Lose weight

Lose weight…a proven secret

What You Want

Keith Rosen is an executive Sales Coach.  I found this article on All Business. Keith has listed a few questions for you to answer to “attract” this reality towards your being. Check out the article here. In the name of transparency for myself, I answered the questions.

1. How many hours in a typical workday?

4 hrs

2. What is your desired salary?

200k+

3. Who are the people you are working with?

ex-restaurant employees, laid back, enjoy life type of people

4. What type of clients do you want to serve?

ex-restaurant employees, laid back, enjoy life type of people

5. What type of product/service do you want to offer?

books, booze, burgers, bungy, whatever

6. What is your day filled with or what type of activities you are responsible for?

Making sure my folks fill those four hours completely…it’s only four hours!

7. What type of industry?

Entertainment, food, leisure

8. What is the level of autonomy?

Mid

9. What type of growth opportunities exist? 

Extreme, but franchised

10. What kind of supervisor do you want to work with (if any)? What’s that person’s management style?

Laid back, but with an edge when necessary

11. What are your co-workers like (if any)?

Artists with other skills

12. What benefit/incentive package is offered?

Full paid insurance, the whole works

13. What type of environment/corporate culture do you thrive in (fast paced, stressful, relaxed, quiet, etc.)

fast paced, but relaxed

14. What are you passionate about?

poetry, music, adrenaline, and good food

15. What type of career would be a reflection of who you are?

Entertainment with education

16. How does your career complement your lifestyle?

Talking with and entertaining many folks that are like me

17. What are the demographics of your clients and co-workers?

Adventurers, free spirits of any age, with a passion for good food and the arts

18. What are your strengths and talents that you would like to orient your career around?

Poetry, conversation, and charm

19. What do you do great?

Conversate

20. What don’t you like to do?

Convince people of something they don’t believe

21. What needs to be present in order to make a smooth transition and be financially responsible with the least amount of risk or error?

Very talented staff and a prestige about our establishement

22. Who do you have in your circle of influence to support you through this transition? (family, friends, coach, etc.)

Lukas, Hannah, several famous slam poets and musicians, several guest chefs, and sports stars

23. Who do you need to be (or become) in order to achieve, create or succeed at this?

A well known poet with a very trained pallet and an appetite for adrenaline

24. What are the fears or limiting thinking that’s keeping you from moving forward without hesitation? 

A need for money now

I only fell at the end…now what?

Try it, you’ll like it

Where have you been?

I am reminded of a time when I was a young teenager. I had my alarm clock set to play the radio at some point in the morning hours.  One particular morning, the d.j. must have taken an extended cigarette break or what have you. Kathy Mattea sang “Where have you been” over and over and over for the whole hour my alarm clock played.  For this reason, I have always remembered the chorus. For balance, I looked up the lyrics. They are as follows:

Claire had all but given up
When she and Edwin fell in love
She touched his face and shook her head
In disbelief she sighed and said
In many dreams I’ve held you near
Now at last you’re really here

Chorus
Where have you been?
I’ve looked for you for ever and a day
Where have you been?
I’m just not myself when you’re away

He asked her for her hand for life
Then she became a salesman’s wife
He was home each night by 8
But one stormy evening he was late
Her frightened tears fell to the floor
Until his key turned in the door

Chorus

They’d never spent a night apart
For 60 yrs she heard him snore
Now they’re in a hospital
In seperate beds on different floors

Claire soon lost her memory, forgot the names of family
She never spoke a word again
Then one day they wheeled him in
He held her hand and stroked her hair
In a fragile voice she said

Chorus

Where have you been
Ive searched for you forever and a day
Where have you been
Im just not myself when your away
Im just not myself when your away

So, I’ve been away for a while. I’m back. Do you think we can all get back to being ourselves now? I hope so, because December was a huge slump for me! I probably won’t say anymore about that, because I definitely don’t want to relive it.

Until Next Time…

Keith Porterfield

A Student of Sales

I’ve a Net After All

As I rode along with Steve Trevillion Wednesday…

 I realized, by something he said, that…

I’ve a net after all. 

My mother reminded me also when she sent me this e-mail…

  

There’s no way I can fail!!! 

—————————————————————————————— 

Top Salesman-

A young guy from Wisconsin moves to Seattle and goes to a big
 everything under one roof department store looking for a job.

The Manager says, “Do you have any sales experience?”

The kids says “Yeah. I was a salesman back in Wisconsin.”

