UnSelling™ - Sell Less … to Win More
22 Strategies to Win Without Selling
Smashwords Edition
Author: Peter Bourke
Copyright 2011 by Better Way Strategies, LLC, Alpharetta, Georgia
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Table of Contents
Introduction: UnSelling … To Win More Business
Chapter 1: “Selling” Doesn’t Work
Chapter 2: The Alternative: UnSelling (Think 7up® - The Uncola)
Chapter 3: UnSelling Practical Examples and Applications
1. UnSelling: It’s All In the Words You Use!
2. Using Provocative Point-Of-View (PPOV) Statements
3. Qualify Early (And Often) With Small, Polite Confrontations
5. More on “Let’s Decide If It Makes Sense to Do This At All”
6. Don’t Conform; Consult With the Client about Their Evaluation Process
7. The UnSelling Approach to the Discovery Process
8. Really Understand Your Client’s Business and Challenges
9. Executive Access Is Not Optional
10. Executives, Especially, Don’t Want to Be Sold
11. Above All Else, the Client Deserves the Truth
12. Provide the Client Alternatives to Build Trust
13. Don’t Be a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None
14. Resist “Death by Powerpoint” at All Costs
15. Accelerating Discussions that Are Perfectly Illogical (To “Selling” People at Least)
16. Give Your Competitors Some Credit (Sort Of)
17. If The Prospect Is Doing Something Difficult, They Deserve to Know
18. Using the “Walk Away” Strategy… to Win?
19. While You UnSell, Let Your Client References “Sell” to Their Heart’s Content
20. UnSelling Doesn’t Stop at Contract Signing
21. UnSelling Begins With Account Management
22. Without a Roadmap, Any Old Selling Road Will Get You Nowhere
Chapter 4: You Know You Have It Right When …
Introduction: UnSelling … To Win More Business
The more you sell, the less the client trusts you to tell them the truth. The more you sell, the less inclined the client is to listen. The more you sell, the more you tend to look (and act) like a hammer looking for a nail – where any nail will do. In reality, the more you sell, the less you win.
This position is entirely counter-intuitive to the average sales person, mostly because we are taught from the first day of sales training that the key to success is great sales techniques. You can find thousands of books on the art and science of selling – techniques, tricks, even scripts to “sell” the prospect. Our corporate sales training classes always insist that sales is about understanding the prospect’s needs and then articulating your solution so that the prospect is compelled to choose your obviously-superior solution – right? Not so fast!
I was trained, starting in 1980, by one of the premier sales organizations in the world – the IBM Corporation. I went on to work at some great and highly successful corporations organizations including Nynex (now Verizon) and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) where I headed up worldwide business development for this market-leading consulting organization for much of the last half of the 90’s. Interestingly, even these well-respected organizations instinctively tend to default to a “selling” model – focused on compelling the client to choose our product, solution, or approach because it is superior.
Then in 1997 while at Accenture I conducted a market-wide evaluation of potential sales methodology companies and evaluated an array of sales methodology firms you’ve heard of (and likely been trained by) – including Miller Heiman, Target Account Selling, and Solution Selling, among others. I ended up hiring a sales methodology and training organization I had never heard of – The Complex Sale (TCS). TCS was founded by Rick Page (author of the best-selling book, Hope is Not a Strategy) and I chose Rick’s firm because he understood what few people I had previously met really understood – that sales success, particularly when selling consulting and professional services offerings, has little to do with having the best features and functions of your solution. In fact, the best solution loses more than half the time in competitive deals – over half!
Based on our success at Accenture and my personal alignment with Rick’s fundamental methodology and thought process, I decided to leave Accenture in 1998 to share both Rick’s methodology and my philosophy about UnSelling to many new and different clients in services-based businesses. I have managed and coached thousands of sales people and led countless large pursuits. And while this little-understood concept of UnSelling has proven successful in many different organizations with whom I’ve worked, I’d be remiss in not acknowledging the insight and knowledge that Rick and his team of Principals have helped me understand and embrace and have been instrumental in the market-tested development of these concepts which have been integrated in this book. I can confidently say that TCS has developed the most effective sales methods and tools to help sales people and teams to win deals they can’t afford to lose.
Before we cover the UnSelling philosophy and approach in-depth, I should provide one additional dimension central to developing this concept. Since the mid-90’s, while at Accenture, we made a decision to institutionalize the process of conducting win-loss reviews when we had either won or lost a large, strategic opportunity. And in nearly every organization I have worked with since that time I have either instituted (using third party client research firms) or personally conducted face-to-face executive interviews with client executives who were deeply involved in the decision process to find out the whole truth, and nothing but the truth related to their decision.
The reason a third party review is so powerful is that, in most cases, the client won’t tell the sales team the truth. When asked, “Why did we lose?” you can likely guess the most common client answer, “It was really a price decision.” Why is it that the client usually says “price” when asked by the direct sales team? Because it’s the easiest answer to give and usually is difficult for the sales person/team to refute. In fact, it’s really pretty easy for the salesperson to then go back to management and explain that it wasn’t their fault – because it really came down to price. My experience in these post-mortem reviews is that the client’s rationale is rarely based primarily on price. In most cases the losing team was outsold and the client doesn’t want to have the confrontation to say otherwise.
