THE SAME SELLING MISTAKE

FOR 50 YEARSWHY YOUR SALES REPS & CHANNEL PARTNERS

STRUGGLE TO SELL MORE

PREPARED BY CHRIS BENNETT

This white paper is broken into seven sections. The purpose is to introduce a new perspective on driving massive revenue growth.  

1. Discover the big problem. 2. The big dilemma.   3. How big is this selling problem? 4. How did we get here?   5. Where do we go from here? 6. The golden opportunity ahead.   7. Low risk method for driving massive revenue growth.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY / THE PROBLEM 01

How professional sales people work is continuously evolving. Or is that just an illusion?   Digital transformation, new research about how buyers buy, the sales rep tech stack, newconsumption models, new sales methodologies, more information than ever before allchange how sales pros work.   But one thing is not changing; Selling Mistakes. This is especially important for manufactures, vendors, telcos and master agents who relyon channel partners for the bulk of their selling.

This is

especially

important for

manufactures,

vendors,

telcos &

master agents

who rely on

channel

partners for

the bulk of

their selling.

The big selling mistake being made 50 years ago is still the main one being madetoday.  Tragically, by the majority of all sales pros and channel sellers; the researchbelow is overwhelming evidence of that.  At Chris Bennett Sales Training I have seenit with my own eyes too having trained 10’s of thousands of sales pros in 75-80corporations over the past 26 years. Many people think that for the last 50 years selling has been primarily dominated bya consultative selling approach first developed by Mack Hanan in the 70’s.  Andwhile it might sound true it is not.   The last 50 years has seen a few small pockets of companies or sellers engage withthe consultative approach; fully, correctly, consistently but still to this day themajority of sales pros talk product/solution too soon, too often and they really don’tunderstand their prospects / clients nearly as well as they should or think they do. Consultative selling is not the norm; salespeople talking product/solution too soonin the norm. And that is the big selling mistake.

LEADING WITH SELF

1. Look at all the companies that continue to direct their sales reps to leadprospecting calls with their value proposition or lead with a product demo. 2. Or all those tech companies whose sales reps show up for first meetings withsome sort of a technical specialist in tow and a power point deck and then proceed toshow 17 slides focused on their own company & why their tech is number one. 3. I was just in two partner portals of multi-billion dollar global tech manufacturers. This is the place they aggregate resources for their partners to help them sell moreeffectively. 100% of all the content I saw was product knowledge.   Not a singlelesson on how to understand their prospects / clients better or on asking questions. Not one.  Many master agency portals are set up the same way.

Not a single lesson on

how to understand

your prospects.

THE BIG DILEMMA: FIX THE MISTAKE OR PUSH ON? 02

Are We Really Ready for the Big Push Forward! Today there is a big push to be a challenger seller or an insight seller or a provocation seller. The purpose of which is toproactively bring new ideas to help your buyers. There is even a call to reinvent consultative selling to keep up with the timesand the new buyer preferences.  And while that all sounds good even logical like the next great paradigm for sales effectivenessthey all depend on one critical factor. They all depend on a deep, accurate understanding of the buyer’s business to maximize results. And that’s a big problem because the majority of sellers still talk too much and ask too few questions in the sales process todeeply understand their prospects / clients. 

And that’s

a big

problem

because

the

majority of

sellers still

talk too

much and

ask too few

questions.

What does it mean to deeply understand your prospect / client?

Here is a broad list of some basic information your direct sellers and channel sellershave to know: 1. The landscape of the business; growth trends, market share trends, earnings trends,cost trends, big changes, trigger event, competitors, competitive situation and trends. 2. Facts and figures; head count, # of locations, description of how they provisionservices and networks today etc. 3. Partners and vendors; why did they select them, contracts, current prices 4. Goals & priorities (desired outcomes) main business goals and departments goals

