Solution Selling

1. Solution Selling

2. What Are Your Sales Goal? • “To create a customer” - Peter Drucker • “To bring our audience and advertisers together” - KOMC/KRZK, Branson, MO • “To help people sell more Fords,” -- Lowry Mays, former CEO of Clear Channel Communications

3. Objectives • What are your sales objectives? • To get results for customers • To develop new business • To retain and increase current business • Presell • Upsell • To increase customer loyalty

4. Strategies • What are your sales strategies? • To sell solutions to advertising and marketing problems • Complete customer focus • To reinforce the value of advertising and of your medium

5. Strategies • To create value for your product • To become the preferred supplier • To establish, maintain, and improve relationships at all levels of the client and agency (keep agency informed) • To provide the best research, information, and advice • To be customers’ marketing consultant by providing solutions

6. Strategies • To innovate • New packages, new products, new promotions • New creative approaches • New technology • “The only functions of an enterprise: marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker

7. Key Functions • What are a salesperson’s key functions? • To position your product to have a differential competitive advantage • To manage relationships and build trust • To create rapport • To empathize • To persuade • To cooperate • To build consensus

8. Key Functions • To solve problems • Creativity • Get results • To create a sense of urgency • To communicate effectively up, down, and across • Keep your management and coordinator informed • From the street, bring back market and competitor knowledge

9. Old Paradigms Of Selling • AIDA • Attention • Interest • Desire • Action • Commitment • Close • Each step used tricks

10. Old Paradigms * • Old tricks don’t work anymore. • Designed in 20s and 30s for one-call, low-cost, unimportant decisions • Old selling models don’t work in today’s highly competitive, interactive, sophisticated business environment. * Adapted from Sales Effectiveness Training by Carl Zeiss and Thomas Gordon, Dutton, 1993

11. Old Paradigms • Don’t work because: • Increased competition, increased need for stronger customer loyalty and long-term relationships • Increased cost of developing new business • Solution selling requires partnering. • Solution selling is all about establishing and maintaining relationships and building trust.

12. Old Paradigms • Don’t work because: • Today’s buyers are more sensitive to traditional sales techniques, manipulation, and tricks. • Today’s buyers have a multitude of complex alternatives they can buy. • They need help making decisions. • They will let you help them only if they trust you and our company.

13. Old Paradigms • Don’t work because: • More, stronger competitors provide buyers with more choices – they don’t have to deal with anyone who doesn’t satisfy their needs or they don’t like or they don’t trust.

14. Old Paradigms • Don’t work because: • Today’s sellers are unhappy with the pressure and grind of one-shot sales (Hunters), they prefer long-term relationships (Farmers). • Today’s sellers want to get results for clients--more satisfying. • Today’s sellers want to be trusted, respected, and not seen as manipulators (old-fashioned sales image).

15. The New Paradigm • The customer is not the opponent--not someone to be overcome or beaten. • The customer is a partner who needs: • A trusting relationship • Problems solved • Needs and wants met • Concerns addressed • A win-win, fair agreement • To get started before a competitor does

16. Solution Selling Is Need-Satisfaction Selling • Relationship Rule: Do unto others as they would have others do unto them. • Treat people like THEY want to be treated. • Uncover and define problems and needs. • Business problems (rational, often ill-defined) • Personal needs (emotional, unconscious) • Need-satisfaction selling is difficult. • Requires emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills.

17. The Needs-Recognition Process UNOBSERVABLE OBSERVABLE (Unconscious, Semi-conscious) (Conscious) NEEDS and MOTIVATION BEHAVIOR

18. Needs Recognition Process • Behavior is observable. • Behavior is conscious, purposeful -- people behave for a reason. • Motivation is unobservable. • Motivation is semi-conscious -- people are usually not fully aware of their motivation that drives behavior. • Needs are unobservable. • Needs are unconscious, deep seated, changing to get satisfaction -- people are unaware of their needs that drive motivation.