All of these experiences – in coaching large opportunities, in conducting these win-loss reviews, and in teaching sales strategy to thousands of sales people with TCS - have been combined to develop this UnSelling philosophy. This may be the single, most powerful set of strategies to “sell” more effectively for the average sales person or team.
You’ll notice I commonly (and interchangeably) use the terms “client” and “prospect” throughout this book. Perhaps it’s my consulting upbringing but I have always felt that in order to embrace the appropriate relationship between buyer and seller, it’s not only acceptable but even advisable to refer to the prospect as a client. I recognize that they may have never bought anything from us to this point but when you adopt the UnSelling approach, the premise is that we can and should add value from the first meeting with the prospect and they can accurately be considered a client.
Finally, any sales person (or organization) that embraces UnSelling will want to ensure that all sales-related resources are aligned in dealing with your clients. If one person is very consultative and collaborative and the sales engineer or sales support resource (or God forbid, the sales manager) is in full-throttle-selling mode, the client’s perception will be reduced to the least common denominator – which is that we are a classic “selling/telling” organization and should be treated as such. Don’t be victimized - get all of your selling-related resources on the same page with this philosophy!
Let’s dive in and perhaps the best place to start is exploring why “selling” doesn’t work . . . .
Chapter 1: “Selling” Doesn’t Work
To grasp the power of UnSelling (and the weakness of traditional selling) we need to understand the psychology of the buying and selling process and the motivations of both buyer and seller. Let’s explore some tangible examples:
1. When a sales person “sells,” the prospective buyer has an immediate negative reaction. For example: you walk into a clothing store and a sales associate walks (er, runs!) over to you and asks, “May I help you?” What’s your answer nearly every time? “No thanks, just looking.” Think about what just happened. Even if you actually do need help your first reaction is “no” because you don’t want to be sold. The crazy thing is that 30 seconds later (when you’re convinced the salesman has retreated) you’ll look around the store to actually get the help of one of these sales clerks. What’s that all about? When we’re being “sold” we are less likely to want to buy. The same is true on a new car lot when you are ambushed by the car salesman or just about any other environment where it’s obvious that you are about to be sold…to death in some cases! In fact, a friend of mine recently went to a major appliance retailer and was literally stalked by a commission-based sales associate as he was evaluating his options. His comment to me, “I’ll never step foot in that store again!”
2. You and your sales team have just entered the client’s conference room where your request for a one-hour meeting with the key, executive decision maker has been granted. You proudly give the executive a copy of the half-inch thick (35 page!) presentation that you diligently prepared for a time such as this. Think carefully about the client executive’s perspective at this point – he or she looks at the sheer size of the presentation materials they see in front of them and they will conclude one or more of the following:
“We’ll never get through all of these slides in the hour I have allocated – I am going to suffer a “death by PowerPoint!”’
“I certainly don’t have time to ask any questions so I’ll just nod agreeably and hope they finish on time.”
“Better yet, I think I’ll text message my assistant, Mary, and ask her to come into the meeting room in 15 minutes to announce that I have been asked to attend an unplanned executive meeting!”
You get the picture? Executives look at the sheer volume of information that we, as sales people tend to throw at them and get overwhelmed at the sight. I can promise you that they don’t say to themselves: “I can’t wait to see the next slide!”
3. Or, as so often happens, we as sales people tend to “dash to the demo” early in the buying and selling process because we’re convinced, “Once this prospect sees what our product can really do, they will be compelled to buy from us!”
In reality, the prospects in these and many other “selling” scenarios are neither convinced, nor are they compelled to buy from us when we use these types of approaches. Why, then, are so many sales people inclined to default to traditional selling? There are a few logical reasons:
We tend to know a lot about our products and love to share our knowledge (and passion) for what we do.
We tend to believe that anything we can do to accelerate the decision/close is better for us – which leads to skipping necessary steps in the process and defaulting to “teller” mode.
And, we are often afraid to ask questions that may be perceived by the client as being overly-invasive or that they might be uncomfortable answering.
In order to understand these and many other real-life situations where classic selling can be so counterproductive, let me provide two distinct perspectives that will give you some additional context that became the inspiration for UnSelling. First, we’ll review the key findings from win-loss reviews with clients. Then, we’ll explore the dynamics of the buying and selling process and the critical need to change the typical “subservient” buyer-seller relationship to a collaborative relationship.
Win-Loss Reviews: The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth …
Having conducted, sponsored, and/or reviewed more face-to-face win-loss reviews with customers than anyone I know, it’s amazing how instructive the findings are when it comes to understanding what works (and doesn’t) in the selling process. Here are a few common themes that emerge that are surprisingly consistent:
1. Your sales team and every other team you are competing with tend to say the same things (granted, in different ways) to the prospect and the average prospect is unable to differentiate one solution from another. They hear our words, they see our conviction, and they see our solution details but the ugly reality is that they can’t really distinguish amongst options and often conclude:
“The solutions I am evaluating are relatively alike and I can’t really distinguish one from another.”
“I have more than one reasonable option – which really means I’m not “stuck” with one choice.”
And because of this, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best competitors in a sales pursuit are actually motivated to make their solutions sound just-like the favored solution – often because they have a cost/price advantage. If they can make all the solutions sound alike they’re able to leverage their price advantage.
2. The “best” solution loses most of the time! I know you’re first reaction: “That can’t be! The client always chooses the best solution in their own mind!” Think about it this way – if a Martian came down to earth and objectively determined what percent of the time the customer actually chooses the very best solution, what would you guess they’d find? I have asked this question of my workshop participants for many years and most often I hear answers between 20-50%. In reality, you can’t rely on the best solution to win because it’s usually not good enough to win by itself.
