A MUST READ to become a better salesperson!

sell. Continue to read, I promise it will get better. Early in my career when working as a SW developer in a consultancy my manger told me that everyone at the company is a salesperson. This is something that we are reminded of every now and then.

Janne Korhonen published a book related to the topic in autumn 2016. He had noticed that engineers increasingly end up as part of sales in the organization, often without any prior training. He wanted to give guidance on how technical experts can be a part of the sales process and learn sales skills. This article is a summary of the book.

The structure of the book/blog post follows the modes of persuasion made famous by Aristotle.

The engineer as a salesperson

Information that is freely available on the internet has changed the information flow between the salesperson and the customer. The customer does not need the salesperson in the same way. Customers are pro-actively looking for information from the internet, which is full of guides, seminars and other customers’ experiences. The salesperson needs to create value to the customer in ways that the customer has not thought of. The role of sales in the beginning is reduced and often the processing of orders is automated. To provide solutions to the customer’s problem and being an expert in the customer domain remains. This suits us engineers well, we are used to solving problems.

People are good at reading people. Trust is the most important part of sales work. No one buys what you sell; they buy what you believe in. Enthusiasm sticks the same applies to the opposite. You need to believe in what you sell, so the first step is to convince yourself of what you are selling. You need to be best, cheapest or least risky solution, at least in your and your customer’s eyes. Differentiation and competitive edge towards competitors if often a matter of mental image. Focus on the strengths of your product and find customer that find this strength important. We need experts to sell technical and complex solutions.

Tips from John Care, author of Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineers Handbook:

• Ask from a more experienced sales person to mentor you.
• Ask for feedback when you are part of sales e.g. what went well, what to avoid, and what to try next time.
• You do not have to agree with all the feedback you receive but do not start arguing about it.

Open the discussion

Traditionally marketing and sales has taken care of initial sales steps. Experts join at a later stage or help ensure the success and growth of existing customers. Experts have a role in the beginning of the process by creating content for marketing in the digital world. Experts usually dislike opening discussions with unknown people. Here are some ways to help open the discussion.

Customers do their pre-study on the web. Thus, they expect more expertise and vision from the salespersons. Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy where the aim is to steer the customer to contact the seller. The customers purchase process is in focus instead of the sales process. The content should be valuable for the target group rather than selling content. Blogs, guides and other quality content aims to build trust prior to the first contact. Account marketing means customer specific marketing. The role of sales is to provide support, help and serve the customer. This is easiest done where the customer asks for help.

Social selling is a way to sell your expertise, offerings and network with other people. Here are a couple of tips:

• Create profiles to the most important social services (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook).
• Start following customers, competitors, opinion leaders and stakeholders.
• Map where activities and content in your domain is shared (e.g. hashtags, groups).
• Share interesting information – not only your organizations content. Pay interest to the whole industry. Add value by commenting.
• Follow and take part in discussions. Comment, ask and answer.
• Initiate the sales process if needed
• Also take care of existing partnerships

There is still a place in traditional B2B sales. You should aim to find opportunities to genuine help and value creation when you contact the customer. Knowing the customer, your own expertise, and networks help in identifying these situations. The essential thing is to find a valid business reason. Below are a couple of tips:

• Call to warm inbound marketing leads and ask how you can help.
• Offer value. E.g., tell that you have made a project in the same business that you could present.
• Use a referrer. “N.N. told that we should talk because…”
• Ask for feedback about a project that you have done for the customer earlier.

Ethos – Credibility

Studies made by Albert Mehrabian show that the effect of verbal communication is only 7%, sound 38%, and body language 55%. Often it is said that first you need to sell yourself. In rhetoric, it is called Ethos. The suitable ethos is situational and for example different, when you speak to a software developer compared to speaking to company management. A good rule for dress code is to wear same or a bit better clothes than the audience. Trust is built by virtuousness, common sense and unselfishness. John Care defines that the formula for a trusted advisor consists of the following variables: credibility, reliability, customer insight, selfishness, and positivity. The formula is as followed.

You can build trust by serving and helping the customer in small bits, before sealing the actual deal. Often customers are more willing to talk about their problems with experts than with salespersons.

Pathos – Feeling

You have probably heard the claim that first you buy with feeling and afterwards explain it with reason. The reason for this is the limbic system in our brain that controls our emotion, behaviour and motivation among others. This is why building trust with the customer is so important. Evolutionary the easiest way to do this is by showing that you belong to the same tribe. The feeling of risk on the other hand is one of the biggest blockers for a successful deal. You can however use this to your advantage as the feeling of risk also makes the customer more receptive to alternative solutions.

Feelings tend to spread among people. If you see someone who is angry you might become angry, if someone is sad you also become sad. We are not conscious about this change because it the feeling moves through our limbic system. As a result, if you start focusing on yourself because you are nervous the audience will do the same. In case you are enthusiastic and focused on the audience, they will focus on you. Here is a link to Amy Cuddy’s TED talk on the subject: “Your body language shapes who you are”.

When you imagine something, it activates your brain as if you are actually doing it. This is why stories are so powerful. A story is a way to transfer an experience from one person to the other. A skilled negotiator does not argue with logic but instead plays with values and meaning. Identity and tension are the two main ingredients of a good story. Without this a story does not work. Gustav Freytag’s pyramid builds up a story in the following way:

• The exposition phase provides information about the backstory and events before occurring before the main plot.
• During rising action a series of related incidents, build up to the point of utmost interest.
• The climax is the turning point at which there is a turnaround from good to evil or evil to good.
• During falling action, the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist unravels, and there is a semblance of victory, one way or the other.
• Denouement refers to the resolution, revelation or conclusion. It may capture issues such as release of tension, restoration of peace and new lessons learned.

