Compilation of few sales techniques

1. Sunil Nair

2. IT Sales Strategies on the Ground
Sales is not just an art but a precise science too, the attached deck is a compilation of few
techniques practiced by sales veterans and available in sales blogs.
The biggest focus today should be on getting the value across, we have to be agile and content rich.
This times you can no longer sell just by playing a game of golf with the client.
The new entrants in the sales field may find this material useful

4. Trusted Advisor
 Be their Man, Be a Business partner and not just a supplier
 The Trusted Advisor says, “Maybe we aren’t the right fit for you. But, I’ll help you
find someone who is…” This approach shows a long-term focus, not a short
term/get the sale now-mindset. Progressive.com is a good online example – if
they’re not a fit for your insurance needs, they’ll provide you with other options.
In a Web 3.0 world, assume full information is available to your customer. Lack of
knowledge might get you an order, but it’s no way to build a relationship. Trusted
advisors keep clients informed.
 Help them without being a Self serving Sales person.
 How your solution avoids more pain than the competition, or the status quo. A
delicate balance is required here, because – while the results may be presented as
relatively painless, transitions never are. Selling on pain avoidance means you may
have to concentrate heavily on the “how” – delivering your service in a way that
justifies your sales claims.

5. Pre-sales team , Delivery and CoE team
 These teams need to be with you through the Sales cycle
 They have to be proactive, always feeding you with new ideas, be focused on the
proposals, be passionate about making the win happen.
 These team has to be aggressive, Passionate, knowledgeable, experienced, always
prompt, and innovative.
 Choose the team which delivered the best in the earlier winning proposals, choose
the team who can make great Proposal speeches/defense, choose what worked
earlier.
 Have a continuous collaboration thread with these team, just don’t use them and
forget them like the politicians do.
 Request them to send regular updates about their project highlights, how your
account feels about the value, what are the major issues in your account(Most of
the time A/C Execs do not know of ground realities and yet try to Sell).

6. Make Compelling Proposals
 The majority of sales proposals One reads, start with the seller talking about his or her
company.
 They usually open with details such as how long the company has been in business,
who their clients are, what awards they have won, how innovative they are, etc. Put it
in appendix.
 But, your prospects don’t care about this. They don’t care if you are especially an
established company so no use harping on it.
 What they want to know is, “How can this person/company help me solve a
problem?” and hence you have to put forth the right person to interact.
 Address the question by putting the following three pieces of information on your first
page;
 A brief summary of the prospect’s situation
 The key objectives your prospect wants to achieve
 The value in meeting those objectives.
 Use headings
 Your prospects are busy people, make it easy for them to find specific information
by using headings throughout the proposal.
 For example, use a heading for each of the three points on the first page (Situation
Summary, Key Objectives, Value) and heading for the remaining items such as
Solution, ROI, Guarantee, Investment, etc
 Most new prospects will have some hesitation about moving forward with your
solution, especially if you are unknown to them. Be proactive and address the
potential risk by outlining how you will reduce their risk.
 Keep it brief
 One mistake that many people make is including too much information in their
sales proposals(A 10 page assumption looks like a contract!!! Avoid it)
 Conclude with a specific call to action
“Bob, as discussed I will call you next Tuesday morning at 10:15 AM to review this proposal
and to discuss the next steps.”(Do not write “ Let us know if you have any questions”)

7. Value Proposition-Make it in context
 It might be that…. the prospect doesn’t see enough value in your offering to think it
worthwhile paying the price you asked for – YOUR FAULT for not positioning your
value to them correctly!
 It might be that…. the prospect doesn’t have the budget to pay the price you want –
YOUR FAULT for not finding that out, or speaking to the person who can make a NEW
budget!
 It might be that…. the prospect has bought a similar product/service in the past and
not paid anything like the price you want to charge them now – YOUR FAULT for not
finding out their buying history and positioning correctly against it!
 It might be that…. the prospect won’t get enough value from your offering, in order to
generate enough ROI to justify the purchase – YOUR FAULT for not qualifying the Sales
Opportunity well enough in the first place!
 Find Out – Or Set – Their Expectations
 Discuss Price/budget with the right set of people who can make a decision or
influence

8. Cat Theory- Entice
 Cats ignore our calls, trick the cat to come to you on her own, make the cat feel that it
is her idea to come to you. Direct Sales/Cold Calls mostly could be resisted.
 Analogy is the Malls you visit, the window shopping you do because the
goods/services displayed attracts you, you may do Door Shopping
 In IT Create a Digital Store like a WWWLAB which has all your Services/GTM/Demos
displayed, make a digital invasion into the Customers Desktop, give the customer the
freedom and access to all your Services in animated form, Videos, IRISE demos to
make it interactive, ROI tools…
 Get your Sr.Executives- Directors and VP’s to write white papers, do technical or
functional presentations—not just high level talk. Clients think that if the seniors can
do elaborate technical talk or detailed product talk then the company’s junior folks
will have strong content, in IT the unfortunate part is that most of the executive talk
and knowledge is shallow which fails to impress the client.
 IT companies should have a call center managed by the SME’s who can talk to
them about the first level solutions to their problems – Cloud, Social, Mobility, BI,
ERP,CRM… today clients go through account executives and account executives in turn
find it difficult to reach out to SME’s because they too have to go through several
executive layers- the business units, the service lines just to get availability of the
SME’s and by this time the opportunity is lost or the client trust is lost.