Being Assertive With Clients

Q & A with Joe Murphy
Q. - Does being assertive with clients help in a consultative type of sale?

This is a great question that is rarely asked. Since it is rarely asked, I have to assume it is not understood how important a question this really is in dealing with high-value, complex solution sales.

In almost all cases the C-level executive does want someone who is assertive. This does mean they want someone who is controlling and directive, who wil guide them as to what they need to do to fix or solve a problem for them. This means that the client - in the executive role of solving the problem - is hiring someone not just for their technical expertise, but also for their leadership capabilities.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This means that the client - in the executive role of solving the problem - is hiring someone not just for their technical expertise, but also for their leadership capabilities.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leadership strengths are critical in the sale of any solution that is of high-value to the client. The client wants to trust that someone will get it done and done right. This means exerting influence on their organization. This means bringing to bear the resources of the firm the executive has hired (i.e. you and your company). This means that you are willing to take total repsonsibility for getting the job done. No excuses. No blaming. You get it done.

This does not mean that you run over the client's staff. This does mean that you work with them collaboratively. This means you inform the client executive, the person who hired you, of progress or non-progress, caused by his organization or your organization.

Too many professionals who are selling their services and solutions, rely on the technical capabilities of their solution or the functionality of their solution.

The mistake here is that we forget they are buying us as well. This buying of "us" is often thought of as relationship selling. And relationship selling often becomes translated into, taking the client out to lunch, to play golf or watch a football game. While these can be important, they pale in comparision to the need for the executive to feel they can rely on your personal leadership strengths, such as being assertive, controlling and directive to get the job done. This is one of the main reasons they will hire you. If you don't act this way, then they will have to do this to get the job done. And they know and realize they have too many other things to do and places where they need to assert themselves, than in this area where your experitise lies.

Good Luck!

Sales Turnaround - First Things First

This post by Joe Murphy discusses one of the first things you can do to turn your sales around 180 degrees.

One of the first things I look at is the revenue decline over the past several periods (months/quarters) and to determine which products or services are facing problems.

What I look at - specifically - are the following areas;

1. Which services and/or products are not selling (declining sales numbers)
2. Which services and/or products are not selling at the same profit margin (declining margins)
3. Which services and/or products are having longer sales cycles (not closing as fast as they once were)
4. Which services and/or products do not have the same pipeline characteristics as they once had (dollar amount, volume, margin, close dates, and probability of winning/closing)

Once I have this data I can really begin to make some "informed hypotheses" where the sales force is failing or flailing. "Informed hypotheses" provide a useful tool that allow me to begin the next phase in the diagnosis as to why sales are declining.

Most executives want a turn-around specialist to come in and whip the sales force into shape. And you can find "sales leaders" who promise they will do that. They promise some of the following - what I call - "we needs:"

1. We need new training processes
2. We need to implement call reports
3. We need customer satisfaction surveys
4. We need new hiring processes
5. We need new sales management
6. We need new sales people

The "we needs" go on and on. But if you hear someone prescribing before diagnosing, run for the hills. Or show the person to the door and have them run for the hills.

An Outward Focus Toward Clients - 180

Turning around an organization, requires an outward focus toward the client. This comes right down to individual behavior. Where is everyone looking - inward? Or outward?

Often, when I come into an organization the first thing I notice is, where key people are spending the bulk of their time. Also, where they are spending the key hours of the day.

You know what I find? I find poor manaagement systems and a poor leadership practice. Sales is down, therefore "we put in place reporting systems to see what people (especially sales) are doing every day." Then, the financial people put in quality systems, that require sales people to fill out more paperwork on the front end to save their staff time.

Soon the entire organization is facing inwards. And the culture now is about filling out reports and reporting and meeting about reports, and the meeting turn into reports of the meetings of the reports, and then more questions and then more written emails about why this wasn't done, which gets sent down to the person in front of the client to write and then it is rewritten by management, and then management reads it or has gone on to another crisis and it is no longer important.

So how do you stop this malpractice? It ain't easy. Becuase the stupidity is now engrained in people's thinking and in processes. And worst of all - people who don't have client facing positions in the company - but who have the ear of the President, or CEO or Managing Director. And the new bad practices, become the new normal.

Stopping it requires recognizing the problem. See the next post.