Sales Process & Communication Rajesh Sengamedu 01 August 2006
Sales Process & Communication
Rajesh Sengamedu
01 August 2006
Presentation Objectives • Who is a sales person?
• What is the generic sales
process?
• Communication pitfalls
• Improving
communication
• Summary
Disclaimer Statements & Request
• I BELIEVE, contents of this presentation is NOTHING NEW to any one of you
– I will only reinforce what each one of know about how to win more customers, gain customer satisfaction
• Listen to this presentation with your gut-feel /instincts
– This is practical & common-sense approach
– I use it consciously most of the time
• My objective is to share my experiences in sales
– I am NOT intending to teach /preach
– Anybody who wishes to take vigorous ‘notes’ is going to miss my point
• REQUEST: Time is short, BE INTERACTIVE
– This is NOT a one way traffic
Let’s begin with SIMPLE QUESTION
• What business is your company into?
SIMPLE QUESTIONS, SIMPLE ANSWERS
Making Money!
HOW?
• We have to find ‘somebody’ who will give us money• In exchange for ‘something’
– They would value– They need
• NOT in exchange for ‘something’– We have– We can give
• ‘Somebody’ = Customer• ‘Something’ = ?
– Tough to define!!• Our Product?• Our Service?• Our Reputation?• Our Roadmap?
– Usually it is a combination of all that wins us customers
‘EXCHANGE’• Exchange is a sale
– Customer signing the PO!!!
• SALE is the most important step
– To get customers
– To make money
– To get our salaries
– To invest in new products
– To get more customers
– To make more money
• Ignore SALE
– Reverse of the above!! VICIOUS
VIRTUOUS
ALL OF US HAVE TO BECOME SALES GUYS!!!!!
RIGHT / WRONG?
Who is a sales person?
WHO ?
ACCOUNT MANAGER
FAE
CUST. SUPPORT
ENGG./ MKTG.
GM / CEO
Who is a sales person?
ACCOUNT MANAGER
FAE
CUST. SUPPORT
ENGG./ MKTG.
GM / CEO
Everybody is a sales guy!!• Degree differs
• Everything we do should focus on customer
– Not engineering
– Not technology
– Not product
• Winning and growing customer base is like
– Playing football OR 4x100m relay race
– Teamwork & Coordination is the key
• Focus on ‘outside in’ rather than ‘inside out’
The Generic Sales Process: AIDA• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action
• Questions:
– Is AIDA the responsibility
entirely of a ‘sales’ guy?
– How can the team contribute
in the sales process?
Communication
• Our only tool for AIDA
• Methods
– Email < Telephone < IM <F2F
– Other methods: web,
tradeshows etc
• (this is not focus of this
presentation)
• Understand customer needs
by listening / active
participation
– ‘Outside-in’ approach
– Helps in presenting our value
appropriately
Customer Your company
Six Critical Relationship Skills
• Presence– Communicate Energy, Interest
• Relating– Build rapport, use ack, empathize
• Questioning– Will talk in detail in next slides
• Listening– Will talk in detail in next slides
• Positioning– Demonstrate value and apply by customizing product knowledge to
customer needs
• Checking– Get feedback– Validate Assumptions
• ASSUME: Remove ‘U’ and ‘ME’ and you will become one if you assume
Common pitfalls in communication
• One-way traffic– ‘I will dump all the info I have on to the customer’
– Let him sort, collate and make sense of the info
• I have a short meeting, but SO MUCH to talk– Dump, dump, dump!
• Not listening to what the customer is saying– No attempt to understand his problems
– No attempt to understand seriousness of his concerns
– Customer saying that he is going to be in a soup if we do not deliver that bug-fix by 3 days!
• Not sticking to our simple committments– Ex: Customer expects response in 2 days and we don’t
– Ex: Calling customer later than agreed time
– Ex: Promising a customer he will receive our email by end of the day
• Not communicating value appropriately– Value implies, solution meeting customer needs, not product that we
have
BALANCE & SEDUCTION• Build
– Personal Equity
– Organisational Equity
• People buy from people they respect
– Attention to small things will increase their respect for you
– Call customer when you don’t need him
• Emotional bank balance
– Debits /credits keep happening all the time
– Trick is to increase credits for winning respect
• Seduce your customer to go to bed with you!
Why are we afraid to ask questions?
• No time
• I will lose control
• Customer may think I am not prepared
• Customer will object
• I risk offending customer
• I have to answer
• Worse of all, I know all his problems!!
Improving communication• Remember Ganesha!
– His ears are bigger than his mouth– Listen twice over: Talk Once / 2:1 rule
� Ask questions to understand customer needs� 6 WIVES, 1 HUSBAND
� Use Open Ended Questions beginning with
� WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, WHICH, WHO, HOW
� Information sharing� Each one of us knows some but not all
aspect of customer needs
� Customer knows his needs better
� We have to team-work to learn his needs
KEY MESSAGES
• LISTEN, LISTEN: TALK
• TEAMWORK ALONE CAN SCORE GOALS
• DELIVER YOUR SMALL COMMITMENTS
• SET UP TO SCORE GOAL
– PLAN, TIME IT, PASS THE BALL, SCORE THE GOAL
Call for Action
• Request your feedback
– Just email me your ‘A HA’: One liner, good enough
• Jot down in a piece of paper
– What are the top 3 things you would do
differently?