3. RFP’s (Request for Proposals – a formal, documented statement of customer requirements) are not designed to choose the best solution. Huh? That doesn’t make any sense you say? Stay with me on this! Most often, RFP’s are designed to prove that whoever the buyer intended to choose in a competitive evaluation is actually chosen. That’s a sobering thought – and has significant implications for how we can best work with these prospects.
4. The dreaded “do nothing” decision is often the biggest competitor your sales teams face. Experience shows that your prospect is most inclined to stay with what they have today, often because the pain of change is greater than the pain they experience today with their current solution provider.
5. Clients are motivated to mislead the sales person/team – and it’s not because they are evil people. Most often, they tend to tell us less-than-the-whole-truth so that they can maintain control in the buyer-seller relationship. They convince themselves that if we and other vendors knew the truth (that we don’t have a prayer of winning their business, as an example), we wouldn’t accommodate their needs and spend the time they need us to spend to help them not choose us (sound pretty crazy, doesn’t it?)
6. The real reason clients don’t choose us is almost never really related to price. Yes, the client will often say it was a simple matter of price when asked but that is mostly because it is the easiest answer to give and it’s the hardest argument for the defeated salesperson to overcome. Interestingly, when a third party executive like me asks the client the real reasons they chose whoever they chose, they sing a very different tune and will mention the real, non-price-related issues where the losing team has been outsold by the competition!
7. Far too often, we also find that a core reason for a loss is that is wasn’t the right client and/or the right opportunity for the sales team to pursue. In other words, had the account and opportunity been properly qualified early in the process, they wouldn’t have pursued the opportunity and spent the last 6-9 months chasing a deal they didn’t have a reasonable chance to win in the first place.
8. The sales team complied with the client’s buying process instead of adding value and influencing the process. Successful sales teams walk into a relationship with a prospect with a pre-disposition that the first priority is to bring our expertise and knowledge in helping clients make informed, well-thought-out decisions so that they can choose the very best solution. Alternatively, less-experienced sales teams are so “delighted to be invited” that their inclination is to comply with whatever buying process the customer has devised, regardless of how flawed or incomplete it may be. We do ourselves, and more importantly, we do the client a disservice when we do so.
9. And finally, we often find that the competitors who lose don’t have a strategy. In fact when you ask them, “What was your strategy?” You get these inquisitive stares and they’re really saying, “Peter, what do you mean by “strategy”? Do you mean, ‘Are we preparing a proposal?’” The emphatic answer I always give is, “No!” We’ll talk more about the importance of strategy in the next chapter!
Customers Want To Control the Buying and Selling Process
In your opinion, who is more qualified and experienced to define a set of steps and criteria to thoroughly evaluate the reasonable alternatives to determine the very best solution for the client’s needs – us or the client? If you hesitated with the answer, allow me to explain why the answer is an obvious one: we are!
Great sales and business development people are clearly the most qualified! Why? Because we do this for a living. We see clients do it well. We see them do it poorly. We’ve seen the good, the bad, and in more cases than we care to admit, we’ve seen ugly client evaluation and decision processes that end up with them choosing something less than the ideal answer. It begs the question – when’s the worst time for the prospect to figure out that they had a faulty process that selected the wrong solution? After they’ve signed a contract with the fourth best solution! Shame on us if we let them make that mistake!
So here’s the paradox – the prospect has every intention of managing and controlling the buying and selling process because they want to be in control. They want to control the flow of information and they want you to hear only what they want you to hear. Specifically, that you are a reasonable option for them (which may or may not be true).
In fact, what they really want us to believe is that we are a viable solution alternative and that we have a realistic opportunity to win their business. Once again, they don’t do this because they’re mean-spirited or evil-natured! They treat us this way because they need us to be engaged in their process. Please don’t confuse “needing” us to be involved with “wanting” us to be selected. They need us to provide them information, to show them our product demonstration, to deliver a competitive proposal/price (so that they can negotiate effectively with their “chosen” vendor), and perhaps even to share some insights as to what other companies have done well. It makes perfect sense – except that this represents a sub-optimal relationship between buyer and seller.
What the buyer often wants, in order to achieve the above objectives, is a buyer-seller relationship that is best described as “subservient.” One way to describe this relationship: the prospect says, “Jump” and the seller says, “How high?” In essence, they tell us what to do and when to do it, and we then do it without asking questions. When they want a demo, we ask delightedly, “When can we schedule it?” A subservient sales person doesn’t ask challenging questions of the prospect; they don’t challenge their assumptions; and they really don’t add much value to the client’s evaluation and decision process – and therein lies the problem with the subservient sales model.
If you’re used to working with clients and prospects that treat the relationship in this way, we’re doing them a disservice for a few key reasons:
1. They don’t get the best of our experience and insights. The experienced sales person/team has worked with many organizations and seen clients and prospects manage the buying process well (and poorly). This prospect doesn’t get the benefit of that experience. We have insights about the steps they should be taking, the people they should be involving, the criteria they should be using, and the pitfalls they should be aware of – for their benefit (not yours)!
