Mid-Year... WOW!!! Here are a few words of wisdom, slotted into the front because they are more important than closing deals (that's right, more important).
# Eat right and exercise, no excuses. If you don't take care of your body, where are you going to live?
# Focus on your family. If you sacrifice them at the altar of work, no one that means anything will be there to give a rat's fanny about how successful you are.
# Live a little every day. The most successful sales execs I know are not afraid to take a reasonable break to catch up with a friend, read the sports section, or sit down with a latte.
# Stay out of the negativity trap. It's all just life anyway. We are the one's who label events as positive or negative. And, as I have said before, everything will work out... one way or the other.

Happy Hunting - As mentioned in last quarter's note, we were at the ACORD/LOMA show in Vegas. In speaking with many insurance industry execs over the three days I was there, here is how our mini-survey breaks out. Pay particular attention to Question #2 - the opportunities are out there.

Question 1 - The prospect of a U.S. recession is...
A. Actively being incorporated into your company's decisions (31%)
B. Being discussed but not acted upon (44%)
C. A complete non-issue (25%)

Question 2 - Upcoming I.T. initiatives are more heavily geared toward...
A. Supporting business expansion (50%)
B. Making current operations more efficient (25%)
C. Replacing antiquated systems that are failing (20%)
D. Most initiatives are being scaled back to save money (5%)

Question 3 - The biggest frustration dealing with sales people is...
A. A lack of industry/process knowledge (16%)
B. A lack of technical understanding (29%)
C. Poor follow-up (11%)
D. A focus on their own objectives versus the buyer's needs (39%)
E. Too little clout within their own company (5%)

Basically what I see here is that insurers are being cautious but not closed when it comes to spending money in a tough economy and the executive buyers are tired of technical surprises and poor customer advocacy. Couple of selling points anybody?

Separating Yourself from the Pack: At some point in your sales cycle you wind up making a formal presentation. It would be nice if every deal was consummated via easy conversational one-on-ones, but they aren't. Prospects seem to feel cheated if they haven't had the chance to get the whole buying team in one room as the competing vendors "pitch." Here are a few reminders that can crisp-up your teams' presentation.
1. Over prepare - Many teams feel they have great chemistry and play well off each other. You might, but you mesh even better if you take the time to cover who is responsible for what topics, likely concerns, and who will be the default for technical, business, and contractual questions for which you haven't prepared.
2. When in doubt, go this route - First, two important facts: businesses don't spend millions on solutions that do not solve a problem and prospects wander into the weeds and forget what those problems are. The buying process has tons of information flying around, some of which will be intended to get a prospect focused on whatever is a competitive advantage of the vendor doing the pitching (dragging the customer into the weeds). In your presentation, constantly confirm the problems and present the associated fixes, drill down as necessary. Issue, resolution, issue, resolution - very simple.
3. Entertain or Inform - The simple answer is inform. You do not want to be dull, but this is not any team member's time to live out their fantasy of becoming the next Letterman. It is OK to make something light, but at the end of the day, your prospect better leave with the info they need to make a buying decision. If they leave thinking you are a riot, you will buy them a beer and they will buy your competitor's solution.
4. This isn't BAFO time - BAFO (Best And Final Offer) comes later. Consequently, this is still a time to learn things and incorporate those into your solution. I have seen many deals won because in the 11th hour a sales exec learned a material new bit of info, got the buyer to allow them to revise their proposal based on the new info, revised the proposal based on the new info AND whatever other info they gleaned in the meeting, and beat the competitor who thought their proposal was spot-on.
5. Be confident NOT cavalier - I recently had a laptop hard-drive ported to a new unit. Of course I was worried about the disaster if something went wrong. The guy did great work, but completely discounted my concerns from the very first minute. In his mind, there was no risk; in the customer's mind there was a ton of risk because reconfiguring a new hard-drive from scratch would be a huge hassle. Remember, your prospect's concerns are legitimate to them, no matter how trivial they are in reality. Ask your prospect all along the way about concerns, give your customer sincere assurance that you are noting that concern and here are the steps you will take to ensure it is a non-issue.

"HELPING YOU LEAD THE PACK"
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Elite Sales Professionals is an executive search firm specializing in high-level sales and sales management searches, primarily for positions selling technology and services into the Financial Services and Insurance verticals. If you would like to correspond with us or submit your resume, please e-mail us at Alpha@saleswolves.com.

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