Selling services can be tough game. After all, you’re essentially selling an intangible. No one can touch what you’re selling. You can’t give people the keys to take it for a spin.

And – from personal experience – I know how tough it can be to be on the receiving end as well: as buyers of services, we have precious little to go on to make a buying decision. Yet, there is one factor that is of the utmost importance if you’re selling services. It has the power to convince buyers. Reassure them of the value of what you’re selling. Close deals in weeks, rather than months.

That factor ? It’s you.

Why ? Simple. Because, if you’re selling a service, you’re essentially what buyers have to go on in order to make a buying decision. You’re the sample. The test drive. The appetizer.

And if you’re wondering how to sell the most important things of all – yourself – wonder no more. Check out the following five elements, and become an invicible convincer (well, not quite, but you get my drift).

Get To Know Yourself A Little Better.

The first step is to get to know yourself. You see, most of us suffer from an inaccurate self-image – and, most likely, we’re a little too hard on ourselves.

Lifehacker has a useful process for how to change that – how to change your self perception to leverage your hidden strengths.

Be A Not-Know-It-All.

Before you can start convincing others, you’ll need them to start trusting you. Yes, I know, you have a triple PhD and are the world’s largest expert on Vietnamese baby carrots – so people are bound to listen when you speak, right ?

Not so.

My colleague and friend Charles Green puts it this way “Being right is vastly overrated. Earning the right to be right is where the action is and where most consultants fall down. An ounce of listening—paying attention, paraphrasing, conveying empathy, going where the client goes—is worth a pound of correct answers, references, and credentials.”

If you’re looking for ways to build trust with clients, colleagues, peers, buyers, advisors and basically anyone else you interact with on a regular basis, check out Charlie’s post on “Create Trust, Gain A Client.”

Practice, Practice, Practice.

Think about the late Steve Jobs – one of the world’s greatest speaker, charismatic CEO and technology evangelist. Steve obsessed about details, and spent (not hours, not days, but) weeks practicing and rehearsing every keynote he ever gave. The end result was a polished piece of perfection.

In order to be convincing in the boardroom, you need to do your practicing outside of the boardroom. Don’t practice at the game.

Speak In Soundbytes.

People have a limited attention span, and some senior executives have the equivalent of that of a small puppy. If you want to get through to them, you’ll need to keep things short, succinct and simple.

Practice speaking in soundbytes: easily digestible, quick-to-remember phrases that capture the essence of an idea and help your counterparts remember it. And here’s a secret tip: people are wired to think in threes, fives and sevens. Ever wonder why there are so many blogposts that start with “3 Ways To …” or “The 7 Habits Of …” ? If you want to be seen as an able, strong communicator, don’t ramble. Speak in soundbytes and easily digestible “rules of three”.

Use the PSR Approach.

Peter Cohan wrote a great post on Inc.com on a “Winning Technique To Sell Yourself”. His premise is simple: use a three-step process (see, there’s that rule of threes again) to communicate your value.

First, start by identifying and defining the Problem. Describe the cause, its impact, the environment and how exactly it was “hurting”. Then, explain the Solution – what you did about it, how and why it worked, what you discovered along the way and what the outcome was. Finally, describe the Results you achieved. Talk about the quantitative and qualitative outcomes. About how and why these mattered to your client.

If you’re wondering how to sell yourself, do these five things (I’m not kidding about that rule):

• Discover and develop an accurate picture of your hidden strengths
• Be vulnerable, open and don’t pretend to know everything
• Practice at every opportunity you get
• Speak in soundbytes and “rules of three”
• Use the PSR approach to build credibility

What have you found to be effective ways to come across as credible and knowledgeable ? What are “dead giveaways” that the person you’re speaking with doesn’t have a clue ? What have you discovered about how to sell yourself ?

Join the conversation, and drop a comment below.

Being able to understand client needs is arguably one of the most important aspect of sales – unless you uncover a need (desire, one, hope, ambition) with a potential client, no sale will move forward. There are entire books that have been written about how to better understand client needs – simply Googling the term returns 186,000,000 results.

And our research at RAIN Group has clearly shown that buyers buy from sellers who understand their needs. Looking at the differences between the winners and the second-place finishers, “understood my needs” was the fifth largest gap .

In fact, the winners demonstrated they understood the buyer’s needs 2.5 times more often than the second-place finishers. On top of that, of the 42 factors, buyers said “understood my needs” was the fifth most important factor that second-place finishers should change in order to win their business.

