5 Sales Challenges

What's going on in the sales world? Why is it harder to close more deals? One study said that 50% of salespeople are not hitting their sales quota. What is making it harder for us to sell more effectively?

How can we mitigate some of these challenges and make it easier for us to actually sell.

#1- The number of options in the market for buyers has increased. The access to those options has increased. In other words, the internet and social media has made it possible, for customers to get access to more options than ever before. Is that good news, or is that bad news? What do you think? I think it's good news. You can go on the bad news and say "Well, that's more competition. They're gonna beat us up on price more because there are more options". If you're thinking that way, you are really missing the big picture. Because there are more options, people are more confused than ever which the brain locks up, go into Buyer's Regret Mode (The buyer would rather not make a decision than make a decision and be wrong) and end up not making a deal. So the fact that there are more options out there provides a golden opportunity for the salesperson to help the customer and become that trusted advisor; to explain things to the customer and help guide them into making a buying decision. See, so you as a salesperson are now more valuable than ever. It's not what you sell, it's how you sell in today's market, and you are more valuable because there are more options.

#2- The number of decision makers continues to increase; more people are now involved in making a buying decision. In general, when you're selling in a B2B enterprise type sale, the product you're selling will probably impact more than one person, if not more than one department. And because of that, it will impact on more than one person and department. The risk associated with this high priced item you're offering comes more risk and more people need to be in on the buying process. Now the numbers vary but, on average, you'll have five decision makers (Some people say seven, some people say a little more). Whatever the case may be, the challenge we face is that now we have to develop what is known as Consensus Buying. Consensus buying is "how to get these five or seven decision makers on the same page?" How do we control that? It is always our job as salespeople to find common ground, understand these buyers, and work from there. When you get 5-7 people who are trying to make one decision, everybody has an opinion on what they should buy, what reasons they should buy, and in many cases, it's all about self-interest. Our job as salespeople is to provide an opportunity for us to do consensus building. How do we get people on board and actually serve all these different interests?

#3 - Access to the decision maker is becoming that much more difficult. Most decision makers today view salespeople, (I hate to say it this way) and say "You're wasting my time." There was one study that showed that only 43% of the executives viewed the actual presentation by the salesperson as valuable. In other words, they don't even find the conversation they're having with you interesting, which is why they never call back when you want to set up the second meeting. In other words, even if you get access to the decision maker if you're not having a valuable conversation they're not gonna call back.

See, but again, this provides an opportunity for sales people because when we do get access to the decision maker, we know what type of conversations to have. In fact, as we're trying to get access, what if your voicemails are value-laden? They tell the customer or the decision maker that, "Hey. I wanna talk to you about these crucial things about your business." And if you can make that meaningful, maybe they'll call back. The more you can do this, the more you can position yourself as somebody who understands their market, their business, their industry and their struggles, maybe they'll pick up the phone. But once you get that conversation, once you get that meeting, you gotta provide value.

#4- The equality of quality. Simply said, all products are beginning to look the same to customers. They won't be able to tell the difference. We, as salespeople, are the differentiators in any sales process. If two products are almost similar, (one degree off the difference) it's our ability to tell them what that 1% is and add value. We can add value by suggesting things to the customer that maybe the other sales person with the other product who's similar, didn't do. In other words, you're not just selling the product or service, you're selling how it could help them build their business, different ways that they can use it. What if you start getting more creative about how your product can help the company make more money or, how the product can help them save more money? The fact that you gave them the ideas, positions you as the expert. The other person did the same presentation with the same product but didn't provide that insight, didn't close the deal.

#5- Longer sales cycle. Meaning, it's taken longer to close the deal because when we were in there doing the presentation, it wasn't convincing. We didn't move them along the decision making line. We didn't provide enough value. And again, this is where you can control this. You can control what information you provide in these presentations. Listen to my podcast on how you create dynamic presentations with lots of value because I think where we stumble as salespeople is that first initial meeting. If we do show how this will change the company for the better, we'll be able to shorten that sales cycle.

You are the insight engine. You're gonna bring insight that nobody has. You're going to bring content to bear, information to that conversation that the other salespeople who offer similar products who are your competitors, are not offering. If you can do that, you'll close more deals, but too often we take the shortcut: we don't think about it, we don't even analyze the customer, we don't even research their business, we don't try to understand what they're going through, and we go in there and, we sound just like everybody else.

See, the ability to sell in this changing world is within your control. That's the irony.

The world of selling has changed, it's become harder, but everything that's going on around us can be managed by you. You, the salespersons, have the ability to have better conversations with the customer. The question is, are you willing to do it? Are you willing to spend more time with your customer? Are you willing to slow down in order to speed up? Ask more questions. Really understand the customer's business. Are you willing to research the company before you go visit them? Don't go in there with the standard questions - go in there with some really insightful questions that make the customer go, "Man, I didn't think about that. Wow, that's different."

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