eBusiness Weekly
Robert Gonye
Most sales managers struggle with the question of whether they ought to hire more sales teams or get their sales staff to sell more. In either scenario, the “how”? question is raised . The trick is never in numbers but in output. What drives output — being sales attained — is the type of processes you as the sales manager have the sales team focusing on. If they keep the main thing in focus, they always seem to out perform expectations.
However, when caught up with processes which will kill their money hours i.e. hours from morning to midday where they focus on nothing but sales, they seldom meet their expectations.
In all my years in sales something evident which I have seen working regardless of organisation or location when it comes to sales is that Sales teams which regularly use the win-loss survey as a feedback tool outclassed sales teams which did not. Teams implementing win-loss will always achieve the following:
1. Higher team attainment.
2. Higher customer retention rates.
3. Almost or Double the year-over-year revenue expectations.
4. Improved year-on-year lead conversion versus a negative percentage drop among non-users.
A win/loss analysis is a survey of which areas a product or company is getting its wins from, and which areas the losses are emanating from.
Ultimately even if you decide to do an analysis, whether it’s conducted in-house or through a third-party, you will need to ask all or most of the questions listed here. These questions are directed at the customer in order to get the perspective of this most important part of the selling matrix.
1. What was the biggest consideration you based your decision on?
How it helps: This will surface the high-level reasons you’re winning or losing. Keep in mind that while you’re intimately familiar with your product or service and its pros/cons, prospects do not have the same experience under their belts. If you’re surprised by a point that comes up in response to this question — for instance, a feature perceived to be inferior that you know is better than the competitions’ — use that insight as a jumping-off point for implementing targeted change.
Next Steps: Beware of accepting vague reasons like price or the competition seemed to understand us better. Price issues are usually tied to a problem with communicating value, and the common “they just get us” objection points to a problem with your sales process. Keep pressing gently until you uncover the deeper issues.
2. How well did we do in tailoring our presentation/product/service to your needs?
How it Helps: Personalisation is the name of the sales game today. Rather than presenting a canned pitch to each and every prospective or existing customer, sales organisations should be carefully customising every detail for the potential client’s needs. A monotonous response here is a gigantic red flag.
Next Steps: If you’re losing deals due to a lack of personalisation, you might have problems with undefined buyer persons or a poor understanding of the buyer’s journey. Can your sales people quickly identify what kind of prospect they’re dealing with, and at what buying stage those prospects are in to adjust presentations appropriately? If not, you have some work to do. Alternatively, your sales reps might need coaching to listen more, talk less, and ask better questions.
3. Did you define your decision criteria? If so, what were they?
How it Helps: Sellers aren’t always privy to buyers’ decision checklists. Knowing how clients are evaluating your product or service can help you decide what features or aspects to play up or down the next time around.
Next Steps: Watch out for what can be termed the “blind spots” of selling. If potential clients are looking to your product or service for something that it flat out doesn’t do, marketing messaging needs to be adjusted. Conversely, this could be an opportunity to develop an area that your prospects are clearly looking for your company to deliver in.
4. Did you talk to any references about our product/service? What did they have to say?
How it Helps: If you’re like the rest of us, the first thing you do when choosing a restaurant is read reviews. Same goes for business purchases, everybody loves to get information from a good reference. Getting a sense of what references are saying can help you get a handle on your company’s brand perception.
Next Steps: If you’re hearing negative feedback from references second-hand, you should relay specific complaints to your management team so they can devote more resources to ongoing customer satisfaction. Serious steps need to be taken to nip anything on our part which elicits such negative feedback.
5. What was your experience with our team?
How it Helps: How we sell is more important than what we sell. The human element is still a huge part of the buying process, even in our digital age.
Next Steps: Be sure to keep this question open — don’t restrict it to solely address the sales team. While prospects primarily interact with salespeople, they could also cross paths with marketing, customer support, or executives either in person or virtually. If the prospect was left with a bad taste in their mouth after an interaction with any person from your company, probe into what behaviour drove that.
The survey questions do not end here. Join me again next week for the conclusion of this two part series.
