Sales Mindmap

I like putting things in a mind-map format, a single diagram which pretty much captures all aspects of a business or a specific function, in this case I have tried to do it for "Sales". Content provided is about 20% based on my experience and 80% from books I have read (like "All marketers are liars", "The art of closing", "Rain making conversation", "Influence", "Thinkertoys"), but I take the credit for putting all of it together :) and trying to connect the dots. Idea wasn't to cover all that is possible but all that I felt was crucial.

I tried embedding the image here but it doesn't render well, hence providing a dropbox link, and I hope the link last forever. Please let me know your comments on this.

Sales - Mindmap

Sales: One BIG reason we won

If I have to look back at some of the deals we (sales and delivery team) won in last few years and I ask myself what was the single biggest reason behind each of the victories apart from the standard credentialization etc, it will be the following.

- Aspiration: Sold to a travel company that we can build a site, with a google type search box, wherein people can come-in and search anything and everything about travel/vacation and system will display appropriate tour packages for them. Showed new reality. Got the deal.
- Speed: Unbelievable turn-around time on submitting a proposal with benefit statements, our passion and speed was contagious. We won.
- Extra-Mile: Surprised the prospect with website mocks - which they didn't ask for, while other vendors were trying to please the prospect by showing only their past performance.
- Creativity: Presented 3 fresh ideas on how their product can be different and more engaging with consumers and act as differentiator, other vendors were busy giving discounts.
- Pre-call-analysis: we said to the prospect, we can talk about your company for 30 mins non-stop, do you want see how well we know you? Created an impression which lasted forever.
- Risk-elimination: Told to the prospect don't pay if you don't like, we aren't a company happy earning money without delivering value first. Of course they liked us!!
- Idea: Converting a prospect idea to reality, prospect came up with a question, "hey is this something possible?" and we went back with 30 slide detailed ppt on how we can achieve it together and what are the benefits. That just gave the power to the prospect to internally champion the idea and get us the deal.

The point is, if you keep asking simple questions like the ones below, you will invariably add value to the prospect and will stand-out, thereby increasing your probability of getting the deal.

- Why should the prospect buy from you?
- What can the prospect get from you which other vendors cannot provide?
- Are you giving the prospect just what they asked for or thinking multiple level beyond that?
- Am I really solving a problem for the prospect at a holistic level?
- Are we helping the prospect differentiate themselves in the market?
- Am I making sure to de-risk my prospect from possible failures?
- Am I making my contacts at the customer side look good in front of their bosses?

"Be a consultant and help your prospect buy from you"

Inverse the sales induction process

When you join an organization as a sales executive / lead / manager, they give you an overview about the organization, history, service offerings etc, then you are given a target number, a geography to focus on, then you start working on your elevator pitch and corporate presentation, you get into sales calls, start selling your company and their track record, that's it. This leads to zero "value add"... you are just not adding any value to the prospect in the call. Sales guys in my world are either a problem solver or one who can help their prospect get to their aspirations.

The way it should probably happen, is when you a join company, you spend your first one or two weeks with leaders in the company understanding what are the top 10 problems we have successfully solved for our existing customers, what are the best scenarios wherein we understood our prospects aspirations and helped them achieve it and how did we do it? What are the challenges faced? And then take some time to understand your differentiators and know if your USP will resonate with your prospects and why?

So inverse the process, first spend time with delivery/operation team -> understand what aspirations / afflictions you can solve for your prospects -> build authentic stories you can tell your prospects -> list out the benefits your existing customers got -> then build your presentation to match your stories -> then create the elevator pitch.

"Be a problem Solver"

My experience working with CEOs

Let me share some of my experience working with 6 different CEOs in past 15 years, what they had in common? do I see a pattern in their style of leadership? And how I think they will go from here? It may seem that I am trying to cross some of sort of line here, trying to comment on people whom I reported into or a bit pre-mature for someone who hasn't played the role of CEO before, but hey, I am just expressing my opinion based on my world view and not a judgment.