2. When the prospect thinks of us predominantly as a “vendor,” their natural tendency is to have their personal and professional defenses up in their interaction with us. Remember the example I shared previously about any of us shopping at a clothing store? The parallel: you keep asking: “May I help you?” and they keep responding, “No thanks, just looking.” For as long as you act like a hammer looking for a nail – they’re going to hesitate to deal with you openly because they’re not convinced they’re really a nail.
3. And finally, if they do have a pre-disposition for one of your competitors, they will remain focused in their desire to mislead you about their intent and their preference – and will do all possible to convince you that you have a reasonable chance of winning their business and their confidence.
I know these facts can be somewhat demoralizing for the average sales person. It’s the precise reason I want to arm you with a different approach to selling that allows you to proactively change the nature of the relationship between buyer and seller – and seek to learn the truth and gain the client’s confidence and preference in the process.
Let’s get to the details of the UnSelling approach in Chapter 2.
Chapter 2: The Alternative: UnSelling (Think 7up® - The Uncola)
7UP was launched as a lemon-lime soft drink in the 1920’s by Howdy Corporation as a hangover cure (I’m not making this up) and they developed an ad campaign in the 60’s that called 7UP the “Uncola” because it’s not really a cola drink but it’s a refreshing drink nonetheless. They had tag lines like, “put some UN in your life” and “Are you an Un?” It was a very effective marketing strategy that led customers to embrace 7UP as the alternative to traditional cola soft drinks.
In the same way, UnSelling is a new and very different way to “sell.” The essence of this approach to working with prospects and clients is ensuring the prospect is convinced that we aren’t a hammer looking for a nail. Said another way: UnSelling ensures that we can lower the buyer’s natural defenses about someone trying to “sell” them so that we can have a far more productive relationship with the buyer that is built on trust and collaboration. A relationship where we can provide honest, useful advice and gain credibility (and preference) in the mind of the buyer. And by doing so, encourage them to share more information about their needs, their priorities related to this initiative, and their personal agendas – all of which improves our ability to serve them effectively.
What we’ll explore in this book are the attitudes, tactics, and strategies that aren’t traditional selling approaches. In fact, from the client’s perspective, it doesn’t even feel like they’re being sold. Let’s look at the contrast between the two sales approaches:
Let’s bring one more dimension into this equation: the timing of the buyer-seller strategies covered above. It will be helpful to review another key concept that Rick Page (the Founder of The Complex Sale and author of the best-selling book, Hope is Not a Strategy) initially introduced to me in 1996 when I was his client at Accenture.
Rick is the foremost authority on the concept he calls the Death Valley Sales Canyon. I won’t attempt to explain the intricacies of the concept (you’ll have to read Rick’s book for that) but the basic premise is that if you picture the buying and selling process as a canyon that you, as a jet fighter pilot, are about to try to navigate, you’ll find it is far easier for the seller to navigate and gain control in the early part of the buying-selling process for one major reason – the client needs us. One more time – please don’t assume that needing us is equivalent to wanting us. Most of the time they need us, but in many cases they don’t actually want us to win their business. Do you see the distinction?
© 2011, The Complex Sale, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The buyer needs us for many things – to provide product information; to demonstrate our capabilities; to contrast our solution with others they may be evaluating; to share what other clients have done – good and bad; and to provide them advice and counsel on what they’re planning to accomplish. Once we understand this concept, you’re less likely to be misled into believing that because the client is asking good questions and seems genuinely interested in our advice they must “want” us!
Let’s take this one step further – when the client “needs” us (even though they may not really “want” us to win), we have a unique opportunity to gain control in the buying-selling process because we have leverage in early stages of the process (because they “need” us – see graph above) – making sense yet?
This is why so many of the concepts and strategies that I outline in the next chapter about how to UnSell effectively have an important timing dimension. Specifically, they tend to be most effective early in the buying process when the client needs you and when you, therefore, have leverage in the relationship. Think about it this way: as you get to the later stages of the buying process (after the client has gathered all of the information they feel they need to make an informed decision), the buyer doesn’t feel they “need” you anymore. They’ve gathered information, they’ve seen demonstrations, and they have your proposal and pricing. They accomplished their goal and can now decide. Or perhaps better said, they can now confirm that whomever they intended to choose in the first place is indeed chosen (and in many cases we have helped them confirm that decision).
What do we mean by having “leverage” in this buyer-seller relationship and how do we use it to UnSell effectively? Here are three specific, priority examples:
1. Gathering information (many organizations call this phase of the sales cycle, “Discovery”). It is perfectly reasonable for a sales team to request, gather, and then review information provided by the client about the nature of the problem they’re trying to solve, the severity (via quantification) of the problem, and what they’re doing today (or have done previously) to solve the problem.
2. Gaining access to key executives: let’s be careful to point out that this doesn’t mean we “ask” for access to executive decision makers. When you “ask” you are inviting an easy “no” response from the prospect. In reality, if the buyer wants us to provide a well-thought-out solution recommendation, it is imperative that we meet and collaborate with the key stakeholders and decision makers. We’ll cover the techniques for gaining this access in more detail in the next chapter.
3. Influencing the buyer’s evaluation and decision process is a third example of how to use our leverage in the early part of the buying-selling process. Most commonly, great sales people (and teams) are more knowledgeable about how to define, organize, and execute an effective evaluation and decision process than the client. And if done well, it can be one of the most effective ways to build our credibility (by adding value), to highlight our solution’s strengths, and to expose the competitors weaknesses – the trifecta!
