Establishing a Systematic Sales Process
for Your Sales Team

Our sales methodology is built around the concept of being a percentage player. What that means is that everything you try will have different outcomes depending on the circumstances, the timing, the personalities of the players, and the situation. Our selling system is by no means foolproof and neither is any other. The remarkable beauty of our sales system is that when it fails, it fails quickly and effortlessly. In sales, there are always two winners: the one who was awarded the sale and the one who lost quickly while minimizing their time, information, resources and their self-concept. The reason why many salespeople don’t get to the next level in sales is because they succeed frequently and they don’t know why, and they fail frequently and they don’t know why. Our sales system works in tandem to optimize winning and minimize damage control in losing. For the salesperson transitioning to this more strategic sales approach, the ladder is the area where improvement first surfaces.

There are 7 steps to the Tangent Knowledge Systems’ sales process:

STEP 1 The Initial Shared Agenda

The initial shared agenda sets the stage for the ground rules and expectations of the sales call for both the seller and the prospect. It sets the tone of how the call will proceed and creates your position of differentiation.

Without the initial agenda, sales calls can be rudderless and without any focus on strategy. But the most important element is the use of the “language of trust” and how it sets the stage of building a relationship on trust, care, and understanding in lieu of just likeability, needs, information and mutual interest.

The initial agenda is probably one of the most difficult strategies for the uninitiated because it puts the perception of control in the hands of the prospect and it makes “no” a viable outcome. The strategy can only be achieved by taking a non-selling posture, which means you are an objective, detached observer at the selling event. You act as a neutral “change agent” with the goal of helping the prospect discover their problems, assess their consequences, gauge the timing and importance to act or not to act based on their stated mission.

The following are examples of a generic meeting agenda and its steps:

1. “Thanks for inviting me in today. By the way, how are you for time today?”

Goal: Create a guest-host relationship where you were invited in as opposed to begging yourself in. Also the question about time shows you respect their time.

2. “Did you have an agenda or any questions you wanted to ask of me before I get started?”

Goal: Honor their position by showing them they are in control.

3. “We always take a position that we aren’t sure if we can help you or if what we have is specifically right for you.”

Goal: Sets the stage that this call will be different than what they are accustomed to. By embedding a subtle negative you are demonstrating that you are here to learn and you aren’t here to push your sales agenda. This is where your start to build a relationship on trust and understanding.

4. “In order for me to know if we are a good fit, I’d like to ask you some questions, with the objective to learn more about your business and what you are looking for. I’m sure you’ll have some questions to ask of me about our company, our capabilities and our products, which I welcome.”

Goal: Prospects aren’t accustomed to having salespeople ask a lot of questions so you’ll have to make them comfortable. More than likely, they are anticipating some product capability presentation or a dog and pony show.

5. “And maybe at the end of our meeting we can determine if we are a good fit or not. And by the way, if you feel we aren’t, would you be comfortable in telling me so, so that I don’t waste your time?”

Goal: Making “no” an acceptable answer is the ultimate compliment in creating trust. It honors your prospect’s independence. And it saves them their time and energy.

6. “In preparing for this meeting, I went to your website and learned that… (summarize your findings), but what I really wanted to learn from you is, what are the most important goals and initiatives you are working on in the next six to twelve months regarding the sales side of your business, and what hurdles or issues if any are you experiencing in getting there?”

Goal: Going to the website shows that they are important enough for you to research their company. Understanding the big picture allows you to be more strategic.

The initial shared agenda attempts to alleviate some of the initial stress and questions that proceed any sales call for a prospect: how long is this really going to take, what do they have up their sleeve, what products are they going to try to push on me today, do they understand my business, when are they going to try to close me and how can I get out of this gracefully if I’m not interested?

STEP 2 Conditions for Change/Discovery

People buy for one of two reasons. One reason is for gain, opportunity and advantage. The other is for pain, fear, insecurity, loss and a sense of dissatisfaction. You can probably guess which is a far stronger motive. Psychological research supports that 90% of buying decisions are driven by pain. However, if you examine the way most salespeople sell you will see they are working on the wrong end of the problem. They sell from a position of gain and not pain. And they sell logically and intellectually instead of emotionally. People buy emotionally and they justify their decision intellectually. Most salespeople build their strategy around a logical and intellectual platform that again misses the mark.

Initially all indications or stated pains are just surface pains. The real discovery process now begins in determining the cost, the consequences, the accountability and the actionability of your prospect’s pain.

So your job is to take the role of a “change agent” in allowing your prospect the freedom to self-discover and self-examine their problems without the influence of your selling agenda. The salesperson is best served when they take the role of a third party observer at the selling event.

