Posted on

Measuring the Value of Why

We see this word a lot: value  —  but what exactly does it mean? What is it? How do we measure it? How do we determine whether or not it’s something we provide? These are all good questions and in the agency world, value is what separates us, it’s what links us, and it’s what drives conversations and interactions with clients and partners alike. But how do we truly define it? Value has a few definitions, so let’s start there (courtesy of Google):

val·ue : /ˈvalyo͞o/

noun

  1. the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
    • “your support is of great value”

But it can also be used as a verb!

verb

  1. consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial; have a high opinion of.
    • “she had come to value her privacy and independence”

As we can see, value is something that’s a little ambiguous, right? If you look at the first sentence that uses the word value, you can see what the value is – “your support is of great value” – the value is your support. “She had come to value her privacy and independence” – the value in this sentence is a little trickier, it’s her privacy and independence, but it’s also linked to the noun “her” – so I’d like to define value in this way:

Value measures the worth of something, but is dependent on the measurer’s desires, fears, opinions and considerations.

We all know value is worth something, but my value will be different from your value. Your value will be different from their value, and so goes the succession. This is so because value is fueled by desire from the one who views the value.

“Value sits on a foundation of action while being built by intelligence, insight, and observation.”

The hard part is answering the ‘why’ of value. Why is “your support” of great value? And why does she value her “privacy and independence?” If you look at it from more of a cognitive stance, you’ll see that the answer of ‘why’ is dependent upon the ‘who’ and the ‘what’. It’s that desire that compels a client to buy, it’s that fear that can mean the difference between success and failure, and it’s a line that’s very thin and almost impossible to distinguish when value is at the forefront of every conversation and people’s desires/fears aren’t necessarily apparent.

Action is the foundation of value. What we do and what we say adds value (or takes it away). Our actions reverberate. Action progresses the sale, it can also stall a sale. But it is action that is at the root of all value. Without it, we cannot provide value.

While action is the foundation of value; intelligence, insight, and observation are the materials you need to build it.

[striped]Short Story[/striped]

I was on the phone with a nice woman from one of the big organizations in the Research Triangle in North Carolina. I asked her to give me a high-level lay of the land (what’s the current situation and what are you looking to do?). She gives me some background on her role and her company, then reveals that she’d like to create and build a WordPress site where her sales team members can come to find more resources on the products that her company was selling.

It was a great conversation, but I asked one question that made her pause and really think about her situation, and the question was simple – it was “why?” What is your major goal and why do you want to accomplish it? Now, everyone knows to ask these questions, but not everyone on the other end of that line might know the answer, or be totally truthful. She did know the answer and was truthful, the answer she gave was simple too – “I want my sales people to have the right information in order to sell more products….and it’ll make me look good.” And there’s the value (for her) or what I like to call the value gratification.

The value gratification is the major accomplishment and its ability to fulfill the desires one has, it’s the way the people involved with the project feel after it’s finished. In this case, it’s the value of having a more cohesive and effective sales team, which will essentially sell more products and make her look good in front of the bosses. That achievement will not only make the client happy, but it hits those hidden goals as well, which if you can uncover, will just give you more value as a salesperson.

The action was the phone call, observation and insight led to the question, and intelligence is what you do with that information. The question showed value in her mind because when she went looking for a partner to build this WordPress site the desire to look good was already there. She just needed to find someone who cared about it enough to ask about it. The question just disclosed the ‘why’ — we know the value is her cohesive sales team selling more products, but why does she want to do that. Well for all the normal reasons someone would want to do it, but also because it’ll make her look like a rockstar at her company and that’s the gratification or desire behind the value, which can be much more potent than the value itself.

Fear overcoming value…or the absence of value

Now this was one example of action, and an easy one because she gave up that valuable tidbit about her hidden goal. Let’s take an example from one of my old freelance days when I didn’t really know what I was doing or how desire plays a role in uncovering real value.

I was just learning how to code and still doing construction when I met one of the homeowners that we were building for. We got to talking and she uncovered that she’s big into photography. She sells her photos at craft fairs and she’s looking to do a website where she can sell her photos, but she didn’t know of a web designer/developer. In walks me! Naive little ole’ me! I say “I can do that! And I’ll give you a really great deal!” So she leapt at the offer to have me build her a website where she could sell her photos.