But there is another, more subtle finding in the research: the ability to understand client needs is more important than the ability to diagnose needs. In other words, it’s not so much about providing an accurate diagnosis of “the problem” as it is about making your buyers feel understood.

People have a natural tendency to feel comfortable, positive and valued around others who understand them. In fact, your ability to make others feel like you understand has impacts many levels of the relationship.

Academic research “On Feeling Understood and Feeling Well: The Role of Interdependence” reported that:

 “People enjoy social environments where they feel understood by others. According to self-verification theory, people prefer to interact with others who confirm their self-views, even when those views are negative (see Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003 for a review). People also feel more satisfied and stay in relationships longer when they and their partners have similar affective responses to life events (Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Oishi & Sullivan, 2006) or similar interpersonal goals (Sanderson & Evans, 2001). These findings imply that people seek and enjoy social interactions with others who understand their subjective thoughts and feelings. This collection of research also presents an emerging perspective that feeling understood or misunderstood is an integral experience of our social lives.”

In other words, your ability to understand others (or at least make it feel like to understand them) helps not only your ability to uncover needs that you can resolve, but in fact helps you build and cement the relationship itself.

Really making people feel like you understand them – in truth – isn’t all that complex. It’s about taking some common advice in sales to heart, and executing on the basics. In fact, over time I have developed a simple five-step process that is designed explicitly to help others feel like you understand them – like a truly “get them”.

1. Ask insightful questions 

The first step in the process to better understand client needs is to ask insightful questions. Doing things like not asking yes/no questions, digging deeper and using the power silence are all important parts of the question process

2. Listen carefully

The second step is to listen carefully, by which I mean listening without looking for clues to turn around the conversation and start to talk about your products or services. When you listen carefully, don’t interrupt and simply absorb what you’re hearing, you’re sending a subtle message: I care about you, and I care about your views.

3. Play back & paraphrase

Playing back and paraphrasing are two important ways of confirming whether you’ve understood what the other person was trying to say. But the true value goes well beyond that: by playing their awards back to them, you confirm to the other person that you you’re not only listening, but – quite literally – understood what they were trying to say.

4. Listen for more

Almost always, when you play back and paraphrase, two things will start to happen. First, the person will correct your views in some way, and attempt to explain what they were trying to say in the first place. Second, they will often offer up additional information that builds on what they initially said.

5. Confirm your understanding

Often overlooked, the simple act of confirming that you understand now fully what they were trying to say is the final step in the process. By doing this you reassure them that you have a full understanding of their needs, and show them the respect and attention they deserve.

In spite of the volumes of research, books and blog posts (like this one …) dedicated to how to better understand client needs, in the end the simple five-step process above will get you where you want to be: in a place where your buyer feels like you truly, really understood what they were trying to say.

And remember this: of the 42 factors investigated, buyers said “understood my needs” was the fifth most important thing sellers need to do that in order to win their business – now and in the future.

Generating new leads, closing new business and increasing new revenue is consistently high on many sales executives’ agenda. Many calls I get are focused on one thing: signing on new clients. New clients are the lifeblood of any organisation, so the thinking goes.

Or are they ?

There’s a huge amount of evidence that – in reality – most organisations would be far better of by focusing on serving their existing clients better.

Why ? I’ll give you five reasons why you’ll want to be out there selling to existing customers.

1. They have a far higher chance of actually closing.

According to Marketing Metrics, “businesses have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5% to 20%.”

Personally, I think that’s a little pessimistic. I’m sure the real closing rate for most firms on new business is a little higher – but the argument still stands.

New clients already know you, and your work (which is top-notch, right ?). They’ll have already benefited from the value you deliver, meaning there’s less uncertainty in working with you. And you probably already identified several new ways in which you might be able to help them meet their business objectives.

Meaning they’re that much more likely to close.

2. They are likely to spend more.

According to data from Laura Lake, existing customers spend roughly 33% more than compared to new customers. Think about it this way: every sale you make to an existing customer could increase revenue by 30% – for the same number of deals actually closed, one third more revenue.

So now we’re two for two: not only are existing customers far more likely to close, but they actually spend more on each transaction as well.

3. They close much faster.

Data from Accenture has shown that close to 50% of all business with existing customers closes within 3 months – the space of a single quarter. With new clients, the number of opportunities that close within that same 3-month timeframe drops down to 20%.