Let’s summarize our intent in all of this before we get into some details on how to UnSell effectively in the next chapter. Our goals are as follows:
To use the buying-selling process as an opportunity to establish our credibility and expertise – which is almost never established by providing product demos and 2-inch-thick proposals.
To attempt to understand the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the discovery process with the client – because without the truth we are ill-equipped to provide an optimum solution (and we waste a lot of our time and the client’s time).
To add value in the buying-selling process – including the evaluation and decision process the client is intent on conducting - regardless of whether they buy from us or not.
And ultimately, to gain the trust, confidence, and votes of the key decision makers!
In reality, “selling”, in the traditional sense, actually precludes your ability to do these things well. The less we sell, the more likely we are to win the prospect’s business. If that sounds completely counter-intuitive – let’s shift gears and talk about the tools and techniques (and the logic) to do this well.
Chapter 3: UnSelling Practical Examples and Applications
The UnSelling concept is most powerful when you consider real-life, actual examples - where it works, how it works, and why it works. And that’s what this chapter is dedicated to providing. I’ll share examples from my business; some from the companies I have worked for and/or consulted with; and we’ll continue to build a war chest of great examples from those of you who read about this concept and would be willing to share your strategies and successes so that we can continue to proliferate the art and science of UnSelling. Consider yourself part of a new “community of practice” whose goal is to better serve clients and achieve more business success in the process.
Before we dive into these examples, let’s summarize a few “guiding principles” related to the UnSelling approach:
1. The intent of this process, above all else, is to create an open, honest, and collaborative dialogue with the prospect who is normally pre-disposed to be careful about what they share and often not open to the solution provider’s input and suggestions. We start with the premise that we, as experienced professionals, have a lot of knowledge about how to evaluate options to help our clients effectively make an informed choice.
2. We have to be genuine in our dealings with the prospect. When you make a “whiplash” statement or question to a client (i.e. “One logical option you should consider is not changing from your current provider….”) you have to mean what you say and say what you mean. If you aren’t genuine, clients and prospects can sense this from a mile away – much like a dog can smell our fear as they approach us.
3. We have to operate under the premise that bad news early is good news – always! You can’t avoid bad news or you’ll risk spending too much time on the wrong opportunities. The corollary: bad news late is almost always bad news! UnSelling is designed to minimize the likelihood that you’ll hear bad news late in the buying-selling process.
4. Foremost in our minds: this is all about what’s good for the prospect. When we keep this orientation (vs. what’s good for our firm) the client benefits, we benefit secondarily (which I’ll explain in the coming pages), and, believe it or not, we can actually disadvantage the competition without disparaging them (which is an art and a science).
5. Patrick Lencione recently published a book called Getting Naked and he introduces a concept that aligns very well with the UnSelling approach. He calls it, “just start helping.” The point is that many sales teams lick their chops and get excited about really adding value “once we win this deal.” UnSelling embraces the philosophy that the help and value we can provide starts from the initial prospect meeting – advice, counsel, clarifying questions, etc. – all of which is helping the client to better understand and accomplish their goals.
Be careful not to lose sight of these guiding principles. Without them, UnSelling is no more effective than good ole’, hammer-looking-for-a-nail selling. Let’s cover the 22 key strategies and tactics associated with UnSelling in the balance of this chapter.
1. UnSelling: It’s All In the Words You Use!
If you embrace the notion of UnSelling it means you have to adopt a new way to communicate with your clients and prospects. A selling-oriented sales person tends to use phrases like:
“You really need this product”
“You’ll like the way my solution does…”
“Is there anything else you need to see before you buy?”
The challenge with the “selling” approach is that the more we sell, the less we collaborate with the client (and the less they share). And the less we collaborate, the less we really understand the problem the prospect is trying to solve. If our goal is to create an open, collaborative relationship between buyer and seller, the following types of phrases/questions are far more likely to create the relationship that allows us to understand the client’s pain and better differentiate our solution:
“Regardless of whom you evaluate and ultimately choose, you may want to consider the following criteria in your evaluation of all of your options…” (Which tells the prospect we are aware and comfortable with them looking at alternatives and also demonstrates your subject matter expertise in these types of evaluations.)
“We may or may not be the optimum solution for your needs but the better I understand the business problem you’re intent on solving, the better I can help you assess whether we have a good fit.” (Which makes it obvious to the prospect that we are not trying to be a hammer looking for a nail.)
“If I were in your position, before looking seriously at buying this new application for your business, I’d first determine if it makes sense to change from what you’re using today.” (Which clearly demonstrates that you are ready and willing to talk with the client about the option of “doing nothing” as it is often the biggest competitor we face in these more complex selling environments. By doing so, we’re also far better equipped to qualify this opportunity before we spend extraordinary time and effort on the new pursuit.)
Or an alternative to this last example may be, “One of the reasonable alternatives you should consider is the option of staying with the process/vendor you currently use – why would you consider changing from what you do today?” (Which allows you to not only test how serious this prospect is about looking at a new solution but also tends to give you clarity on how serious the incumbent vendor’s challenges are for the client)
“Why did you decide to call our firm?” (Which most sales people are afraid to ask, mostly because they are afraid of the honest answer. This question can be very informative about how they found you and perhaps how serious they are about your solution as an alternative.)
“There are a number of reasonable alternative solutions for you to consider…” (Which sets the expectation with the prospect that you are perfectly comfortable talking about – and inviting him/her to talk about – their competitive options.)