All was going well, I put up a really slick Divi themed WordPress website, integrated the WordPress Photo Seller Plugin that helped with photo management, watermarks, and taking online payments through PayPal. I was super happy with the site! But then my client saw the website, she thought it looked really awesome too, but….she didn’t know how she felt about having her photos online, she was afraid people would steal them. I tried to explain as best I could that the watermark was a good attempt at foiling malicious users from taking her photos, but ultimately that’s the chance that you take putting your stuff out there. She wasn’t satisfied with that answer and the website never got launched and I never saw any money. She saw the value in having a website where she could sell her photos, but she also saw the absence of value through the thought of people stealing her photos. Had I probed enough, and asked the right questions through action and observation, I could’ve saved myself from hours of site-building, but hey, lesson learned!

That client’s desire was to make money through selling her photos, but not at the risk of losing any. Which is a hard desire to bring to light. Looking back, the way I could’ve done it was by asking her about her photos, what did she like about them, what did they mean to her? It most likely would’ve uncovered her fears about people stealing her photos, and if I had done that, I could’ve recommended a more secure option like selling her images on CanStock Photo or Fotolia. Which would’ve given her more value, and quelled her fears.

But again, lesson learned!

Linking value to people and their emotions

Value is inherent to people’s desires and/or fears. Both of which can be difficult to get out of people. Many times desires are selfish, and people don’t necessarily want to talk about them. Many times fears are silly and people don’t necessarily want to talk about them. But if you can link the desire someone has to the value you’re providing, your close rate should go up. If you can extinguish a person’s fear by showing them that having the value is better than the absence of it, you should win more deals.

Business people, especially, are known for keeping their emotions in check, but it’s those emotions that will give you clues to a person’s hidden goals. From the moment you get on the phone with someone, listen to those emotions. When they talk to you about the project, how do they sound? Are they frantic, are they calm, do they sound miserable or super ecstatic? When they email you about the project, what’s the tone? Is it short and to the point, do they ramble on about it? When you meet them in person, gauge their body language. Do they seem comfortable, are they attentive, or laid back?

Observation is a huge building block in understanding the desire behind value. When you’re around people tune in to their channels. Make insightful observations on what you see, hear, and feel. And continue to ask questions. If someone looks worried, say something like “Hey Tom, you look like you’re a little worried about this project, what concerns do you have?” People secretly want to tell you their desires, they just don’t want to be judged because of it. So, right from the very beginning when you first meet with someone you need to make them feel at ease. You do that by expressing empathy, giving respect, and making genuine connections.

How do you measure value?

If you remember my definition of value, it’s dependent on the person who’s doing the measuring and what their desires and/or fears are. So, with that in mind, you first have to know the “who” — who is your buyer? Obviously individuals will have their own idiosyncrasies, but you can make some overall assumptions about certain types of buyers. And I’m sure you know that figuring out your audience or who you’re trying to sell to is of uber importance. The technology buyer, let’s assume they like quality. And let’s assume that the marketing buyer likes results. Well, that gives you a starting point and you can pivot your observations off of your assumptions to make intelligent assessments.

Then you need to know the “what” — what is the challenge, what is the project, what are the major goals, what is the platform? All these questions will help uncover what you’re doing so you can start figuring out your tactical approach. Things like should I recommend WordPress or Drupal, how long do I think the project will take, who will I need for this project. And also your strategic approach. Things like what’s the best solution for this, what’s the most innovative solution for this?

Throughout this entire process of helping your client or prospect find the right solution, you need to be strategically searching for the “why” — why do they truly want to do this? Is it something their boss said they had to do and they’d rather not be involved, or is this something they’re truly jazzed about, if so, why are they super jazzed about it? The why can uncover hidden goals for you to better position your solution and agency. The why can truly connect you to your client and make you a lifelong advisor. Knowing and understanding the why can separate you from the competition and link you to your client and new business. The why weighs the most.

Posted on

Coffee’s For Closers

….but only if you have an established sales process.