5. Main corporate strategy by which they are effortingto achieve goals (organic growth, acquisitions,blockbuster product releases, first to market…?) 6. Critical success factors 7. Key metrics associated to the goals and priorities;how much do they need them to move 8. Top 3 challenges they are dealing with relative totheir main business goals and projects 9. The # 1 biggest challenge in their eyes 10. # 1 challenge clearly described in granular detail 11. What do they think the solutions are 12. What have they tried to date to fix it 13. Can they fix it in house 14. What are the costs in $ associated to living with the# 1 challenge;  lost sales, lost customers, re-work,rebates, overtime, productivity issues, costs etc. 15. Their vision for the ideal this year, next 3 years 16. Budgets 17. Who are all the buyers (champion, KDM, blocker,coach) 18. Buying process 19.DMC 20. Expectations 21. How is success measured 22. Time lines 23. Who else are they talking to about this And on the list goes. What % of your direct sellers or channel sellers actuallyknow all this stuff in their top 20 accounts? If your direct sellers and channel sellers do not knowdetails around the aforementioned items then they donot deeply understand their prospects & clients. 

What % of your direct

sellers or channel sellers

actually know all this stuff

in their top 20 accounts?

How safe is it to layer advanced selling skills onto a sales force that doesn’t yet fully understand their clients becausemaximizing the value of the new methodologies DEPENDS on having a deep knowledge of your prospects and clients.  If theydon’t know the information in the aforementioned list…how “wow factor” and relevant are the new insights going to be to thebuyer? Case in point: Picture three different businesses all in the same vertical.  One is focused on the quality of the customerexperience to grow sales, one is focused on selling to a specific market vertical, and the third is focused exclusively on selling aspecific type of product into that market.  Three similar businesses in the same vertical with three totally different growthstrategies; if you don’t know which is which how relevant is your big new idea going to be? The 50 year old selling mistake rears its ugly head again and again to affect many considerations for; preparing, fielding andmanaging a sales force. SO DO WE NEED TO TAKE A TIME OUT ON THE BIG PUSH TOWARD the “next gen” sales approach until the majority ofsellers stop making the 50 year old selling mistake and lock down the basics of asking more questions before they start selling?

How safe is it?

I did a project for a large global tech giant and discovered that the

dominate belief across their AM teams was that their customers

were not interested in moving any work to the cloud and they were

not in the market for cloud services.  Turns out after some digging

that 63 of their major enterprise customers had in fact already

purchased cloud services and these AMs didn’t even know about it.

 We think we know what is going on in our account base; it is mostly

not the case.  Cause: too few questions.

DO WE REALLY

KNOW OURCLIENTS?

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM? 03

1. What % of your sales reps regularly uses written questions during their customer conversations?   2. If you are a vendor, manufacturer, or master agency how much effort and resources do you put into providing your channelsellers with training on questioning protocols and lists of the proper questions to ask in their meetings?   Not very many, right?   So how can you expect your direct sales force and channel sellers to really understand their buyers if they don’t use a proven,structured framework for asking the correct questions?   In the absence of a meeting focused on asking and discovery we have too many meetings still based on showing and telling.

The big

selling

mistake is

alive and

well.  

1.  “The # 1 complaint about sales people: they don’t ask enough questions.” - Gretchen Gordon 2. # 1 reason sales pros fail: they spend too much time talking and not enough timelistening. - Spiro CRM study / Adam Honig 3. The# 1 mistake sales pros make is not enough understanding the prospect’s problem.- Grant Cardone

Research shows the problem (talking toomuch/asking too little) is alive and well.

4. The # 2 biggest complaint buyers have about their vendors is they don’t take thetime to fully understand my business.   - The Challey Group 5. “Deals are won and lost on discovery” - GrowthPlay 6. The # 2 biggest mistake sales reps make is “they don’t listen to my needs”.   - Harvard Business review 7. The # 1 mistake sellers make: “they talk too much” - Sales Hacker January 2018 based on a one million call study 8. # 1 selling mistake – “failing to uncover the buyer’s goals” - Trainingindustry.com June 2018 The big selling mistake is alive and well.  

HOW DID WE GET HERE? 04

1. The # 1 culprit is training imbalance. When sales pros and the channelpartners are fed a steady diet of product training and starved ofquestioning protocol training they will tend to talk product too soonbecause it is mostly all they know.  Inputs = outputs. 2. Look at a typical sales kick-off agenda:  A welcome speech/ state of theunion from an executive. Followed by some inspirational talk from a “hero”,then sales awards and then breakout sessions usually about new products(delivered by vendor partners or marketing people), or a CRM roll out.  Ifselling skills topics are given any time it is typically less than 20%. 3. There are different types of questions sales pros must ask in clientconversations. This has been scientifically proven. 90% of sales pros don’tknow this.  Each different type of question is aimed at uncovering veryspecific types of answers from the buyer.  It is the golden key tounderstanding your buyers effectively and efficiently. In my model thereare 5.

