Caeteris Paribus, Complex Sales

Caetaris Paribus, Complex Sales

Article originally published in AESE Business School Insight initiative.

All sales are complex, B2B sales are complex, C-level sales are even more.

Satisfied customers generate long-term relationships, continued purchases, positive references, and success stories for the suppliers that serve them. Satisfied customers turn "more business" into "good business".

Good sales are those in which both the seller and the buyer win, and only this type of sales allows you to build long lasting relationships that last overtime. A sale for "thirty coins" is not a good sale, both the seller and the buyer lose. In the case of the "thirty coins" in fact who didn't lose was The One Who was Sold, and us, the ones who come to benefit from it!

Complex sales are those that have a high impact on both buyer and seller, that involve a strong change, that involve several people in the decision process, where both buyer and seller have alternatives, and that have a long and complex decision process.

The change brought about by a complex sale relies heavily on the free quote from our friend Bob Dylan's fantastic song, The Times They Are A-Changin:

“Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon

For the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who

That it's namin'

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin'”.

Success in a complex sale requires an appropriate approach that aims to gain the confidence of buyers and their final decision-maker. Complex selling done well is unique to companies that have dynamic sales processes:

• practice feedback
• constantly adjust processes to market dynamics
• are aggressive and usually very profitable

The efficient company in complex sales permanently reinvents itself, questioning the levers of the sales strategy:

• compensation
• structure and organization
• recruitment and training

using them cyclically for its transformation process.

An efficient company in complex sales:

• identifies the portfolio of strategic business opportunities
• defines priority focuses to maximize sales success
• understands the specifics of complex and strategic selling
• identifies and gains the trust of different types of buyers
• turns satisfied clients into advocati who defend us.

The notions of outcome (measurable and corporate positive impact result) and achievement (personal and subjective gain, non-measurable objective, conquest) and the unit of analysis opportunity, are key elements in complex selling. Outcomes usually precede achievements. An outcome is for example the buyer's EBITDA increase, an achievement can be for example the promotion of the buyer's decision maker.

A consequence of the results versus achievements dynamic is that people tend to decide much more based on the potential value of their gains and losses than on the final result.

The four types of decision maker are:

1. the economic decision-maker
2. the user
3. the technical decision-maker
4. the, unexpected, advisor

Each of these decision maker types has a different power, function, focus and intervention in the decision process.

It is very important to always have an advisor that is close to the buyer and can advocate for us.

The advisor can be a "friend" who is also a trusted advisor to the customer and who leads the customer to trust us as a supplier, and who helps us in the emotionally difficult situations of a complex sale.

Each decision maker reacts to change in four different ways:

1. growth
2. problem
3. indifference
4. arrogance

that reaction determines its probability, high, low or zero, of acting.

None of these decision-maker types have neutral positions, they are either in favor or opposed to the decision to buy our product or service from us.

One way to aid the decision in complex sales can be to create credible arguments that simplify the perceived organizational risk that is the cause of:

• the amount involved
• the previous experience with us
• the change brought about
• the economic environment

All sales have competition, even when the customer just talks to us, we sometimes think that the competition is our main competitor, but that is a simplistic view. In fact, our customer or prospect can:

• choose another supplier
• use the budget to another investment
• use internal resources
• do nothing

?Selling at the C-level is not easy, but it is possible, to reach the good economic decision maker we have several options that include:

• ?establish credibility
• call in an expert
• do peer-to-peer selling
• capitalize on past successes
• do reference marketing

The process of building trust with the aforementioned counsellor or advisor is done in three steps:

1. gaining trust: knowing how to listen, eliminating self-interest, being truthful
2. build the relationship, beyond friendship
3. give advice effectively: guide to conclusion, ask questions, take position

The degree of trust we manage to arouse in the client and the advisor is inversely proportional to our own greed.

As the great musician Roger Waters says in his planetary Pink Floyd song, Money, greed ruins everything:

“Money, so they say

Is the root of all evil today”.

The sales funnel is where this whole process takes place, where we go from the suspicious prospect to the customer who buys, recurrently, in the marketplace, which, to quote Prof. Frank Cespedes, "is the only place where value is created or destroyed."

The sales formula is the tool that allows us to generate more prospective customers and tells us what resources are needed to build a robust sales pipeline that ensures the transformation of prospects into customers.

Social media plays a key role in attracting customers to our sales funnel and in the reputational process of complex sales, by creating commercial and educational content about the industry in which we operate.

The "events" that conclude complex sales are/occur:

• When we receive the purchase order
• When we deliver
• When we invoice
• When we receive ($)
• When we are rated (NPS)
• When the customer is ready to work for us and becomes our "success story”
• When the customer makes the second purchase

Successful complex selling often indicates that we are facing the ideal customer profile, one that trusts us and speaks well of us.

In conclusion, sales are complex when they have the following characteristics:

• The more buyers and sellers, the more complex the sale
• Even when we are exclusive, the client always has an alternative
• Being exclusive today does not mean being exclusive tomorrow
• Know the competition and negotiate
• Power positions at start sometimes bring unpleasant surprises when renewing or when the balance changes
• A purchase is a change, it generates different reactions depending on the actor
• Doing your homework, namely: calculations and how to reach the economic buyer
• Do not pour the product
• Understand the sales funnel very well
• Do not over-promise in the proposal
• Show the value of our proposal
• Show the buyer his personal gains, possible achievements or conquests and the business outcome or results

Selling at the C-level is difficult, but not impossible! The essence of complex sales is not only the transaction itself, but also, and above all, the development of long-term relationships.

Let's think about this when we are dealing with our next complex sale.

Pedro Nuno Ferreira

Economist | MBA | Senior Teaching Fellow | AESE Business School?

Bibliography used freely:

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• Cespedes, Frank V. (2021). Sales Management That Works, Harvard Business Review Press
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