For Sales Pros: “You Can Always Sell More…When You Can Find ‘The Win’
In Any Loss”

Listen

Do you see selling as an event or as a process? Less trained or experienced sales reps tend to see selling as just a series of stand-alone events. They work hard at every selling opportunity but when that sale is complete, whether it was won or lost, they see that sales effort as now being complete and are ready to move onto their next selling opportunity. Event focused sales reps don’t tend to grow their selling skills but instead stay plateaued at their current skill and awareness levels.

But the most advanced and aware selling professionals realize selling is an ongoing process. They understand that, with the proper awareness, your last several efforts or actions can have a positive impact on your future efforts or actions. No sales professional enjoys losing a sale, especially a large dollar one. But how and what you do when learning of a sale loss can have a profound impact on your future selling success. What do you do after losing a big sale? What do you learn and how do you act?

“Event focused” sales reps work to assign blame or fault when they learn of a lost sale. When asked by their manager why they lost a sale most “event focused” reps will go into great detail sharing why there was something wrong with either the customer or their intelligence and that it wasn’t their fault for losing the sale. Why’d you lose that sale? Ever hear a sales rep giving their manager the answer…“Well John, my buyer, is an idiot. He never really even looked at all his options. In fact…I’m sure my competitor just bought the business by giving away a lower price.”

“Even focused” rep’s egos are more concerned about identifying how someone or something else had to be responsible for this loss so their ego and self esteem are protected. The problem with this “event focused” view of selling though is any loss is immediately erased and rejected with nothing of value being gained or identified.

If you’re working hard as a sales professional the reality of your selling life is you’ll always have more losses than you will wins. Selling is very similar to baseball. Even the best baseball players still strike out three times out of every four at bats.

The best “process focused” sales professionals are more future focused than their “event focused” peers. They realize a significant contributor to their long term success is based on finding value and learning opportunities from every selling effort they attempt…even if they lose the sale. What did you learn from your last big loss? What can you gain from this losing experience that can help you identify what you need to change or adjust, what you need to better identify or how you can better predict the actions of your competitors?

How to become a more future process focused sales professional

Want to become more process and future focused in your selling efforts? Then consider applying these following five efforts so you can sell more in the future… 

1^st - Don’t Take It Personally - Manage Your Ego 

Your first effort is to make sure you remove your ego from your territory. All sales people have a strong ego, it’s one of our primary defensive tools that protects us from all the negatives and rejection we receive on a daily basis. But a strong ego can also blind you from valuable insight into how you’re doing your job.  

You just can’t take this stuff personally. The goal is not to focus on you, the person, in these loss evaluations but to instead focus on evaluating what actions or issues either helped contribute to your losing or your competitor winning. “Event focused” sales reps can’t remove themselves and their ego from this evaluation so they become stagnated or blocked by their concern that they might find out their loss was caused by something wrong with them as a person. “Maybe I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to beat that competitor” is an answer that blocks any future learning.

We’re not talking about our first born here. The easiest way to keep your ego out of this is to search and focus your evaluation on causes and actions, not personal blame. The goal is to identify real causes, gaps or exposures in your last selling effort so you can continue to get better in your next selling effort. 

2^nd - Realize You Can Always Learn Something That Can Help You Get Better In The Future 

Once you and your ego are comfortable with debriefing your losses your second effort is to now realize you can always learn something that can help you get better in the future. Now is the time to focus on collecting information and increasing your awareness. But to learn anything from a recent loss will require you utilizing all of your persuasive powers. 

A number of customers might be suspicious of you immediately asking for feedback as to why you lost and what you could have done better. A lot of higher pressured sales reps in the more manipulative days of selling used to ask for feedback from any decision maker telling them they had lost the sale. But their goal of asking wasn’t to learn for the future but to still attempt to save their sale from being lost. Instead of accepting the answers from the decision maker they would respond to their prospect’s comments by trying to counter the complaint and to sell around concerns shared.

To get the best information from a decision maker after you’ve lost the sale consider saying something like…“We’re disappointed we didn’t win your business…we worked hard to try to prove to you we could do the best job for you and your company. Is this decision final?”  

When they say yes then you next say “When your decision is final and can’t be changed, with your permission I’d like to ask you a few questions about what we could have done better or what you wished we were doing that was more like my competitor that you chose. I want to wait though until there’s no way to change your decision so you can see the questions I’m asking are all meant to help me become more competitive in the future and not just a last minute attempt to get you to change your decision. My goal now is to try and learn what I and my company can do to make us more competitive when we try to earn your business again in the future.” 

3^rd - Learn To Separate Symptoms From Problems and Excuses From Real Reasons When Evaluating A Sales Loss  

Now that you’re starting to get some comments or feedback from your decision maker then your third effort is to now sort through all the information you receive. You need to make sure you’re focusing on the real problems and reasons that caused you to lose the sale and not just the symptoms and excuses that are easiest to give when asked by a sales rep who lost the business. 

