Rob's Rev

JUNE 2008

Rob Hartnett - Small Business, Big Opportunity

Welcome to the June 2008 edition of Sales Rev!

Rob’s Rev is now Sales Rev! as a reflection of the expansion of Business Performance International and our focus on the sales process and lead generation activities for your business.

We even have a new logo and tagline People, Pipeline, Process. Enough of us lets talk about you.

It’s June. Again. This means for most people it’s head down and complete as many sales as possible and review all unnecessary expenditure.

While it is a busy time it is important this month to stop and catch your breath and see what sales can be completed before the end of this month easily and what expenses you need to make. July is one month too late to realise you should have bought that piece of capital equipment or put more into supa.

In news below we have some excellent events coming up and we are re-launching the Business Performance International web site as we bring on more solutions to assist you. Plus there is a great article on why you may not always be losing on price.

Cheers,

Rob

Websites
Events
Are you really losing on price?
New Book

Web Sites

http://www.businessperformance.com.au has changed format to focus purely on BPI’s range of sales performance solutions from consulting and sales training to an online store of sales and marketing resources from ourselves, Miller Heiman, Better Business Institute and others.

We have also launched www.robhartnett.com which is dedicated to Rob Hartnett’s speaking and is a resource for meeting planners and those wanting to book a business speaker for keynote speaking, business events and facilitation services.

"I invite Rob Hartnett to speak to my business audience every year. Rob's message is motivating, inspiring and very informative. The feedback from my guests is always brilliant and he is approachable and a pleasure to work with. I'll keep inviting Rob back each year to speak, as he adds exceptional value to my business and has a message that needs to be heard."

Terri Cooper – The Cooper Consultancy

Events

Sales & Marketing Event – The Power of Your Message

Do you know your power position? Do you know your story and can all your team communicate your key messages consistently? Find out the power of corporate messaging with Miller Heiman and Corporate Visions Inc with techniques and case studies.

The Hotel Como South Yarra Melbourne June 24th 2008 7.30am – 9.00am
Full breakfast to be served
RSVP leisa@businessperformance.com.au

Strategic Selling

Do you have a sales process to deal with major opportunities and strategic accounts that everyone across your firm can use? Using Miller Heiman’s Strategic Selling Process companies can see increases in sales funnel flow, better qualification of opportunities and more accurate sales forecasting.

Miller Heiman ‘s Strategic Selling Course
2 day course - July 1st & 2nd 2008 Sydney
2 day course – July 7th & 8th 2008 Perth

Both these courses have two attending for the price of one. Limited offer terms and conditions apply.

More detail email leisa@businessperformance.com.au

Are you really losing on price?

There are many reasons why a client will choose not to buy from you: perceived product performance, poor past track record, credibility issues, an inability to create the right solution, timing or any combination of these.

If price was the main reason for losing a sale, it would be a lot easier to win by simply dropping it. The reality is, there are solutions clients will pay a premium for. Ultimately, clients decide to buy from you because they believe you brought to the table something that has value to them and cannot be obtained elsewhere.

Learn Why You Lost

The only way you will know the real reason is to ask. Understanding why you lost represents a great opportunity to improve your future performance, especially considering that so many salespeople do not conduct this follow through activity.

In Miller Heiman’s annual research of Sales Best Practices, barely a quarter of respondents agreed with the statement, "Win or lose, we get accurate feedback on all proposals from our clients." Analyzing the key factors of a winning account has value, but knowing why you lost an account can help you avoid the same mistakes, increasing your success rate.

This research was also supported by the 2008 CSO (Chief Sales Officer) Insights Research that showed that those organisations who conducted frequent win/loss reviews ultimately had better sales results than those organisations who did not.

From Excuse to Action

But is price really the issue? Here are a few common rejection responses you've probably already heard and what they really mean.

"Our budget was cut at the last minute."

You may not have reached the right level of decision maker to insulate your sale from this outcome. A higher level decision maker may have been able to reserve a budget if your proposed solution is critical enough to their business issues.

"We didn't need all the features included in your solution; it was too expensive for what we need."

Better evaluating the needs of the client can help you focus on the elements of your solution that they consider most valuable. Identifying features that have no value to them may allow you to eliminate items that inflate the perceived wasted cost. This is a response commonly given by people who can say no to you but cannot say yes because they don’t have the authority to buy in most cases.

"Your solution doesn't give us everything we need to accomplish our objectives."

In this case, you may have actually had the lowest price, but because you did not offer a solution that fits what the client is trying to accomplish, you were not selected as the best option.

"Your solution looks ok but we don’t have budget this year"

In this instance the client is trying to be nice but really saying we don’t have enough trust established to move forward.

Improve Your Results

The knowledge you can gain from understanding the sometimes veiled reason why the client did not choose your solution provides can actually bolster your credibility, showing genuine interest in why your solution was not selected and how you can better understand the client’s needs.

A great way to test the price issue is to provide pricing options – a good range is three. This allows the client to engage in a dialogue about the features and benefits of your offer with you and through this you will get a "feel” for the budget the client has.

In terms of budget excuses this is another buying signal. Asking about financial year up front and whether funding is approved and from a capital or expense area will also eliminate this excuse later on as you can provide finance options or payments spread over two fiscal years for example in your proposal.

Believing you are losing because of price negatively impacts your chances to affect your future performance. Become more proactive at developing your skills by identifying and acknowledging the real reasons behind past lost sales and take action to improve your results in the future by eliminating them or at least reducing them up front.

Small Business Big Opportunity

The new edition of the must have guide to sales, marketing and advertising for small business owners by Rob Hartnett and published by Sensis will be released in the second half of the year. Big thanks to all those that provided testimonials such as the one from Ben Angel the CEO of Natiowide Networking.

"A powerful and insightful guide to successfully marketing a small business... Rob truly captivates the tools and vehicles small business can utilise to successfully grow and create a truly unique offering that draws in and attracts new customers. A great and inspirational read for any business owner asking more not only from themselves but their business too."

Ben Angel, Nationwide Networking

Want more information? Visit http://www.businessperformance.com.au