I’ve given this talk a few times. It started out as a flash talk and turned into a full 30-45 minute presentation. I’d like to write out this presentation in long form, that way the next time I give the talk, I’ll be able to direct people to it afterwards.

Let’s begin

How many people here are familiar with the scene “Coffee’s for Closers” in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross? To give a backdrop, Glengarry Glen Ross was originally a play turned into a movie depicting the lives of real estate salesmen. “Coffee’s for Closers” is a scene in that movie where Blake, portrayed by Alec Baldwin, comes down to motivate the other salesmen.

“Put that coffee down! Coffee’s for closers, ONLY! You think I’m f*ck!ng with you? I am not…”

He’s basically saying that if you’re in a sales capacity at an organization and you’re not closing business, don’t drink the company’s coffee, let alone make the base salary that you’re making. And is that true? Should coffee be for closers? The answer it YES!! Absolutely! Coffee should be for closers….but only if you have an established sales process. Because if you don’t, then you can’t expect your sales people to close on a continually basis.

We need a sales process to integrate ourselves into. To focus on it, to make it a standard, and then finally to improve it.

Introductions

So, who am I? My name is Adam Lamagna, sounds like lasagna! Easy to remember!! I am a sales consultant for Sucuri, I help agencies pick the right solutions to secure their websites and their clients’ websites.

When I turned 18 and graduated high school, I flew out to Hollywood, California to become a rockstar, that dream was short-lived! I got into sales and I’ve done everything from cold calling, to door-to-door, inside sales, to high-pressured, hard selling. I got into technology about around 2012 and haven’t looked back since. I’ve worked for a small web agency and a large (enterprise-level) agency. I love business development and sales. I believe sales to be a noble profession!

History of Sales

The history of sales is super important, it gives us an overview of how sales has progressed and where the pivotal moments were. If anyone wants to read more about the sales process, you can always check out my blog post on the history of sales. Starting at the beginning of time, we had the bartering system. You give me this, I give you that — still relevant to this day. But when money was introduced, it turned the bartering system into markets and gave us a system to improve upon.

Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution, this is when the modern day salesman comes into play. He’s also known as the exaggerated salesman, the guy who would sell you snake oil. And from there up to the 1950’s, when we see the fast-talking salesmen come in, it’s really important to note that all the information in the sales process was owned by the seller. If a consumer wanted to know more about a product or service, they had to go to the seller to get that information.

Consumers finally got wise to this, so in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, we see things like SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need) selling, and Solution selling, and Strategic selling. They were kind of variations of themselves, but they all aimed to bring the consumer into the process, and make them feel like they were making informed decisions based on data. When the 2000’s hit and information was readily accessible, it rocked the very foundation of the selling world. Sellers were no longer in control, it was the age of the buyer!!

Sales Process

What is a sales process? Simply put, it is your view of your customer’s buying journey. With all the tasks, steps, procedures, and resources it takes to effectively manage that buying journey. I separate the sales process into 3 areas: 1—Pre-sales, 2—Engagement, 3—Post-sales.

Pre-Sales

Pre-Sales is planning and preparing to effectively engage the right prospects at the right time with the right tools.

First off, you need to know your buyers. Who are you selling too? What verticals/industries are they in? What do they care about and what do they need to make a decision? You can do your own buyer personas with this link to a HubSpot template — http://offers.hubspot.com/free-template-creating-buyer-personas — this is a really easy way to figure out who your buyers are.

Next is the marketing collateral. What are you using in your ‘sales tool-bag’ to sell people with? Your marketing collateral should do two things. 1). Showcase your talents. 2). Answer your buyers’ questions. You can answer your buyers’ questions by writing blog posts. You probably get asked the same questions over and over again. Well, write a blog post about it! Then showcase your talents through case studies and portfolio pieces. You can also reach out to the giants like WordPress or WP Engine to see if they have any marketing collateral you might be able to use. They’ll have written white papers that are available to download and use. Check it out!

Engagement

Engagement is the fun part! It’s actively talking to your prospect and funneling them down the sales funnel. There are different stages in engagement and it’s important to know the essentials (my own terminology) of each stage:

  1. Requirement: What is the requirement for a prospect to be in or get into this particular stage?
  2. Purpose: What is the purpose of this stage? Or what am I trying to accomplish with this stage?
  3. Team Member: Who am I using in this stage? Is it just me or should I bring another team member in? If you are a freelancer, then what hat (cap) am I wearing?
  4. Resources: What collateral should I use for this stage? What’s appropriate?