One idea is to never accept the answer “You lost because your prices were higher than your competitors.” Price is never the reason to lose business…there are always more reasons. If your customer tells you that you lost because your price was too high what they’re really telling you is you didn’t prove enough value differential to justify your higher prices. It wasn’t your price that lost you the business….it was your lack of communicating and proving you could offer them a greater total value. 

4^th - Get Help From Your Manager 

This is a great time to get your manager involved in these discussions as your fourth effort to learn more from your decision maker after the loss of a sale. The reality is you’ll likely be too close to the situation to really sort out what your decision maker is trying to tell you. Taking your manager on these loss debriefing conversations can help you gain greater insight into what really happened. Not only will your manager tend to ask different questions and hear different answers from your decision maker than you will, you might also find your manager’s presence can actually improve the responses and information you learn from your decision maker.  

It’s important that you and your manager discuss this article before asking them to help in evaluating any loss. You need to make sure they understand your goal and focus is on future learning compared to only focusing on history fault finding. You’ll not be able to continue separating your self and your ego from your actions if your manager (or others in your company) keep making comments like “Well that was a dumb mistake to make” or “That situation sure wasn’t handled effectively was it?” 

5^th - Apply What You Learn 

Learning from your competitive losses has to be a process and not just a few events initiated by your manager. This needs to be an ongoing process you implement every time you lose a sale. Every decision maker will not be open or interested in helping you get better. But by asking any and every account loss these types of questions, eventually you’ll begin to identify changes you can make to improve your closing percentages.

And when you begin to learn what you could have done in the past or what you now need to do in the future…your fifth effort is to now actually accept and apply what you’ve learned. What can you change? What can you adjust with your selling approach or presentation? Could you be asking more questions or do a better job researching their business? Could you get “higher, wider or deeper” within their political culture so you can learn more and present a more customer focused solution?

One of the best personal attitudes to have in selling is to realize you’ll likely lose more than you’ll win during your career as a sales professional…and that you can always benefit or learn from a loss if you apply the proper persuasive evaluative questioning…and that you can always find something to adjust or apply to help make you stronger and more competitive in your future. The bottom line here is you can always learn and discover something that can benefit your future selling efforts.  

We know you’re good….now…are you good enough to find “the win” in your losses so you can continue to get even better in the future?

For Sales Managers:
“You Can Always Sell More…By Making Sure Anyone Talking To Your Customer Is Properly Trained and Coached”

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How many different people from your company talk with your customers?

Consider asking your team to evaluate and discuss two different selling scenarios. The first scenario deals with your newest customers. Ask your team how many different people from your company will talk with a new prospect (either by telephone or “face-to-face”) from the time someone identifies a new selling opportunity until you have a signed agreement in place? When I ask this question of my clients we quickly can identify as many as five or six different people from their company who will interact with a prospect before they have a signed agreement in place. People talking to a prospect include the sales person and usually you, as their manager. Will your prospect need to talk to your credit manager? What about any of your senior management? Will anyone from technical support or your administrative/order entry team be involved? What are your numbers? How many different people from your company are involved with a new prospect/client before they say yes? 

And what about your existing customers? The second scenario to discuss with your team deals with the majority of your business that comes from your existing clients. From January 1^st until December 31^st, how many different people might interact with one of your existing customers? Whatever your number of contacts were with a prospect, the number talking to an existing customer to maintain their business is usually higher. 

So how many “non-salespeople” in your company are talking to your customers on a daily basis? And what kind of impact are they having on your team’s selling success? Are they contributing to communicating your uniqueness and value or are your customers buying from you in spite of these “non-salespeople’s” best efforts? 

A “selling non-salesperson” is someone who actively (and independently) talks to your prospects and customers on a regular basis as part of their responsibilities but still don’t consider “salesperson” a part of their job description. For a number of companies these “selling non-salespeople” have never attended a sales training class or been coached by anyone with a strong sales bias (like you as a leader of the sales team). 

An interesting phenomenon exists in selling today. Just about every sales organization has non-salespeople talking directly with both new (and still un-sold) prospects as well as existing customers. But almost none of these “selling non-salespeople” have ever received any sales training, or ongoing coaching on how to be more persuasive in their responsibilities. How much sales training and coaching have you implemented so far this year with your list of “selling non-salespeople” who are actively talking to your prospects and customers? For most…the answer will be none. 

Increasing The Selling Skills of Your “Non-salespeople”
1^st - Get a “Sales Champion” 

Your first challenge to increasing the persuasive skills of your “selling non-salespeople” is to identify who will take on the responsibility of becoming your support team’s “sales champion.” To increase the selling skills of your team’s “selling non-salespeople” you need to identify the leader who’ll be responsible for “championing” this effort. Their responsibility is to lead the efforts to make these support people, including your administrative, technical and managerial people, more sales aware and sales focused in their normal efforts in front of both prospects and existing customers. 

