Today’s episode is from Donald Kelly, providing tips about how to show, share and simplifying things to the buyers.
How do you shorten your sales cycles and help your customers see around corners?
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The Sales Evangelist Podcast
Transcript
Scott Ingram: This is the daily sales tips podcast and I’m your host Scott Ingram. Today I’ve got a tip from my friend podcasting; idol and podcasting mentor, Donald C. Kelly. Donald is the host of the sales evangelist podcast and he recently crossed the 1000 episodes threshold on that show. This guy is incredible and has a ton of wisdom to share. Here is Donald’s tip for us today:
Donald Kelly: Hey guys, I wanted to give you a little tip today, share an idea that can help you. I know a lot of you are already selling great, you’re in an amazing industry, you have an understanding of your ideal customer, you know the basics and the fundamentals of sales and that’s fantastic. One of the areas, though, that I want you to be able to be become very proficient at, as a young seller, I didn’t know this, I got mature and then it helped me tremendously, it’s being able to see around the corner. I want you to be that person, for your buyer. So let me explain what that means. When I say being able to see around a corner, you need to show me or share things with me as the buyer that I don’t necessarily know or I don’t necessarily anticipate. As a seasoned seller, you’re in a field that you have sold and many of you probably sold more than your product, to maybe more than 50 customers, right?
What is that journey or the buyer experience like? You’ve probably seen many of the statistics by Gardner, that shows how so many. I interviewed this guy the other day and he was talking about this, how so many buyers are bombarded with a longer sales process more so than ever and buyers don’t want to do that because their job is not just to sit there and to buy. They’re running the sales team, they’re running in the marketing team. They’re doing all these other things, so when they’re bombarded with a long sales process and five different companies who are recording them with a longer process to bring things about, that’s not cool. If I am a seller that’s trying that getting good grace with my buyer, I recommend that you look for ways to shorten that process by helping them to see around corners, pointing out things that they don’t know is going to happen.
Let me give you, for instance, one of the industries that I sold, it was the government industry and at a certain price point in most city-county governments in K12, they have to take the deal. If you hit a certain price point, you have to take that deal, the contract to an outside counsel to review it because of the stipulations that most K12 or cities or government organization have. They have to review it in depth. That adds, I didn’t do it right once and that added an extra like month, to our sales process. Not only was it not beneficial to my client, it was horrible for me because now I wasn’t even getting that deal closed, wasn’t getting a P.O., much less getting paid and getting a commission from it. It’s lengthened that process and that’s not cool. But if I was able to come to that buyer and I was able to just share like, you know, one of the things that we see early on, maybe as I, we, you know, we helped establish the value and the need and all, all that great, wonderful stuff, but now we’re going further down the line.
If I was able to bring up to them, “John, I noticed that you know what, most of the cities that we’ve worked with and use a story or something in there”. There’s a need to bring a contract to outside counsel. Maybe your buyer doesn’t even know that maybe this is her first time making a purchase of this magnitude so she doesn’t even realize that there might be a need for outside counsel. Again, you could see around a corner point that stuff out beforehand. The traditional seller, what he or she will do is just bombard and just keep going and keep going to keep going. And then the very end, try to overcome objections and after you try to overcome objections, hope that they deal with close. Every one of the other sellers is doing the same exact thing. Let’s not do that.
Let’s come forward as a value-added seller. Let’s come forward as someone that is being able to see that can see around corners. Let’s come at someone that they actually want to talk to. They can have a pleasant conversation with. In your industry, or within your sales processes there’re probably a couple of things. I had another situation where I was working with a client and I realize how visual, forgot what the percentage is or more people are visual people than anything else, right? Some of us are audible you, some of you are listening to this, but a lot of people like to see things. They like to see it drawn out. Some people like to feel it; they want to write it out themselves. What I came to realize was I had an understanding of the solution in my mind and I described it to my clients.
I shared all this stuff but still yet my deals we’re getting hung up and I didn’t understand why we got to the proposal. I built value and all of the great stuff, but we got to the very end and the problem was, they didn’t have a visual of a visual representation of seeing how this all was going to be taken care of. Where else from the very beginning, where we’re going to start with them and then the step by step approach that we’re going to do to the close, in the proposal. I mean we list out some of the things that we’re going to take care of, but they didn’t visually see that. So I started to share that especially understanding that most people are visual individuals and this wasn’t a complex sale scenario, but I outlined it. I hadn’t just, it wasn’t like a crazy design, just simply outlined it on a time of what, of what’s going to happen, what was when things were going to take place and what was going to need to be done and put it in a little business case together that I was able to share with my contact that he was able to bring to a higher level meeting.
And that made a world of difference. The deal close simply and easily. I learned. So the whole point of this is again if I can bring stuff to my customers that can help them to see around corners, to help point out challenges that they don’t even know exist yet because I’ve been down that road before, I’m going to stand out so much more. And that’s the recommendation I give you. Don’t go back into your deal the next deal and say, “well, you know, I’ve done this before”. “I know how to do it”. That’s the quickest way to become lethargic and become pathetic. You don’t want to do that. You want to make sure you are fresh, that you’re different, that you’re vibrant, that you bring in a value that you bring things to us, helping me to watch for or potential pitfalls. You’re pointing things out. You’re showing me things around a corner that I don’t even know exist yet. Hope that helps you. If you’d like to hear more tips like this as well, go back to Scott show notes. There’s plenty of great information in the show notes there, but you can also connect with me and you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Donald C. Kelly or go back to our podcasts, The Sales Evangelist podcast. Hey, loved having you love chatting with you. Take this information, apply it and hope to continue to hear about your success. See you guys.
Scott Ingram: If you are one of the visual people that Donald talks about, you can see him deliver this tip in video form at DailySales.Tips/18. That’s also where you’ll find links to all the great stuff that Donald’s doing from the sales evangelist podcast to his various social channels where he does a really good job. All of that is worth checking out, and then while you’re there, be sure to answer today’s question in the comments, which is, how do you shorten your sales cycles and help your customers see around corners? Then come back tomorrow for a tip from another podcaster about, well, starting a podcast.