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The Sales Training Series: How To Really Close A Sale

Organizing Requirements

THE UNIQUE DEMANDS OF A LARGE SCALE IT PROJECT

Quality Metrics

What Is Project Management

Quality Policy

What Is Risk Management

eMail/eMail Protocol

Feasibility Analysis

Mission Statement

Cost Baseline

FORMAL AND INFORMAL ASPECTS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

A consultative seller's database must be compartmentalized into three modules that he or she can scan left to right to target proposable leads:

For the seller, Our Norm must be better than Industry Average Norm in order to be the norm leader. Our Norm must also be better than the Customer's Current Norm performance in order to have a proposal opportunity, either to improve customers to the level of industry average or to bring them closer to "our norm."

Norms give a consultative seller the vocabulary to speak in business-ese like this:

• Our Norm for average cost of recordkeeping of purchase orders, inventory reconciliation, and other related transactions in your product category is X dollars. Your cost is three times higher than our norm.

• Our Norm for average sales per square foot in your product category is X dollars. Your sales are five times lower than our norm.

• Our Norm for out-of-stock in your product category is X times per quarter. Your out-of-stock is six times greater than our norm.

Using norms, a consultative seller can get a handle on a customer's perception of the values that can be added by conducting challenging dialogs like these:

• "It takes you 3.0 hours to complete a design cycle. Our norm is 1.7. What is the value to you in costs saved and faster revenues for every 30 minutes we can bring you closer to our norm?"

• "It takes you 72 minutes to make a die changeover. Our norm is 46. What is the value to you in costs saved and faster revenues for every 10 minutes we can bring you closer to our norm?"

• "It takes you 3.6 years to introduce a new model. Our norm is 2.9. What is the value to you in costs saved and faster revenues for every 30 days we can bring you closer to our norm?"

Your norms are your value metrics. They say that there is a better way than the one the customer is currently practicing. The profit difference between the customer's way and your norm represents your added value. If you can enable a customer's new product, for example, to enter its market one month earlier than its plan, the dollar value of that month's earnings and the advance of one month in achieving payback of the product's funding represent your added value.

The first thing that you should propose to a customer is your norm for the customer's business or business function. "If your operation can more closely approach my norm," you can say, "some or all of the added value representing the difference between them can be yours."

What you do not ask is as important as what you do ask. You do not ask, "Do you want my product, service, or system?" Nor do you ask, "Do you want my solution?" or "Do you want to buy from me?" You need only ask whether the customers want their operation to approximate your norms more closely. When you ask that question, you are proposing to sell in a consultative manner. When the customers ask how they can make their operation come closer to your norm, they have begun to "buy" from you.

As soon as you know your normal benefit on an application-per-function or application-per-operation or per-process basis—they are all ways of saying the same thing—you can use it in two ways:

1. To target leads fast in customer operations where the current revenue performance is below the level of your norms or where the current cost performance is above them.

2. To get to proposal fast by presenting a preliminary benefit that can bring the customers' current performance closer to your norms.

You want to be able to say something like this to command a customer manager's attention:

We are experienced in improving the contribution to profits made by your operation. Our norms show that managers who implement our solution can increase their revenue contribution or decrease their cost contribution by approximately $x within y period of time. How do these norms compare with your current performance? If performing closer to our norms can make you more competitive, what if we can work together the way we are proposing to achieve a $000 minimum improvement within the next 00 months?