Then you’ll want to grid out each essential for each stage.

Closing

How do you close on a continual basis successfully? That is a phenomenal question. One that I do not have an answer to! But I will say this — it revolves around value! I look at 3 different areas of value.

  1. Value Relevancy: Is the prospect’s challenge relevant to what I do? In other words, am I the right person to solve this prospect’s challenge? If not, refer them to someone who is. Do NOT chase a client who’s project isn’t relevant to what you do! Please!
  2. Value Perception: This is a really important thing to learn about, value perception. Understand what the prospect’s perceived value is. Ask questions like “have you ever done a project like this one for your company?” and really try to understand what they perceive your value to be. Because, make no mistake, the perception is the reality. If someone values your skill set to be below what it actually is, then that’ll make for a frustrating partnership and project. If someone comes to you with a budget of $15k, and you know it’ll only take you $5k to do, their perceived value of that project is already $15k. You’re going to need to educate your prospects and sometimes that can be really hard to do. Learn value perception and how big a role it can play in the sales process.
  3. Value Diagnosis: Focus on your prospect and what they need. Make them a collaborative partner. Remember, it’s about the observable symptoms of problems and how they can be solved within the parameters of the solution. Encourage things like ownership and have a mutual self-respect/mutual self-esteem with your prospect. This can ultimately make you stand out from the competition.

Post-Sales

Once you close business, you then become a client advocate. You need to do a proper handoff with your new client and the Project Manager. If you are a freelancer, then it’s time to switch roles and become that PM. Make sure you explain what’s going to take place over the next month or two, or 7! Make sure your client understands the role and responsibilities they have. And finally, check in with your new client after the project is in full swing. Ask them about the sales process, what did they like or dislike? Ask them if they’d recommend anyone for your services. Keep in touch and become that client advocate — it will lead to more business.

Quick Tips

In sales there are very few things that are within our control. These are the things you’ll want to keep in check:

  1. Listening: They say great salesmen listen 70% of the time and talk 30% of the time. That is not the case for me, I talk a lot more than that. I wish I could talk less, hehe! I don’t care how much you talk, but when you’re listening, make sure to actually listen. Respond with good feedback and answers.
  2. Time: If you are not a wealthy person, time is your next greatest commodity, spend it wisely!
  3. Attitude: The best sales people are the ones who can dust themselves off from a loss and go after the next deal with the same gusto and rigor as they did the very first deal they ever went after! People can hear when you are not smiling over the phone, believe me, they can!

Recap

The sales team and the marketing team work together. The sales process consists of Pre-sales, Engagement, and Post-sales. And doing all this will eventually lead to closing more business and drinking more coffee.


Posted on

A History of Sales

Before I begin I would like to say that I believe sales to be a noble profession. There is such a stigma associated with sales and I’m pretty sure being a car salesman classifies you as the least trusted professional out there, Congressmen rank a close second! But sales is the 2nd oldest profession in the world, next to the oldest profession in the world as the adage goes. Go ahead – google “the oldest profession”, but I would argue that there is an element of sales to “the oldest profession”, so sales is technically the oldest profession!

As time has progressed, the industry that changes the most is sales. Sales needs to adapt not only to the market, but the buyer as well. It’s a delicate feat to sell things. I don’t care what it is – cars, commodities, services, solutions, warranties, carbon fiber, umbrellas, whatever – it takes skill to continually do it well. There are so many moving parts to sales. There’s the market, this fluctuates quite regularly depending on what industry you’re in. There are the buyers, consumers, prospects – and they all have different personalities, different thresholds, different emotional triggers. Then there’s the company you work for – this fluctuates – new people come aboard, new features get added to your product or service. And then there’s you – the salesperson – who holds all that together, and still manages to close business month after month. Kudos!

