sales training 1 pipeline

Strategic Value Selling (SVS) – Pipeline

A Different Perspective on Selling

“What?”(What is your offering?)

“So what?”(What’s the impact on my

business?)

“How much?”(Can you quantify the impact on

my business?)

“Can you prove it?”(Can you offer proof of your

ability to deliver through

references, tracking, and/or

guarantees?)

Four Questions From the Customer

Or your SEN Account Manager, or Greg

5/16/2016 Produced by Sales Guerillas 2

Are you good at sales?

Emerging Salesperson - Little ability to manage a customer and no ability to manage the threat of a competitor – The Peddler

Traditional Salesperson – places great emphasis on ‘personality selling’, and establishing a rapport with customers, but who may have a blind spot with regard to the competition.

Competitive Sales Professional – adept at managing both sets of issues, achieves competitive advantage by the way he or she sells.

Relationship Manager – their value is integral to the customers success so they achieve competitive immunity

What stage are you and what stage is your customer?

Pipeline – Enables Measurement

To measure what we are doing with this business

Deals in the pipeline indicate that you are active in the market

No deals in the pipeline indicate that you are inactive in the market

Increasing amount ($) and number of deals indicate that you are active in the market

Decreasing ($) and number of deals indicate that you not active in the market

Deals that increase in % indicate that you are in control of the sales process

Deals that decrease in %, slip, or disappear, indicate that you are not in control of the sales process

Pipeline – Enables Decisions

Increase a Partners territory

Increase a partners products

Relax the measurement variables

Relax the margins

Support a partner with marketing funds

Provide additional technical support as we are confident the sales process is in control

Pipeline – ensures your success

The amount ($) of pipeline indicates whether you have a chance of reaching YOURrequired revenue. You will lose deals to; competition, timing, budget cuts, companies going out of business, personnel leaving etc etc

In order to reach YOUR required revenues you must have 3 X YOUR required

revenue in the pipeline fo any period of time

If you want to achieve $50K in the next six months, you need either

$150K in the pipeline for closing in that period, before the period starts

OR

$100K at 60% and above for the period

OR

Maybe $80K at 80% and above for the period

Pipeline – Rules – for you and for me

Forecasting

Your forecast revenue/OI or whatever you are measured on must be +/- 5% on the quarter (next three months). It must also enable you to be on or above target at the end of each quarter or month. If it is not, you are not doing enough lead creation – get on the phone!!!!!!

Surprises

We don’t like surprises, that is changes to the forecast number, increases are maybe OK but shows you are not in control, and decreases are unacceptable and so is slippage. This very important if you want to sell your business and if you want another job!!!

Lesson from the top – this is the way Rob/Glenn think

Make all the numbers in every sector. If you can’t make all the numbers make the overall revenue. If you can’t make the revenue, make the margin. If you can’t make the margin, cut costs – that’s you and me!!!

IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE ABOVE, OR CANNOT DO IT – GET OUT OF SALES!!!

Pipeline – So how do you do it

Ask questions – MONEY, APPLICATION, NEED, TIMESCALE

The hardest of these is timescale

Year

Estimate the year the customer will buy, by asking when the financial year is. If you are speaking to them now and they are budgeting for 2015, the year is obviously 2015.

Then ask when they want it up and running. If they say September, suggest they will have to order in August, but that is holiday period, so it will be in June?

Firstly estimate the year, then the quarter, then the month.

Put the deal in on the last day of the period

For the year – Dec 20

For the quarter – 31 March, 30 June, 30 Sept, 20 Dec

You can bring a deal forward, but you cannot slip it.

If you slip it – YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL

In sales – you are as good as your last quarter.

Timing – The Compelling Event

The customer will be driven by a Compelling event. When BIOVIA asks when the

order is due, you must know when and why – you must know the Compelling event.

The ‘Compelling Event’ is driven by the customers need to act to either:

– Solve a problem

– Take advantage of an opportunity

Note: There can be multiple Compelling Events

Timing – The Compelling Event

The customer will be driven by a Compelling event. When BIOVIA asks when the

order is due, you must know when and why – you must know the Compelling event.

The ‘Compelling Event’ is driven by the customers need to act to either:

– Solve a problem

– Take advantage of an opportunity

Note: There can be multiple Compelling Events

Questions to ask:

• Why does the customer have to act and by when?

• What are the implications of the project being delayed?

• What will be the quantifiable impact on the customer’s business?

• What is the effect if the customer does nothing – the low cost option?

• What is the cost of doing nothing

• Why are they buying it in the first place, why don’t they just keep the money or buy something else?

The compelling event is there – you have to find it – and I want to know it!!!

Timing and % - Contract extract

At three months, you must be at 60%

or above!!!!

Examine your prospect M.A.N.T.

• MONEY – Do they have money – everyone has money! Your job is to

ensure that their money is allocated to your project, by ensuring you give the best return for their investment

• APPLICATION – You are talking to a Lab with no ELN – they have an

Application – you may have to show it to them – but it is there – If you are selling ELN – every decent size Lab should be in your pipeline.

• They have a NEED – it may be for an LES system and you know the need is to;

satisfy compliance regulations, reduce errors, improve processes – that’s why everyone buys LES – you may have to show them but they have a need –every QA/QC department should be on your pipeline.

• TIMESCALE – NOW you know about timescale

These are required to allocate technical resource – if you can’t answer the questions, you ‘ll go to the bottom of the list

DID YOU EVERNOTICE .....

Most salespeople win orders because of

outstanding sales abilities . . . . but lose orders

because of _______________________(?)

(please insert the desired excuse)

-price too high - lack of support - company reputation

-product too limited - customer incompetence - product is too old

-lack of advertising - manager incompetence - product is too new

-lack of resources - co-worker incompetence - I’m not feeling well

-competitor is tough - economy is good - I’ve been too busy

-competitor is unfair - economy is bad - your special excuse (?)

At the end of your call – ask yourself

• Is Accelrys differentiated and if so does it impact the productivity … and profitability of the customer?

• What has the person I’m talking to taken away from the conversation, in terms of the value we can give and our differentiation in terms of his options. How will he articulate that to his colleagues?

• Constantly ask yourself – if the prospect


In the final analysis it’s individuals that

compete … and in most cases, the better

salesperson wins …

… regardless of who they represent

YOU ARE IN SALES

MAKE SURE YOU ARE THE BEST

Want to know more?

Consulting rates apply

Contact [email protected]
