Pipeline Thinking

A common mistake for new founders and business owners is to assume that your proposals and sales opportunities, pitched well will sell themselves.

We mistakenly think the same level of enthusiasm that a customer felt during our presentation will continue throughout the sales process. 

Your sales pipeline should be reviewed at least daily.

You need to coldly and clinically assess where your customers are; and drop the ones that are no longer progressing. 

Asking the following questions of the ones you continue to work with:

• what is the customer’s decision process? Has it changed? 
• what is the next step that the customer needs to make? How do you help them achieve that? 
• are there any obstacles that need to be addressed? How will you remove them?

It is up to you to help the customer work through their decision process. If you don’t help them the sale just won’t happen. 

Customer Journeys

I recently published an article on LinkedIn about my customer journey on the Milford Track in New Zealand.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-customer-journey-milford-track-new-zealand-paul-davies

It was a great experience. 

As a startup your sales success will improve with a strong understanding of your customers’ journey: 

• How did they find you? 
• Why did they commit to buy? 
• What will keep them coming back? 
• Where is your product or business giving the customer unnecessary friction?  

In conclusion don’t be afraid to ask your customers direct questions like: “why did you choose us?”  

Its amazing what they can tell you! 

At the McKinnon Pass

One of the many beautiful views of the Milford Track 

Grit

I attended an event this week and was inspired to hear the determination of a startup founder to achieve success. At 50 and with 4 children at ages ranging from 12-20, she told her husband she would be quitting her well paid job to build her startup. 

Her grit I believe came from a strong sense of WHY she set out to build her product. She knew from her own experience how valuable her software would help reduce risks within large infrastructure projects.   

I still remember her statement, “I know this startup is going to be successful and I will make it happen!”. 

Her impressive grit and determination has overcome multiple obstacles and taken her to within striking distance of great success. It has inspired me to have a strong WHY so that I can develop similar grit!

Playing the long game

B2B sales can only succeed when you take a long term view of things. In many instances you will be lucky to break even in the first 6 months when taking into account all the pre-sales efforts required. 

When disagreements between vendor and customer arise, you always need to play a ‘straight bat’ and consider what’s fair for both your company and your customer’ interests. Bending over over to give too many concessions is not right, neither is being too dogmatic in your views. Finding the best win-win solution won’t work every time. But it is the only long-term play that’s possible. 

Disagreements can be hard for most sales people because we work so hard to build relationships, that taking action that risks these relationships feels unnatural. If this is the case with you, try to bring a cofounder that can help facilitate. The team approach usually works better than going solo...  

Working hard all day but being ineffective 🤯

In sales you are being measured on results that you don’t have direct control over.  

Compare sales to a software developer, project manager and software architect. In these roles you are empowered by the organisation to build, organise or design. You have the ability to escalate matters if you don’t receive help from those required to support you...

However with sales you could work very hard doing good activities (phone calls, meetings and proposals) and still completely fail! 

To make real progress you need to be successful with all the following:

1. understand who your ideal ( or awesome) customer is. 
2. connect with a large pool of these prospective customers. 
3. develop the ability to communicate your value proposition and build a relationship of trust.  
4. the insights (or empathy) for what each customer is seeking to achieve and use this knowledge to position your product effectively - otherwise known as closing. 

Your Circadian Rhythm

I would like to expand on my earlier post of “eating your frog” by starting sales early in the day before other tasks. 

By doing the hard part of the day first, your mind is sharper than later when you have been buffeted by your startup challenges.  

You can also schedule other sales activities during the day to help grow your business.

 The following is what works for my daily schedule:

 Early Morning

• Complete at least 1-2 hour of outbound emails and phone calls. 

Mid Morning 

• Coffee meetings with prospects and customers.

Lunch 

• Catch up on work or have lunch with a friend or colleague. You have to eat anyway and you can use that time to do some good. 

Mid Afternoon 

• Ideal time for another coffee meeting with customers and prospects.  

Late Afternoon

• Make the “easier” follow up phone calls and setting up meetings. Do not aim for complicated activities that will result in poor work. 
• Reflection of current sales status, revenue prediction and planning for the next day.  

By understanding your own energy and concentration cycles, you will plan and execute more efficiently. 

How to request a meeting with email with 3 simple sentences

1. First sentence needs to highlight a connection between you and the prospect. Otherwise they will filter you out.

• This sentence is most important. You will get filtered out if you cannot display some connection with a new prospect.
• Ideally is using a 3rd party introduction. Depending on the strength of that relationship, will help you get their attention.
• A weaker example that you may need to use, is that you went to the same School/University, common LinkedIn contacts or demonstrate your knowledge of their organisation.

2. Second sentence needs to state what you want to do - such has have a meeting.

• You need a specific agenda on what to discuss.
• This is not a social chit-chat.
• The prospect will respond positively when the topic is highly relevant to their areas of concern or interest.

3. Third sentence needs to propose a specific time to meet.

• Give a specific time between 10-15 days into the future when calendars are usually open.
• This also signals you are not a desperate salesperson but one who plans well into the future.
• Coffee meetings are often good because it gives the person a break and provides a neutral meeting place.  

Managing your emotional states 😁🤨😞🤯😳

Today I had a crappy day. Two opportunities that I was counting on were cancelled or delayed. 

It is easy to feel depressed with sales. The natural reaction is to blame the customer, product or just a slow market.  

I have stated before you need to be in a positive mental state in order for people to buy from you. Nobody wants to buy from a depressed individual! 

So how do you make it?  

You need to train your mind to see beyond the current obstacles.

There are several ways to do this:

• visualise positive interactions with your customers 🤓
• recall an experience when you pushed past a negative emotion and it turned out good 😇
• have a good laugh about the current situation and be kind to yourself (my favourite)  🤪

I believe this approach help you get past those grey clouds!  Happy selling! 🌤

Matching your customer’s speed

As a customer I get annoyed when the sales person wants to move faster than I am ready. 

This is bad for the sale because:

1. it signals to the customer you are not listening to them. It also implies that you also don’t understand them.  
2. it implies that you are only in the transaction to make money, and you don’t care for them. 
3. and finally it gives the impression that the customer is getting “sold” to. That by far is the worst impression you want to make!  

You can counter these problems and make more sales if you ask many simple “find out” questions in the first meeting such as:

1. how does your organisation make decisions? 
2. when do you need to start realising the benefits of this proposal (then work backwards to determine when they need to buy)? 
3. what are your timeframes? 

By asking these simple “find out” questions you will understand the customer’s buying behaviour.  

You will know when to use the customer’s reasons to put the pressure on, and when to back away!

Eat That Frog!

As a founder you are wearing many hats, including sales. 

If you allocate two hours each day for sales, your business will grow - regardless of your skill. 

When to Sell  

If sales is not your thing, then you should do it first thing. Start at 8.00 am and don't stop until 10.00 am each morning. 

Essential activities 

• Researching LinkedIn (free version) your target organisations and contacts
• Outbound messages (Email, LinkedIn or other format)
• Networking with your contacts for third party introductions
• Phone prospects (setup meetings and follow up)
• Meetings with prospects and new customers.

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