LISTEN TO PODCAST EPISODES NOW

So let’s look at the history of sales:

The Beginning of Time

At the beginning of time, there was the bartering system. You give me three cows and I’ll let you harvest an acre of my corn field – fair deal? Maybe. Maybe not. There has been some form of selling since the birth of mankind because the human instincts of wanting and needing have always been around. I doubt whoever made that first transaction of the acre of corn and those three cows knew they were making the first sales deal, but it created a system for improvement.

Before the Common Era:

We fast forward all these years later to right around BC(E) and money was born. Now money was really born well before this, I think somewhere around Mesopotamia and coinage had been introduced by the Greeks. But the Roman Empire and Roman currency, which consisted of gold, silver, bronze, and copper had their own system and it was quite sophisticated. They started minting coins and used it as a way to keep track of debts and sell items worth value. I don’t want to take any credit away from the Aztecs, the Egyptians, the Celts, the Chinese, and so on. The point that I want to make is that the invention and implementation of money developed the bartering system into markets and helped initialize sales.

The Industrial Revolution

Centuries later we move into the 1700’s and 1800’s, the Industrial Revolution is in full swing. This ushered in what we know today as the “modern day salesman” – the traveling salesmen (a.k.a. the snake-oil salesmen). Now for those of you who do not know what snake oil is, well, it’s the cure-all potion that turned you into a new person. Snake-oil started being used by the railroad workers who would lay track all across the country. Their bodies would hurt, their muscles were sore, and their bones would ache – so, they needed something to cure that pain. In comes snake-oil and the traveling or exaggerated salesmen. They were showmen, they made big, exaggerated claims, sold the snake-oil elixir, then would high-tail it outta town and move on to the next one.

To give you a little background on snake-oil, originally it had rattlesnake venom in it that would numb a worker’s body when he rubbed it on himself and claim to calm their pain. At that time, snake-oil soon became synonymous with miraculous healing powers, even though, often times the ingredients weren’t made public. Due to rival salesmen in the medicine profession there was a huge push to uncover the ingredients and a century later snake-oil became synonymous with hoaxes. And the snake-oil salesman was the equivalent to a charlatan, a hack, a fraud, etc.

But there were other salesman of this time period and they sold everything. The Industrial Revolution was a time of growth. Products were mass produced and manufactured – textiles, clothing, etc., and all these things didn’t sell themselves.

Time for tactics and techniques

How to Win Friends and Influence People – this book written in 1936 by Dale Carnegie was the first of its kind. It’s a self help book but naturally, salespeople gravitated towards it. It really started the techniques of selling – how to connect with people, how to persuade people, how to influence people. It talked about how to get people excited about things and have a winning attitude towards life and your job. And… it was all in lists – 12 ways for this, or 6 ways to do that. A great, easy read and most of what Carnegie writes is still quite relevant today.

But this sparked a movement in sales, you could actively use and improve your techniques to get people to buy your products or services. You, as a salesperson, could control the outcome of a consumer transaction by implementing psychological tactics. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was still pretty genius!

The Fast-Talking Salesman:

(hello, Kirby vacuum cleaners)
Also known as the Kirby Vacuum cleaner salesman, they were introduced in the 1940’s and 1950’s. These were the gentleman salesmen who would go door-to-door and invite themselves into the homes of housewives and put on a presentation of the benefits of their product. This really is the dawn of the retail age. And at this point in the sales industry, the seller held all the information. The consumer was only told what the seller wanted them to know. So, the seller could say whatever they wanted. If a consumer asked a question, the salesmen could lie or not tell the entire truth. It made for a one way street where salespeople held power over their customers and if a consumer was remotely interested in a product (such as a Kirby vacuum) the only information they could get on it was right from the salesman’s mouth.

This didn’t last very long because consumers got wise to the information exchange and their reactions to “The Fast-Talking Salesmen” changed (yet again) the face of the selling world.

The 1960’s

This was a time of cultural divide, opposition was growing for the war in Vietnam, racial tensions were stirring, class issues were starting to get noticed, and great music was born! But, selling was also taking a drastic turn. Instead of the salesman having all the information, we started to see this shift from “ask me a question and I’ll give you the answer” to “here’s some information, let’s figure out what you need” – and in comes Strategy Selling in the 1970’s – a salesman was trained to do an effective analysis of their consumers’ business or company and would make the consumer more a part of the process of selling, so the consumer would feel like they were making a sound decision with the help of their salesperson who knew about their business.