The salesperson is now free to ask questions that get to the truth, even at the cost of undermining their own selling position. You want to expose your prospect’s problems and at the same time balance it with exposing all the reasons that would motivate them not to take action or to consider the problem a low priority. As an independent advisor and counselor you have no vested interest either way. That is a position that will turn upside down everything most salespeople hold true and sacred. Stop selling, presenting, providing solutions and closing and get your prospects to first sell themselves and then sell you. This removes all the burden of proof and stress on the salesperson and puts it squarely on the shoulders of where it rightfully belongs, which is with the prospect.

If you can’t find pain or create it then the chances are slim to none that your prospect will change and your best course of action is to withdraw or reprioritize the opportunity. People will always do what they’ve always done until the pain of change is less than the pain of the status quo. And what most overly enthusiastic, product- centric salespeople never realize is in the minds of the prospect, the salesperson represents the ultimate pain… and that is the pain of change.

To determine if it is worth the pain of change, you have to build and craft a well- thought out objective business case as to the pros and cons of changing. In most cases, this has nothing to do with your product or service. So leave your PowerPoint and all the attendant bells and whistles in the trunk of your car permanently, because selling rarely has anything to do with what you are selling. Keep in mind the best presentation (product capabilities, justification) is no presentation at all. The best presentation or education you can provide is educating your prospect on learning more about their problems and their consequences and how it relates to their most important success factors for their company. In many cases, your biggest competition is the behemoth, the well entrenched, and always favored market leader, which they are always comfortable turning to with minimum risk: Status Quo Inc.

Once you have isolated the problem, the following is a small sampling of the follow-up questions to determine the ramifications and the actionability of their problems:

• “How long has it been a problem?”
• “What have you done to fix it?”
• “How long have you been thinking about this problem?”
• “How is it impacting you and your company?”
• “How much is it costing you?”
• “What is your stake in the resolution?”
• “When you went to your existing supplier and shared your frustrations, what reassurances did they give you that the problem would be rectified?”
• “With or without us, how committed are you to fixing the problem?”

If they don’t have any pain that is actionable, or they have pain but they have a high threshold for living with it, then you have nowhere to go. In sales, there are always two winners: the one who was awarded the sale and the other who lost quickly and effortlessly. This should be your guiding light when you are qualifying accounts. 90% of all sales are won and lost in the ‘conditions/discovery for change’ step. In traditional product-centric sales, this discovery step is strictly a cursory step and a courtesy as salespeople run to the exciting dog and pony show. The act of taking a prospect through this self-discovery process is what relationship selling is built on. This is the best way to build trust and rapport.

STEP 3 Investment -- “Show Me The Money”

This step covers three areas of investment: funding, timing and resources. If they have pain and have a compelling reason to change but they can’t afford your solution or haven’t the available funds, what is the likelihood of change? Nil! But, what if they do have the funds but can’t seem to get their act together to invest the time necessary to initiate a change. What is the likelihood of change? Slim to nothing. Or, they have pain, the means and the timing, but can’t marshal the necessary resources to make the change happen efficiently and effectively, what is the likelihood of change? Negligible.

To find out if they are willing to allocate the funds necessary to get rid of their pain, all you have to do is go back to what they told you the pain was costing them in Step 2 to determine if they are willing to invest X to get rid of Y. Most salespeople build their case around the idea that if the funds are there that they can be allocated. In some cases, they’ve got the money, they just aren’t going to spend it with you.

In the investment step, it is also critical to find out what they are willing to invest (dollars) to get rid of their pain. If they aren’t willing to share this information, it is more than likely that you didn’t do a good job of creating rapport or trust in Step 1 or Step 2. Money is never the real issue, the real issue is that they may believe your solution isn’t worth the money, and in some cases, it isn’t because you didn’t or couldn’t build a strong enough business case or business justification for them to change. That’s why your job description mirrors more of a business strategist or consultant than it does a salesperson.

Understanding the timing is a critical area that most salespeople ignore or breeze over. In relationship to other initiatives and projects the prospect is working on, do they have the time and is the timing favorable to execute a change? How many times have you been stalled and left at the altar by a prospect’s denial of the amount of time they will have to put aside to push this project through, or the prospect’s unwillingness to take time away from other projects to expedite yours?

Likewise with resources. If they have to reallocate resources away from emergency funds and IT to your project and your prospect doesn’t have the political will or influence to reallocate these high demand resources, your rosy future is dead in the water. So you must learn all about what is going on in the company and what are all the competing initiatives and mission critical projects that might supersede your solution. Learn to ask the tough questions that will get you to the truth and the only way to effectively do that is asking questions that are in your disfavor and have the potential to dismantle your selling position. This strategy is likened to “going for no” instead of always asking favorable questions that will elicit “yes” answers.