In other words, you could be closing more than double the amount of new business within the next three months by simply shifting your focus from selling to new customers to selling to existing customers.

4. They help increase profits.

Given what I’ve said thus far, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that selling to existing clients helps increase profits – but by just how much ?

According to a joint study by Bain and Harvard Business School, “(we) showed that in industry after industry, the high cost of acquiring customers renders many customer relationships unprofitable during their early years. Only in later years, when the cost of serving loyal customers falls and the volume of their purchases rises, do relationships generate big returns. The bottom line: Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.”

In other words, given the acquisition costs for new customers, selling to existing customer is a tremendously powerful lever for boosting profits – even with relatively small increases in retention rates.

5. They help reduce costs.

If there’s talk of increasing profits, reducing costs typically isn’t far behind. Salesforce estimates that it is 6–7 times more costly to attract new customers than it is to retain an existing customer.

Many organisations suffer from low retention rates, hampering their ability to gain all of the significant benefits outlined above. By selling to existing customers versus new ones, they could simultaneously reduce costs and increase profits.

Perhaps more importantly for their salesforce, they could increase close rates (dramatically), increase the average spend and more than double the number of sales closing within the space of a quarter.

Yet, all this depends on a key underlying premise: your (organisation’s) ability to keep current clients happy, demonstrate value, build trust and – perhaps most importantly – identify future opportunities where you might be able to help them.

There are many ways to grow your business to business sales. Some firms focus on prospecting. Some focus on selling to existing clients. Some rely on channel partners, and some leverage the power of technology.

But, regardless of the channel or approach you use, there are some underlying fundamentals that remain as true today as they did twenty years ago. In this post, I want to take a deeper dive into two of those fundamentals – and introduce a third factor, which I believe is transforming the way we sell today.

Stop trying to create conversations – create connections instead

Traditionally, the focus of any outbound prospecting efforts have been to generate conversations. Conversation, so conventional wisdom goes, lead to interest. Interest leads to proposals. Proposals lead to wins. Wins help grow your business to business sales. But, in a world where decision makers are busier, more well-guarded and more wary of anyone trying to sell them, does that approach still work ?

Yes – it does. Providing you do something else as well.

You see, just having conversations is not enough. You need to build connections as well. In fact, in order to be really successful, you’ll want to start by building connections, and then move into conversations.

Think about it this way: how likely would you be to open up to a perfect stranger ? And how much more likely would you be to open up to someone who you’ve know for a while, who’s shown a real interest in you and who’s perhaps helped you in some small way ?

To me, that’s the perfect formula. Build connections first, and create conversations after.

Start with the end in mind

Quarterly targets. Sales objectives. Peer pressure. Quota.

All factors that lead us to focus on short-term results. And – in spite of convential wisdom – that’s not entirely a bad thing. Short term results keep us honest. They allow us to plan and measure our progress on a short term basis. And they enable us to provide short term incentives for action (both by the salesforce, but also by clients).

But short-term planning is not enough – it needs to be complemented by a long-term focus. Not just for growing your overall business to business sales, but also for individual accounts.

Whenever I start a business relationship with a new client, I’m never focused on “making the (first) sale”. Instead, I focus on the long term, by answering the following questions:

• What is the strategy, business model and industry context for this firm ?
• What challenges and opportunities do they face – now and in the future ?
• What products and services could we offer against those – short term and long term ?
• What impact can we deliver for this client, in quantitative and qualitative terms ?
• What is the most logical “build up” for this account ? How can we start by doing something small, and what is the most logical next step after that ?

Most sellers try to move too quickly, or coerce buyers into making a huge leap of faith by increasing the order size beyond their comfort level. Doing a quick analysis like this will help you focus on the long term (identifying all the ways in which you can grow the account), whilst at the same time meeting your short term goal.

Build your brand as a thought leader

Both factors I’ve covered thus far were as true twenty years ago as they are today. But one isn’t: the need for sellers to stand out as true advisors and thought leaders. Buyers today aren’t looking for order takers, and they don’t need “convincing”. They are looking for educated, intelligent sparring partners who can validate their ideas and push back where needed.

RAIN Group’s research on “What Sales Winners Do Differently” highlighted this fact: the #1 reason buyers pick one firm over another is because “the seller educated (them) with new ideas and perspectives”.