Well the boss liked the kid and gave him the job. ” You start tomorrow.
I’ll come down after we close and see how you did.”

His first day on the job was rough, but he got through it.

After the store was locked up, the boss came down. “How many customers
bought something from you today?”

The kid says “One.”

The boss says “Just one? Our sales people average 20 to 30 customers
a day. How much was the sale for?”

The kid says, “$101,237.65.”

The boss says $101,237.65? What the heck did you sell?”

The kids says, “First I sold him a small fish hook. Then I sold him a
medium fishhook. Then I sold him a larger fishhook. Then I sold him a
new fishing rod. Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he
said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat, so we
went down to the boat department and I sold him a twin engine Chris
Craft. Then he said he didn’t think his Honda Civic would pull it, so
I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4×4
Expedition.”

The boss said ” A guy came in here to buy a fish hook and you sold
him a BOAT AND A TRUCK?”

The kid says “No, the guy came in here to buy Tampons for his wife,
and I said, ‘Dude your weekend’s shot, you should go fishing.’ “

You’ll never be a failure if you keep trying.

We are not human beings going through a temporary spiritual experience. We
are spiritual beings going through a temporary human experience.

See what you’re getting into…before you go there.

——————————————————————————————

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

Ride out!

Ride out!

 

Since I got an earlier than expected start to my ‘No Net’ sales experience, I requested a ride along with a team member.  Richard Howell set me up to get with Steve Trevillion.

I plan to ride out with Steve in Carthage, TX Wednesday the 18th.

I’ll post when I get back to document the trip.

I have to get out of the house by 5AM to make it to Carthage at 7AM.

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

No More Net!!!

O.k. people…it’s on!!!  It’s time to start documenting my true journey into the world of sales.

Until now it was all theoretical.  I studied and studied and did not much in the way of selling, because I had a net.

Now, I have NO NET!

I want to tell you all about it.  It’s the reason blogs exist.  I can say what I want here and no one can fire me!  Which brings me to my first point.

I am so glad I left my hourly job!  I can honestly say that I don’t care right now that I have no guarantees for next week’s pay check.  I don’t care that I’m having to pay for COBRA a month or two.  I’m just so glad to be out from under the rule of my immediate supervisor there…I’m actually happy to be unemployed.

Here’s the story…

The company is a pretty good place to work.  They take care of their employees.  My division just hired a new V.P. of Wholesale.  I think he’s a great addition to the team.  He’s really got a great vision for the sales team.  Unfortunately, I was not part of the sales team at this company. 

I worked for nearly two years under this guy who’s name is not worth mentioning (No Name Small Man from here on out).  I did my job and I did it well.  I have a college degree and I was working the graveyard shift for hourly wages.  I work twelve hour shifts and had about two hours worth of work to do.  I like to think I used that down time nicely.  I studied and studied and finally built up the courage (with the help of Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist) to step out of my comfort zone.

I waited and consulted several people before sending a respectful “form letter” two-week resignation letter to NNSM, V.P. of Wholesale and H.R. Director.  This was not accepted well from NNSM as I had told him previously I would probably be out around August 1 (the notice put my last day as July 20).  He didn’t speak to me for the entire week after I submitted my notice.

The last night I worked I made a mistake that could have happened on any night.  I slipped up and made an honest mistake.  It wasn’t huge and has been made by myself and several others many times in the past.  When the morning guy came in, I told him about my slip up.  I told him I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it and that at least I couldn’t get fired over it.  Well, guess what…the morning guy is trying to work his way up the ladder in this company.  So, he’s buddy-buddy with NNSM.  He tells NNSM that I popped off about not being able to be fired and that I wasn’t doing my job.

So, I get a week of un-paid vacation.

So, here’s to No Nets!  Wish me luck.

p.s.-I also went to my MySpace page and found that NNSM had deleted me from his ‘Friends’ list.  What a tool!

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

My take on Spin Selling (part 8)

Spin Selling

by: Neil Rackham

Neil Rackham is a best selling author. You can read more about him at his website linked to his name.

Turning Theory into Practice

One of Rackham’s favorite words: Entelechy

def. the becoming actual of what was potential–turning something into practical usefulness as opposed to theoretical elegance.

It is the subject of this cahpter.

Improving your skills is hard work; there’s no instant formula for better selling.

The Four Golden Rules for Learning Skills

How can you learn any skill efficiently and with minimum pain?

