Sales 101 : Timeless tenets of B-B sales that we salespeople often ignore...

In my two professional decades, I have sold welding machines, light bulbs, luminaires, switchgear, electronic products, life insurance, unit linked investments, heavy duty gas turbines, super and sub critical steam turbines, industrial products like AQCS and WTE boilers, power system automation, electrical balance of plant & substation products, geothermal projects, services for diesel locomotives and services for onshore wind turbines, among other things, to clients of over 15 nationalities, my ‘wares’ and organizations being mostly Western MNCs, and my playground being price-driven Asian markets. Obviously, I have also sold myself into each of these roles across industries and geographies to a heterogeneous group of hiring managers . Barring a couple of benign assignments, I have been a top performing sales person in most of the roles I have worked in or led, and I have my share of trophies as a testimony to my years of hustle. In short, I am your quintessential sales guy . Sales is something I relate to and love doing, also something I thought I could do effortlessly.

Well, maybe not. As I concluded towards the end of 2019.

As part of my year end personal development plan, I had scheduled a refresher course for myself during my vacation , on basic selling . After all, every profession needs a periodic upgrade of knowledge and skills. So why not the sales profession ? Especially in this new world with new tools and tackles that didn’t exist twenty years ago. Incidentally, so pumped up was I after my course that I actually also bought a sales book at the airport, something I haven’t done in more than seventeen years. Like most sales people, I have a ‘know-it-all’ in me, and would be amused at people who ‘still need to read’ about sales. The book by Subroto Bagchi (simply titled ‘Sell’) turned out to be a delightful in-flight read. Mr. Bagchi’s Indian (& Bengali) origin & his premise being on B-B selling made it only more relatable.

The nice coincidence, attending the course & reading Mr. Bagchi ( who comes across as the wise and lovable boss we would have in our younger days), got me super charged as I stepped into 2020 with brimming Mojo, having reconnected with some the basic tenets of the profession I grew up on that gave me my identity, and which I, like most of my peers, had stopped practicing as I grew older.

So much about selling has changed. And yet so much remains the same like the day we started out, as wide-eyed youngsters with brochures in our briefcases, dreams in our hearts and words of Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Og Mandino buzzing in our heads. Let me share some of my scribble pad notes, the intent being more to document the same for myself, and also help some of my connections who might be needing that shot of adrenaline we sales people do in the month of January - whether we are selling a product , a service, a concept , a company, or ourselves in a job interview.

