A few good sales techniques and being
motivated are no longer enough! It used to be true that if a sales person had a
great sales technique and was highly motivated they would be great at selling.
Well that’s no longer true in the world of B2B selling. People used to say
‘she’s a great closer’ or ‘he’s a great objection handler’. However, being
great at one or two individual sales techniques won’t give you success in
today’s more complicated world. If you want to be successful, you have to have
a whole armoury of sales techniques that form an effective and integrated selling
system.
Buyers are far more sophisticated than they
were a couple of years ago because of the availability of online research and
the pressure to measure and demonstrate value for money with every purchase. Whether
they are buying ‘price-based commodities’ or ‘strategic solutions’ (and by the
way, purchases are always one or the other so don’t get ‘stuck in the middle’
by trying to be the cheapest AND the best!), they expect sales people to be
more sophisticated in their sales techniques and strategies.
The great news is that there are systems
for selling in today’s world that make all of the criteria for great selling
very accessible and you don’t need a degree in business studies to succeed! All
of the crucial techniques can be learned within a single system that can be
applied to a specific customer scenario or market sector for immediate success.
The ‘MIDAS’ System for ‘Black Belt Consultative Selling’
We use a proven and easy-to-learn (and easy
to-apply) system called MIDAS for making consultative selling (or what we call
‘Black Belt Selling’) really work.
So what is MIDAS? Well, the ‘M-I-D’ part of
MIDAS represents the client’s world, while the ‘A-S’ of MIDAS represents what
you can sell to them.
M-I-D:
The Client’s World
The M-I-D of MIDAS stands for the
following:
M - Macro
and Micro (external) forces.
These are external
pressures, trends and events that affect your target organisation (and may well
also affect other organisations in the sector or industry). This is a REALLY
crucial element of consultative selling because these external forces represent
all of the known (and unknown) threats and opportunities that the senior
decision maker(s) in your prospect organisation are faced with. You should do a
bit of research on their organisation or sector and choose two or three
of the main external trends, pressures or forthcoming events that are likely to
combine to cause a real threat or opportunity for the client in the near or
medium term (and which your solution may be able to help with). A combination
of M factors, for instance, might be the downturn in consumer spending, online
competition and VAT increases affecting high-street retailers. This combination
of pressures is a really powerful conversation point with an owner of a
high-street retailer, if you’ve got something that can help him or her
counteract the negative effect this powerful combination of forces will
probably have!
I – the Implications (or ‘Pain-Points’) that these external
forces have, or will have, on your target organisation and your target
contact’s personal role in that organisation. Your analysis of these
implications should include some sort of calculation or estimate of the
financial implications that could result from his or her failure to respond to
a specific combination of external threats and opportunities that you have
identified. In the high-street retailer example, this might include sales
volumes falling, revenues falling, stock levels rising, marketing costs rising
or profits falling– all of which will have a direct impact on (and cause pain
for) the owner if that’s who you are targeting.
D - the Desire (or ‘Need’)
for the decision makers in your target organisation to make changes in order to
avoid the negative financial implications of ‘doing nothing’ or responding in
the wrong way. This ‘need for change’ may or may not be known by the client and
this is why we use the term ‘need’ as well as ‘desire’ for this stage of MIDAS.
In the high-street retailer example, this might mean attracting more customers,
increasing the average purchase value per customer, reducing the cost per sale,
or improving stock forecasting.
Now let’s look at how you actually use the Black
Belt Selling approach and the MIDAS analysis to develop a consultative sale.
Developing,
Shaping and Creating a Client’s Needs
In order to shape or develop a client’s
needs, after your initial ‘sign-posting*’ introductory
statement, you should start a discussion by introducing your pre-determined ‘
M-forces’ and asking the client what are the internal pain-points that result
from these pressures, now and in the future, if they are not addressed. Even
though you’ve got a good idea what the implications are, keep the question open
and be prepared to really listen to the answer!
Once you’ve probed and agreed the potential
cost implications of the pain-points, shift the conversation to a positive
question. Ask the client what the positive results (and potential financial
value, if possible) could result in if the pain-points are avoided or removed.
For instance, you could ask your contact, “What would the impact on the company
be, and on you specifically, if we could reverse the falling number of shoppers
or could improve the cost of sale?” This shifts the mood from negative ‘pain’
to positive ‘desire and need’ and this is crucial if you are going to get the
client to associate your solution with positive thoughts. It also opens the
client’s mind to other possibilities and you can ask “are there any other
potential benefits?”
Once you’ve got the client to discuss and
quantify the desire and need, remind the client of both the pain of doing
nothing and the value of making a change, then go for a trial close. Ask: “So
if we could propose a solution that would deliver these benefits within your
required timescale, would you be willing to commit time and a relatively small
amount of money (compared to the cost of doing nothing and the value of
delivering the change) in order to start realising the benefits immediately?”
At this point, the client is likely to
raise an objection which is actually a buying signal! He or she will probably
say “tell me what you are thinking of proposing”. So now all you need to do is
convince the client you can create real value and credibly!
A-S
of MIDAS: Aligning Your Solution to the Need to Win the Sale
This is where the A-S part of MIDAS comes
in. The A-S part of MIDAS stands for the following:
A-
The Added value (benefits and advantages). In other words, the
unique selling points that the client will get with a solution from your
company. This includes the benefits and advantages the client will get from the
things your company can give them. For example, this might be your own insight
into the client’s world, your design or integration capabilities, your service
delivery capabilities, or your support capabilities. However, they must be
clearly aligned as benefits that directly contribute to satisfying the client’s
needs. So if you were selling an online marketing solution to a high-street
retailer, you would need to explain or articulate how the way you would design,
implement and support your solution would directly increase the spend per
customer, reduce the average cost of sale or grow revenues.
S-
The last part of this five
stage process is to introduce the actual Solution
you would propose and the features that would enable the benefits and
advantages you are offering. This will ensure that the client’s desires and
needs can be met.
Make sure you DIRECTLY align the benefits,
advantages and features of your solution to the desires and needs you’ve just
developed. That’s how you create real value! Present the added-value benefits
and advantages BEFORE talking about specific features. The features are only to
be discussed to develop your credibility!
If what you propose is credible (and you
may need a case-study or reference customer to make it completely credible),
you should agree the next stages to move the solution forward in order to
alleviate the pain and deliver the value for the customer.
You should spend at least half of your
meeting with the decision maker on the M-I-D of MIDAS and only move to the A-S
when the client is ready. Go too soon and you’ll frustrate the client and
instantly lose credibility (and the deal!).
Summary
This kind of selling really works and will
transform your personal and company’s selling and business development
performance. It will transform your client satisfaction and increase the value
of every one of your accounts.