If you want to get some ideas around how to start building your own reputation as a thought leader, check out this post on “Stop Selling: How To Turn Your Expert Reputation Into New Relationships (And Revenue)”

When it comes to what it takes to be successful in selling, everyone has an opinion. Some say it all comes down to prospecting, or generating leads. Others talk about how it’s all about closing skills. Or needs discovery. Social selling. Or wearing your lucky socks on pitch day.

But the truth is, there’s very little truly scientific evidence on what it takes to achieve sales success. In the research leading up to our book, “Insight Selling”, RAIN Group identified three key things successful sellers (sales winners) do differently compared to everyone else. Three things that makes buyers loosen up the purse strings and say “yes”.

#1. Great Sellers Connect.

The first secret of sales success that sales winners universally share is that they are able to connect – on two fundamental levels.

First, they connect with people. Not in an “oh my gosh, you mean you also like to play golf ?!” kinda way. It goes deeper than that. Great sellers deliver expertise, insights and business value in such a way that it builds strong relationships with buyers as valued peers and advisors. They build the personal relationships through delivering business value first.

But great sellers also make another kind of connection: they connect the dots. In particular, they are able to help a buyer see how their individual needs, desires, ambitions and goals connect directly to what the seller has to offer. In other words, they help a buyer see how their products and services are uniquely suited to solving the buyer’s problem (or help them achieve their goals).

In short, great sellers connect – but something else has to happen as well.

#2. Great Sellers Convince.

Making strong connections is not enough. In order to get buyers out of the status quo, and firmly on the path to taking action, great sellers know they have convince – on three levels.

First, they have to convince the buyer that they can actually achieve the results they claim, and that those results are worth the investment. Second, they have to convince the buyer they are uniquely positioned to help them (read: better than everybody else). Third, they have to convince the buyer they are not only the best choice, but they are also the least risky option out there.

Most sellers – naively – continue to believe that, if they are able to connect with a buyer (“build the relationship”), find a problem to solve (“find the pain”) and help them see how they will be able to help them (“present the solution”), they’ll close the sale. Great sellers understand that, in order to achieve sales success and get their buyer to take action, they have to take things one step further, and lay out a convincing case to buy from them.

The 3 Most Powerful Keys To Breakthrough Sales Success
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnU6Am62GJo

#3. Great Sellers Collaborate.

On the talking versus listening spectrum, there are two schools of thought. First, you’ve got the “nature-gave-you-two-ears-and-one-mouth-for-a-reason” crowd. They believe that sellers should do mostly listening, let the buyer speak and ask great questions. Next, you’ve got the “seller-knows-best” crowd. They believe that the seller (consultant, auditor, lawyer, …) is the real expert, and buyers should let the seller “prescribe” the solution and follow their lead.

Both are right – and both are also wrong.

Let me explain. Think about your best friend/spouse/son/daughter. Now think about how you make important decisions together, like deciding where to go on holidays, or what restaurant to go to on Friday night. Do you listen to them ? Tell them what to do ? Ask question ? Tell them where you think you should go ?

Hopefully, the answer is “a little of both”.

That’s exactly how things should be with your buyer. With all the rules, guidelines, “best practices” and well-intended advice out there, we sometimes forget we’re dealing with other people. Not prospects. Not buyers. Not economic decision makers.

People.

And people like a little bit of back and forth. People like feeling they were a part of something. They have a hand in crafting their own destiny. Making up their own minds.

In short, people like to collaborate.

Great sellers get that. Which is why they’re always looking for ways to collaborate with buyers – by educating with new ideas and perspectives, and bringing value to the table themselves. By being proactive and responsive, as the situation demands.

Great sellers are not born, they’re made. And sales success secrets are not really secrets – if you know how to capture the learning and put them into practice.

Great sellers connect. Convince. And collaborate.

Now what about you ?

There is little doubt that Insight Selling is hot these days. Many firms I work with are excited about the potential it has to transform how they position their products and services, and change the relationship between buyers and sellers.

But many also struggle with executing it “out in the real world”, in front of real clients. As it turns out, the dynamics of Insight Selling can very easily be misunderstood, and its impact wiped out by incorrect implementation.

Just in case you’re not familiar with Insight Selling – loosely defined, I think of Insight Selling as the process of selling through educating with new ideas and perspectives in a collaborative way. There are three things in there which are absolutely key when it comes to unleashing the power of Insight Selling:

1. You have to somehow educate or enlighten your client
2. You have to introduce truly NEW ideas and perspectives
3. You have to do it in a way that is collaborative in nature

Take one of the three out of the equation, and Insight Selling loses most or even all of its power. So let’s take a look at three of the most common mistakes I see sellers (and firms) make when it comes to implementing Insight Selling.

