BREAKDOWN - To what level are you breaking down your value proposition? Are you breaking it down to a term level that fits the critical interests of your prospects? Consider this for a second - Business doesn't really change - work hard to sell more stuff and spend less selling it. Every value proposition addresses one of those two issues. How your prospects approach those two issues DOES change and is usually influenced by current economic and environmental (business) factors and the hot solutions being touted as the next mega-trend. That is where your value prop breakdown should occur. Workflow and business process management are still powerful topics - have you broken your value proposition down to relate to those terms? Do you know what workflow issues your solution rectifies? Creates? Fed Chair Bernanke dropped the Recession hint today - do you understand the implications of an economic downturn on your customers and how your solution plays to that? Whether you work for a boutique consulting firm or monolithic giant, keep your messaging nimble and break it down into terms relevant to your prospect.

On the Hunt: A Harvard professor, David McClelland, published a book in 1961 that pioneered the study of motivation. His work sparked much of what we see today in that realm. Interestingly, his work is still very applicable, although followers expanded his work quite a bit. Basically, McClelland found that there were three primary motivational drivers that determined how people made business decisions. These were Affiliation, Control, and Achievement. Over my career, I have noticed that many people fall distinctly into one of these motive descriptions. As an example of the difference, think of a contractor hired to build a bridge. The Affiliation-oriented contractor will lean heavily toward subcontractors with whom they get along. The Control-oriented contractor will lean more toward subs that he/she can control. The Achievement-oriented contractor will hire the very best subs available. So what does this all mean to you and how you sell? Simple, it's one more buying factor, albeit usually unstated. Asking questions of your prospects about past solution providers might help you uncover their dominant motivational driver.

Here is an example. It is easy to see which response would correspond to which motivational tendency.
"What did you like about working with _____? (A past vendor)
o They were just really easy to work with.
o They were extremely responsive and nailed all of our requests.
o They did absolutely stellar work.

Look for the clues and remember the motivational tendency is only one factor in their buying personality. But, if the tendency is clear, lean also in that same direction. Be amiable to the Affiliator, be ultra responsive to the Controller, and focus on quality with the Achiever.

Productivity: Related to the above, let's look at our own motivation, in particular how it impacts our productivity. Over time, many sales people, even the best ones, can begin to forget about the basic tasks that got them to the head of the pack in the first place. I read a great book recently that was a 400-page collection of survival accounts. It included everything from shipwrecks and maroonings, to plane crashes and lost hikers. The harrowing experiences were absolutely incredible. One example - after abandoning a torpedoed ship, a US marine has to choose whether to stay in the rubber life raft and be a sitting duck for an enemy plane making pass after pass, or get into the Pacific ocean and face the sharks that had been attacking him already. He survived (of course, given the topic of the book). In the end, it was pointed out by the author that the common denominator in all these people was their unrelenting desire to survive and their ability to stay focused on what had to be done next to survive. If we, as sales people. adopt a similar attitude, we begin to ask ourselves, "What is the critical next step?" Through that question, we then ensure that we prioritize, we commit to the basics, and as a result, maximize our productivity.

It is that time of year again - the ACORD/LOMA Systems Forum - this year in Vegas. When you check out the web site, make sure you look at the keynote speakers. Very interesting. Sam Donaldson, long-time television journalist and political pundit, will be on hand. Should be interesting given it is an election year and he has been a White House correspondent over three administrations. Also, Barry Libert will be presenting. He is considered a thought-leader in the idea of Business Social Networking. The fact that so many business people have gone beyond business sites like Linked-In, and created profiles on social sites like MySpace and Facebook, is a testament to the impact social/business networking is making on industry. As always, the conference will be loaded with sessions on current business and technology topics and have ample networking opportunities. Please look for me there!

www.acordlomaforum.org.

Separating Yourself from the Pack: I never think of this newsletter as a place to teach selling. I always assume it is going out to top-of-the-line sales execs and should simply serve as a reminder of the things you already know, but may be too busy to think about. Here is a critical reminder - TAKE OWNERSHIP. Prospects want to work with sales people who own their deals and thereby minimize misunderstandings, delays, and handoffs. In the general pace of selling, we can get complacent and mistake abdication for delegation - even if it is only for a piece, a sliver of the deal.

In speaking with a friend who sells large deals for a major outsourcer, he shared with me how a particularly savvy customer was asking for more transparency in their pricing. A couple things were in play - the competition had provided a proposal with "adequate" transparency, the customer knew enough about deal composition to know what details they wanted in the deal financials, and my friend's pursuit team was wasting time trying to figure out how little they could get away with giving the customer. My friend does a great job taking ownership and did so by taking an authoritative approach with the team to get what was needed. No one knows better than you what is needed to win the deal. If you relinquish ownership to anyone else, expect failure. Expect sales management to inflate margins thinking you've sandbagged the win probability. Expect delivery to pad the head-count and delivery dates to avoid the future pain of urgency. Expect anyone who has never carried a bag to assume sales really isn't that hard and surely the prospect is waiting, pen in hand, for you to show up with a contract. Own your deal!

"HELPING YOU LEAD THE PACK"
WWW.SALESWOLVES.COM
1-877-3wolves

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