Stick by four simple rules.

Rule 1: Practice Only One Behavior at a Time

Mr. Rackham met Tom Landry on a plane and asked him which one principle was most important in learning a new skill. Landy was quick to say, “Work on one thing at a time and get it right.”

Start by picking just one bahavior to practice. DOn’t move on to the next until you’re confident you’ve got the first behavior right.

Rule 2: Try the New Behavior at Least Three Times

The first time you try anything new, it’s bound to feel uncomfortable.

The new skill needs to be “broken in.”

Never judge whether a new behavior is effective until you’ve tried it at least three times.

Rule 3: Quantity Before Quality

Huthwaite’s studies have consistently shown that the fastest way to learn a new sales behavior is through using a quantity method.

When you’re practicing, concentrate on quantity: use a lot of the new behavior. Don’t worry about quality issues, such as whether you’re using it smoothly or whether there might be a better way to phrase it. Those things get in the way of effective skills learning. Use the new behavior often enough and the quality will look after itself.

Rule 4: Practice in Safe Situations

If you’ve just finished Rackham’s book (or this outline) and you’re about to visit your most important account, then forget everything he’s written.

Always try out new behaviors in safe situations until they feel comfortable. Don’t use important sales to practice new skills.

A Summary of the Call Stages

Four Stages of a Sales Call

• Preliminaries
• Investigating
• Demonstrating Capability
• Obtaining Commitment

Preliminaries (Chapter 7)

The opening techniques suggested by traditional sales training:

1. relating to the buyer’s personal interests
2. opening with a benefit statement

should be used with caution.

Investigating (Chapter 4)

The SPIN sequence instead of traditional open and closed questions develop customer needs best.

• Situation Questions
• Problem Questions
• Implication Questions
• Need-payoff Questions

Spin isn’t a rigid formula. To be effective, it must be used flexibly.

Demonstrating Capability (Chapter 5)

A Benefit in this right shows how your product or service meets an Explicit Need expressed by the customer.

Obtaining Commitment (Chapter 2)

The simplest closing technique is the most effective:

• Check that you’ve covered the buyer’s key concerns.
• Summarize the Benefits.
• Propose an appropriate level of commitment.

A Strategy for Learning the SPIN Behaviors

Huthwaite has found the following four pieces of implementation advice very helpful.

Focus on the Investigating Stage

If you know how to develop needs–to get your customers to want the capabilities you offer–then you’ll have no problem showing Benefits or Obtaining Commitment.

Develop Questions in the SPIN Sequence

1. Decide whether you are asking enough questions. If you are telling rather than asking, start by just asking more questions.
2. Next plan to ask at least 6 Problem Questions per call. Focus on quantity, not quality.
3. Once you are satisfied with your abiliity to uncover customer problems. Carefully plan your Implication Questions. Reread the example transcript in Chapter 4 and substitute your own problem in.
4. Finally, when you are comfortable with all the above, start into Need-payoff Questions. Try to not tell the customer the Benefits of your product or service. Try to get them to tell you the Benefits.

Analyze Your Product in Problem-Solving Terms

Instead of what Features and Benefits your product or service offers, think of the problem it solves.

Plan, Do, and Review

The most important lessons come from the way you review the calls you make. After each call, ask yourself such questions as these:

• Did I achieve my objectives?
• If I were making the call again, what would I do differently?
• What have I learned that will influence future calls on this account?
• What have I learned that I can use elsewhere?

Rackham says that of the salepeople he’s observed, the most successful do two thing:

1. Make it a point to reveiw every call.
2. Realize the importance of getting the details right.

Final Words

Rackham pointedly states that he has learned that sales success is not in generalities as he first thought.

Increasingly our research has shown that success is constructed from those important little building blocks called behaviors. More than anything else, it’s the hundreds of minute behavioral details in a call that will decide whether it succeeds.

Rackham quotes William Blake:

He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.

General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer;

For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars.

Rackham urges you to use the results of Huthwaite’s research to examine, develop, and improve the minute particulars of your selling skills.

—————————————————————————————–

Rackham has much more in the Appendices of this book. He includes much of the research referenced in the body of his work. He commends anyone who reads it. Rackham says that he finds the appendices the most exciting part of the book: the PROOF.

I won’t include them here due to time constraints. However, they are quite interesting. This book is well worth your time and money. Quite frankly, it is worth having in your personal library as a reference tool. I have outlined the book for those salespeople who don’t have time to read it fully at present, but wish to learn the principles set forth in it. I will advise, to fully appreciate this book…you might consider studying it as opposed to briefly reading it.