• In a world overflowing with data, your knowledge about your market and your customer follows rules of science, while the art of filtering the data is an art you need to learn . But the most important part is the horse sense to work on the filtered data, which comes from experience. So, never stop selling , no matter what your name card says. Selling skills are like muscles that get atrophied when not exercised. Real time selling keeps you updated on trends and challenges that change from season to season. And yes, real selling practice also acts as your personal 'Bullshit Detector' when a team member attempts to bluff you.
• In today’s digitized eco system, most sales people work only on spoon-fed enquiries that land on their lap. The best sales people still use the ‘suspecting’ method. ‘Suspecting’ gives you your TAM ( Total available market). Prospecting is qualifying your TAM. Make sure you spend five hours / week , identifying ‘suspects’.
• Large client organizations are entire universes in themselves. They are held together in a complex web of personalities and functions that are seldom linear. Always work on the client organization beyond a one-point transactional goal. The rewards in large client organizations are often concealed beyond your obvious targets.
• Avoid fishing in a pond where everyone else is fishing. This is especially true in today’s digital age where basic market information is available to everyone on their smartphones. 90% of sales people go after this basic low hanging fruit in the Tier 1 prospects. Make sure you have a view of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 customers. There is less competition there.
• Never try to sell on phone or on email.
• A standard conversion ratio in the B-B space is 10 : 3 : 1 ( 10 prospects, 3 enquiries, 1 sale) . Therefore, unless you have a qualified funnel that is 10 times your target, you are sinking.
• Nothing is more inefficient than doing efficiently what need not be done at all. Stop wasting time on wrong prospects – the ones who always give you the appointment easily , or who ask you for endless simulations to present at their board meetings , or who have limitless time on their calendars to discuss industry gossip with you. 
• Have an identity capital beyond your business card. Who are you beyond your day job ? What are some of the key aspects of Brand-You when a customer thinks of you ? Do you have a blog ? Do you speak at industry conclaves ? Do you teach university students over the weekends ? What does Google say about you ? What does your Twitter feed look like ? You can be sure that your smartest and biggest customers research you just like you research them.
• If you have a dinner meeting, eat before you go. Listen more, talk clean, eat frugally and try not to drink at all.
• In a world where most sales professionals come across as clones of one another, what is your differentiator that will make clients remember you after you have left ? Or, as Mr. Bagchi writes, what is your weird-quotient ?
• If you need to grab the attention of an important person over email, never send the email on a Monday where your mail is likely to get buried under piles of other mail and eventually ignored. The best time to do this is on a Saturday evening where the said person is likely to be more relaxed and browsing through a less populated feed
• A Players’ Map ( Who’s who) and an influencer matrix( Buyer, Supporter, Sponsor, Friend, Detractor) of your client organization never goes out of fashion. More importantly, unless regularly updated, this won’t help. Your client organization, just like yours, is a dynamic place where people move up and move on. Equations change. Sometimes old detractors become new buyers. At other times, an old friend joins a new client & becomes your biggest sponsor.
• ‘The jungle has eyes’. Your competition is always watching you. Make sure you are watching them with more precision. ( A practice we would have during our FMCG days was to break up into groups and have each group sell a star competitor product to the others while having the others shoot down the sale. Try it. It works wonders)
• Harness the power of trade shows. Do your homework. The best B-B sales people plan months in advance before attending trade shows, researching on the displayers, sending out meeting requests, laying out an exact agenda to boost their funnel from there through new relationships they would forge, and have a clear follow through plan for the rest of the year
• Be the best you. Don’t fake it. Use what Adam Grant calls the ‘Power of powerless communication’. Don’t be self-conscious about your limitations. In fact, use them to your advantage. Like Grant says, once the sincerity factor is established , the guy with a stutter or the girl who spilled coffee on her dress is more likely to win the customer than a copybook salesperson.
• Don't show up in a a Tee Shirt, a pair of jeans and sneakers for a client meeting. Your formal way of dressing, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to cynics, is your sign of respect towards the client and will earn you respect in return. Oh yes, keep your phone away in your bag ( no, the face-down vibrator mode also doesn't work !)
• No matter who you are in the pecking order of your organization, when you are the lead relation-keeper for an account , you need to own it, warts and all. No task then should be too big or too small for you. The buck stops at you.
• If you sell a gas turbine, you need to understand how each piece of the jigsaw of the power plant fits in – the HRSG, the Steam turbine and the balance of plant. If you are not able to hold an intelligent conversation with your client around the entire solution, and merely say that your turbine offers 60% efficiency on combined cycle, you won’t be taken seriously ( Your client can Google this information himself and doesn’t need you for it ).
• Nothing beats visual. Show up ( or have a Skype call). Use videos instead of lifeless charts. Show the human faces in your project organization chart that you send to your customer. People buy from people. And people like to buy from people who they can see.
• ‘Cost-Plus’ should be only about 65% of your selling price. Rest of it comes from the value you are bringing to the table as an organization – your industry expertise, your installed base experience, your R&D spend that eases lifecycle costs for the client , your supply chain muscle, so on. The best clients buy on value, provided you are able to articulate the value well.
• Know your own organization, be proud of its folklore and share nuggets with your customer. People get attached to stories. Stories give them anchors and perspective. Stories are potent resistance- killers when narrated with sincerity and pride
• While negotiating, never ignore cultural nuances. While negotiating, listen twice of what you speak. While negotiating, never stop asking for more. Ask, then ask some more. You do not get anything that you fail to ask. Cardinal rule.
• A ‘No’ from a qualified prospect is not a rejection. It is just a deflection that tells you to change your strategy. There will always be gatekeepers. Either woo them, or find a new gate.
• Humanize and simplify your marketing pitch. Bring it down from 50K feet to the customer’s level . Actually , to the deal level . The customer is not interested what you did in Timbaktoo. He wants to know what can do for him now & how you can solve his problem
• Your sales pitch needs to start with the customer and not with how awesome your company is.
• Bad sales people get to work once they receive a tender . The best sales people are done with their work before the tender is out. B-B selling is 90% pre-tender activity.
• Never get into showing PPTs in customer meetings. If you have to , send your PPT in advance for the customer to assimilate and have questions ready. Use meeting time to talk, to resolve objections, make relationships.
• ‘Persuade’ in Latin translates as “Through to completion”, while ‘Convince’ means ‘Overcome or defeat in argument’. Most sales people try convincing instead of persuading. They win arguments & lose clients.
• Most of our coaches in our formative years would never stop stressing on the importance of closing skills & the need to ask for the order, teaching us how to follow a step-by step sale-closing process like Encyclopedia salesmen of yore. With time, this style has become obsolete . The best sales people today slip into the role of a fair & knowledgeable adviser for the client who assesses the problem statement and offers a reasonable solution. Then they keep quiet . Sometimes not asking for an order after doing everything right, helps closing the sale faster.
• When you lose an order, like you often will – take it with grace. Learn from it and write a nice note to the customer, thanking them for the opportunity. You might have lost a transaction but you will end up winning the relationship.
• After you sign a contract , shut up. Don’t over-sell out of joy. Most customers suffer from a buyer’s remorse after signing up. When you over-sell, you stoke their suspicions.
• Never underestimate the power of the Door knob close (This is vintage Brian Tracy) – After a vigorous and all out rejection, go back one more time. Respectfully present yourself one last time. 20% of door knob attempts get converted into a sale
• There will always be instances when you'll screw up and you would need to communicate the bad news to the client. Do it straight up instead of sugarcoating it . Do it in person and with empathy . Apologize, take the bashing ( its not personal) , offer a solution. If possible, invite the customer’s input on how best the situation can be resolved.
• Never commoditize or copy-paste your sales pitch. Treat each sale as a first date of a special courtship.
• Never be too confident. Prepare, and then prepare some more. Remember - for you , it might be the nth time you are presenting something, but for the customer, it will be the first time she is hearing it from you.
• Stay in touch beyond business. Exchange emails. Be around during important milestones for your customers even without a selfish interest.
• Be proud of your profession. Like someone once told us – in the business world, everything moves only when there is a sale. You keep the wheels of commerce rolling . You are recession-proof !

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(My Sunday blogpost – 05/01/20)

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