' perception of his personality, competence, reliability, and the like butalso the perception of his sophistication as a sales professional.

As sales representatives grow personally and within their organization, theyevolve from communicating product solutions to business solutions to strategicsolutions to the buyer.

As indicated in the pyramid, the majority of sales professionals are perceivedas product solution representatives. Most sales professionals start outin this category because they need time to evolve their business knowledge andgrow their abilities. Here are some characteristics of product solutionprofessionals:

Categorizing Sales Professionals

The Buyer's View

• They can intelligently discuss and represent the products and services theysell.

• They have some awareness of other customers who have used their products andservices.

• They can articulate some basic business and financial benefits and points ofimpact offered by their product or service.

Product solution representatives are typically good communicators whoprofessionally present and demonstrate their product and services. They havebasic organization skills, are decent with follow-up tasks and communication,and bond well with buyers. If they are to do business with solutionrepresentatives, buyers expect them to be knowledgeable and professional.

As you can see, the perception of product solution representatives is notnegative. The downside is that once a sales professional is pigeonholed as aproduct solution representative, the professional has a difficult timeconvincing buyers that he can be more strategic. As well, a product solutionrepresentative will not have much success meeting with executives on the buyingteam. Instead, executives will delegate the meeting to someone lower on thetotem pole.

The next category of sales professional—the perceived businesssolution professional—is more valuable to the buyer and is considereda problem solver. A business solution professional is more focused on value forthe buyer. The differences in perception of the business solution professionalover the product solution representative include the following:

• They have a clear understanding of how buyers and businesses use theirsolutions.

• They are credible when it comes to business discussions, and they exhibitstrong business acumen.

• They can help the buyers craft a business case for their solution.

As far as communication abilities, business solution professionals not only havean awareness of presentation skills and organization, but they also practicethese in every exchange and communication with the buyer. They share informationand can differentiate their solution; provide alternatives; and listen, align,and personalize business benefits and advantages of their solution. Businesssolution professionals might have potential access to a buying executive, butthey will not be seen as strategic partners. That is, while the buying executivemight accept a phone call or meeting from a business solution professional, theexecutive is not likely to reach out to a business solution professional tosolve a problem.

Though being perceived as a business solution professional bodes well, thestrategic solution sales professional sits at the top of the pyramidbecause there are fewer of these in the sales industry. The relationshipsbetween strategic solution sales professionals and their buyers providetremendous benefit to both vendor and buyer, but they don't happen overnight,and they are hard to come by. A strategic solution sales professional:

• Understands industry issues and challenges

• Can help individual buyers understand business

• Adds value to the buyer's organization

• Understands and can affect the buyer's political infrastructure

• Will strategize with a buyer, not for a buyer

• Looks at short-, mid-, and long-term challenges and objectives that impact thebuyer

• Demonstrates exceptional communication skills

• Might be promoted to an executive position

Strategic solution sales professionals typically have a more developed abilityto listen, internalize, and adjust on the fly. They think in a business sense,not a product or solution sense, and they act in the same manner. As such, abuyer considers the strategic professional to be a trusted advisor.

Without knowing which of these three categories she falls into, the salespersoncannot address any shortcomings the buyer might perceive. However, if asalesperson knows how she is perceived, she can: (1) take measures to change herbehavior and move up the pyramid and (2) accurately measure whether her behavioris working.

How can the seller determine into what category the executive buyerplaces her? The following pyramid represents the outcome of meetings with buyersbased on the buyers' perception of the sales professional or sales team.

As well as knowing how they are perceived, sellers must also take care toremember that the buyers likely know much less about the solutions than thesellers do. If a seller assumes a buyer knows more than he does, the seller willfail to draw the obvious connection between the need and solution.

In our discussions with sales and marketing teams, we always evaluate theseller's processes for analyzing wins and losses. More often than not, theseller's evaluation methods are confined to a debriefing of the sales team, askewed source that often ignores the most important part of the equation: thebuyer's opinion! If a deal is lost, the salesperson tends to blame it on theproduct or service; if the deal is won, the salesperson attributes the successto a superior sales strategy and the stellar sales professional leading the teamto victory. Regardless of whether these are truths or exaggerations, one thingis certain: the feedback is most often not coming from thesource—the buyer.

An organization must always ask the buyer for this feedback. For instance, aseller might simply ask the buyer questions like these: "What do you know aboutour solution?" "What have you heard about our company?"

By engaging the buyer in a dialogue, sales team members gather criticalinformation about how they are being perceived by those in power or those whohave a vote.

Before you can make any significant improvements in the way that you interactwith prospects and customers, you have to interact with them and listen to whatthey have to say! In fact, this entire book is dedicated to helping youcommunicate with and gather feedback from current and potential customers.Remember how you felt your first day on the job? You were likely overwhelmed,confused, and lacking information about where to start. Remember that day, andimagine that your buyers are just as overwhelmed and confused. In this way, youcan feed them the critical information they need to do their job and make adecision about your solution.

