Strategic Selling vs Tactical Selling

Hello,

I was recently asked to present to a group of sales professionals on strategic selling vs tactical selling.? Also, the question was asked on what am I doing differently than most other reps during a sales process.??This was a very interactive session that lasted about 1 hour.?As a follow up the group asked If I could document my process and thoughts.??I hope this helps other sales professionals and sales leaders improve their methodology.? If one person can take one thing out of this post, than my goal is accomplished to help others. I added a recent story at the bottom as a reference.

Tactical Selling:?Here are some of the traits that I see as consistent with tactical selling.

·??????Consistently present from a standard PowerPoint company slide deck

·??????Majority of conversation is about what YOUR company does and not how that relates to the customer

·??????Constantly selling lower within the organization –focusing on tactical requirements

·??????Speaking about widgets and features - We can do this, and we can do that type of selling with no outcomes.

·??????Constantly sending pricing and contracts without any value or deep discovery

·??????Letting other people or dictate the sales cycle

·??????No or minimum research on the company

·??????No or minimum research on the industry

·??????Limited point of view

·??????Limited story telling –not sharing similar experiences or customer problems you solved.

·??????Working a ton of small deals at the same time and just processing orders or waiting on deals to close.

·??????Your follow up is light or limited with no personalization

Value Selling or Strategic Selling - ??This is from a software and technology perspective. ?Here is my process that I follow in which I have learned from my mentors, but mostly by my most challenging customers who have pushed me to become better.

·??????Research the organization – What do they do? Who is their competition? Where are they doing well or needs of improvement??Strategic initiatives and financials

·??????Read 10k and investor relations reports - What are the priorities, focus areas, financials, competition?

·??????Research the customer you’re meeting with – Via social media, What are they saying? What’s important to them professionally and personally???What groups do they belong to? What school did they go to??Study their presentations so you can understand who you are selling to. Go through an experience on their website or call center.

·??????Social Selling – Who is connected to your customer? Who has sold to them before? Who can either introduce you to the customer or put in a good word for you?

·??????Research industry trends – What are their peer groups are doing? What are key areas of focus? What are your customers doing in that industry? What value did you provide to them?

·??????Selling to Executive Levels - Speak their language - Executives speak Excel and not PowerPoint. Specifically, have a POV on P&L, ROI, Transformation, what are the market trends? How will you make their life better, and free up time for them to allocate on different areas of the business.

·???????Business Case / ROI – Provide value on the money that you are going to save them or by solving the problem, and what that means for the customer.??Create the art of the possible for them.??Saving an organization a million dollars at a $50 Billion company is not going to to move the needle.

·??????Migration Plan - How do you plan on mitigating risk and limiting business disruption.?What is the blue print on how to get them from point A-Z? What are the learnings? What are lessons learned? What is their culture or temperature for change management? What is are their global transition plan? Do they want big bang vs smaller phases deployments?

·??????Meetings – Short and efficient slide ware. Tell stories, speak ROI, speak on business improvement. Make an impact statement in the first 2 minutes of the conversation.

·??????Business Case/ ROI leave behind - 5 Page ROI, laminate a page leave behind, anything of value that is quick and easy to read but impactful. ??Create a vision on the the art of the possible for them.??

·??????Follow up and Communication. From my experience, Executives want short bullet points that are impactful.?Have a POV - Why your solution will have immediate impact on their business with limited disruption.?Personalize your follow up – and keep it continuous, ideally with a text message.

I hope this explains my selling methodology vs tactical selling.???This is my process and doesn’t necessarily work for everyone and nor should it.??If you take away any of the components listed above and make it yours, that is what matters.??

Related Story:

I was preparing for a C Level Meeting with a fortune 200 company at hotel bar, having dinner and a drink.??Like many of us preparing, my stuff was everywhere, and it was consuming most of my end of the bar.? As I was researching and building out my presentation, I was frantically trying to make it perfect.? I had been preparing for this meeting for weeks, so there was a lot of content. ?I always struggle with taking a ton of information and consolidating it into a 10–15-minute presentation for the Executives. As I was sitting down a gentlemen asked if he could sit next to me.? He was casually dressed, but very polite.?I quickly moved all my crap out of the way so he could sit down.?I apologized and continued working on my preparation for the meeting. He ordered a drink, and after a few minutes, he respectfully asked me if I wouldn’t mind sharing what I was working on.??Living in NYC, my immediate wall came up, but he was pleasant and approachable, so I told him I was preparing for an important meeting.??We began to continue the conversation, he was curious about my presentation and why I had so much stuff for a 30-minute meeting???I explained my sales methodology and why I was doing all of this. I wanted to differentiate myself from everyone else and provide a high level of respect to the Executive for his time.???He smiled and thanked me.??I asked why was he thanking me???He said, “thank you for respecting Executives like myself, and our time". A few minutes later, he finished his drink, shook my hand, and told me he was sorry, but he had to leave to meet his family for dinner. He gave me his business card and said if you ever need anything, or a job, please reach out at any time. As he left, I of course looked him up on Google and LinkedIn.? Come to find out he was a very successful and wealthy business person. He also blindly paid for my drinks and dinner!

The moral of the story is, you never know who you are speaking with, or who is watching.?Doing the right things will always pay off in spades.

Thanks,

TK