When selling isn't selling or is it?

Today I was posed with an idea from my principal to call upon my clients about this new product they were developing to see if they understood the need for it the way we did, or to simplify... they might buy it one day. It seemed reasonable for me to talk to my clients about new technologies and understand their needs, and in the process I'd get a better understanding of the market out there. The problem I was wrestling with was, was this a good use of my time for my customers or principal? I felt I'd be well suited to take on the task; talk to my clients, probe them about their strategies understand their needs. sounds like what I do all day... But something hit me that I wasn't really doing my principal any favors and it sounded like a "why don't you phone and tell me what you find out" project. Is this a good use of my time? Does this belong in sales?
Here's what I know: the art of sales is to take a candidate and move them from Prospect to Client for some mutual benefit for client and salesperson, and the principal owner of the goods. This is overly simplified but anything else is not selling.
You may; as part of this process perform additional work that may be useful, or form part of a series milestones in the process, but again if you aren't moving a person from Prospect to Client you aren't selling. So on one hand making calls to clients to see if they are likely to buy something they aren't qualified for might be a bad use of time. To argue the other side of this; this type of task would be useful to use it as practise. Imagine if you are able to try to sell goods to unqualified people only to learn along the way and refine your process so when you discover a qualified candidate you are much better at your job. Especially practise on people that are likely to take your call as they know you already, and won't stop taking your call when they've decided what you are selling they aren't buying. Good point! My conclusion is; if you in the course of your conversations with clients sell to them and also practise selling, I think both can be accomplished. Be honest with you client and mention you need to be ready to sell an emerging product, and can you ask them a few questions to help you. Afterwards say thank you, and ask if they know someone that may be interested to buy something like that. That way you will have a lead, referral, and have practised selling already.

No Capital? No Problem!

So today twice I heard that the client has a capital spending freeze and won't we doing anything. This pisses me off especially when its a partner or another sales guy. I mean what the hell does that matter? and buddy that means you aren't talking to the right people. Lets first of all all agree where money for IT comes from. Does it come from a sum of money that was set aside at the beginning of the year by Finance because IT will need something? Well yes in rare instances in growing economies maybe but lets look further. Money is nothing but cashflow for any company or organization. In order to survive there has to be a steady supply of cash to pay to keep things going. This money when pooled or summed is often called an operating budget, and are really a tally of what it cost lost year adjusted for inflation if people are lucky. When a client says they are not spending Capital they are saying that they don't have access to cash outside of their operating budget to buy anything, or hasn't sufficient reason to ask for it. Your job is to find out how they can save sufficient money in year to pay for your service to have excess operating budget. For instance if your service or solution saves 100k in service downtime for their clients or IT overtime, or reduces the amount of licenses the company has to buy that year then you have 10k of theirs. If one of these savings is on the list of the CXO's to do list (KPI) you have a compelling argument to have the operating budget adjusted and a Capital Expense PO cut for you. The trick is to prove it!

Con Calls and the gift of the awkward silence

Today I had 3 conference calls today with 3 different clients. What I noticed was that when I had multiple people on a con call on our side there was a lot more talking on the client's side than when there's just 2 people on the call. ie just them and me.
I mean that's what you want right? You aren't there to listen to your Engineer speak or your boss or yourself right? Who cares what your team says really. Its what the client or the prospect says that is of interest to you.
Even though you are likely statistically to hear less from the client with more speakers on the call I think what happens is the team is all engaged in active listening and perhaps afraid of breaking the thought or moving the call to where the salesperson didn't want it. Whatever the reason it works! Personally I think I'm more conscience of what I am saying and not just winging it to fill the dead air after a client is finished (or seemingly) on a point or sentence. Its astounding how much I learned just by listening to the client speak and ask questions of others and make comments on the material and answers etc. Especially after the pregnant pause or an awkward silence.
The most amazing part was that the best insights and thoughts tended to come when the client jumped in to fill the dead air, either adding to their previous point, or asking other questions. It is tough as a listener on the phone to hear nothing. A pause tends to bring the clients thoughts out, and help me as a sales person understand their thoughts and buying processes. The trick is to do this everytime, and not jump in every time we have a second or two of silence on a call.

Happy Monday

in Sales we get paid to talk to people and I've found that of the days that people are at their best is Monday's. This may sound strange as Monday's seem to be on the hate list for a lot of us. Dragging ourselves into work after a weekend to battle traffic after a couple days of TV, lawn cutting, skiing etc depending on your hemisphere. I really think people are actually anxious to speak on work related matters on Monday's as they've managed to rest their brains and be able to see things in a different light. Certainly I feel more confident to speak in friendly terms on a Monday more than any other. You can hear it in people's tone when they answer. Plus you get to ask how their weekend was! I think also people are more confident on Monday's. Certainly they have 4 more days to go through and if procrastination serves them the same way it does me we have time to do our chores later. Calling people on Monday's in sales gives them 4 more days to perform whatever you asked of them, and its all the more likely that your conversation could continue before the weekend. If you are compelling them to take action and review your product to see if its really up to the task or it warrants another look you are more likely to get their agreement when they have a week to do this. To hit home the point for sales people, in a host of oganisations check runs are Thursdays, with a requisitions approved by Wednesdays.. Mondays give you time to get that requisition going in time

Salespeople should embrace Mondays!!