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March 7, 2016 Biz Books

Strategies to break through B2B sales walls

“Dealstorming — The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Strategies” by Tim Sanders (Portfolio/Penguin, $28).

Today's world of B2B sales has many moving parts because a sales team must deal with the varying perspectives of contacts, influencers and stakeholders who provide input on the buying decision. The buying process moves up, down and laterally in an organization. To effectively deal with buying teams, you need to develop selling teams capable of addressing the sale from multiple viewpoints.

Sanders relates the four C's of sales (contact, conceive, convince, contract) in the context of a team-selling effort. Here's a snapshot of each:

Contact: When identifying contacts, look well beyond the initial touchstone; check the prospect's website for others who may have a stake in the buy. Use LinkedIn and Google search to find information. Use your internal staff, too, because they may know someone who knows someone — particularly if they're active in professional associations. Connect as many networking dots as you can.

Conceive: Use networking within the prospect's industry to find information about its business (e.g. history, competitive position, strategy, etc.) to identify the potential pain points, which your potential solution could address. With this information, coupled with a thorough knowledge of your product/potential solution (including customization) engage the prospect contacts to delve deeper to confirm what your homework uncovered.

If the prospect has already embarked on a solution-finding mission, you'll have to find where it's at in the process, and the research it has done. Use this information to hone your pitch — including pick-and-choose features and benefits, which create pricing flexibility.

Convince: Showing the prospect that your solution reduces costs, increases efficiency, etc., may not be enough; with multiple perspectives in play, there will always be questions about probability and uncertainty — especially because any solution requires the prospect to change its processes.

Selling change can also be difficult because its implementation costs are difficult to assess. Pointing out the costs of delaying a decision (i.e. the prospect continues experiencing pain points that hold it back) usually resonates with those involved in the buy decision.

Contract: Negotiating terms involves the ability to “fit” the way both you and the prospect do business. There will be sticking points; someone has to bend. Be aware of the “must haves” and “like-to-haves” of both sides when negotiating.

The longer it takes to reach agreement, the greater likelihood the buyer will second-guess its ability to work with you.

• • •

“Leadership and the Art of Struggle: by Steven Snyder (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $19.95).

Shakespeare's Henry IV: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” The test of true leaders comes when things are not going well. Snyder's reveal: When difficult decisions must be made, leaders don't want to openly discuss their struggles with problems and solutions. Why? Leaders harbor the belief that acknowledging their struggles will make them appear weak — precisely the last thing followers want to see.

Snyder sees dealing with struggle as a building block of leadership because change, and its implementation, triggers trail-breaking decisions. As different replaces existing, change leads to tension and an out-of-balance condition — internally and within the ranks.

Dealing with challenge and adversity requires adaptive energy — the force that aligns actions with a leader's inner values and principles and the external criteria necessary for success. It also shows leaders they are not alone. Those with adaptive energy seek, listen to and assess feedback and incorporate new perspectives and learning into their decision-making process. Knowing people have their back, a leader can turn internal struggle into creativity and goal-oriented pursuits.

“The greatest adversary of adaptive energy is fear.” In some cases it's ego-driven; in others it's the what-if fear of failure. n

Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer.

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