19. Human Needs • See List of Human Needs at http://www.charleswarner.us/indexppr.html

20. Solution Selling • Relationship Rule: People like and trust people exactly like themselves. • Trust depends on source credibility: • Trustworthiness • Competence • Objectivity • Expertise • Physically Attractiveness • Dynamism • Similarity

21. Features, Advantages, Benefits • Features: What you’ve got. • Channels, splash-screens, impressions • Advantages:Why what you’ve got is better. • Benefits: How what you’ve got solves a problem. • Always remember WIIFM • The client is asking himself silently to every feature you describe, “What’s In It For Me?”

22. Solution Selling • Position features, advantages, and benefits as problem solutions. • Position features, advantages, and benefits according to needs (“We’re a safe buy,” e.g.) • Business needs • Personal needs • See List of Human Needs in the workbook.

23. Benefits Matrix • Use a Benefits Matrix to position features, advantages, and benefits according to business and personal needs. • See Benefits Matrix at http://www.charleswarner.us/indexppr.html

24. Solutions Selling • Relationship Rule: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. • The best way to let people know how much you care is to listen.

25. Effective Listening • The single most important skill in personal relationships, selling, negotiating, and managing is listening. • You can’t have a successful relationship unless you are firmly committed to listening a majority of the time.

26. Effective Listening • Listening • 60% in most relationships -The minimum • 80% in some relationships - The maximum • If your partner won’t listen at least 20% of the time, it is not a two-way relationship it’s a one-way relationship like in theater, movies, print, broadcasting, or cable -- you are the audience.

27. Effective Listening Listening is an essential component of communication. The Communication Process Source Message Channel Receiver Listening Understanding Feedback

28. Effective Communication • Effective communication requires understanding the elements of the communication process and using them to enhance your communication effectiveness and to power a relationship forward. • More effective communication = stronger relationships • The goal, destination of a relationship is agreement. • Relationships, like car engines, are very complicated.

29. The Elements of the Communication Process • Communication -The fuel that powers a relationship forward. • Trust - The grease and oil that keeps it running smoothly. • Listening - The foundation, the road on which the process of communication travels toward agreement.

30. Effective Communication Depends On: • Source credibility • Message strength • Channel effectiveness • Receiver characteristics • Listening effectiveness • Responsive feedback

31. Effective Communication • Elements that enhance Source Credibility: • Trustworthiness • Competence • Objectivity • Expertise • Physical Attractiveness • Dynamism • Similarity • “People like and trust people exactly like themselves.”

32. Effective Communication • Elements that enhance Message Strength: • Two-sided argument • Ordering effects • Primacy and recency • KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) • USP (Unique Selling Proposition) • Focus on benefits

33. Effective Communication • Channel Effectiveness • Face-to-face most effective • Full, two-way verbal and non-verbal communication with instant feedback • Video (film, TV, e.g.) next most effective. • Audio (radio, e.g.) next. • Video and audio can convey emotion and control emphasis, even though they are one-way. • Print least effective unless the message is complex. • Can’t convey emotion, one-way.

34. Effective Communication • Receiver Characteristics that affect communication: • Intelligence • The receiver can understand and evaluate messages. • Self-confidence • The receiver trusts self to evaluate communication and make an assured decision.

35. Effective Communication • Effective Listening is the foundation on which effective communication rests. • You can improve not only your listening effectiveness but also the listening effectiveness of your partner on the road to agreement. • The beginning of knowledge, learning, relationships, communication, and conversation is a question -- an open-ended question.

36. Effective Listening • Ask an open-ended question. • Adopt the proper attitude. • Optimistic, open, confident, trusting, respecting, non-defensive, and non-judgmental • Shut up and listen. • Listen actively: nod, use gestures, smile (Responsive Feedback). • Concentrate on the speaker.