Confusing “Information” With “Insights”

The number one mistake I see many make is confusing information with insights. Information and insights are not the same thing. We are bombarded on a daily basis by information. The Internet, books and the media are full of information – and most of it is free, abundantly available and almost universally helpful, but confusing.

By comparison, true insights are something very different. And I’ll define the difference as this: Information is just information. It’s data, it’s unprocessed, not interpreted in any way.

Insights, on the other hand, share two common criteria that set them apart from information.

1. Insights are always, in some way surprising, innovative, new, or fresh. In other word, they tell you something you didn’t already know
2. Insights are almost always actionable. In other word, they encourage you to take action to address the situation, right a wrong, overcome a challenge or a problem, or achieve an objective

Don’t make the mistake of confusing information with insights. Very different things.

(Don’t) Sell Or Tell. Collaborate.

The number two challenge or mistake I see people make when it comes to selling with insights is to tell or sell the client on what to do rather than collaborate with them.

As a former manager and a financial services executive, I can tell you, it is terribly frustrating when someone walks into your office and starts telling you what to do. Or tries to hijack the conversation to suit their agenda.

Most buyers I sit down with are highly educated, intelligent people who have a clear grasp on the problem, understand its implications, and have already made an educated guess about how to potentially fix it.

They don’t like being sold to, and they certainly don’t like having someone else’s agenda pushed on them. What they want is a sparring partner, someone who can walk through the process with them, validate their thinking and help develop (or eliminate) options for addressing their problem or challenge.

Nobody likes to be told what to do. What most sophisticated B2B buyers want is a sparring partner, a trusted advisor, someone that walks them through a logical step-by-step process, asks intelligent questions, validates assumptions together and then helps them decide which course of action to take and how to best move forward.

Don’t just “present the problem”. Incite action.

The third major problem I see with insight selling is that a lot of sellers don’t act as change agents. As an Insight Seller, your primary focus should never be to make a short-term sale. It’s to elicit new insights, and be an agent for change.

The difference is easy to tell: a “salesperson” will almost always listen for clues, and try to steer the conversation into a direction that gives them an opportunity to talk about their products or services as quickly as possible. They’ll jump at the first chance of “spotting a need” or a pain they can solve, so they can launch into a self-serving product pitch.

A true Insight Seller, by comparison, will explore the problem (often at great length), and not rest until they’ve fully understood all the implications and its impact. Most importantly, they will bring up new insights, ideas or perspectives that often allow for the problem to be solved in new, innovative ways – and with very different results.

If you’re out there selling, and you want to put the power of Insight Selling to work, here are three pieces of advice:

1. Don’t just deliver information – deliver true insights, which are always fresh, unexpected and often take a completely different perspective
2. Don’t go into sales mode – think of yourself as a trusted advisor to your buyer, and walk them through the process of identifying, addressing and developing options to meet their needs
3. Be an agent for change – don’t simply “present the problem” in a dry, intellectual fashion. Instead, help your buyer understand the full impact it has on their business (and themselves), build the business case for change and advocate moving forward vigorously (not because you want to sell, but because you want your client to gain the benefits they seek)

Make sense ?

The revolutionary power of storytelling in business is well known, and widely documented. If emotion is one of the most powerful ways to get your prospect to move forward and make a favorable decision, then storytelling is probably the single most powerful vehicle at your disposal to convey that emotion.

Recent research has shown that its impact goes well beyond merely conveying passion and emotion – according to HBR,

“Storytelling evokes a strong neurological response. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak‘s research indicates that our brains produce the stress hormone cortisol during the tense moments in a story, which allows us to focus, while the cute factor of the animals releases oxytocin, the feel-good chemical that promotes connection and empathy. Other neurological research tells us that a happy ending to a story triggers the limbic system, our brain’s reward center, to release dopamine which makes us feel more hopeful and optimistic.“

At RAIN Group, our own research around what separates the world’s best sellers from everyone else has resulted in the discovery of the Convincing Story Framework, a 7-step process for how the very best tell stories to their clients, prospects, colleagues and peers – and inspire action in the process.

From establishing an initial connection to painting an elaborate picture of what the world could be like (and how it currently isn’t) to introducing a breakthrough “aha” moment and finally helping the client see how they too could achieve results similar to those in the story – the Convincing Story Framework is a powerful tool for influencing and driving a change in behavior within others.