Remember- The work you’ve just read is Neil Rackham’s. I have simply outlined his book. Most of the words above are his own. At times I paraphrased.

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

My take on Spin Selling (part 7 of 8)

Spin Selling

by: Neil Rackham

Neil Rackham is a best selling author. You can read more about him at his website linked to his name.

Preliminaries: Opening the Call

In this chapter Rackham examines Preliminaries more closely. Huthwaite found this stage less exciting and did less research on it. However, the research still showed that successful ways of opening the call in a small sale are different from those which work best as the size of the sale increases.

Huthwaite sought to answer the following:

• Is it true that the first impression made in a sales call are crucial to it’s success?
• Do the openings that work in smaller sales work equally well in larger ones?
• Does one particular way work better than others to open a call?

Rackham notes that for these studies, Huthwaite only concentrated on opening first calls on new customers.

First Impressions

Although many older books on selling emphasize first impressions and appearance, there’s evidence to suggest that people notice far less in the early stages of an interaction than we might imagine. A reasonable standard of dress is probably sensible.

Rackham states his personal opinion on the First Impression: I no longer believe that first impressions can make or break your sales success in larger sales.

Conventional Openings

Since the 1920’s, salespeople have been taught that there are two successful ways to open a call:

• Relate to the buyer’s personal interests.
• Make an opening benefit statement.

There is little evidence to show that these two methods help in large sales.

Relating to Personal Interests

Huthwaite’s research found that in rural areas, relating to personal interests would help your selling.

However, in larger urban stores, they found no relationship between success and reference to personal issues.

Rackham suspected this was due to a longer tenure in rural sales relationships.

He was not satisfied with this study.

Rackham talks about a colleague that works as a professional buyer. His colleague and other buyers express impatience with salepeople that waste time trying to relate to personal interests.

Rackham gives a general piece of advice:

Be careful not to overuse this method in larger sales.

The Opening Benefit Statement

Is it an effective way to open calls?

Rackham states that in short calls, there may well be value in this method. However, Huthwaite’s research found no relationship between the use of opening benefit statements and the success of the call.

Rackham states that it is important to vary the way you open a sales call. He highlights an experience when he was approached by an office product saleman. He was impressed with the salesman when he opened with a benefit statement and invited him back. On the next call, the salesman opened the call in exactly the same way. The sale was lost.

Rackham also lists two other potential dangers in opening a call with a benefit statement:

• You may be forced to talk about product details too early in the sale, before you’ve had an opportunity to build value by using SPIN questions.
• You may allow the buyer to ask questions and therefore allow him to take control of the discussion.

Neither are irreversible. Rackham states that this is not a good way to open the call.

A Framework for Opening the Call

Huthwaite’s research suggests that there is not one best opening technique, but there is a framework that successful people use.

Focusing on Your Objective

Examine your purpose. At the very least it is to get the customer’s permission to continue to the Investigating stage. In order to do this, you must establish:

• Who you are
• Why you’re there (but not by giving product details)
• Your right to ask questions

Objective: Get the buyer to agree that you should ask questions. Establish your role as the seeker of information and the buyer’s role as the giver.

Making Your Preliminaries Effective

Preliminaries don’t play a crucial role in the larger sale. Be concerned about these three points.

1. Get down to business quickly.
2. Don’t talk about solutions too soon.
3. Concentrate on questions.

Remember- The work you’ve just read is Neil Rackham’s. I have simply outlined his book. Most of the words above are his own. At times I paraphrased.

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

My take on Spin Selling (part 6 of 8)

Spin Selling

by: Neil Rackham

Neil Rackham is a best selling author. You can read more about him at his website linked to his name.

Preventing Objections

Rackham pointas out the following about Objection Handling:

• Objection Handling is a much less important skill than most training makes it out to be.
• Objections, contrary to common belief, are more often created by the seller than the customer.
• In the average sales team, there’s usually one salesperson who receives 10 times as many objections per selling hour as another person in the same team.
• Skilled people receive fewer objections because they have learned objection prevention, not objection handling.

Linda Marsh carried out some correlation studies to check whether there are statistically significant links between Features, Advantages, and Benefits and the most probable responses they produce from customers. She discovered that Features, Advantages, and Benefits each produce a different behavioral response from customers.

