10 sins of enterprise sales

THE 10 SINS OF ENTERPRISE SALES

1 ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

Introduction

• This presentation walks through ten of the most common mistakes made by sales reps when managing a complex sale

• It is common to see the same mistakes occur across enterprise sales deals and sales teams

• With increasing time, number of people, greater competitive challenges, and deeper solution complexity, deals become harder to manage

• Even the most experienced sales reps are prone to making these same errors

• Inspired by the excellent book “Hope Is Not a Strategy” by Rick Page


http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Is-Not-Strategy-Winning/dp/0071418717

http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Is-Not-Strategy-Winning/dp/0071418717

Top Ten Enterprise Sales Sins

1. Focus on product, not solution

2. Selling to unqualified prospects

3. Not targeting buyer need

4. Doing the demo dash

5. Lack of executive engagement

6. Mismanaging your “champion”

7. Negative competitive selling

8. Talking price too early

9. No team sales strategy

10. Believing in assumptions


Focus on product, not solution

• Talking product reduces your offering to features and functions

• Need to speak to results and value

4

PRACTICAL TIP Create narrative (stories) about your customers’ pain that your solution addressed and the results that were achieved.

ENTERPRISE SALES MEETUP | @ENTERPRISE_SALE

Selling to unqualified prospects

5

• Have clearly established qualifying criteria

• Qualify poor fits out of pipeline as soon as possible

• BANT (budget, authority, need, timing) is useful, but often not the best criteria

PRACTICAL TIP Make sure every prospecting call incorporates qualifying questions, even during the deal stage as you want to stay ahead of any “surprises”.


6

Not targeting buyer need

• Different people have different agendas and different needs

• Need to frame your solution’s value to what matters most for your audience

PRACTICAL TIP Link your solution to operational, cultural, financial, political, and strategic benefits so you are prepared when meeting various parts of the organization.


7

• Do a needs analysis BEFORE the demo

• ONLY focus on product capabilities that link to confirmed needs

• Short & sweet is the key to maintaining attention

Doing the demo dash

PRACTICAL TIP Reduce your pitch to 20 minutes. Why? Research shows that attention drops precipitously after that (and kills your deal).


8

Lack of executive engagement

• Selling high is a necessity to create “energy” for your deal

• Executives have higher order needs and higher value ($$$) pain to solve

PRACTICAL TIP Call low first to get lay of the land, then you have some “facts” to reframe your message and make a more relevant pitch to an executive.


9

Mismanaging your “champion”

• Map the political field of your account, where does your “champion” sit?

• Titles often do not map to power or authority or influence

PRACTICAL TIP Do not rely on one champion! Build relationships across an account to insulate your deal from political sabotage.


10

Negative competitive selling

• Do set subtle landmines for your competition that they cannot easily overcome

• DO NOT ever bad mouth competition

PRACTICAL TIP Just as you would align your features to prospect needs, do the same with competitive traps to highlight deficiencies with competing offerings.


11

Talking price too early

• Price is never important in the early stage of deal

• Real price negotiations happen after you become the preferred provider

PRACTICAL TIP Never mention discounting upfront, it puts you in “vendor” mode and shifts discussion from value to price.


12

No team sales strategy

• Sales is a team sport so get the team on board and prepared for the deal

• The account executive is responsible for communicating deal strategy

PRACTICAL TIP Create a template with the key questions and qualifiers during a deal and use this as an ongoing checklist for the team to refer to and modify.


13

Believing in assumptions

• Easy to put on the “Happy Ears” and sweep away bad news

• Use critical thinking and hard questions to confirm & adjust strategy during deal

PRACTICAL TIP Have regular “deal review” sessions with sales team to discuss and drill into deals with the goal of actionable output to follow up on.


Let’s Talk

• Follow me and send a tweet @marksbirch • Connect over LinkedIn and mention this

presentation https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksbirch

• If you sell to enterprises, join us for the Enterprise Sales Meetup

http://enterprisesalesmeetup.com/ • If you are focused on prospecting, join us for

the Sales Development Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Sales-Development-

Meetup/


https://twitter.com/marksbirch

https://twitter.com/marksbirch

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksbirch

http://enterprisesalesmeetup.com/blog/

http://www.meetup.com/Sales-Development-Meetup/






THANK YOU!

10 sins of enterprise sales

Business