If they have pain, but don’t have the funds, the time, or the resources necessary to facilitate the change, then you can withdraw, or you may reprioritize your prospect and make them a “B” account instead of an “A” account. Too many salespeople are reluctant to bring up money and proceed to making world-class presentations to prospects who have no means to buy.

STEP 4 Decision Process -- Who, When, Where

Typically the decision step is skimmed over quickly because by the time most salespeople get there, they are so excited to get to the close. The questions most salespeople default to in locating the decision maker is the “who” question. The “who” question will always get you the wrong information. If you ask the non-decision maker if they are the new decision maker and they answer yes, what they really heard, or better yet, what their ego heard, is “are you the decision maker to bring this to the final decision maker?” The flip side is when you ask the real decision maker who the decision maker is, that individual, feeling pressure, palms you off on a fictitious committee that allegedly makes a group decision, letting them off the hook.

What you need to ask are process questions. Process questions uncover the “progression of events” that lead to a decision. These questions include the who, what, where, when, why and how. The following are very important elements to ascertain in the decision making step:

• “Who has the ear of senior management?”
• “Who can shut this proposal down?”
• “Specifically, who needs to be on board?”
• “Who are the financial stakeholders, champions, technical evaluators, cost evaluators and end users?”
• “What will you need to win support of others?”
• “What was the decision process you used last time when you made a decision like this?”
• “Who signs the check?”
• “Does the CEO rubber-stamp this or are they intimately involved”?
• “Beside yourself, does anyone else help you in making this decision?”
• “What reason would you use to recommend us and can you think of any reason at this stage not to recommend us?”
• “When is the latest you’d like to make a decision? Why is that date important?”

In the event they aren’t the financial decision maker, you must prepare yourself to sell the invisible decision maker or committee. Before you proceed to submit your proposal so it can be in turn submitted to the committee or final decision maker, make sure you understand the process and the past history of similar situations. Keep in mind that you always want to bring the future to the present if you are going to be an absentee salesperson at the final event. Here are some questions you might want to ask to increase your odds:

• “When you present to the committee do you recommend one choice or a couple of alternatives?”
• “What questions do you think they’ll ask of you?”
• “What criteria will be important to them?”
• “What objections will they raise?”
• “Will I have access to the members of the committee before you present?”
• “What if they ask questions of you and you can’t answer them sufficiently? Would you like me to be available by cell to help you? Would it be helpful if I was at your office and available at the time to answer any questions?”
• “What will you do if they turn you down?”

If you are locked out of the decision process and you believe your competition has the inside track, you may need to reevaluate your commitment or change your strategy. You always have the choice of backing out and not playing by their rules if they don’t favor your cause. This decision will rest heavily on many variables including the health of your existing pipeline and how busy you are.

Once you have a prospect who has pain that they can’t live with, has the time and means to allocate to get rid of this pain, and is in a position to make a decision to spend the money to get rid of their pain… then you have a qualified prospect. This prospect is now qualified for your time, your information, your company resources, and your self-esteem that you’ll now be putting into this deal. However, if they aren’t in a position to make a decision or if you don’t have the right access, then more than likely you are just whistling in the wind. If you have really done your due diligence and properly qualified them for pain, investment and decision process then I believe you have certifiable, qualified prospect. They will definitely buy from someone. What we don’t know for sure is who they will buy from. However, if you took the time and had the expertise to do the following I believe you will be very well positioned to be awarded the deal:

• You helped them identify their problem in a way that they never thought of, therefore differentiating yourself from your competition.
• You helped them do a cost/benefit analysis of their problem so that they understand the cost of moving forward and the consequences of inaction.
• You took the position of a business strategist and built a business case, not a product-centric case.
• Since you took the time to understand their problem better than your competition did, it is implied that you will now be in a better position to give the best solution. Remember the salesperson who does the best job of identifying and understanding their problems will consistently outsell the salesperson that has the best product or solution.
• Because you did the preceding, you are in the best position to have the strongest relationship with your prospect. And relationships are what prospects put their trust and confidence in.

But before we jump to presenting our solution, there is a very critical intermediary step that needs to be dealt with. This is the step we confirm for the timing of how the deal will go down.

