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  • Nicholas Brooke
    Nicholas Brooke    Group moderator
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    Complex sales quest
    A couple of months ago, I have been briefed to develop a sales system for a Web consulting agency. The challenge in this case was to switch most of the process online in a complex sales environment. Complex selling involves long sales cycles with multiple decision makers or an on going series of orders and deliverables over a period of time. It is about managing complex business relationships and often involves multiple stakeholders and stakeholder groups.

    I realized quite soon the lack of best practices or cases about online performing complex sales systems. By the way, if you have examples, I would be very eager to discuss it with you.

    These months have been both very challenging and full of learning. Today, I still think there is room for a lot of innovation in this area, but I have not managed to integrate the full complex sale cycle online, far from it. What I have seen so far is that the Web can generate only a part of your leads and can automate your prospect nurturing with newsletters and personalized e-mails. The Web allows the capture, integration and treatment of extensive data volume that can be shared between all the involved entities. Make the Web the hub of your communication (marketing and sales) remains my core recommendation. But to lock a client or to convert a prsopect, my experience is that you can not avoid the human contact.

    I have been talking to many sales persons and I realized that the B2B business is more likely to use professional data management tools compare to the B2C. Indeed, when B2C companies struggle to define the objectives, the structure and the scenarios of their CRM, B2B have already built a central database integrating all departments’ needs online and sometimes with mobile solutions. For exmple SalesForce and CRMsugar are very used in B2B. Podcasts, Vlogs and webinars are on their way to become the next standard in B2B.

    So I am open to all your suggestions or ideas to develop online complex sales systems. If you are new to this, then I suggest you take a look at the references below to have a better picture on complex sales.

    Get the global picture on complex sales with the eBook from Brian J. Carroll : Start with a lead, eight critical success factors for lead generation
    http://blogstartwithalead.com
    It’s a clear and crisp overview listing your different challenges to generate leads. I found it very useful and I particularly agree on the factor “sales and marketing as a team”. I saw too many companies where sales and marketing where not on the same wave length. The Web is an integrator, to leverage all the potential from it you should rather align all your departments on the same mission, the same vocabulary and the same key performance indicators. Having said that, I think the only way sales and marketing won’t fight for budget is to make it a single department: sales. Indeed, marketing has been dissociated about sales, but boost sales is the actual objective.

    Another reference is “Attracting More Customers, how to create an irresistible “elevator speech” that attracts clients to you” from Jill Konrath
    Visit Selling to big companies @ http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/
    Do and don’t when you introduce you company. You will see you can probably improve your elevator speech.

    You have got an appointment, then read carefully the “Sales call planning guide, How to get it right the 1st time so you’re invited back a 2nd time”. It is just a very well done meeting framework to be sure you will have a 2nd meeting.
    Also on http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/

    You can find good stuff on http://www.raintoday.com
    -new subscriber welcome ebook
    -The one peace of advice you can’t sell without. This ebook gather views from 11 experts including Seth Godin

    You can also check http://www.whillsgroup.com/ white papers and articles.

    I would be very eager to have your ideas to switch most of a complex sales process online.

    Nicholas

    http://www.zn.be
    http://www.hyperthinker.com
    This post was modified on 30 Aug 2006 at 06:43 pm.
    • 30 Aug 2006, 6:40 pm
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  • Philip Weiss
    Philip Weiss    Group moderator
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    Re^2: Complex sales quest
    Dear Roc,

    I read the start with a lead pdf and I thought it gave some good suggestions. However my learnings from the last two years, where I worked with Nicho on the various techniques to develop a sales approach for my company (http://www.zn.be) was that the key was:

    1) To simplify the process in very simple actionable steps
    2) To have a clear focus on your target (this sounds obvious but we actually spend a great deal of time pursuing a range of different prospects). Once we were clear on who we wanted and how to get to them all the energy can go into this.
    3) Consistency: once your strategy is there (knowing what you sell, how to sell it and have a clear process) apply this consistenly. For a small business, it is difficult not to get sucked into projects and loose sight of the new biz process, but if you continue, on a regular basis to chase leads, without 'overselling' but simply by trying to see if there is a fit, then the real high growth opportunities seem to emerge.

    Phil
    • 09 Jun 2008, 08:53 am