Winning a sale doesn’t happen by accident. Selling requires thoughtful preparation and flawless execution. No two sales opportunities are exactly the same, so sellers must develop a sales strategy for each opportunity that’s as unique as the opportunity itself.
As originally seen in Training Magazine.
By Kevin Jones and Steve Gielda
In our book, Premeditated Selling: Tools For Developing the Right Strategy For Every Opportunity, we show you how to develop a sales plan for each unique opportunity inside your accounts, using a five-step process that has proven itself successful. This premeditated selling process evaluates a sales opportunity from various angles, providing you with insight into your situation and ideas for moving forward. Each step provides tools to help you analyze an opportunity and gather the information you need to make your next move.
The Five Steps of the Premeditated Selling Process
Step 1: Understanding the buying factors
This refers to the analysis of the buying process your customer will use for making their purchasing decision. By understanding how your customer will make their decision, you can modify the speed with which you act, the resources you use, and the strengths you present. In Chapter 2, we’ll challenge you to think about the answers to questions such as:
- How has the buying process for similar products gone in the past? Is it a consistent process?
- What is the sense of urgency driving your customer’s buying process?
- Is there a need for consensus among the decision-makers or is diversity of opinion okay?
In today’s market, we must be able to answer these questions, plus many others regarding our customers’ buying factors.
Step 2: Leveraging the key players
This refers to the analysis of the individuals involved in the buying process—their influence and their perceptions of potential solution providers. By gaining insight into your advocates and adversaries, including who they support and why, you can develop a plan of action to capitalize on your positive relationships while minimizing potential threats. In Chapter 3, we take a deeper dive and provide you with a tool that will help you better analyze the key influencers in every sales opportunity. We challenge you to think about the answers to questions such as:
- What’s been said or done to make you believe your advocate is really your advocate?
- Is there a way to leverage your advocates to neutralize your adversaries? If so, how can that be done?
- Who are your competitors’ advocates? Are they the same as yours?
We’ll help you better analyze all the key influencers involved in your opportunity so you can develop a smart strategy to leverage advocate support.
Step 3: Optimizing the buying environment
This refers to the analysis of the trends in your customer’s industry and how they affect your customer, specifically the executives inside your customer’s organization. By evaluating what’s happening in your customer’s world, you can anticipate unique challenges and prepare yourself to address needs that your competitors may not have considered. In Chapter 4, we introduce you to a model that will help you think about how a single trend in the market affects the customers in your territory, and more importantly, how it changes the way your customer makes purchasing decisions.
We urge you to think about:
- Which market trends are having the greatest impact on this customer? How will they affect your sales efforts?
- What new initiatives has this account taken to leverage or combat these new trends?
- What responsibility do these stakeholders have to help their company take advantage of or combat the trends in the market?
Step 4: Influencing the competitive landscape
This refers to the analysis of your competitive position through an understanding of what selection criteria your customer will use and how they compare you to the competitive alternatives. By thinking broadly about the criteria a customer will use to make a decision and knowing your strengths and weaknesses against those criteria, you can develop a strategy to capitalize on your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. You can reeassess your understanding of your customer’s decision criteria by considering questions such as:
- Who have you spoken with to confirm the customer’s selection criteria?
- If there are multiple decision-makers, do they all agree on the same selection criteria? Whose selection criteria matters most and why?
- How does the customer perceive your ability to meet their needs?
Step 5: Quantifying the value of your solution
This refers to the analysis of your solution’s “value,” which enables you to position your solution effectively.
By using the classic value equation, you can develop a strategy to build economic value, either through actual or conceptual benefits. Think about:
- What are the most important business outcomes your customer will receive by implementing your solution?
- How will your customer measure your solution’s value?
- What metrics have you chosen to measure the value impact of the outcomes?
All too often, salespeople underestimate the importance of quantifying the value of their solution. They assume the customer can make the connection between their solution and the impact it can have on the customer’s metrics. Unfortunately, these kinds of assumptions can make the difference between winning or losing the opportunity.