Let's take a look at two examples that illustrate why this feedback is soimportant.

Situation #1: A seller (Maltern Software) who provides contactmanagement technology believes it has great solutions—and it does. Thecompany loves to give product demonstrations that highlight all the product'sbells and whistles. They believe that their technology really sizzles.

Yet the buyer—Hargrove—perceives "sizzle" a little differently. Readwhat Anna had to say when we interviewed her on behalf of the technologycompany:

"We really liked Maltern's sales team. We know the organization is reputable,but the solution's complexity did not address our requirements. We felt asthough we had already given the company exactly what we needed in the way of ourrequirements. But what we heard and saw during the demonstration confused us. Wedid not need all those features, and the solution seemed too complicated. Mostof what they showed us did not apply, so we did not think they listened to ourneeds."

Of course, "upselling" and expanding the deal are important parts of the sellingprocess, but this is a classic example of a difference in perception. The buyerdid not think the bells and whistles sizzled. To the contrary, Hargrove feltthat the bells and whistles made the solution convoluted and confusing.

I hear these same sentiments over and over from buyers. The sales team perfectsits sale pitch and then acts on autopilot, delivering the same "sizzling" spielover and over without engaging the buyer and reacting to his signals.

Liken this to your commute to work, which you likely have perfected. You knowthe quickest route, each street sign, and each traffic light. Have you driven tothe office only to arrive and realize you have little memory of the turns youmade? The commute is so ingrained in your brain that you take little notice ofthe scenery. You simply go through the motions.

Yet, when you drive to a new location, you are focused. You pay attention toeach street sign. You are altogether aware of the traffic signals. If you makethe wrong turn, you quickly take the appropriate steps to get back on track.When you arrive, you can distinctly remember the drive. You are fully engaged.

The first example—the familiar commute—is easier. It is certainlymore comfortable. Yet when engaging a buyer, the second is the better analogy:the sales process is always a new drive. Yet too many salespeople are onautopilot, delivering the same presentation over and over again. They are socomfortable with their own solution knowledge that they put little attention onengaging themselves in the buyer's needs.

Let's take a look at one more example.

Situation #2: Hargrove recently released an RFP to hire a publicrelations firm to the tune of $1,250,000. The CEO expected several of the sevenpublic relations firms submitting proposals to focus on Hargrove.

Hargrove's intent was to use the RFP as a filter for the seven companies thatlooked interesting, but the CEO also wanted to see which of the seven called herto learn more about the business before responding to the RFP. The CEO wassurprised when only three of the seven called her to ask questions or uncovermore about the business.

To her delight, the three firms that took the initiative to contact her includedin the RFP the knowledge they gleaned from that conversation, so Hargroveinvited them—and two others—to come back for a second-roundinterview. Of the seven firms that submitted proposals, two used a boilerplateproposal that did not address the clearly stated objectives of the RFP. Hargroveremoved them from consideration.

The CEO invited the five whose proposals showed initiative to spend an hour withher buying team for deeper discovery so that the sellers could prepare theirpresentations.

When these companies delivered their presentations, the CEO was shocked.Hargrove's budget would have boosted each of these firms' bottom lines. Afterall, this was no small-potatoes job; Hargrove meant business. Yet four of thefive companies delivered standard presentations that could have been deliveredto any buyer. The sellers failed to incorporate basic information such asHargrove's mission. They certainly did not demonstrate an understanding of theroles of the executives, nor did they understand the client base.

The company Hargrove selected was a complete standout. Keep in mind that thiscompany did not have a secret recipe. The actions they took were basic. Theysimply named Hargrove's clients, clearly understood the company's mission, anddelivered specific examples of how their firm would address Hargrove's needs.

All the other public relations firms wasted the CEO's time with discovery andpresentations that focused on the seller. One of the sellers was extraordinarilycompetent and professional. Its team's knowledge of the industry wasunsurpassed. Yet they lost the deal.

Why?

The CEO's buying team had the perception that this sales team did notlisten to them. Had the team simply asked Hargrove about the company's needs andresponded accordingly by reiterating this information when presenting thesolution, Hargrove would have learned how it could benefit from the seller'ssolution.

This happens every day to thousands of companies. The sales teams are momentsaway from connecting with buyers. They have all the ingredients but one. Thesales teams are smart, competent, aware, and reliable, but they have differentperceptions about what is needed, and missing this one critical ingredient coststhem a sale.

Think of it this way: Imagine again that you are driving, this time to thegrocery store, a drive you probably take at least weekly. Think about what yousee and feel along the way. Now imagine the drive back home. Again, consider thethings you see and how you feel. Though you are proceeding down the same roadyou traveled on your way to the store, you focus on different things; thescenery, views, and emotions related to the route seem different.

(Continues...)