4. Only one question type is purposefully designedto fill the sales pipeline.  90% of sales pros, salesmanagers, channel leaders & enablement pros donot know this. 5. Only one type of question is purposefullydesigned to build a business case, document afinancial value proposition, shorten the sales cycleand protect margins.  90% of sales pros, salesmanagers, channel leaders & enablement pros donot know this.

90% of sales pros,

sales managers,

channel leaders &

enablement pros

do not know this.

6. Questioning and understanding is the cornerstone skill for a sales pro. Yet most do not work from a scientifically proven orfield tested questioning framework. And no one is asking / telling them to. 7. The # 2 culprit is poor sales management routines. In the majority of sales organizations sales managers are not auditing andapproving lists of questions their sellers use on the job.  Sales managers are not coaching questioning skills and have not madetaking written questions to meetings mandatory. The art of asking questions is not a main topic in most company’s weekly salesmeetings. 8. Vendors, manufacturers, telcos, master agents and others who rely on the channel to sell for them do not typically orregularly provide questioning training, questioning protocols or lists of questions for their channel.  Manufacturers, telcos &master agencies assume that each partner organization has trained their own sales reps how to do this.  (Huge faultyassumption) 9. The marketing teams that roll out new products and solutions rarely include a series of questioning protocols sellers can useto uncover opportunities and then close them.   10. Many sales enablement leaders do not know the science of questioning and its importance in the sales process, and hencedo not train & coach it up adequately.

Why is the biggest selling mistake still being made?

We got here with a combination of… 1) Training imbalance 2) Poor sales management routines 3) A deep lack of appreciation for the value and importance of questioning protocols by;vendors, manufacturers, telcos, master agencies, the marketing and sales enablementteams Most sales organizations are using a product heavy focused approach to training theirsales forces and as a result a huge % of sellers still talk product / solution too early in thesales process. Cause and effect. Remember almost 50% of sales pros fail to make plan.  Correlation?  Makes you wonder.

almost 50%

of sales pros

fail to make

plan. 

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?   05

Should we:

Which is the least risky and more profitable approach? Unless you have overwhelming evidence to the contrary lockingdown the core skills of asking better questions is a more profitableand safer choice because: a. understanding your buyers never goes out of style (somemethodologies do) b. it’s the basis of all your solution selling (all your sales solve otherpeople’s problems) c. learning how to ask questions will impact revenue results fasterthan an advanced methodology because more people will use themwith competency quicker than they will an advanced methodology d. they are faster, easier, cheaper and less risky to roll out andcoach vs. an advanced methodology

Race forwardand embrace

new advancedsales

methodologies 

OR

Stop makingthe biggestmistake in

selling history

How do we get sellers on track?

1. Buy In They have to understand the “why” they should change. a. If they are not making plan consistently your organization (sales manager, HRleader, channel manager, president) someone has to show them there is acorrelation between understanding prospects better and making sales. Thenprove it.  If you can do so internally referencing your top sellers do so. Otherwiseshow them 3rd party proof like the examples below.   They have to see WIIFM / what’s in it for them to change; more money, moresecurity, more prestige, promotion, less stress, easier to do their job etc. Examples:  (https://chris-bennett-training.teachable.com/p/results-testimonials-sales )

Cisco Canada in a brilliant strategic move understood the power of questions andhelped enable select partners to skill up questioning and it drove significantlymore revenues.

They were

shocked to see

how many sales

they were

previously

missing.  

National VAR increasedYOY Cisco sales 32% with

questions = $10s of millionsin new sales.

QUESTIONING WORKS: HERE'S THE PROOF

+32% YOY

+105% +100% +325%

+167%+46% YOY

+100%

Solution Integratorincreased Cisco pipeline by

105% ($25 million) in 5months & closed it.