A lot has been written about how to tell great stories – but what are some of the ways in which great sellers harness the power of storytelling in business ?

The Case Study.

Most firms have some well-crafted, polished case studies somewhere in their repertoire – often in well-designed, beautiful looking documents ready to send at the click of a mouse.

Yet, most of those case studies fall short of their intended result: to help potential clients see how similar results could be achieved for them, and help them overcome inertia and move into action.

In my opinion, a far better way of relating a case study is through the power of story. Positioning your past clients as “the hero” adds an emotional dimension to the story, especially if you were personally involved in creating the result that was achieved. Furthermore, the case study is a story is a great way to illustrate how you truly put your client’s success first – rather than a piece of marketing speak about how customer centricity is one of your firm’s core values.

The Story Of Origin.

Many organizations are famous for how they got started – whether it’s a start up in the proverbial garage, a visionary scientist somewhere in a lab or a savvy entrepreneur stumbling upon something that was so wrong it simply had to be put right.

What many organizations fail to see, however, is that their very story of origin is a powerful vehicle for demonstrating credibility, establishing a track record and differentiating themselves from their competitors. In other words, telling that story is a great way to answer the question “why would I work with you ?”.

The Story Of You.

In the end, in order to feel comfortable working with you, prospects need to be believe in four key things: your organization, your products or services, your proposed outcome and you.

Every seller should have at least a few stories about themselves that illustrate key aspects of what they are trying to convey terms of the value they can deliver: whether it’s their focus on their client success, their ability to generate results, their business experience or simply their past performance in sales.

Rather than simply conveying those points, stories enable you to do so in a way that evokes emotion, as well as reduces the danger of your prospect seeing you as yet another chest-pounding salesperson full of themselves.

The Business Case.

Most business cases and ROI calculators are 100% right brain: a series of simple numbers on a spreadsheet that is assumed to somehow inspire a buyer into seeing how buying from you is really a no-brainer.

The opposite is often true: most buyers see seller ROI calculators and business cases as highly suspect, and most likely “too good to be true”.

When we have experimented with presenting a business case as a story, where we present past client’s results, gather the prospect’s input and build it together, the results have been nothing short of revolutionary. Call it a double whammy: the business case as a story not only gets the point across, but does so in a way that inspires emotion and action.

The Underdog Story.

In this short lineup, I have saved the best for last: the story of the underdog who, against all odds, overcame the challenges he or she was presented with and achieved massive success in the end.

Think about any Hollywood blockbuster. Most bestsellers ever written. Virtually every successful magazine article. All “most shared” blogposts. What do they all have in common ?

The story of the underdog.

People love hearing stories about how you, your company or your service were able to beat the odds and generate massive success. It’s a basic appeal to our human emotions, and probably quite literally the foundation of “the oldest story on Earth”. No one’s perfect – but those who overcome their imperfections and succeed come close.

In addition to the short list above, there are probably many other ways in which you could use storytelling in business, or have done so successfully in the past. So do me a favor: if you have a great story to tell about how you use stories to win over reluctant prospects, secure a deal against all odds or simply inspired someone to take action – leave a comment below.

The power to increase sales wins is one of the most important levers for sales success.

One of the major questions I get from corporate clients is: “how can we increase sales wins, and reduce our loss rate ?”. Think about it this way: when you are at the stage where the proposal is outstanding, the client is making up their mind and your CRM system says “closeable”, 90% of the of work, effort and energy have gone into the deal already.

Yet, critically, a lot of sellers fail to deliver that last punch, that last little push the deal needs to get over the hill – thereby often unnecessarily losing deals to competitors or the dreaded “status quo”.

In this post, I’ll share 10 proven, helpful tips to increase last-minute sales wins. I’ve used these myself, and my clients have used them in order to save major deals from going south and overcome seemingly impossible odds.

When you’re trying to close your next deal, and things are not going as well as planned, try these out for yourself, and see what happens.

1. Help Them Overcome Their Fears

One of the major reasons deals are lost, especially to the dreaded status quo, is that buyers are simply afraid of acting and moving forward. They’re afraid of making the wrong decision, allocating corporate funds to a venture that may result in failure, and tarnishing their own reputations and careers in the process.

Often, these “dreams of human failure” start leading their own little lives, bringing important deals investments to a premature ending through endless ruminating and doomsday scenarios.