“When I was in your position…” (Which gives the client a sense that you’ve “been there, done that” and can build your credibility in their eyes.)
“Our primary concern shouldn’t be on whether or not you choose my solution. Rather, we both ought to be primarily concerned with you achieving the business objective you’ve set out to achieve. Can we start by helping me get clarity on those goals/objectives?” (Which reinforces the concept that UnSelling is all about the client – not us!)
I think you get the picture. And these are only a few examples but they highlight the vast difference in styles – from “selling” to UnSelling. The latter approach is far more likely to create the optimum relationship between you and the buyer – for the benefit of both!
2. Using Provocative Point-Of-View (PPOV) Statements
Another way to contrast traditional selling (or “telling”) from UnSelling is to consider how we create demand in the first place. A selling-oriented person often leads with the product/solution and hopes to capture the prospective buyer with the extraordinary features and functions of their solution. They make the assumption that the prospect is more than likely to appreciate how valuable this solution must be. Or, perhaps they’ve read a book or two on consultative selling and they’ve learned the art of effective questioning in the early part of the buyer-seller exchange. Of course, the challenge with this approach is the patience the client may or may not have for what often feels like an interrogation session followed by the “light bulb” moment when the seller declares, “Well, based on your answers, have I got a solution for you!”
The UnSelling alternative takes a very different approach. Instead of desperately trying to find a pain that I can quickly solve, it attempts to engage in a dialogue. A dialogue that’s relevant to the client’s world. A dialogue that demonstrates that we understand their business and/or industry. A dialogue that engages the client in a conversation that also allows us to have further discussion.
One effective approach to doing so is to use provocative point-of-view statements. Let me share an example in my world of helping clients to transform the way their organization sells. When I meet a VP of Sales, I want to engage them in conversation and the last thing I want to do is jump to being a solution peddler. One way to avoid this is with a provocative question or statement: “Of all of the VP of Sales I’ve met over the years, almost none have had clarity on the biggest competitor they face in their specific market.” Now consider if you and I were having a discussion and I made this provocative statement. What would you be thinking? Perhaps you’d say, “Really? Why don’t they know?” Or you might say, “We know who our biggest competitor is – hands down!” Or you may react entirely differently – which is just fine for the UnSelling professional because we have accomplished the objective: creating a significant dialogue between two credible professionals (vs. a subservient buyer-seller relationship) on a topic that is relevant and useful. My ultimate goal is to have the opportunity to have more dialogue (perhaps a more in-depth meeting) about what’s happening in their business or industry – what’s working, what’s not working, or anything that allows us to build a peer-like relationship.
I should explain the “angle” associated with my question above. In most organizations I have worked with or consulted with over the last 30+ years, the biggest competitor is often the dreaded, “do nothing” where the client puts us through our paces for anywhere from 3 to 9 months of the buying process only to announce at the end of the evaluation that they’ve decided to stay with what they have today (whether they intend to stay with the incumbent or do it themselves matters little – we’ve still lost to “do nothing”).
In essence, our goal in UnSelling is to engage the client in a discussion that builds our credibility and relationship with the potential buyer and does so without overtly selling. You have one great opportunity in the early dialogue with a client to establish your credibility and your subject-matter-expertise and these ppov’s enable you to have a business discussion with an executive instead of a game of cat and mouse that so often characterizes buyer-seller exchanges. Can you think of 4-5 point-of-view statements that would be effective with your prospects?
3. Qualify Early (And Often) With Small, Polite Confrontations
There are a lot of reasons why sales teams don’t qualify effectively. In some cases we’re simply “delighted to be invited” and don’t want to run the risk of upsetting the proverbial apple cart with questions that may annoy the prospect. In too many cases the sales team may get a false sense of comfort that the prospect is genuinely serious about our chances of winning on a given deal and therefore falls into the trap of skipping the qualification step entirely.
Great UnSelling people don’t ever skip the qualification step. The obvious reason is that we can’t afford to spend our time on the wrong opportunities because every minute spent on the wrong deal is a minute away from the right deal and will reduce our chance of winning those ‘right’ deals. What’s the key to qualifying effectively? The answer is simple: asking the hard (or “whiplash”) questions of the prospect. We can do so with a series of what Rick Page calls, “small, polite confrontations.” The easiest way to understand this philosophy is to contrast the selling approach to qualifying with the alternative I am proposing. Here’s some standard qualifying questions that the average “selling” person tends to use:
Do you have a budget?
What problem(s) are you trying to solve?
What’s your timeframe for a decision?
Who/what are you using today?
At first blush, although not entirely complete, this looks like a pretty good list of qualifying questions – right? Not so fast. The problem with these is that the client will most often answer these questions in a way that will lead the average sales person to conclude that this is an opportunity worth pursuing. Our clients have been to “buying school” and they know what the right answers are. Do these answers sound familiar:
Do you have a budget? Client answer: “Yes”
What problem are you trying to solve? Client answer: “We really believe that there are some great alternatives to what we are doing today and that’s why we were intent on asking your firm to give us a proposal” (Note: there is no “problem” statement here – just a statement that would lead us to believe that they want us involved)
What’s your timeframe for a decision? Client answer: “Within 45 days”
Who/what are you using today? Client answer: “We have been using Paradigm Services for the past 4 years which is why we think it’s important to look for alternatives.”