This type of special coaching and training cannot and will not work if you only conduct a one-time “sales training” event for these support people. Generating long term change and improvement with support individuals requires ongoing attention to first train and make them aware of your selling expectations and then second to continue to coach and remind them of the important contributions they can make to your selling efforts and results. 

There’s a good chance you, as the sales leader, will not have the time required to become this ongoing “sales coach to the non-salespeople.” But you can potentially have the time to “coach their coach” so the support team leader understands what, and how behaviors and selling language need to improve. Who can you recruit to be this ongoing coach and champion who’ll understand, or at least appreciate the critical importance of having a single sales team offering a consistent level of support backed up by consistent selling and branding messages?   

2^nd - Does everyone supporting your prospects and customers understand the basic components of persuasion and selling? 

Once you have your sales champion in place for these “selling non-salespeople,” your second challenge is to design and identify the structures and stepped selling processes you want these support people communicating as they do their regular jobs. Individuals who support a selling process don’t need to receive the more complete sales training that would normally be provided (but rarely is) to your regular full time sales team. But they do need to understand key selling concepts including: 

   - The basic steps of a sales call and how to ask questions.

   - How to communicate or handle an angry customer.

   -  How (and when) to take responsibility for a problem or
            customer request.

   - How to persuasively say no to a customer request.

    - How (and when) to share information or insights with the
            rest of the sales team. 

Consider organizing a series of simple training outlines that will cover these, and any other sales ideas you feel they need to understand and master. Design a series of one hour training classes. These one hour classes are best conducted by spending up to ten minutes for debriefing of successes from trying last week’s sales ideas, twenty minutes discussing or presenting a new sales concept, twenty-five minutes role-playing or practicing this new skill or sales concept, and then five minutes reconfirming what everyone has agreed to try between now and your next sales class. This topic or idea covered then becomes a central focus of any sales coaching from both you and your sales support champion who’ll coach and lead your team as they work to practice and implement these new ideas.

3^rd - Is everyone from your company delivering the same selling message of uniqueness? 

Your third challenge is to insure all members of your extended sales team understand and can explain why your customers buy from you and your company. The toughest question a sales person is asked by their prospect or existing client is “Why, based on all the competitive alternatives available to me do I want to buy from you?” 

As important as this question is…most sales teams have never worked to define and strengthen their single best response to this question. Not working on this question as a team means you’ll likely discover each sales team member communicates a different message to their buyers. This “each person communicates a different message” challenge wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact they’re not the only ones from your company talking and persuading your customers. How many different selling messages are you as a total organization delivering to your customers and prospects? 

What can you do to better define your single best answer to this “Why buy from you?” question. You don’t need your support people being able to present your newly defined complete message of uniqueness but you do need them understanding what your selling message is and also understanding their responsibility and role to help remind and confirm your message when they talk with a prospect or client. 

4^th - Does everyone understand when (and how) to pass a problem onto someone else who can better solve their customer’s problem? 

Your fourth challenge to increasing the selling skills of your “selling non-salespeople” is to make sure everyone understands how to quickly, persuasively and effectively hand a customer or prospect over to someone else who can better respond. The majority of support people have never been trained on the best way to pass on an angry customer or to get a customer or prospect help from someone better qualified than them to address this customer’s problem or challenge. 

These skills sound simple and self-evident…until you lose a customer to a competitor because someone on your team didn’t handle a challenging situation properly or persuasive enough to satisfy your customer’s concerns. What can you do to better train and coach your people on this team-focused way to support and grow your customers? 

5^th - Will you now integrate these support people into your normal sales training and coaching efforts? 

Once you start to train and coach your team on these first four challenges, then your fifth longer term challenge is to now continue the coaching and skill growth of your support team. 

6^th - What can you do to insure the attention and structures are put in place to keep this an ongoing coaching and leadership effort?

Your sixth and final challenge to increasing the selling skills of your “selling non-salespeople” is to make sure you and the rest of your leadership team maintain the attention and sales structures you’ve put in place so they become an ongoing component of your persuasive selling and customer support efforts.  

What can you and the rest of your leadership team do to confirm your support and belief in the ongoing maintenance and improvement of these critical persuasive skills? Customers notice when someone other than a sales person asks additional questions, expresses an interest in their business and challenges, confirms why their customer is buying from them or helps strengthen the overall customer service experience. 

These are hyper-competitive times. Today you have stronger and more consistent competitive pressures to sell against. And these hyper-competitive times also demand the best efforts and involvement of your entire team. You need to have every member of your team “rowing in the same direction” so they deliver a consistent message of value and uniqueness that continues to be proven and confirmed. 

We know you’re good….now the question is…are you good enough…and strong enough as the leader of your sales team to insure all members of your extended sales and support team are working as a single, effective and persuasive selling unit?

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