Major national bank hadone region of 23 branches

double sales in 90 days.(100% increase)

Telco division increasespipeline by 325% in 6

months, increases closingrate 125%.

Software firm increasedannual revenues by 167%.

National SolutionIntegrator increased Cisco

revenues by 46% YOY.

Major national Telco; twodivisions increased

pipeline by 100% & 225%.

2. Skill up Start by teaching them one easy to learn, easy to apply question to get them hooked. As mentioned above there are five typesof questions sales pros must use on the job. They are: 1. Circumstance 2. Challenge 3. Consequence 4. Change Positive 5. Closing / Bridge

Why not begin with challenge questions because they arethe only question type specifically designed to buildpipeline and the main goal for most businesses is to driverevenue growth.   More problems = more sales.   By focusing on the skill of asking challenge questions tobuild pipeline:

CHALLENGE QUESTIONS

1) New hires ramp faster 2) More mid pack performers make plan 3) Your top sellers benefit too Building better pipeline has immediate business impact.

Challenge questions are a very specific type of questionwith their own unique design requirements. By definition they must include one of these challengequestion buzz words. If the question does not contain one of these challenge buzzwords it is not a challenge question.  And therefore it is notpurposefully looking for new pipeline opportunities.  I alsocall them fishing questions because you are fishing forproblems. One of the objectives of asking this type of question is tohear the buyer say: 

We’re struggling with… Our problem is… I’m worried about…

Sellers need to hear those types of explicit phrases come out of the mouths of the buyers because…

No Problem = No Sale Most of the sales your company or channel makes solve other people’s problems.  In the tech space buyer struggles include: a.  complexity b. poor performance c. hard to spin up new locations or storage d. phone system is dying e. network management problems f. DC issues g. connectivity issues h. UC not matching business needs i. costs are too high j. security is too complex k. too little time l. struggling to move work to the cloud The mindset for asking these types of question is that of a problem detective. Before anyone can be a solution seller or offer new insights they must first be a problem detective.   In the absence of asking enough challenge questions sellers are hoping their base will ask them for a quote.  Wait, what? Thatmeans hope if your strategy for building pipeline?  

Notice there is a buzz word in each question?  That makes it a challenge or fishing question. The questions are aimed at uncovering struggles and issues in multiple directions.  The questions are aimed into multipledirections to expand the scope of the conversation because more problems = bigger pipeline = the more sales. Or you could take one solution and break it into its component parts and design a fishing question for each part…like this for aSDWAN solution. 1. What difficulties are you having optimizing applications at different locations? 2. What struggles do you have directing different types of network traffic onto different paths?

3. Do you worry you cannot back haul all your traffic to head office or to the cloud securely? 4. What sort of issues do you have gaining visibility to all your assents connected to the network? 5. How much of a hassle is it for you to spin up a new location? 6. How worried are you that bandwidth costs are too high? Imagine if as a; vendor, manufacturer, master agent, telco or business you broke each of your top three solutions down into fivecomponent pieces and designed a perfect fishing question for each component. You’d have five fishing questions for each of your three most important solutions.   Then you’d send your sellers or your army of channel sellers out there asking 15 different fishing questions every week; weekafter week after week 100% focused on finding new problems that your three solutions are uniquely designed to solve.

What would happen to your pipeline if all your direct & channel sellers did that for a few months? = Massive pipeline growth.  

Your business can get mega pipeline growth when you master fishing questions.

Fish everywhere!

Challenge / fishing questions can be aimed at any type of issue, worry or concern.They don’t have to be aimed at technical problems. They can be aimed atuncovering struggles related to; earnings, income, peace of mind, revenues, costs,productivity, risk, safety, customers etc. More problems = more quotes = more sales.   Rock & Roll!

Asking this

specific type of

question is one

of the highest

impact

activities

sellers can do

because they

are the only

question type

designed to

purposefully

fill pipeline.  

