Wow you are very very talented!! keep up the awesome work. You are very talented & I only wish I could write as good as you do :)…

1. Negotiate the sales process you would like to follow; and
2. Ask questions from the inside out which would allow you to price and propose without compromising your integrity.

First, the concept:

1. Because you have information (i.e. price), you have power for a short period of time (like 5 - 10 minutes) to negotiate how you want to proceed.

The conversation might go like this:

Mr X: Hi Niall, This is _________ __________, I am the Sales Director with ___________ ___________ What I’m looking for a two day sales training course to brush up on our selling skills. What would that cost?

Niall: I’d be pleased to help you and provide a price. (pause)In order for me to provide you with the information you require, I’d like to propose we do the following:
First, I would like to ask you a few questions about your current situation and your expectations of a sales training program; then, I would like to generate a preliminary estimate that we can discuss together;Afterwards, we can mutually decide on whether or not to pursue the discussion further. This should take no longer than 10 minutes. Does that sound reasonable?

What you have been able to do, to this point is set the table for discussion. The attributes to this approach are the following:

- You show courtesy / compliance but establish control. The buyer feels in control when you say “Does that sound reasonable?”

- You are able to draw out information about the situation.

- You demonstrate alignment to need and acknowledgement of request.

- You negotiated the selling process and set the foundation for collaboration (i.e. we can discuss)

- You set expectations in terms of process and timing and what to expect (i.e. estimate to discuss)

- You clearly qualify the buyer based on his response to your opening.

Doing it this way, you can find out more and engage the customer. The way you described it above you failed to use the power of the information you had (i.e. price) to negotiate the process going forward. You started asking questions immediately which created tension for both you and the customer.

I hope that helps to provide a different twist to a common but difficult selling situation.

The second point, is unfortunately, there are about 100 other “pretenders” lining up behind me to give Mr. X his price. They’ll come in, run a course, which could even be very enjoyable and he’ll get lots of high marks on the smiley sheet, but 6 months from now, no one will be doing anything differently, and sales either will, or will not, have increased (but it won’t have anything to do with the workshop, trust me). Then, the entire industry gets a bad rap.

Oh well, good to see so many out there with similar challenges, and taking the same approach. Keep fighting the good fight everyone!

Cheers for your input.

“just send me my fee - I won’t turn up and you will get the same results as if I did.”

LOL, I LOVE it, I am going to use this line - I promise. It’s brilliant

I have on more than one occasion lost the biz and like you gained after the other trainer f&^%ed up. in saying that, it’s still frustrating. I have also pitched for biz where a trainer has done that much damage, that they think all sales training is pie in the sky stuff.

Thanks,
Niall

Joanne, “I want to work with the right clients for my business” this is a great comment and ultimately what it came down to for me. I decided that this guy was not a right fit for me or my business. I could have chased, but I decided that I would be wasting time and money.

Ian, “It’s almost unethical to do a proposal and quote for that sort of work as you just know it’s not going to deliver any value” I am in full agreement on this, had I agreed to do so. I would have been no better than the silver bullet merchants I give out about.

Steve, excellent input and in a general sense, I agree. I could/should have handled the call better. I failed in my responsibility to make him understand that a two day course wouldn’t solve anything.

In say that, the types of questions you talk about I feel are more suitable for a face to face. I think one area where I went wrong is that I prejudged the call, in that I expected that he would agree to a meet without difficulty. In other words, I thought that if improving performance was important, he would expect me to meet him and he would expect that the solution would be more complex. The reality is that he did not and by the other providers giving him proposals over the phone - he had a different expectation to begin with.

Had I taken a different route, I would have probably secured the meet. In saying that, I remain unconvinced that this meet would have led anywhere other than the same outcome, that’s also why I didn’t want to give him a ball park fig on price.

Summary: the assumption that all business is good business is dangerous. You need to make decisions as a salesperson, should I talk to this prospect, should I try to get that meet. You have to based on informed judgement go after the people and sales that are lightly and are a good fit for you and your biz. I go back to Joanne point: I made the decison this guy was wrong for me.

I have a few things to add to the mix

David Stargel’s point is a good one, though in my eyes we’re maybe already fighting a more difficult battle at that point.

To me this is about steps, and as Niall has said this call wasn’t answered in the best of situations, and we’ve all had calls like that!! So thoughts are taking into account best practise whilst being aware that it ain’t always easy to deliver! :-S

I’m sure we’ve all heard the following: ascertain the customer’s needs, propose a matched solution, and earn the right to ask for the business. Right? And maybe add in a bit of “the customer’s understanding is our responsibility”

The GREAT thing about this post is it is familiar to any consultant, but EVEN more importantly thanks to Niall’s script we get the advantage of 20:20 hindsight and can maybe pinpoint the error. Telephone call analysis is definitely a focus and, perhaps sadly(!), a passion for me, so please indulge me!

