John Boyens of the Boyens Group shares power tips for Selling Bigger Deals Faster.
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Question: John, how do you sell bigger deals faster?
Answer:
I could be a smart alec and say the best way to sell bigger deals is to call on bigger clients.If you sell and call on bigger accounts, there’s a bigger opportunity to sell services to them.
When they caught Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, they said, Willie, “why do you rob banks?”and he said, “cause that’s where the money is.”
Well if you want to sell bigger deals, call on bigger clients – that’s the big thing to start with but there are other ways to be able to sell bigger deals.
I always like to be able to use cross-sell or upsell as a key.If I can sell additional products or services to my client, the average order size will grow and that makes it easier for me to sell a bigger deal.
Also as a byproduct you also improve your customer retention because if they buy multiple products and services from you, it’s harder for them to disconnect – so that’s another key to be able to upsell and cross-sell.
I also like to be able to work on getting to the decision maker early in the sales cycle.
If you’re gonna sell big deals today,you’ve got to talk to the person who has the power of the pen. You also have to engage those folks in strategic, proactive conversations because you’re focusing in on their needs – what is it that they’re trying to accomplish? How is it that your product or service fit within their strategy and vision long term?
A great question I like to ask people when I’m making an initial call is to understand what kind of initiatives or what kind of projects do they have on the horizon for the next 12-18 months? Where are they trying to go?Example: If you have a product or service and they have a focus on Green Initiatives, you want to be able to position your Green Initiative offering with them because that’s important.
In today’s time you’ve got folks who are cutting costs or they are trying to do more with technology or trying to be more efficient. If that’s the case, then talk about how your product or service can help them reduce costs or be more efficient; focus on those kinds of things.
Also when you are looking at doing a good job selling bigger deals, I think you need to do referrals.
Referral based selling is the key to success. Our research shows when you look at cold calling in general, it’s normally a single digit success rate – somewhere in the 3 – 7% range. It varies by industry but its always in the single digits.
When you look at referral based selling, it can be in the 30 – 50% range or more.
We’ve got a client in Rockville, Maryland who has an 84% close rate on referred business. That’s phenomenal. Also that referred business buys at a higher level.
An interesting thing to note is: I don’t just want the initial deal. I want to create a long term, mutually beneficial, profitable relationship for both companies. If I do that, then I am building off a solid base to my pyramid.
So back to our point again:
Target your best clients
Know what they look like
Find more that look like them
Call on bigger accounts
Focus in on cross-selling and upselling more of the products and services you have.
Engage that decision maker earlier in the process and get them involved in strategic, proactive conversations
Create a hit list
- Who are some of those big competitive takeaways accounts that you’d like to win?
- Who is buying from your competitor that you’d love to earn their business?
A great question to be able to ask them in this process is this:if I were fortunate enough to earn your business, and it were a year from, how do you know it was a good decision?
That one question has three powerful components: the first part if I was ‘fortunate enough to earn’ your business. In other words, I’m not trying to sell you something; I’m not trying to get you to buy something from me; I’m going to earn your business. That’s a great message.
The second part “and it were a year from now”. What we’re trying to do is to get that prospect to imagine themselves as a customer. Sometimes that’s the biggest hurdle. Most folks hate change so if you can have that person to literally imagine being a customer for a year, that might move you over the ledge;
The third part is the keys to the kingdom – “how do you know it was money well spent”. They will tell you what it is you need to do to compete and if you are able to get them to articulate that, it’s going to make it easier for you to sell that bigger deal and to sell that bigger deal faster.