STEP 5 The Pre-Commitment Agreement

Your purpose in this step is to ascertain what specifically happens after you make your presentation or outline your solution. For example: “John, if I present my solution to you next Tuesday will you have everything necessary you need to be able to give me a “yes” or “no” decision?” This question firms up everything you learned in the preceding steps. In sales, your job isn’t to sell. Your mandate is to get people to make decisions and to allow “no” as a viable choice. Too often salespeople will do the traditional close of, “If I can show you a way to solve your problem, will you buy today?” And too often they get the traditional response of “yes” when in fact it is a very conditional and tenuous “yes”.

Be prepared at this point to have the prospect tell you, “We need to get quotes from our existing suppliers.” Agree with them that it makes sense. After you ask them when they are meeting with your competitors, request that you’d like to be in last. If they won’t let you be last, what does that tell you? You probably don’t have the inside track and you need to reassess whether you will go through the exercise. Again, this will depend on the strength of your relationship, the health of your pipeline and how busy you are. This is a judgment call you’ll be asked to continually make throughout the selling process. The only difference now is you won’t jump recklessly at every opportunity and you’ll have more data to make non-emotional, informed decisions.

STEP 6 Solution & Fulfillment

The solution step is generally the easiest step in the sales process. Since approximately 80% of sales are won and lost in the pain discovery step, most salespeople are equipped to do a good job in the solution and fulfillment step. It is the easiest step in the sales process. This step should be a no-brainer. Traditional salespeople who have been schooled in feature and benefit selling can finally relax knowing they have a skill set which, when used appropriately and sparingly, can be transferred successfully over to a consultative sales process.

Here are some key elements and guidelines to executing the solution step:

• Ideally you won’t even need to do a presentation, because the best presentation is no presentation at all. Frequently you’ll find that a successful discovery step will negate the need to provide a solution since it is implied that if you have a solid grasp of their problem you certainly will have the ability to effectively solve their problem with your solution.
• Review the client’s goals and pains at the beginning of the solution step to confirm that nothing has changed since the last meeting.
• Review their intent as to what they will be deciding on at the end of the meeting. Example: “At the end of our meeting today, what are your expectations as far as making a decision?”
• Know how much time they have for the meeting and know their agenda.
• Know the criteria beforehand for going beyond their expectations and meeting their basic expectations for product or service performance.
• Call in advance to make sure the right people are going to be there.
• Know the roles of the people in the meeting and their specific issues and pains.
• Don’t do a classic feature and benefit “pray and spray.” Simply provide documentation of how you will solve their problems.
• Do a reality check to see if they like what they’ve seen so far. Example: “Based on what you’ve seen so far, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your interest?” If they give you a high number or resounding approval, try getting closure by asking, “What should we do next?”
• If your final proposal is emailed make sure it is a discussion document that will be used for a follow-up telephone call.
• Proposals should be written for the invisible decision makers.
• At the beginning of the meeting ask, “What absolutely will they have to be convinced of today to move forward?”

Here are some examples of some tactics to use for closure:

• “Is there anything else you need to discuss before we decide what the next step is?”
• “How would you like to start?”
• “At this stage, all I need is your approval to go ahead and get started.”
• “That’s pretty much what we planned to cover today. The question now is, do you like it and if so, what is the next step?”
• Summarize what they like and ask them, “What’s next?”
• “These are our recommendations. How would you like to proceed?”

The last thing you want to do if you don’t get a final decision is to do future damage control:

• “When I follow up with you next week and if I don’t hear back from you, how will I know if it is because you are busy or if it because you are just not interested?”
• “Can we agree in advance that when I call you next week, you’ll give me a definitive decision one way or another and if it is a “no”, I promise not to arm wrestle you and I’ll respect your decision? If it is a “yes”, we’ll decide on what the next step is to move forward.”

STEP 7 After-Sales Reality Check

This is where you confirm the sale and manage future expectations as to how you will effectively install or execute your solution. Most salespeople have been wrongly schooled to evacuate immediately after they have gotten a final commitment before the door hits them in the behind and their customer changes their mind.

First you want to ask if they have any questions or reservations about moving forward. Always allow the prospect the freedom to change their mind. What kind of salesperson, you ask, would do something as silly as that? The answer is, a confident salesperson who believes in their solution and one who honors their prospect’s independent thought process.

It is best to have the prospect initiate the commitment and not just respond to the salesperson’s request for closure. If you are going to get back-outs, now is the time to find that out since you have a chance to salvage the deal. What you want to avoid at all cost is the email message when you return to the office that tells you they have changed their mind and are going to put your order on hold. You also want to avoid the frustration of the incessant follow-up that will naturally happen as you try to salvage the deal to no avail.

The after-sale reality check is where you also help your prospect manage future expectations. This is where you review the logistics and timing of how your solution will be installed. During this step, you set up all the contingency plans for possible delays and issues.