Features and Price Concerns

Customers are most likely to raise price concerns in calls where the seller gives lots of Features.

Too Many Features: A Case Study

Rackham highlights a study in which Huthwaite was recruited to help a major U.S. based multinational corporation solve a problem. Their Japanese competition had been taking more and more of the market share especially on their low-end product line.

Rackham showed the V.P. of Sales how to treat the cause of their problem. They retrained the salespeople, recruited from the competition, in SPIN questioning techniques so that they could use a high-Benefits style. As a result, their sales increased, price objections dropped, and the price issues were soon forgotten.

Treating Symptoms or Treating Causes?

Curing a selling problem, just like curing a disease, rests on finding and treating the cause rather than the symptoms.

If the customer’s price concern is the symptom, the cause may very well be giving too many Features.

Advantages and Objections

Perhaps the most fascinating of the links that Linda Marsh found is the strong relationship between Advantages and objections. Advantages create objections–and this is one reason why they are poorly linked to success in the larger sale.

From Huthwaite’s research, objections are a more likely response than any other buyer behavior when given an Advantage.

The recurring sequence of behaviors found in this research was:

Problem Question / Implied Need / objection

The buyer objected to the cost because the seller did not build up the problem enough to tip the cost/value scale.

Back to Symptoms and Causes

If a saleperson is receiving too many objections, you could teach objection-handling. However, the better alternative would be to teach her how to build sufficient value before offering solutions. This is the cause. Obections are the symptom.

The Cure

Through implementation of the Spin model, sellers can use Implication and Need-payoff Questions to build value before presenting a solution. This prevent objections. Objection prevention turns out to be a superior strategy to objection handling.

Objection Prevention: A Case Study

Rackham highlights a study in which Huthwaite trained a portion of a company’s sale staff in objection prevention. The study brought Rackham to two conclusions:

• It confirms that the best way to handle objections is through prevention. Treat the cause, not the symptom.
• Notice that our training didn’t prevent objections completely.

There will always be ligitimate objections, no objection prevention can prevent them. However, objections can be cut by more than half by using the SPIN behaviors to build value.

The Sales-Training Approach to Objections

It’s a comforting myth for trainers to tell inexperienced salespeople that professionals welcome objections as a sign of customer interest, but in reality an objection is a barrier between you and your customer. However skillfully you dismantle this barrier through objection handling, it would be smarter not to have created it in the first place.

Benefits and Support/Approval

Linda Marsh’ study found that the most positive relationship to emerge was the strong link between giving Benefits and receiving expressions of approval or support from customers. Unless the customer says, “I want it”, you can’t give a Benefit. It is no wonder that customers are most likely to express approval when you show them you can give them something they want.

Objection Handling versus Objection Prevention

The basic suggestion in this chapter is that objection-handling strategies are much less successful in the larger sale than objection-prevention strategies, where the seller first develops value using Implication and Need-payoff Questions before offering capabilities.

Preventing Objections from Your Customers

Here is two sure signs that you are getting unnecessary objections that can be prevented by better questioning:

1. Objections early in the call. Most objections are to solutions that don’t fit needs. If you are getting objections early in the call, it probably means you have been offering solutions prematurely instead of asking questions. There’s an easy cure: Don’t talk about solutions until you’ve asked enough questions to develop strong needs.
2. Objections about value. If the customer expresses that they don’t think your product or service is worth the money or effort, it’s a good sign that you haven’t built enough value. The solution lies in better needs development, not in objection handling.

Remember- The work you’ve just read is Neil Rackham’s. I have simply outlined his book. Most of the words above are his own. At times I paraphrased.

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales

My take on Spin Selling (part 5 of 8)

Spin Selling

by: Neil Rackham

Neil Rackham is a best selling author. You can read more about him at his website linked to his name.

Giving Benefits in Major Sales

In this chapter, Rackham shows what Huthwaite’s research found about the Demonstrating Capability stage.

Features and Benefits: The Classic Ways to Demonstrate Capability

Basics of Features and Benefits

Features

Facts, data, or information about your product or services. They are unpersuasive.

Huthwaite’s research found that:

• The level of Features is slightly higher in unsuccessful calls. Thier difference is small enough to conclude–Features are nuetral.
• In small sales there’s a slight positive relationship between the use of Features and call success.
• In larger sales, Features have a negative effect when used early in the call and a neutral effect when used later.
• Users respond more positively to Features than do decision makers.
• In the middle of very complex selling cycles of technical products, the customer sometimes develops a “Feature appetite”. When this happens, the customer demands considerable product detail and may respond positively to Features. It’s at this stage of the selling cycle that technical experts, systems analysts, and other sales-support people often have a positive impact on the customer.

