The Value of Partnerships

I read an interesting article on the benefits of Partnerships in Dynamic Business Online. Here is the link.

My experience with cultivating partnerships for both AVG and Carbonite are that having a relationship with a large institutions eg a bank is great because it potentially gives you big exposure to such a large data base but it doesn’t necessarily result in any sales.

The partnerships that really work are those with parties that are going to market and sell the product for you. Although I chase both (its always great to tell a client that you have so and so bank “offering AVG”), my experience to date tells me to focus on developing an offer that attracts parties to market Carbonite and AVG on our behalf eg ISPs either via a reseller or affiliate style relationship where they are incentivised to sell.

You really need them to be active in their promotion for it to be effective (from a sales perspective).

Taking it slow

I sat through a useful online presentation yesterday on ‘Selling to big companies’. It was useful because it was targeted at small business people primarily as well as practical in today’s eco climate.

The key presenter was a lady by the name of Jill Konrath who is a Sales Presenter from the US and has written many books on Selling. You can access her site at www.sellingtobigcompanies.com

I am not one for reading sales books and such, but her presentation was very practical even for us locally in Australia.

Some of the key points that I picked up were:

• Do your research on the company, find out what is going on in their world so that it gives you a message to draw on, rather than just talking generally. I found this quite useful because it is not just important to know information about the person you are targeting, you need to have some insight into what is going in on in their work environment.

• The second important thing was “Go Slow”. We are all in a rush to make budgets but pushing the client towards a decision they are not 100% sure about is not going to win them over. You need to slow the pace down and show the client the small steps they can take towards making the right decision and purchasing. This can be frustrating but working at their pace will help you more than pushing them.

• KISS is a saying that has been used over and over. Keeping it simple is also a key strategy more so in terms of not showing the client too many options. You might have 3 – 5 solutions but giving them too much can confuse them and make them select a partner that is giving them something simple and easy to work from. Try and stick to 1 or 2 options so that the client knows you have solutions but doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

• Lastly, lead your clients to a solution. In many instances, customers will look to you for guidance, seeing that you are the expert. They don’t necessarily want to be told how to do it, but giving them advice and showing them the path that they need to take is what many are looking for. People want to make the right decision, because performance today counts a lot more than it did 12 months ago.

On a more personal note, the fires that have ravaged parts of Victoria, Australia have damaged lives and generation for many years to come. Over 180 people to date have died, thousands of homes and livelihoods lost. Australia has shown so much compassion raising over $50million for these victims.

The devastation that was experienced is probably what Baghdad must be like on a daily basis with bombs and explosions going off daily. Over a 100,ooo people have died over there and yet I wonder how much fund raising was done for that country.

It’s easy to forget Iraq because it has been tainted as a bad country, with a bad leader and terrorists everywhere. The reality is that they are just as needy of funds as our brothers in King Lake and Merrysville are.

Till next time.

It certainly makes me thing how lucky we are to live in a country that hasn’t been touched by war locally.

Sales Principles

I read an interesting post the other day about some of the key principles of selling. New I am sure there are millions of these all over the net and in books stores but I thought these were particularly valid as they were being implemented as we speak in an Australian environment by a CEO of a relatively successful medium sized organisation.

The key sales steps were as follows:

People Usually Prefer To Buy Rather Than Be Sold

This is generally true in the world of business technology decisions and it is very important, especially for sales people at the start of a sales career to keep this in mind.

Rule Number 1: Become as expert as you can as quickly as you can in terms of answering questions about your product lucidly and succinctly.

It’s Difficult Enough To Understand Everything About Your Products And Services

Never make any comment about any other supplier’s products or services – you have no way of knowing what changes another company has made to them.

Rule Number 2 = No buyer likes someone criticizing another company’s product or service so never do it

Everything Is Urgent In Terms Of Supplying Information

The ONLY time that it’s appropriate to send a prospective customer information about something he/she has requested is the second after you have put down the phone or read the email.

