Selling to large organisations is complicated - Here’s how to simplify, strategise, win more and win bigger.
With decades of combined enterprise selling experience under our belt and having coached many B-B sales organisations, we have arrived at a singular inescapable conclusion; selling to large organisations is complex!
What makes it complex is not the solution or the problem, although both could themselves be complicated.
What makes enterprise selling complicated is the number of decision-makers involved in the buying process.
CSO Insights, a leading research firm into B-B sales reports this data annually.
When buyers are asked how many decision-makers were involved in their buying process, the data has consistently shown year on year increases - with the average being 6.4.
This means that enterprise selling is getting MORE complicated and not less.
The same question was asked to sellers and a very different picture was painted.
According to the research, sellers believe there are closer to 4 decision-makers involved in the decision-making process.?
Think about that for a minute; if sellers believe there are 4, and buyers say upwards of 6;…this means sellers consistently fail to identify ALL the people involved in the decision-making process.
Now think about this:?
Does the risk of losing increase or decrease if the key decision-makers are not identified and accessed?
Accessing decision-makers during the buying process is arguably one of the biggest challenges the modern sales team faces.
As the data would suggest, sellers don’t identify or access them all, which is the single biggest strategic reason for the loss of an opportunity.
There is however a solution.
One that is proven to have an exponential impact on getting out of low-win-probability opportunities quickly, whilst at the same time, helping you increase win-rates.?
The difference between strategy and tactics
If selling was a sporting endeavour, strategy would be how you prepare for the game, whereas tactics would-be the decisions made during the game.
Strategy is the 35,000 feet aerial view over (in this case) a selling situation; evaluating your position(s) of advantage and positions of disadvantage.
An effective sales strategy should get the right seller in front of the right buyer with the right message at the right time.
Tactics are how you manage the situation when in front of the buyer.
I say this without reservation:
“Today’s B-B sellers still think too tactically and not strategically enough.”
A selling situation becomes complex when there are three or more decision-makers involved in the buying process. That’s pretty much most B-B selling situations; as the CSO data would suggest.
So, how do you simplify the complex?
Have you heard the expression how do you eat an elephant?
Yes, you break it into smaller chunks. Of course, we are not literally advocating eating elephants, it is metaphoric.
The way you simplify complex situations is by breaking them into smaller chunks so that you can understand the individual constituent pieces.
The best way to do this is by using a specific opportunity management framework.
Case Study: What happens when you don’t cover the bases.
A client of ours who works for a large consulting firm shared this story:
A major, highly desirable opportunity had come to market with an existing client. The relationship manager for the client had not been in contact with the client for more than 6-months.
It turns out, a very senior decision-maker in the client business had fallen out with the relationship manager and a competing firm was cosying up to the disgruntled decision-maker.
My client’s team, in pursuit of this opportunity and not aware of the fallout until very late in the selling process,?invested heavily in the solution. They were so proud of their work; they started announcing how great the solution was; blasting it out on social media. Even before showing the client the solution.
Come the pitch-day, the disgruntled high-degree of influence decision-maker didn’t show up for the presentation. The reception from the other decision-makers was also lukewarm at best.?
Here’s the punchline: the estimated cost of this pursuit and solution design was calculated to be circa GBP 2 million.
Flabbergasted, I asked how often this sort of thing happens. He responded… “oh all the time”.
We went on to discus some of the likely consequences of this situation and it was?mind-blowing:
The consequential costs of these kinds of situations are staggering and yet, wholly unnecessary. ?Does a version of this happen in your organisation?
So, what should have happened??
Desirability does not mean winnability
The cost of putting a pursuit together; time, salaries, emotional exertion, opportunity-cost, some of which are easier to quantify than others, is huge!
Not all opportunities are winnable no matter how desirable, and a lack of strategic thinking will see you pursuing opportunities you cannot win.
Yet opportunities are pursued all the time based exclusively on desirability without weighing the winnability of the opportunity.
Before solutioning, it’s important to understand both winnability and desirability to determine if?it is worth investing the time, money, and energy. This is qualification.
Had the selling team at our?client’s business done this, they may have withdrawn from the opportunity much earlier and mitigated some of the actual/potential collateral damage caused.
If you want to compete in B-B sales and you are not using a specific framework to manage opportunities – you have a competitive disadvantage.
The map of the territory: A strategic framework for opportunity management
Imagine you are military commander overseeing the field of battle. You need a map of the territory and as much information about the battle situation as possible.
Missing and/or inaccurate information could cost lives.
In sales, the situation is similar (although it may not cost so many lives).
There are three critical elements to a successful sales strategy: position, people, plan.
Had our client at the consulting firm focussed in on position, people, plan to evaluate the winnability to balance out desirability, maybe there would have been a different outcome.
We believe strongly that most sellers don't naturally think this way.
Evidence of this exists in sales organisation all over the world.?That’s why we advocate opportunity management?frameworks that act not only as check lists but provide a?prompt and structure?for strategic thinking.?
When we have worked with businesses who have inculcated an opportunity management framework into their sales process, magic happens.
We saw one business increase its win rate from 23.9% to 46%, when using an opportunity management framework such as this.
Their ability to see into opportunities, evaluate their position, and set laser focused strategies also meant they were able to uphold margins. They not only saw an increase in win rates but also margins increased as well.
Final thoughts
Getting pursuit teams organised across a common methodology, approach and language around opportunity pursuit is fundamentally important if you want to intentionally grow your revenue by developing sales capabilities.
As the graphic below illustrates, the potential for performance improvement from the middle 60% of performers will yield greater return to the business than focussing on the top performers.
We are repeating ourselves we know, but most salespeople are not thinking strategically, they think more tactically and in complex selling situations with multiple decision-makers this can be a competitive disadvantage.
The key is to adopt a process and tool that will support strategic thinking, provide a common language for sales teams, creates greater clarity and an increased probability of winning.
As our clients have told us about the return on investment across such initiatives is exponential when implemented well.
CEO | Founder | SBN Ambassador | EGN | Global Scot | Endurance Athlete
1 年Great article and really enjoyed the webinar. Even having been in industry for a while I learned tons.
Farmers Insurance
1 年Glad to see you are still making an impact!