Prepare: To Win

Navy SEALs are known to be the greatest fighting force on the planet. It’s no accident that they are also the greatest planners in the world as well. The planning for the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound was skilled, meticulous, thorough ,and training simulations mimicked real world scenarios. The team did so many practice runs that they had encountered as many real world scenarios as they could think of. In recalling the near catastrophic crashing of one of the helicopters that delivered the SEALs on the night of the raid, a member of the team said “We planned for that”. We all know how the operation ended.

Practice before the event is not just for soldiers. NASA has never sent a human in to space without thousands of hours of practice. Surgeons practice for years before actually operating on a live patient. Athletes practice multiple days per week. You get the idea. Practice and preparation are the hallmarks of the best professionals from sports, to science and medicine to defending our country. 

So why don’t sales people practice more?

If you are in strategic sales (I define this as sales that require you to understand a client’s needs and demonstrate that your solution can meet this need, and the buying decision requires buy-in/approval from 2 or more people), it is likely that you are not the only seller in the room for high-stakes meetings. The bigger the deal, the more people that join you for a sales meeting. It was common for us to have a Sales Executive, a Solutions Engineer, a Sales Leader, and a Client Success rep in one sales meeting. Top deals got me or a member of the executive team as well. If you doubted that selling was a team sport, the starting lineup of 5 team members make for a full basketball team being brought to a meeting.   Can you imagine a pro-team showing up for a game without having practiced? Without the practice, how does each player know their position, the strengths and weaknesses of their teammates game, the plays that they will run, what to do when the other team increases their defense, or how to handle the final shot? The result would be a big mess. This team would lose….A LOT. This is obvious, so why don’t more sales people make preparation, planning and practice a bigger focus? I think that it is often because leaders put all of their emphasis on results rather than behaviors. Winning is easy to celebrate. Great leaders celebrate planning almost as much as winning.

Please, no coffee shop practice (or the virtual equivalent)

 If you have been involved in a team sale, I’m sure that you have gotten this email or text (or maybe even sent it):

           “Really looking forward to a great meeting at PROSPECT tomorrow. I’ll have the materials ready to go. Want to meet at the Starbucks near PROSPECT office at 10 am to review and prepare for our 11:30 meeting.”

I remember as a CRO getting that email and realizing that I was failing the team if that was acceptable behavior.  Our average deal was hundreds of thousands of dollars. We are meeting with executives that expect us to be prepared and understand their needs. We had 4 of us going to this meeting. We are going to meet in a crowded coffee shop, with all of its distractions, 90 minutes before the big game? What were we doing?   The sales rep on the deal was one of our best. The Solutions Engineer was an industry expert that knew every nook and cranny of our software. We had great individuals, but in no way were we a great team.

Change the Behaviors:

Not surprisingly, we didn’t win the deal. I can live with that, but not delivering effectively in-front of the prospective client was an embarrassment. We looked like and acted like a team that was not prepared for the game. I left that meeting and instituted a mandate for team selling to require behavior change. I called this “Prepare to Win”. The words are deliberate. I believed it important for reps to understand that the goal of this behavior change: WIN. 

So how do you Prepare to Win? 

Let’s double click into this:

