A Sales Tactic for the Complex Sale
January 19, 2007 by Bill Caskey
Filed under Basic Sales Strategy
Just a short post to tell you something I heard yesterday that was actually quite profound.
I had a client tell me that he has come to realize that when you’re selling something that is a significant shift in thought for the prospect, you have to do much more work upfront in the pain finding and economic justification step. Why?
Because the customer knows there will be a ‘high cost to changing’ methods. Therefore part of the proposal needs to address this shift and how the selling company can help the customer implement the solution.
Your Solution
Does your solution require a shift in how your customer thinks about things? Does the solution affect many people in your customer’s organization? If so, then think through your sales process upfront so that you aren’t getting ‘objections’ late in the sales process.
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I involve myself with Complex Selling as often as I can. My company is the largest independent provider of Office Systems in the world. I help my clients reduce costs associated with generating, distributing and maintaining their documents.
My solutions always require a shift in thinking and impact existing corporate culture and I perceive myself as an Agent of Change.
I look for and find ROI in every system I propose, up front. If the ROI cannot be realized in a specific time frame, say 12 months, we question moving forward.
With larger firms, my solution’s impact on the Corporate Culture is as high a priority as the economic aspects of my solution. (Discovered with my client in the investigation phase)
The “money” issue melts away as I propose how we will help employees get “their minds around” this new workflow and manage the Culture shift.
When I execute correctly, there are no objections late in the cycle – and it is common for the client to sell me on installing as soon as possible.