 

THE GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY AHEAD 06

STOP MAKING THE 50 YEAR OLD SELLING MISTAKE!   Instead of rolling out a new advanced methodology or a truck load of new productknowledge first plug the leak that is causing you to lose sales today.   Teach them to “take a step back,” resist the temptation to talk about their solutionstoo early in the sales process.   Arm them with a list of fishing questions and mandatethey come back with answers. Chris Bennett Sales Training has studied and worked with over 70 different salesforces during the past 26 years.  We have studied what separates the high producersfrom the middle of the pack performers. What we see is cause and effect.  Those sellers that let their prospects andcustomers do 80% of the talking make the most sales.  Go back and look at theresults documented in section 5 Buy In. Before those businesses mastered the art ofasking questions they were missing those sales. There is a golden opportunity in front of you right now to drive revenue growth of20% - 30% even 50% more simply by mastering easy to learn questioning skills. Less than 20% of all the sellers we have seen employ these skills daily.  Those that dohave a competitive advantage over those that do not.

Those sellers that

let their prospects &

customers do 80%

of the talking make

the most sales. 

07 FIX THE PROBLEM: SKILL UP YOUR TEAMS

Times have changed but sadly too many sellers haven’t and stilltalk too much too soon in the sales process.  As a result they failto gain a deep understanding of their buyer.  This costs you; sales, delay, and price objections.

Digital transformation is upon us.  Your clients have more competitorsexperimenting with new business models and technologies.  They have issues andstruggles to overcome if they want to compete, keep their client base and continue togrow.  You can help them overcome those new challenges, if you can uncover them.(Don’t expect them to voluntarily tell you because that would mean hope is yourstrategy to grow revenues. Hope is not a strategy.) When sellers uncover more of the struggles and challenges holding their clients backthey make more sales.

The 5Cs Questioning Framework by Chris Bennett Sales Training teaches your sellers and channel how to slow down and askmore of the right questions the right way.  As a result they will build 100% - 300% more pipeline than you have today and closemost of it. These skills will set them apart from your competitors and allow you to better protect your revenues and customer base. Forvendors they will allow you to attract and retain more partners.

With the 5Cs sellers and sales managers will learn how to:

1. Interview a buyer and uncover better information faster than ever before 2. Work more like a trusted advisor 3. Improve the quality of the customer experience 4. Fill their pipelines faster 5. Speed up sales cycle time 6. Build a business case to demonstrate the financial value proposition of yoursolution to protect margins 7. Design and present solutions that are relevant to the outcomes the buyerwants to achieve 8. Become more effective, efficient and productive 9. Ramp to first sales and full production faster = Make a lot more sales faster. Your sellers will be introduced to the 5Cs questioning framework and reinforcethose new skills with cheat sheets, long term follow up and video reminderlessons.  Making reinforcement and coaching easier and better. Expect a 1000%+ROI and a proven process to de-risk your investment.

Expect a

1000%+ ROI

and a proven

process to

de-risk your

investment. 

Contact us to power up your team 5Cs sales pros: 1. Have more self-confidence & energy 2. Book more meetings 3. Expand in their base better 4. Understand their buyers better 5. Build bigger pipeline 6. Shorten sales cycles (protect margins) 7. Drive bigger revenue growth

Stop the Leaks! Reduce Selling Mistakes

Talk less, ask more.  Understanding your buyers nevergoes out of style and supports any sales objective youhave. To power up your direct sellers and channel sellers into5Cs consultative sellers, contact Chris Bennett today at604.945.8851 or cbennet62@shaw.ca  or visit chris-bennett-training.teachable.com. Chris Bennett Sales Training has provided consulting,training & coaching for the past 26 years to businesseslike: AT&T, Bell, Royal Bank, Allstream, Dimension Data, CDW,SHI, CompuCom, Softchoice, TELUS, Sun Life, PCM,Compugen, Cisco, SaskTel, Great West Life, EdocSoftware and others.        CBST specializes in customizing programs to fit the           exact needs of its clients and takes great pride in long        term follow up and delivering hard dollar measurable        results in excess of 1000% ROI.   Over $1 Billion in revenue has been booked as a result ofhis training. Services are available live & digitally as a video library foryour sales enablement platform or LMS. CB is happily married to an amazing woman, blessed with good health, a fantastic family and a great group of friends. He’s arecreation/sports enthusiast and exercises/plays 7 times per week.  He loves; fishing, tennis, squash, JKD, jogging, golf,classic rock & the NFL Go Bears.