37. Effective Listening • Do not step on sentences. • Do not respond to negatives, objections, concerns too quickly. • If you do, you appear to be defensive. • Do not think of a rebuttal. • If you continually rebut arguments, you’ll stop getting them and won’t learn anything. • If you think of a rebuttal while trying to listen, you can’t receive 100% of the information you hear.

38. Effective Listening • Respect the other side’s statements. • Respect and learn about their view of the world. • Listen for themes. • Risk averse, conservative, entrepreneurial, needs recognition, affiliation needs, goal oriented, etc. • Be very sensitive to emotional cues. • Listen in synchronization--don’t mimic.

39. Effective Listening • Concentrate on the speaker (open body language). • Acknowledge, don’t always agree. • “Oh,” “Uh-Uh,” “I see,” e.g. • Don’t say “Good,” or “You’re right,” -- judgmental. • Do not react emotionally. • Control your emotions. • Listen with authenticity. • Be yourself, others can tell when you’re not sincere.

40. Non-Verbal Communication • Non-verbal communication conveys 65% of a message’s meaning. • Look for individual body language. • No universal body language. • Use gestures, space, openness, and your body language to: • Give the message you care about and like the other person. • Match their style and pace.

41. Non-Judgmental Listening • People have a deep need for someone to listen to them and understand them. • Non-judgmental listening responds to this need. • Interpreting and understanding their entire message without imposing your preconceived ideas or opinions on it. • Non-judgmental listening is non-defensive listening. Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993

42. Non-Judgmental Listening • Listen, understand and accept other people’s perception of the world. • Spend time in their shoes. • Develop a non-threatening, non-confrontational attitude so people feel secure in opening up, revealing personal information. • Offer personal information first and then trade it. • Find something you have in common with the other person. Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993

43. Non-Judgmental Listening • Vary your responses, otherwise listening becomes a monotonous technique. • Show genuine concern and caring. • “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.” • Never ask “Why?” • No challenges • No obvious, manipulating techniques or leading questions: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” e.g.

44. Non-Judgmental Listening • Objectives: • To understand the other person’s needs • Often, the other person just needs to talk. • To understand another person’s unique perception of their world. Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993

45. Listening Roadblocks • Denying, minimizing, • Cheering up, reassuring, encouraging • Sympathy, indignation, me-tooing, story-telling • Advising, teaching • Become condescending Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993

46. Listening Roadblocks • Taking over, rescuing • Analyzing, probing, playing detective • Criticizing, moralizing, warning • Arguing, defending, counterattacking • All of these responses are judgmental. • So the point is to shut up and listen and acknowledge unemotionally … like a therapist does. Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993

47. Effective Communication • Aggressive behavior - “Getting What I Want.” • Don’t be aggressive. • Assertive behavior - “This Is How I Feel.” • Be assertive. • Know who you are, what you want, and what you feel and communicate it. • Use “I” messages.

48. Effective Listening: The Four Steps • Listen carefully, actively to other people. • Repeat/rephrase their position/objection. • “Let me make sure I understand your position…you feel our CPMs are too high?” • Get their agreement that you understand. • “Is that correct?” • Respond with a form of an “I understand” statement (vary your responses) • “I understand…,” • “Feel, felt, found.”

49. “Feel, Felt, Found” • Respond: • “I understand how you feel …” • Acknowledges their feelings and honors them. • “Many advertisers have felt the same way …” • Reinforces and legitimizes their opinions so they know they aren’t way out, unusual, or silly. • “But we have found that higher CPMs are based on three things: highly targeted inventory, high demand, and high renewal rates.”

50. Effective Listening Exercise • Find a partner • One is the salesperson, the other the client • Client says, “your price is too high.” Salesperson then goes through the four steps of Effective Listening. • Practice repeating the phrases. • “Let me make sure I understand what you are saying.” • “Is that correct?” • “I understand how you feel, others have felt the same way, but we have found …” • Switch roles after three attempts.