Do you see the challenge? You’ve asked reasonable qualifying questions and the client has provided reasonable (although not overly helpful or detailed) answers and the average sales person is likely to pursue this opportunity having satisfied themselves and sales management that they have qualified the deal.
Let’s now look at the same questions with an UnSelling attitude where we are willing to have a series of small, polite confrontations that are designed to get to the truth – for the benefit of both the client and our firm because we aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions or talk about topics that are uncomfortable for many “selling” people:
“Tell me a bit about how you derived the budget for this initiative and whose budget will be spent?” Note: This question forces a more in-depth dialogue about how the budget was derived and who, specifically, will fund this initiative. Incidentally, if the client’s budget is out of alignment with what we, as highly-experienced professionals, have found to be sufficient, you then have the opportunity to share what our experience has shown. Remember, if there’s a disconnect between their budget and what is required to solve this problem effectively, we’d rather have this polite confrontation early in the process – not 6 months later!
“What problem(s) are you trying to solve and have you quantified the problem with a business case or value proposition?” Note: We should help the client understand that our experience has shown that the problems that get solved in most organizations are the ones that have a compelling, quantified value proposition. I even like to role-play the CFO of their organization by saying, “If I were the CFO and you brought me this requisition for $300,000, the first question I’d ask is, ‘What’s the value of us doing this or changing vendors?’ What will you say when that happens?” In many cases you’ll find the client won’t have a well-defined business case which then allows us to add our value: “Would it be helpful if I worked with you to help define a business case so that you know if it’s even worth considering this investment?”
“What’s your timeframe for this decision?” And when the client says, “45 days.” Your next question becomes the most important small, polite confrontation, “Thanks. I’m curious – what bad things happen 46 days from now if the decision hasn’t been made by then?” Note: See the difference? Instead of celebrating when the client tells us a timeframe that is far-too-often unrealistic, we’re now getting to the truth about the client’s timeframe and their source of urgency (or lack thereof). You’ll find the answer to this last question is often, “Nothing, really” which is evidence that there may not be much validity to the 45 day target timeframe.
“With your current approach (and vendor) to this business problem – how are you doing today and why would you even consider changing?” Note: With this question you are saying to the prospect that without a compelling reason to switch they are entirely likely (and you may even suggest that they would be reasonable) to continue using the current vendor. The statistics are overwhelming – clients have a high propensity to stay with what they know today because it’s too hard to change!
See the difference? UnSelling offers an approach to qualifying that is far more likely to get the truth and build trust between you and the potential client. Qualifying always involves the core questions: the business problem and value proposition associated with solving it; the executive sponsorship; the competitive landscape; the source of urgency; and yes, the budget among others. The difference in the UnSelling approach to qualification is all in the way we approach the dialogue on these critical topics. Let’s consider a couple of additional examples:
“How did you determine to invite the vendors you have invited and more specifically, how did you decide to invite us?” Note: The average sales person never broaches this topic, mostly because they are afraid of alienating the prospect by asking about the competition (and they’re often afraid of the real answer to the question about why they invited us). And yet, the answer to this question is important for several reasons. It helps us understand the sophistication of the client (based on how they created their invite list); it helps us to know the strength of the competitive landscape so that we can assess our ability to defeat these competitors; and it also gives us a clear indication as to how open they are to discuss these topics – which is often a good indication of how serious they are about our candidacy in the opportunity.
“I’ve found that projects of this nature are rarely successful without clear and compelling executive sponsorship. Who is the executive sponsor and what is their primary objective with this initiative?” Note: This seems like an innocent enough question on the surface but it can reveal several critical items. It helps us determine if our key contact sees themselves as the key driver of this decision (which they often say but is almost never the case); gives you clarity on who is driving this decision at the “power” level of the organization; and also subtly gives the prospect an indication that we have “been there, done that” in similar situations and, in our experience, executive sponsorship is a critical success factor.
There are many other examples you can develop – specific to what you have found are the core qualification questions in your business. For each question, you should convert what is normally a ‘soft’ question that is easy for the prospect to answer without divulging the truth (i.e., “When will the decision be made?”) into a hard or “whiplash” question that is far more likely to be useful in the qualifying process (i.e., “What bad thing will happen 46 days from now if you haven’t made a decision?”)
The bottom line – qualifying effectively has everything to do with determining if you have a reasonable chance to win. If you don’t, stay out of the race. If you can see a path to win this opportunity, determine whose vote you need to win and how you can best win those votes. Without doing so, you’ll end up wasting your time and most importantly, diluting your ability to win the deals that really matter (and that are winnable).
We’ve referred to “whiplash” questions and you must wonder what is meant by the term. This is a technique to identify or validate potential client issues and/or objections that the prospect is usually not inclined to talk about. Not only does the client hesitate to talk about these issues (for fear that they will scare the sales person/team away) but too often the sales team is afraid to bring them up as well (for fear that it will spoil an otherwise good, forecasted opportunity). Our goal in UnSelling is to minimize (perhaps even eliminate) all surprises. Instead of hoping that bad news won’t come up, we proactively ensure that it does. Let’s consider an example.
