To us, a championing leader means granting autonomy and trust. The best thing a leader can do is to let an individual contributor shine and bask in his or her own spotlight on stage. Giving decision making power to your team and believing these individuals act in the best interest of the company delivers great morale and great results but you must walk the talk here. You can’t say you champion them without the behaviors to back it up.

We’ve made a study of learning from and about Trusted Advisors over the last few years. We’ve spoken to many a client and colleague to see what separates Trusted Advisors from the rest of the pack. All in all, we’ve learned that success springs more from design and not by luck, mainly due to a consistent set of behaviors. We thought our observations were worth sharing with you. You no doubt have spotted some of these super hero qualities in your business meetings.

Are you doing any of the above? Do you have a person in your network whom you think embodies super hero qualities? If so, send them this post with our compliments! And, please introduce us to them. We’d love to shake their hands.

Here is the link to the original article:
http://12most.com/2011/08/02/12-cool-ways-trusted-advisors-superheroes/

Send me a proposal.

Get in line, might as well be the alternative response. We see a lot of sales organizations typically get caught in the strange game of “give me a proposal” by the customer/prospect.

90% of the time, this is due to not having a good understanding of the business problem. Not understanding what they really need and how you can differentiate yourself from the pack. You are another vendor, yet another provider. You all sound the same. Nothing separates you from your competition. Another reason why you don’t have the sale (and possibly not have the sale either). The only good thing here is that your competition also is providing a proposal. So what do you do?

It should not come as a shock that they have asked you for a proposal. If there is a clear understanding of the nature of the business problem, you should have been hired already and with a check in your hand. Then you can present a proposal which really becomes a presentation of whats going to be done.

A lot of companies work on getting what needs to be done in a proposal. Find the business problem and that takes care of everything.

How much do you cost?
How long have you been around?
What is your specialty?
All these and other questions are not objections (even though the industry tells you it is). They are clear signs that your prospects business problem has not been identified. If you are good at getting the business problem they will never question your specialty.

You ever been in a meeting where someone asks about your company history?
Have you been sitting there for a while explaining what it is that you do?

Generally speaking this is not a good sign where people believe they should educate their consumer about the company history. What they should be educating the consumer on, is finding and prioritizing their business problem.

People never read your brochures and documents unless they know its going to help them solve a problem.

Here is Part 6 of our 12 most likely reasons why you never had the sale.

Sit with the prospect and hear this?

This was a great meeting — I want to make sure that I keep you in my list of contacts as we have many projects coming up. Please send your product information to me.

What would be your response? Well our response is the following:

Doh! This means absolutely nothing. We recommend saving rainforests and not sending any follow up brochures. To be polite, send them to your site or LinkedIn profile instead.
Without getting into specifics, and understanding what they are referencing, this is really a vague statement. You have to clarify what they are seeking. Stop sending information people will never look at. Pure and simple.

Do you have something similar you can share? Share your comments with us either at the 12 Most site or on our Facebook page.

Look out for part 6 out tomorrow!

Regards,
Network Sommelier

Good morning,

Part 4 of our post continues:

Have you ever heard the following?

4. Wow, that sounds really expensive

If you have and probably the chances are that you have at some point in your sales career, its what we call “you never had the sale”. You could be in front of the wrong prospect. You have not done your home work. You didn’t build a relationship or you pitched way too early.
Contrary to popular belief, price is never the issue especially if you can demonstrate that you are capable of solving the right business problems. It’s a stalling tactic and it’s an effective one because it distracts from the point of solving their business problem. A similar comment is “I have also heard your competition is 30% cheaper.”
Have you heard this before?
Check out the other contributors to 12 most. Some good reading material.

Regards,
Network Sommelier

Hopefully you have been following along the series. If not, here is the original link to the full post:
http://12most.com/2011/06/20/12-signs-sale/

So here is Part 3:

3. Lets talk again in a few months
Better than #1 and somewhat better than #2 as there may be interest in speaking again because you’ve uncovered some of their pain. The trouble is that there is no clear understanding of who is calling whom and for what reason. This is vague and not a good sign. You could certainly display initiative and “go for it” in a few months but be careful not to be too pitchy. Our advice here is again to disqualify yourself.

So here is what you hear first:

I will get back to you in a few weeks or months. (This could also be heard in job hiring, selling a product, dating or in other aspects of life).

The good news is that it’s better than #1(we had mentioned this in the previous vlog which was; “Let me think it over”.

The bad news is that while you may have connected nominally with their pain, someone in their gut says that your competitor just may be a better option. If they tell you they will get back to you in 6 months, delete their number or contact details. Disqualify yourself as soon as you can from situations like this.

Why should I do this you might be thinking to yourself? Save yourself a ton of time and don’t drive yourself crazy.

We get asked all the time about why some sales never happen. Have you heard the famous “Let me think it over?”, probably many times. This is not really a desire to think it over. It’s a desire to back out politely without hurting your feelings. It often happens when you are not connecting with the true driver of this meeting: the customer’s pain. Are you solving the right business problem for the customer? If you can’t demonstrate that you can understand, let alone articulate their pain, but you’re eloquent at pitching, then you’re not adding value or helping the customer identify the solution. We recommend before getting an elevator pitch or talk about your product, identify the business problem and make sure you understand it. You can’t help? Don’t pitch. As easy as that.

Met a very interesting Non-for-Profit resource a while back (lets call it Company X for the sake of argument). In the meantime, my partner attends a great local conference and she meets a great speaker who could be a fantastic resource to Non-for-Profits. Separately, I had also met 2 Executive Directors at other Non-for-Profits that could have utilized the services of Company X.

With some bad luck my contact person at Company X leaves for another role. As the transition is happening, I am introduced (on email) to a new contact replacing previous person. I establish email contact with the new rep by saying:

I used to refer folks to your previous colleague. I have come across a great speaker and also have 2 Non-for-Profits that you can be a great resource for. Let me know how else I can be of help to you. This happens in late April as this change is happening. I hear nothing back in over 4 weeks. I forward the previous email, wanting to make sure that my email did not arrive in his spam folder. I get an email saying, this is the first email I have received from you. A few days later, I leave another voicemail and email repeating the same thing. I wait another 2 more weeks. I finally wrote, if there is no interest if my contacts, please let me know, so I stop wasting your time.

I get a one liner email finally saying, thanks for your interest, but I am not interested at this time. What interesting is that I am on the contast contact list of this person so despite the “I am not interested at this stage”, I still receive their regular emails. Any interesting lessons? When growth happens too quickly, don’t settle on “status quo”. Constantly strive for your best. One bad impression can not only damage reputation but also risk existing business.