Out of 6 CEOs, 3 of them made is big, growing organization revenue from few 100 thousand dollars to millions, creating jobs for about 1000 people, achieving their personal and professional goals. While all the successful CEOs had "grit" as a common trait, all of the other aspects about them were distinctly different from each other, one of the CEOs was a super nice people manager and down-to-earth personality but wasn't probably a champion in sales, another one was an insensitive people manager but a sales super star. One of them was great with growth strategy and sales, but fell short on operational excellence and follow-through.

If you had an opinion that a CEO needs to be super good in everything he does, he needs to be an expert in all aspects of the game, that is not the way it is. Some of their great qualities overshadows their inadequacy in few areas and still make things work.

1. The CEO who was insensitive to people (going around hurting and ridiculing people at his will) still managed to keep a bunch of smart guys around him, because people wanted to learn from him "how to sell" because he was great at it, so they ignored his rants / tantrums / idiosyncrasies. .
2. Second was a great people manager, super nice to people and had unmatched grit, even though you may not learn new functional skills from him, you may still decide to work for him, because he would treat you with at most respect and provide all the freedom for you to perform.

It has been an interesting journey so far for me, and I think the CEO who is cognizant of his strengths and weaknesses and knows how to build a team which can compliment him, will have the ability to take their business to next level, and those who decide to ignore their limitations and keep their egos before anything else, will eventually fall or just stagnate.

I understand this blog could be missing several other dimensions on how a CEO's office works, but idea was just to share some quick thoughts on different types of CEOs I have dealt with. A comprehensive one will definitely come your way, when I am able to connect more and more dots in our corporate world.

"Happy Selling Value"

3 types of Prospects

When you talk to a prospect who has explicit needs and clearly knows what is needed, go with the flow and and see where it takes you, but when you find a prospect with implicit needs, don't allow them to make you run all over the place, you will have to guide them in a way it helps them solve their problem and gets you business. And then there are those who come into the calls for window shopping or for various other reasons (which never fetches you business), you need to identify those prospects and eliminate them from your list as quick as possible.

Ability of a salesman to eliminate prospects who may not be able to provide sizeable business in the short term or in the long term, is 100 times more important then feeling great that you had 5 sales calls today, the real question to ask is "Out of those 5, who is the best bet for you?" and can you spend substantial energy to help them solve their problems.

"Happy Selling Value"

Can you stop twiddling your thumbs and ask some good questions!!

Some sales people just wait wait wait for the prospect to come back and say formally if they are getting the deal or not, but I believe a good sales guy should be able to predict in most cases what is going to happen with the deal, instead of keeping at it for ever, thinking that I have high perseverance or praying that the deal comes through. One good way to get out of this trap, is to think more from prospect's perspective, ask yourself these simple questions, why should they buy from you? what you got which the other vendors cannot provide? and did you differentiate yourself enough so you are at the top of prospect's mind? if none of these are giving you favorable answers then probably you aren't in the right position to get the deal.

In addition to these ask some good questions to the prospect, like dear prospect, do you think we covered everything you needed? is there any area you think we didn't exceed to your expectations? you will see sometimes prospect's sounding their concerns or telling you things, which will provide you enough insight where the deal is heading and what you need to do about it.

Recently, to one prospect I even asked, you are contemplating doing this in-house, which means you can pull this off at lesser cost, then what you think are the most compelling reasons for you to go with a Vendor like us? I got some answers from the prospect, which gave me some cues where this deal is possibly heading, and what I need to do. Should I persist? do something to change the equation? or just exit?

Bottom-line, ask some tough questions, connect dots, question why you are the only one who is BEST suited for this deal and if you think the prospect's selection criteria itself are misaligned for their own good, tell them that, because that is the biggest help you can offer them as a consultant and by the way, that may even get you the deal.

PS: let me know your comments and also what you think could have been a better title for this blog.

Happy Selling Value!!!

Manager Vs Leader - a perfectly wrong question

I see inordinate number of people asking this question, what is the different between manager and leader? I feel the question itself is wrong. Manager is yet another role like programmer, analyst , designer etc...a good manager is one who can manage assignments diligently and tactfully and has good people management skills, whereas leaders can be found in any role (not just managers), an individual who takes initiative, who inspires, who wants to challenge status quo and who wants to achieve their goals and help others achieve theirs is a leader. And that individual can be lowest in the rank of hierarchy but is still a leader. Make sense? let me know your comments on this.