I’ve spent many years in sales within technology and business process outsourcing. One of the common challenges within outsourcing is the frequency that prospects either use the evaluation process to get smart on what’s broken within their function being evaluated (call centers as an example) so that they can either fix it themselves (what I call the dreaded, “Do Nothing”) or, equally dangerous, they go to their existing vendor and use the knowledge gained in the evaluation process to squeeze them on performance standards and price but with every intention of staying with this vendor. Given how frequently this occurs, I like to pose the whiplash statement: “Mr. “C” level executive, one of the options I would suggest you consider initially is to first determine if it makes sense to outsource this function at all.”
Think about that for a moment – you mean we’re actually encouraging the potential client to consider not outsourcing? That’s selling suicide, isn’t it?! That’s why I call it a whiplash statement – it is intended to be provocative. So much so that if you were with another sales team member when you made this statement their head would snap your way (hence the reason we call it a “whiplash” question) with a look that says, “What in the world are you saying that for?” Not only is it a relatively provocative statement, it’s also entirely advocating the client’s best interests - while attempting to learn the truth about their intent.
And yet, it’s the most advantageous approach for us as well. If any organization were to really look at whether it makes sense to outsource a part of their business processes, the first thing they’d do is conduct an assessment of how efficient (or broken) their processes are today – which is exactly where we want to start the discovery process anyway (more on this in the next strategy)! Perhaps most importantly, I get credit from the C-level executive that I am not a hammer looking for a nail and perfectly willing to talk about client options that aren’t in my best interest (the possibility that they may not outsource at all). The response I often hear from executives when you make statements like the one above is, “Yes, that is one of the options we have considered. We just didn’t think you’d be willing to talk about that since you sell outsourcing for a living. Can you help us assess this as part of the process?”
Do you see the power of the approach? If they are likely not to outsource the function, when would you want to know? As early as possible! Asked well, whiplash questions will change the way you interact with potential clients and will foster open, honest, and useful conversations between buyer and seller.
5. More on “Let’s Decide If It Makes Sense to Do This At All”
I’ve outlined previously the danger of the selling or “telling” approach that so many sales people employ. Let’s look at a diametrically opposed approach: offering to help the client determine if investing in a new solution makes sense in the first place. I always recommend this approach in opportunity management workshops where we develop strategies to improve the odds of winning current, in-flight deals. Once when I made this recommendation, “Mike,” the VP of Sales, raised his hand and asked that we take a break, mostly because he wanted to talk to me off-line to see if I had gone off the deep end. Mike was afraid that we may plant the seed of an idea (to not go forward with the project) in the client’s mind. Of course, the likelihood that any executive worth their pay has not thought of the “do nothing” alternative is low but they usually won’t confess that they are considering this option. And this is exactly why we have to bring the issue up and do it in such a way that makes it clear to the client that we’re willing to talk about these issues – even ones that are disadvantageous to us getting the sale.
Think about it this way – if you can get a prospect to briefly take a step backwards in their process to first consider if it even makes sense to do this project/initiative, what’s the first thing any reasonable person would do to find the answer? You’d take the time to determine what’s broken today and how badly it’s broken. How long has it been a problem? Is it getting better or worse? What are the other implications of the pain/problem? You’d also determine which key executives are most impacted by the problem(s), which allows you to have clarity on which key stakeholders we need to meet with as part of the discovery process.
Here’s the powerful part of this approach – when done well, where the client realizes you are genuinely interested in helping them determine if it’s worth fixing the problem at all, you end up getting the same information you would aspire to gather in a classic “discovery” process that any sales methodology would prescribe. If the problems are significant, they are likely to do something. If the problems aren’t significant, you’ve at least uncovered the risk of “doing nothing” early in the process before you’ve spent months of your time on the pursuit. You’ve also gathered this knowledge in a non-threatening and partnering way that is dominantly focused on what’s best for the client – not based on how I can win this deal.
One last point on this approach: if you can get the client to buy into this notion of determining if it’s worth solving the business problem at all, the UnSelling professional will also be adamant about the importance of building a strong and well-quantified value proposition or business case. In fact, you’ll actually help them create the case. It should be the foundation for the client to justify the project and will help you get the buy-in of key executives in the later stages of the buying/selling process. Without the business case, your risk of losing to “no decision” is too high for my comfort. More on this in Strategy #7!
6. Don’t Conform; Consult With the Client about Their Evaluation Process
The subservient sales person usually asks the question, “How will the decision be made?” It’s a reasonable question that usually begets the feeble answer from the key contact at the prospect, “Oh, I have good news – I’m the decision maker!” To which the “delighted-to-be-invited” sales person says, “Alleluia – I found the decision maker!” (Tongue firmly planted in my cheek as I type this of course)
On the other hand, the UnSelling professional handles the question differently and for a very different purpose. What we really want to understand is both the evaluation process (the steps they will take to gather information including an RFI (Request for Information) to 10 vendors, a formal invitation to 4 vendors to propose, a series of reference calls and client site visits, etc.) and the decision process (which are the specifics about who will be involved and what roles they will play in the actual decision - influencer, approver, technical evaluator, decision maker, etc.)
But here’s the catch: instead of asking these questions so that we can conform to the client’s chosen process (which are almost never well-defined or thorough), our goal is to actually add value in the buying process by consulting with the client on the steps and evaluation criteria they should include in order to make the best, most-informed decision. Remember, this is all about the client’s success – not ours! It just so happens that if we help them define the ideal steps and criteria it will not only advantage them by leveraging our experience with other clients but will also help them know what steps and criteria to use that will highlight our solution’s strength and expose our competitors’ weaknesses (if done well).
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