Can you stop twiddling your thumbs and ask some good questions!!

Some sales people just wait wait wait for the prospect to come back and say formally if they are getting the deal or not, but I believe a good sales guy should be able to predict in most cases what is going to happen with the deal, instead of keeping at it for ever, thinking that I have high perseverance or praying that the deal comes through. One good way to get out of this trap, is to think more from prospect's perspective, ask yourself these simple questions, why should they buy from you? what you got which the other vendors cannot provide? and did you differentiate yourself enough so you are at the top of prospect's mind? if none of these are giving you favorable answers then probably you aren't in the right position to get the deal.

In addition to these ask some good questions to the prospect, like dear prospect, do you think we covered everything you needed? is there any area you think we didn't exceed to your expectations? you will see sometimes prospect's sounding their concerns or telling you things, which will provide you enough insight where the deal is heading and what you need to do about it.

Recently, to one prospect I even asked, you are contemplating doing this in-house, which means you can pull this off at lesser cost, then what you think are the most compelling reasons for you to go with a Vendor like us? I got some answers from the prospect, which gave me some cues where this deal is possibly heading, and what I need to do. Should I persist? do something to change the equation? or just exit?

Bottom-line, ask some tough questions, connect dots, question why you are the only one who is BEST suited for this deal and if you think the prospect's selection criteria itself are misaligned for their own good, tell them that, because that is the biggest help you can offer them as a consultant and by the way, that may even get you the deal.

PS: let me know your comments and also what you think could have been a better title for this blog.

Happy Selling Value!!!

Manager Vs Leader - a perfectly wrong question

I see inordinate number of people asking this question, what is the different between manager and leader? I feel the question itself is wrong. Manager is yet another role like programmer, analyst , designer etc...a good manager is one who can manage assignments diligently and tactfully and has good people management skills, whereas leaders can be found in any role (not just managers), an individual who takes initiative, who inspires, who wants to challenge status quo and who wants to achieve their goals and help others achieve theirs is a leader. And that individual can be lowest in the rank of hierarchy but is still a leader. Make sense? let me know your comments on this.

Believe in YOU

- world is hitting hard at you, hit them back
- people are telling you NO, tell them YES
- too much noise around you, cut them all
- if people are telling you it is tough, tell them that is why you are doing it
- world will direct you at its will, if you don't trust yourself
- only you know eventually you are going to make it, so keep at it
- success is sweet, not because it is easy but because it is tough as hell
- failure is beautiful, so take it with grace
- believe in YOU, because that's the only way you are going to make it

Start Narrow and Then Broaden

If you are in sales and building your team and pipe ground-up, it is better you take a narrowed approach in terms of what services you are planning to offer, which geographies and customer segments to focus on, and then broaden your reach depending on how things are progressing. 

Pick up one service offering where you think your organization has a differentiator, one geography and one customer segment. Now put in a plan for 8 to 12 weeks, in terms of number of leads you want to generate, problems you can solve for your prospects using your service, your differentiating pitch, pricing models etc..

Now enhance your plan frequently based on your learning, maybe you have to change your pitch, add in a different dimension to your pitch, change your target prospects (example instead of focusing on CIO, you may have to focus on CMO), developing new questions for your first call,  change/enhance your differentiator so you don't fall in the same mind bucket as the prospect has put your competitors in. This one is not hard as long as you consciously try to consolidate your understanding of the market and align your plan accordingly.

Once you have established your offering in a geography and for a particular customer segment, you can start thinking of adding more services or expanding on your customer segments or even geography for that matter.