Johan Bates a world famous trainer of presentation skills says that one key aspect of becoming a better storyteller is to tell the story from the audience’s perspective instead of personal perspective. He also recommends thinking of ways to include something fun and unexpected.

Logos – Argumentation

This chapter focuses on argumentation in sales situations. As engineers, we tend to be very logical in argumentations, but as we concluded in the last chapter feeling and emotion plays a big part as well. One of the pitfalls of engineers during an argumentation is the lack of customer-oriented approach. They tend to think that the role of sales is to sell the company’s product when in fact the customer is actually interested in fulfilling their needs. That is why the salesperson should primarily sell a need that the product he represents solves and where it is competitive. Need, solution, and finally the product. A good salesperson understands the customer domain and can identify the sometimes hidden or vague needs. A traditional sales meeting usually focuses on presenting the product and there is less focus on listening to the customer need and finding a solution for it. The customer is interested in finding and clarifying solutions for their needs as the web has already provided a comprehensive list of alternatives, product information and opinions. The first step is to sell a common understanding of the need and build your story upon that while speaking the same language as the customer. It is not important whether the customer is right or wrong and useless to argument in order to prove it. Instead, focus on challenging the customer’s ideas by giving hints and directing them. Let the customer realise what it is all about, as we tend to be more committed to our own ideas (not invented here).

The FAB model is a good tool in constructing a presentation.

• Feature presents the functionalities that the product providpathoses.
• Advantage presents the solutions that the features enables.
• Benefit presents what needs the solution solves.
• Learn to use your body language (tone, gestures, and movements) in your presentations. Stand out by being enthusiastic about your product!

Negotiation

Many times the technical expert’s part of the sales process has finished by the time we move to negotiations. Decision-making is often a political process where the customer has many stakeholders with their own interests. Power is the ability to decide whether the other part gets what it wants or not. The customer for example has the power to decide whether the co-operation continues or not. The exercise of power is either directly rewarding or punishing the other or indirectly by persuasion. The use of power in negotiations is challenging.

The result of a negotiation is often an agreement. According to the teachings about market economy reaching an agreement is always a win-win-situation. The price of your product or service is always somewhere between your costs and the value that the customer receives. On the other hand, the customer is probably not willing to more than the expected value.

(COST) <= NEGOTIATION MARGIN => (EXPECTED VALUE)

Some negotiation literature talk about best alternative to a negotiated agreement) BATNA, instead of cost.

BATNA <= NEGOTIATION MARGIN => (EXPECTED VALUE)

The customer might also have its own alternatives such as a competitive offer. This is why it is important to stand out from the competition in some way and why companies tailor solutions to the customer. The buyers on the other hand tries to split the offered solutions into comparable entities.

BATNA <= NEGOTIATION MARGIN => BATNA

Using direct power might easily lead to a confrontation. A better way is to use indirect means to reach the desired result. Robert Cialdini, author of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”, presents six methods to indirect influence.

1. Reciprocity – Be helpful and do favors.
2. Commitment and Consistency – Sell the big picture in smaller parts and let the customer convince itself of buying the next part to allow continuity.
3. Social Proof – The first followers are more important to the leader than the skill to inspire the followers. Watch this video Leadership From A Dancing Guy.
4. Liking – Find the biggest common denominator and a common enemy to gain the trust.
5. Authority – Signal your position subtly with your clothing and plead to authorities in argumentation. Remember you get authority also through the company you represent.
6. Scarcity – When you sell something, think if your offer has a deadline. Can the customer return to the same offer later without losing anything?

Richard Sell, author of “Bargaining for Advantage”, describes different bargaining styles in the following way.

Negotiation style	Description
Omission	Aiming to avoid situations that might cause confrontation.
Compromise	Aiming to quickly find a mutually beneficial solution and retain the good relation.
Adaptation	Aiming to find a quick solution to the customer’s problem.
Competition	Aiming to win without concerns about the relationship. Hold on to own interests.
Creative solution	Aiming to understand the problem and finding the best solution for both parties.

One can split the negotiation process into four parts:

• Preparation – Good preparation is important. Plan at least the following aspects: negotiation style, targets and expectations, norms and standards, relationship, counterpart’s needs, power position.
• Exchange of information – The plan is applied in practice, you start to build up the relationship, test assumptions and communicate own targets.
• Opening move – At this point you know the counterpart’s targets, problems and assumptions. You need to answer the following questions: Is it worth making the initial offer? Should the offer be optimistic or reasonable? How should I meet the customer’s counteroffers?
• Ending and commitment – The negotiation process ends where the target is to reach a final decision.

The first deal is just the beginning of the co-operation. It works as a reference when you start to build up the customer relation. The next steps are to map the decision makers, get to know their strategy and organisation in order to find suitable targets within the organisation. Based on this you can make a sales portfolio, which helps you deepen the customer relationship. Latest when there are a couple of deliveries done you should think of forming a steering group with the customer. This is a good way to reach top management in the organisation and be a part of their strategic projects. In the end, you will be a strategic partner for the customer.