In sales, you must understand what the core drivers are for a business owner when he or she is making a business decision, especially about buying your product or service. In the business owner's mind, they are relating everything they evaluate to three key core business drivers: revenue, expenses and risk. They are asking these fundamental questions when looking at an offering: 

1) Does this offering protect or increase my revenue? 2) Does this offering control or reduce my expenses? and 3) Does this offering reduce or control my risk? 

As a sales rep, understanding those core issues and tying your offering into how they impact those areas, will greatly set you apart from other sales reps who are just selling features and benefits and making promises. The way to tie your offering into those areas is to ask lots of questions such as "Mr. Business owner, how do you see our offering impacting your revenue stream?" or "Others have seen a 10% reduction in expenses by implementing these new processes; do you see yourself getting a similar benefit? "  "One of the key focuses of our software is to reduce the chance of a customer falling through the cracks and you losing the business or having a liability charge for negligence in serving your customer. Share with me how you see our offering impacting your business in this way."

Last week I focused on revenue. This blog  will expound upon controlling or reducing expenses as the major buying criteria.

Salesforce.com released interesting data on the quality of leads and how fast they convert to deals. The data shows that leads coming from referrals have the shortest sales cycle and the highest percentage to close. Social media referrals/leads came in 2nd. Surprisingly, leads coming from tradeshow events and marketing and advertising were low on the scale in terms of converting to actual clients.
The reason being a referral and social media work so well is that the relationship begins on Trust. A cold call, website, or even tradeshow lead does not begin on Trust. Trust must first be established before the customer is willing to truly engage.

Is your selling strategy based upon building solid relationships through the sales rep's likeability factor? If so, you are getting a declining return on the sales rep's ability to get new business or even maintain existing customers. Most sales reps are very high in the red or relationship quadrant. (Whole Brain Thinking) (Herrmann) They have good people skills and can win others over (WOO ability) quickly. The strategy behind WOOing is that they are trying  to build trust. The assumption is that if someone likes me, they will trust me.

The likeability sales strategy or relationship selling tactic is breathing it's last breath. In today's business environment, the majority of decision makers don't have time to discover if they like you before they know  what value you offer. Today's decision maker does not have the time for building interpersonal relationships (red quadrant) unless there is an obvious value to be gained. The traditional relationship selling model of being liked first assumes the likeability factor will then lead to the opportunity to show value.

20 Causes of Sales Problems

Below are 20 problems that cause VP of Sales and business owners great distress. These mostly sales process issues that result in poor sales. If you are having less than stellar sales results, see if one or more of these reasons are the culprit.

11 Ways to Build Trust

Sales and marketing programs have traditionally used the concept of a funnel to visualize the sales cycle. The wide top symbolizes the endless number of unqualified prospects who gradually thin out along the way, ending with the actual buyers (and ideally, repeat buyers) at the bottom of the funnel.

As Alec Baldwin famously told us in Glengarry Glen Ross, a salesperson's mantra is "Always be closing." The flaw in this concept is that it puts the emphasis on a customer's behavior rather than their thinking. Because of this, salespeople mistakenly think that a significant feature like the price is critical to making the sale.

Have you ever conducted a sales training session and caught a glimpse of someone with a glazed, far-away look in their eyes? Maybe that's even happened to you during a meeting or seminar where you just couldn't connect with the presentation.

Contests and competition. Clear and actionable goals. Pride.

When it comes to your sales team, motivation can take on myriad forms. But nothing works as well as sales training that combines solid business principles with tangible tips designed to improve performance.

The best and brightest. The most motivated. The people with the people skills.

These are things you look for when hiring a sales team. If you're lucky, you'll land a lot of people who possess these attributes. But even then, how do you make sure they're humming along like a finely tuned Indy car?