1. Remember – each client or prospect is different. What you did last week, or 100 other times doesn’t matter, your presentation is new to the prospect and their team. Treat it that way. 
2. Identify the specific objectives – yours and the clients. This is too often overlooked or simplified. Sure, you want to win the deal, but what specifically do you want to get out of the meeting (ie. understand the impact of limitations of their current solution, create a shared vision for improvement, etc). More importantly, what does the prospective client team want to accomplish? They didn’t take the meeting just to be nice. If you don’t know, go ask! Do they have an immediate pain that needs an immediate fix? Do you have a champion that understands their pain, and needs you to help them convince others? 
3. Build an agenda to that objective and review with the client in advance – Use the agenda development process to engage your prospect or client. “Hi Judy, to ensure that we make our meeting a valuable use of your teams time, can I get 30 minutes to review the agenda and get your feedback and input?” If the client/prospect won’t engage in this effort, it tells you that they may not be engaged in a successful outcome. 
4. Know the audience – who are they? what matters to them? Will they be supportive or challenging in the meeting? These are all great questions to cover in the agenda review with your champion. Also make sure that you research attendees on LinkedIn. Maybe they come from an organization that is a happy client. Maybe they come from an organization that had challenges with implementation. Knowing this will help you to anticipate challenges, objections and opportunities.
5. Prepare your materials – Of course you will do this, right? Well, not if you wait until the last minute. To change the behaviour of procrastination, we required that materials be sent to the team 1 week prior to the meeting, along with a summary of meeting objectives. Failure to do so meant that team members could opt-out to attending for lack of preparation. The one-week rule ensured that the full team could review and provide meaningful input.
6. Prepare your team – ensure that all understand the goal of the meeting (both yours and the clients), the players in the room and the flow of the presentation. How will you tie in the clients’ goals and pains to every part of the presentation? What role will each member play? What should and shouldn’t they do or say? What curveballs could you expect? Who will run the presentation? Who owns back-up in case of computer problems? 
7. Practice as a team – back to my Navy SEALs example, they didn’t just talk about what they were going to do, they practiced it. Do the same. Ensure that all know that the practice sessions are mandatory, will be recorded, and will greatly improve the odds of winning. Also make sure that all know that they are expected to give and receive feedback. At least 2 days prior to your big meeting, do a live run through which each member playing their part. Yes, this actually means that you present exactly like you would with the client, with the real talk track you will use for each slide and for the demo. 

• Give Feedback – the point of the practice session is to get better. Each team member needs to give honest, constructive feedback to one another. Start with the good, and then share improvement opportunities. For example, “Bill, let me share the 3 best parts of your delivery, and 3 areas I think that you can improve.”
• Practice as a team – it’s not good enough to just do it once. Use the feedback and redo the presentation. Do it as many times as it takes to get it right.

The Payoff

Jaime was the best on our team at Preparing to Win. I remember when she reached out to say, “we have made it to the final selection with BIG PROSPECT. It’s down to us and one competitor. We have been given 30 minutes with their board to demonstrate our ability to meet their needs.” My immediate thought was, “Only 30 minutes to demonstrate our capabilities and software to 10 people for a 7-figure purchase…how the heck can we do this?” Jaime then defined the team that she wanted in the meeting, how she had built an agenda with her champion, how they would make a decision and exactly how our software solved their problems. She then put a series of 30 to 90 minute calendar blocks on our teams calendar for planning and practice sessions. She recorded her demo each day, reviewed it by herself and asked her sales leader to watch it and give feedback. She had to ensure that she could show how our software could solve their problems. No fluff. No wasted words. No diversions. Identify client pain and show how we relieve the pain.  She had each of us practice our part, and if it took too long, she forced us to cut it down and try again (remember, we only had 30 minutes). 

When the morning came to give the presentation, it was a thing of beauty. Jaime and our team had already given the presentation 4 times. We all knew our parts, the clients objectives, the players from the client that were in the Zoom room, and our anticipated objections based on our knowledge of the competition. We played our parts, showed the client how we solved their problems, were prepared for the objections and confirmed that we delivered to their expectations. The head of the Board ended the meeting by saying “Jaime, we can tell that you were prepared, and that you understood what we want to accomplish. Thanks for meeting our needs in a nearly impossible timeframe today.” No surprise. We won this $1M+ deal.

Jaime would say that she did nothing heroic. She just followed the process, embraced feedback, and held her team members accountable to do the same. They were prepared to win as a winning team! Wouldn’t it be great if everyone on your team did the same! 

Have thoughts on this article or examples of your own experiences driving meaningful improvements? I would love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected]