Selling is solving

“A.B.C. Always Be Closing, ALWAYS BE CLOSING. A.I.D.A. Attention Interest Desire Action” - you've all seen that speech by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross . What an awesome movie about the downs and ups of selling! Who wouldn't want to be Alec Baldwin? Good looking, uber successful, very rich, though a tad arrogant... Truth be told, when I set out I was actually a young version of Jack Lemmon - clueless about how to go about winning clients. I started in my flat with a desk, a phone and a copy of the business Yellow Pages. There was no LinkedIn when I started and I couldn't afford a computer. It was cold calling all the way for me. 

One of the first (and worst) books that I read about how to sell explained a technique to close prospects in a meeting with you. It suggested that you tell them as little as possible about what you were selling and promise to make them rich/save them loads of money in return for just 5 minutes of their time. Well, I tried that and it didn’t go quite to plan. I spent half a day getting to the meeting downtown, the client sat me down in the reception lobby (I didn't even get past the security gates), he checked his watch and said "your 5 minutes starts now". There was no time on the agenda for pleasantries. Needless to say, I stumbled on my words, never got through my pitch and didn’t even get to ask him a single question. As the second hand hit the 5 minute mark, he looked up from his watch and said: "time’s up, I'm not interested".

So I binned that sales technique! 

We all know that customers are the lifeblood of any business and working out how to win clients is a fundamental requirement for anyone who wants to build a business. And, in advertising, this is not easy. If we were selling to a sales director that would be one thing, but trying to convince sceptical, over-stressed and over-sold marketing professionals that you have something unique and valuable for them is a tough challenge. I can honestly say that I still feel I have a long way to go before I have mastered the selling game.

For some reason, "selling" to win new clients has a bad odour in advertising - so people have titles like Advertising Solutions Director, Business Director or Business Development Director. You'll never find a Sales Director at an ad agency. When you get down to it, selling is solving - solving a client’s biggest problem, i.e. how to grow their sales and their brand. The master in chief of advertising sales was David Ogilvy, and I urge you to read his chapter on "How to Get Clients'' in his classic "Ogilvy on Advertising”. It’s full of fantastic anecdotes and highly relevant advice.

Here are a few of the best selling approaches I've used over the years:

Spark and Torch 

This is a product of Sanders Consulting in the US. It was heavily marketed in the 90s as a new business system for ad agencies. Spark and Torch recognises that new business for agencies is a long, relationship-driven game best played with a team of two - a junior to mid-level business development manager known as the Spark, and a senior director level executive known as the Torch. The role of the Spark is to build and maintain ongoing dialogue with potential clients and, with patience and persistence, guide them towards agreeing to a meeting. At which point the Torch - using elegance, expertise and some Myers-Briggs techniques - builds chemistry, asks great questions, demonstrates the right capability and ultimately closes the deal. The best analogy for why this technique worked is the canal system. However long a canal is (the sales lead time), if you keep pushing more barges into the canal (prospective clients) eventually one of the boats will pop out the end (deal closed).

SPIN

In the 1970s, Neil Rackham set out to answer the million-dollar question for sales teams: what sets the best salespeople apart from the pack? The project, the first to scientifically measure selling and buying behaviour, involved a team of 30 researchers who studied 35,000 sales calls in over 20 countries. 12 years later, Rackham and his team had their answer, and the SPIN selling method was created.

SPIN selling is all about asking questions. And it’s very tactical.

SPIN teaches you how to lead conversations with customers. You transition through four different types of questions: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need/Payoff. It doesn't help you get into the room with the customer. But, once you’re there, you have a powerful and structured way to identify what problems need solving, and how your solutions can add the maximum value.

There is a lot to commend about this approach, especially for people selling advertising services, because the focus of the conversation is on how to find and solve the client’s biggest problems. Too many advertising industry players have fallen into the commoditization spiral where they show off their wares (almost always the same as everyone else's) and wait to see how much the client will pay, which is normally not enough. There are too few value based sales discussions taking place, and far too many dog and pony shows. I don't advocate SPIN today, it's complex and hard to do well - but it’s one of those skills you can discard once you've learned it as you know which are the relevant aspects to keep.

How to Become a Rainmaker 

If you like an easy life, but want some great advice, then turn to “How to Become a Rainmaker: the Rules for Getting and Keeping Clients” by Jeffrey J. Fox. It's a slim volume of 160 pages with just 150 words average per page and 50 mini-chapters. My favourite points he explores are:

• Always pre-call plan every sales meeting - you'll be surprised how many people don't do this
• Fish where the big fish are - so obvious but we don't all do it
• Use the point system every day - this is a killer; you try getting 4 points every day!
• Obey marketing's first commandment - which is to treat people as you like to be treated 

Definitely worth reading.

Customer Centric Selling

In 2004, I came across “Customer Centric Selling” by Michael Bosworth. This covers every aspect of the sales process from getting your messaging right, defining the sales process, integrating sales and marketing, understanding the business developer’s role, qualifying buyers and negotiating deals. A couple of snippets:

• "You get delegated to the people you sound like"
• "Take the time to diagnose before you offer a prescription"
• "Don't give without getting"
• "Emotional decisions are justified by value and logic"
• "Bad news early is good news"

Strategic Selling

Last but not least, I'd like to recommend Miller Heiman's “Strategic Selling”. This has been my go-to approach for some years, and we regularly train senior client leaders in this approach. It helps you understand different buyer personas inside a large company: the economic buyer with the cheque book; the user buyer(s) that will work with you (use your service) if you win; the technical buyer(s) like procurement or IT that confirm you are meeting required specs; and the coach, someone outside the process who will help you make sense of the politics and how to approach situations. The famous Miller Heiman Blue Sheet is a wonderfully elegant way to get a team to strategise together on a sales opportunity and define the right tactics. The Miller Heiman Funnel Methodology is also easy to understand and apply. MH offer great in-person and online training, or you can buy the book and self-teach.

So there you have it. There's lots to learn if you want to become great at selling which is so important as selling is a vital skill for any entrepreneur, and an ongoing challenge for every business. I've enjoyed learning new approaches and this short blog has definitely made me want to go back through the old ones again to reinvigorate my selling technique. 

I'd love to hear from you about any approaches and methodologies that you use and why they work for you.

Just remember, selling is solving. Every client has problems to solve, and you could be the answer they need.

Happy hunting!

K.