Prospecting Solution Sales – Part 2 of 2

Ask any owner or manager in the typical document imaging company and they will tell you that they spend enormous amount of time and money developing the concept of ‘solution selling’ within their sales teams.  From hired consultants to expensive courseware, they look for ways to change the make up of their sales staff from the stereotypical used-car salesperson (like Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati), to a consultative sales professional.  This is the second in a 2-part series about how you can develop solution selling prospecting skills within your organization.

In the first part of this series, we developed a list of targeted accounts by reducing the total population of businesses in our area down to a select few.  We did this by looking for companies that have the need for a solution sale and receptive to the concept.  It is also essential that during this process you are willing to say no to companies that do not see value in you as a sales person, and are only interested in competing on price.  Finally, the process of reducing the total number of prospects we targeted did change the type of prospects we were working to win.

Part 2 – Create Trust Relationships

In part 2, we are going to go beyond the selection of the prospect to the actual prospecting of the account.  As you distill your list of targeted accounts you should be working to develop relationships within these organizations.  The operative word in this area of prospecting is relationship, because the level of relationship within your accounts is a determining factor in how successful you are in completing a solution sale.  Approach prospects as if, without warning, you were selected by NASA to fly the space shuttle after a 1-hour training course.  If this happened, you would listen intently and then ask a lot of questions, and take detailed notes.  You would also spend every moment of your time with that person thinking up new questions to ask so as to cover all possible outcomes.  When you do this in a customer meeting, you will create what is known as a Trust Relationship with your contacts.

Trust Relationships are nothing more than a connection with your contact that is based on mutual trust.  While personal relationships with contacts can come in all forms, Trust Relationships are much more clearly defined.  For instance, maybe you have a personal connection with your customer in that you both play golf or both like the same sports team.  These types of connections are good if they happen naturally.  However, a Trust Relationship is completely independent of this personal connection.  Some argue that you can’t have a Trust Relationship without the personal connection.  In other words, if the customer doesn’t like you they won’t buy from you.  While it is true that people will sometimes buy from people they like, more often they will buy from someone they trust, and you don’t have to be friends in order for them to trust that you are the best person to advise them about their document output strategy.

A Trust Relationship requires four ingredients: time, honesty, attention to detail, and follow through.  All of these ingredients are controlled by the sales person, and all are the foundation for the consultative process moving forward.  If any one of these items is missing you are almost assured that the sales process will break down.  Alternatively, if you develop these aspects within your customer relationships, they will come to see you as the subject-matter expert, and rely on your expertise to make decisions about how they should handle their document imaging systems.  In effect, you become their go-to person for all questions relating to document management – they trust you.

Another aspect of the Trust Relationship is that you will discover problems the customer has in managing their document output devices, as well as their entire document workflow.  From simple billing or service issues to larger systemic dysfunction you will see or hear much of the internal workings of the organization from your primary contact.  This is your opportunity to learn about the pains the customer has, and over time, how to heal them.  Your efforts will eventually lead you to act as a consultant within the customer’s organization, rewarding you with sales and profit and providing the customer with a resource upon which they can depend.

Summary

Prospecting is the most important aspect to the solution sale.  Why?  As detailed in this series, who you are prospecting will determine what the sales cycle, revenue, and gross profit you will achieve.  So begin the process by eliminating the ‘Shady Hills Rest Home’ from your list of targeted accounts.  Instead, focus your efforts on accounts that will value you for your knowledge and expertise.  Then begin to create Trust Relationships with these accounts.  Over time, you can display to them your honesty, attention to detail, and follow through in managing the customer-vendor relationship.  Finally, when the opportunity comes to compete for their business, they will call on you to act as a consultant to their business.  They will view you as a solution to their problems.

Jeff Pitney is a long time veteran of the document imaging industry and has worked in both sales and sales management capacities for manufacturers and independent dealers alike. Jeff also runs Pitney Application Design, building websites and custom integrations for web-based solutions.