Generally, Huthwaite’s work found that, as writer’s have been saying for 50 years, Features are low-power statements that do little to help you sell. It’s beeter to use Benefits.

What’s a Benefit?

When Huthwaite began to investigate Benefits, no two writer’s on selling seemed to have the same definition of a Benefit.

Which Definition is Right?

Huthwaite’s research team set out to test which definition of Benefit had the most positive impact on customers. After testing several definitions, Huthwaite chose two for their research test:

• Type A Benefit. This type shows how a product or service can be used or can help the customer.
• Type B Benefit. This type shows how a product or service meets an Explicit Need expressed by the customer.

At first sight these two definitions of a Benefit seem very similar. However, their effect on customers is dramatically different. If you assume the customer has a need for your solution and state the Benefit, it is a Type A Benefit. If the customer states a problem and you explain the Benefit of your product or service, this is still a Type A Benefit. This is because the customer has simply given you an Implied Need, not an Explicit Need.

How Important is the Difference?

Huthwaite’s research found that the Type A Benefit is quite strongly related to success in smaller sales but is only slightly related to success in larger sales. In contrast, the Type B Benefit is very strongly related to success in all sizes of sales.

Huthwaite put more descriptive labels on the two types of Benefits in order to avoid confusion in their research. For the rest of this chapter:

Type A Benefit is referred to as an “Advantage“.

Type B Benefit is referred to as a “Benefit“.

Thus, there are three behaviors that can be used in Demonstrating Capability.

1. Features
2. Advantages
3. Benefits

The Relative Impacts of Features, Advantages, and Benefits

To make a Benefit, you must have an Explicit Need.

Benefits and Call Success

Huthwaite compared the level of Benefits in 5000 calls with the outcome of each call. They found that Benefits were significantly higher in calls leading to Orders and Advances. In contrast, the level of Advantages was not significantly different in successful and unsuccessful calls.

Features, Advantages, and Benefits in the Longer Selling Cycle

Huthwaite measured the effects of sales behaviors, (Features, Advantages, and Benefits), at different points in the selling cycle.

Features had a low impact on the customer throughout the selling cycle.

Early in the cycle, particularly during the first call, Advantages had a moderately good statistical relationship to call success. As the cycle progressed, Advantages had a decreasing effect on the customer until, as the end of the cycle approached, they were no more powerful than Features.

Why Do Advantages Run Out of Steam?

There are three possibly reasons:

1. At first meeting, the customer expects to hear about the product rather than discuss needs.
2. The seller is so enthusiastic that they jump right into Advantages.
3. Advantages, unlike Benefits, have no link to the customers Explicit Needs.

Advantages are less powerful than Benefits all through the selling cycle.

Selling New Products

One area consistently handled badly by both the inexperienced and experienced salespeople is the new-product launch.

This can be explained in terms of Features, Advantages, and Benefits.

The Bells-and-Whistles Approach

The problem lies in how the product is introduced to the sales team. When launched, the marketing people gather all the sales managers and sales team to present this new product with all it’s Features and Advantages. With all the excitement generated, even the most experienced sales people speak in terms of Features and Advantages like they were explained to them.

The Problem-Solving Approach

Based on Huthwaite’s research, many of their multi-national clients now use a different appraoch to the new-product launch. Instead of giving Features and Advantages when they announce a new product, they concentrate on explaining the problems the product solves.

Demonstrating Capability Effectively

Rackham points out three main practical points in this chapter that will help you demonstrate your capability more effectively in larger sales:

1. Don’t demonstrate capabilities too early in the call. It’s important in larger sales to develop Explicit Needs–by using Implication and Need-payoff Questions–before you offer solutions.
2. Beware Advantages. Don’t let previous training mislead you. In larger sales, the powerful statements are those which show that you can meet Explicit Needs.
3. Be careful with new products. The first thing to ask with any new product is, “What problem does it solve?”. When you understand the problem it solves, you can plan SPIN questions to develop Explicit Needs.

Remember- The work you’ve just read is Neil Rackham’s. I have simply outlined his book. Most of the words above are his own. At times I paraphrased.

Until next time…

Keith Porterfield

a Student of Sales