Rule Number 3 = Always do it NOW without fail EVERY TIME.

Unlike The Old (And Discredited) Proverb – All Things Don’t Come To He Who Waits

If you aren’t doing something to generate new sales every minute of every working day who do you think is doing that for you?

Rule Number 4 = Develop a routine that pushes you to use all of your time to generate business.

There is No Such Thing As A Perfect Sales Document

When you join a company/sales team you will ‘inherit a lot of “boiler plate” documentation that may well have been written by very senior and very competent people within the company.

Rule Number 5 = Every time you send out a proposal/sales letter improve one thing about it – no matter how small.

I think all of these rules are very valid. From my perspective, I would like to add a couple more. Although I haven’t been directly in sales for too long, indirectly I have been for over 10 years and what I also have learnt is the following:

Build Relationships with People.

Price is one thing, but people still like doing business with people. The customer on the other end doesn’t know as much about the service you are offering as you do. So, it is virtually important that you stick close to them, making sure that any questions they have can be quickly answered by you. The last thing you want is for someone else to tell them something about your services or company that doesn’t help you chances. You need to take control of the situation.

Solution selling. This is such an overused word. At the end of the day, most of us just sell products. The solution is putting it in a document that makes it sound like you are solving the customer’s problem. I would be very careful telling people you can solve any problem for them when in reality you have 2 or 3 products that solve 10 – 15 problems.

Help them Sell

In most organisations, projects require internal approval and therefore funding. Funding to buy your wares and funding to allocate resources. What you tend to find is that Product/Marketing Managers may have the ideas and the intent, but getting that across management for approval is a bigger task. Your role as a sales representative is to provide them with enough information to help them build their business case and get it approved.

Always Put Your Best Foot Forward

The saying that you only get once chance to make a good impression is very true. There is no point butting in a proposal with your second best offer because chances are that your competitor hasn’t and you will look expensive and will not get a second chance to change this, now or in the future.

If you are keen to get to win the business, then give the customer your best offer upfront, make sure it is competitive and gets you to the negotiating table.

Good and bad news

Learnt a good lesson today. Never assume people read the proposals or material you send them and always be patient.

I have been working on this one large client for close to 4 months now. Had several meetings, submitted several documents/proposals. We requested a special product for them not currently available in Australia. I even went to head office asking for more commission to offer them.

In our informal meeting today (telephone), I advised them of our revised commission terms and was given the response I kind of expected but didn’t want to hear, “what no renewal commission”,  “We don’t work with companies that don’t offer renewal commission”

I knew this was a sticking point, but I had put it in writing within our proposal from day one to ensure they knew it was in our terms. Unfortunately people change and the original duo I was dealing with left and the new contact (more senior) didn’t bother referring to what was in the proposal (although I had advised that we had submitted a proposal).

Not all is lost though. Our rates are very competitive even without renewal and now it becomes a waiting game. He will no doubt hear from our competitor that they either want to play or not. I can’t see them offering any more than us as we are both priced the same and the online backup consumer market has so little fat in it. You never know though, times are tough and they are a big customer.

They will no doubt look at the option of doing it alone. They will also no doubt find that at anything more than $72, they won’t get the take-up given there are several providers with reasonable brand names offering at that or similar price. With hard drive prices continually falling, I doubt the consumer market is going to want to spend anymore.

Reflecting on the outcome of the meeting, I suppose I should have advised him to read the proposal. On the other had, I know this is a weakness in our proposal, so highlighting it wasn’t going to be to my advantage. This sales stuff is interesting. I now need to wait it out and if he comes back 10% stick to my guns because I know he doesn’t have other options.

The good news for the day is that Carbonite received a great rating from PC Authority today. Feb edition has it as the Labs Winner for Online Backup. 5/6 stars is a great result. It essentially means more bragging rights for the year, some greater awareness and promotion that we didn’t have to pay for.

So tomorrow is another day.