We see SPIN Selling – Situation, Problem, Implication, Need, then payoff! Or Consultative Selling in the 1980’s which was really about asking as many questions as you could (being a salesman), this would build rapport and uncover the true meaning of the consumer’s inquiry into your business (be it product or service). SPIN selling is an interesting methodology. Situation – understand the facts about the customer’s situation. Problem – focus the buyer on his actual, current problem. What is it now that we need to solve? Implication – discuss the implications of a). what happens if the customer stays with their current service or product, and b). what happens when they switch to your product or service. Then finally, Need – you want the customer to tell you about their needs, having them articulate their need is better than you articulating it for them! Remember that – people buy when you ask questions that get them to uncover their own needs, people resist when you tell them what they need. The 1980’s was when Glengarry Glen Ross (the play) came out and Always Be Closing started gaining popularity moving into the 1990’s. This is when we see a shift from uncovering the problems of the customer to being a well-liked salesman by building trust through connection, relationships, and your willingness to provide the right solution.

The 1990’s

In comes Solution Selling – the salesperson focuses on the consumer’s pain and addresses that particular pain point. But there is a huge element of connection with salespeople. They want to know about their consumers’ lives, they ask about their kids’ little league games, they ask about the extended family. Solution selling was about the solution, but it was also about the relationship. People do business with people they like – bottom line – still holds true to this very day! But the 1990’s brought with it the confident salesman, the detail-oriented salesman, the salesman that would build strong relationships with the buyers to encourage them to commit to buying, but also working with them side by side to understand all facets of the solutions and which one would be the most appropriate fit. The economy grew in the 90’s and it was a good decade for salesmen!!

Gordon Gekko – the ultimate solution seller (not really!)

The information age totally rocked the selling world:

And then the internet came and took with it the old school salesmen of the last 3 decades and a new breed of seller was born. This new breed of salesmen had their own way of doing things, it was all about acknowledgement and understanding that the buyer already had the information. Salesmen had to adapt literally overnight. I mean, if you think about, you can walk into a dealership tomorrow and say “Hey, that Hyundai Accent on the lot, well, I want for $12,000 because it says right here (holding up your smartphone) that I can get it for this price.” – Rock the boat a little more why don’t you. This is when I got into sales, we were right on that cusp of “old way” tactics to developing pitches and strategies that would let our customers see we were all about diagnosing the problem and working with them before any contracts were signed. Salesmen had to give up more of their commission because they spent more time in the life cycle of the sale.

Now, a great deal of effort goes into selling complex, big-dollar, high-stakes sales. That’s just the way it goes. In order for companies to compete in this landscape, they have to forfeit more time in the beginning to nurturing the relationship, diagnosing the problem (and essentially bringing more employees to the table) with their buyers, and having some type of deliverable before any contracts are signed.

But that’s how people win these days. They give something for nothing. Salesmen are generous and authentic. There’s a stigma because we still see cold calling, knocking on people’s doors, email blasts, Linkedin inmail messages piling up, solution after solution coming out, cloud-based SaaS products that people need (or don’t). But the bottom line is, in order to be a salesman in this game, you actually have to want to help people. The sales guys who are super slick are laughed out of the room these days. No one buys anymore from a pushy car salesmen, I wouldn’t. But I would buy from someone like me. I’m invested in getting people the right solution, even if that means it’s not from my company.

The face of the selling world has taken on many different looks over the years, and I guarantee that it will continue to evolve and change. I see the sales industry going in one of two directions. 1). Sales people will become more commoditized, and they’ll be ranked by number. The great sales people will be getting offered large salaries to come to work for the buyers of the industries to help vet other salesmen trying to sell them something. Or 2). The effort salespeople put in will continue to increase, the demands of the buyers will increase, and the information out there will increase, therefore turning the decision-making process into a lengthier lifecycle. Because either way, the market and the buyers now own the selling world. Information is there, people just need to take the time to sift through it. But great salesmen are like chameleons, they improvise and overcome, and trust me when I say – the last man standing on this earth will be a salesman!!