I’m not being judgmental here (I’ve made the same mistake myself!) - but from my pov the whole sales call is over the second time Niall speaks!

i.e the “Me: Great, Let’s hold that last thought…..” part

The proposition and sales close happen all at once, WAY too quick to get the customer’s buy-in to your process! As consultants my view is we sell in steps, gotta sell the meeting first! If I get in the door, I’m pretty confident it’s a done deal. BUT that means that the real selling part is getting in the door, so we gotta sell! That sales process is the same if you are selling a premium car, or the idea of a meeting - it’s all selling.

I aim to take control, and most importantly not deliver any idea of what I do (unless they ask “credential based” questions first, which occassionally happens. In which case I give background but don’t get drawn into how I work!) and then question, question question!

Obviously it gives call control, and I also find it’s hard for them to get away, maybe because at that stage they don’t want to: I haven’t said no, and actually demonstrating my interest in HIM.

Surely we can agree that although this guy might never have buy in the end, we would get further if our response to his background info is an interested statement rather than solution? Can’t we??

example: rephase to suit your style

“Yes, times sure are tough. 20 people you say, that’s a lot of sales that need to be made!….”

Then just judge a question which a) builds credibility, b) shows interest in his situation/company and c) get’s him thinking and involves him in this conversation that we need to create

(again these might be too stylised in “my” style, but hopefully they make the point)

“Where do you get most of your leads from, I mean are these guys generating their own leads?”

or

“Can you give me a rough overview on current performance? Not prying into financials at all, but do you know for example what sort of conversion rates are they hitting at the minute?”

or

“What is your one key concern with what the salespeople are currently doing? I mean do you have any way of monitoring that?”

Move away from telling clients: “I need to know stuff in order to do a proposal”, go ahead and find out the stuff you need to do a proposal - now!! Strike while the iron is hot - he’s decided to call now, engage him now, win the meeting, win the business.

As people have said above, he wouldn’t expect his salespeople to quote, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want them wasting a valuable incoming sales lead (the easy sale!) by suggesting a meeting straight off the bat. He would want them to question the customer….and I’m pretty sure that that’s what your training will tell them….so we gotta do that thing where we practise what we preach!

As I said, we’ve all answered calls on the hoof and maybe not done our best. Personally I used to bore them to death with what I do and make things complicated….but the L&D world is greatest to me when I find new ways of applying the same age old principles. The ones that work! Never ceases to amaze me!

Useful? Thoughts? Am I talking out my ass?

Be great to hear more on this valuable topic!

Had this sounded like a genuine “testing the water to see if we’re in the right ballpark” enquiry I’d have agreed with you. And salespeople (in my opinion) do indeed dance around price too often. I believe it should be possible to give a range to help clients know if they are thinking in the right ballpark a lot more often than most folks do.

Even if you don’t know what their needs are, or whether you can help, if you state your assumptions you can give a ballpark. I like to tie the response to a quid pro quo request for budget information. “Well, obviously I don’t fully understand exactly what you need, or how much work it’s going to take to tailor a course for you, or even if that’s the right approach at all - but a typical 2 day course with us can range from 5 to 10 thousand pounds. Is that the sort of range you were budgeting for?” With then some follow-up questions around the budget to help qualify in/out.

I find it quite helpful to do this. My services are a lot more expensive than most of my competitors and on a few occasions I have wasted a lot of my and my potential clients time understanding their needs, building a relationship and developing a proposal only to find there’s no way they could afford me. Ever.

In this case though, the fact the guy wanted a proposal without any discussion meant it wasn’t a genuine “ballparking” request. He just wanted magic sauce. It’s almost unethical to do a proposal and quote for that sort of work as you just know it’s not going to deliver any value.

Ian

When I turned down a prospect, he said to me, “I have never heard of a sales person turning away a potential client.” Somewhere deep down, I think I gained his respect.

This company may never be my clients but the good news is that I don’t want everyone to be my client. Seems weird to some to say that in this economy but I believe there is still enough business to go around. I want to work with the right clients for my business.

I take your points and they are well made.

The reality was this

I didn’t know what the problem was
I didn’t know what the solution was
I didn’t even know if I could be part of that solution

Fixing sales ineffectiveness is complex and rarely can training alone solve the issues. Nothing led me to believe that he grasped this, in fact, I am not sure he had any real interest in fixing anything.

I could have given the guy a daily amount, no probs. We even provide a payment based on ROI, but for me to do this, I need to know what the fix is and that he was prepared to listen.

I agree salespeople should always be honest about price where they can. However in these times, particularly for inexperienced salespeople, they need to qualify early and hard. Many, many salespeople spend so much of their time on wild goose chases.

Thanks so much for your input.
Regards,
Niall