Simply helping your buyer voice their nightmare scenarios can often be a major step in the right direction. In an open and honest conversation, ask them about what they fear most, and explain step-by-step how you will be able to help them reduce the risk, and address the issue if it does come up.

2. Help Them Make The Internal Sale

In today’s world, no one makes decisions in isolation. I don’t care if they’re mid-level manager or a Fortune 500 CEO – in 2015, no one makes decisions by themselves anymore. In an age of a more democratic workplace, fluid decision-making processes, matrix organizations and increasing risk aversion, decisions are made by committee – whether formalized or not.

More often than not, your buyer has an internal sale to make – yet unfortunately, many times they are at a loss of how to do so successfully. In order to get the deal to close, your responsibility is to support them in whatever way to help them make the internal sale: coach them, provide additional information, contribute further analysis, engage in joint meetings, …

Whatever it is, if you can help them close their sale, you’ll vastly increase your chances of closing yours.

3. Show Them The “Cost Of No Decision”

As human beings, our default mode of action is “no action”. If we can get away with it, we would much rather do nothing than risk even the slightest little bit, or have to expend even the smallest amount of energy and resources.

No change, no loss. No gain, no pain.

If you can help your buyers see what the cost of no decision truly looks like – in terms of lost potential, market share, revenue growth, risk reduction or whatever measure is applicable to your business – you will simultaneously increase their desire to take action, and take action immediately.

4. Offer Incentives To Action

In addition to exploring the cost of no decision, use incentives to action to further expand the gap between where they are now and where they could be. The larger the gap, the more inclined the buyer will be to move forward.

Try and offer incentives to action (note: I am not talking about discounting here) as a way to further encourage your buyer to move forward, and move forward with you.

5. Offer To Reduce Or Remove Roadblocks

Sometimes, getting buyers to choose a path is as much about removing things as it is about adding things. Maybe it’s providing a resource they don’t have, but you could easily provide. Maybe it’s a piece of knowledge. Maybe someone internally needs to be brought on board.

Whatever the case, offering to reduce or remove roadblocks is a tried and tested strategy to increase sales wins at the last minute.

6. Show Them How To Get Started

Very often one of the major roadblocks to getting started is that buyers simply don’t have the resources to do so, or don’t see how.

Many buyers are cash-strapped, resource poor and lack the internal resources to get things underway. Meaning most buyers I know would jump at the chance of having a supplier take matters into their own hands, and offer to carry out the first steps to get a project started.

Think about it like this: if you can show your buyer a smooth path for moving forward after they sign, you’ll take away virtually every reason for not taking that path.

7. Do It For Them

I once read somewhere that most people dream of becoming an entrepreneur.

When asked what they mean by that, it turns out that most people want the perceived results of becoming an entrepreneur: wealth, prestige, financial independence and an opportunity to live a long and prosperous life on a sunny beach in a luxury villa. What they don’t want is all the pain, effort, setbacks, worrying and failure that come before that result.

In short, they want the result, but without the effort.

The closer you can come to delivering the result to your client without them having to expend any effort, the more successful you will be (and, incidentally, the more you’ll be able to charge for your services).

DIY is out. DI(F)Y (Do It For You) is in. 

8. Offer A Strong Guarantee

Many clients are afraid of being sold something that doesn’t work – and unfortunately, in some industries, they are right to be concerned. Stories of woe and failure are aplenty in corporate hallways: scopes blown out of proportion, budgets expanded to 2-3 times their size, …

Regardless of whether or not you’re in one of those industries that have a “bad rep”, offering a strong guarantee is a great way of turning a sale into a close at the last minute.

I’m not just talking about “money back guarantees” here. Performance guarantees, offers to continue the work until it succeeds, … are all equally valid forms of offering a strong guarantee. 

9. Offer A “Deal Sweetener”

Sometimes, all it takes to get a client over the edge is a little, tiny push. If you can, offer a “deal sweetener” of sorts. (Again, I’m not talking about an outright discount here).

What I am talking about is adding something into the mix that is of value to them, of relatively little effort to you, yet makes a significant contribution to the overall value they receive.

Is there something small that you can add into the mix, like some analysis, offering to include an additional management reporting session, run an internal workshop, conduct some ongoing reporting or a temporary increase in functionality ?

Find something that is of value to your clients, of relatively little cost to you and offer to include it into the deal at no extra charge.

10. Stay In The Drivers Seat

 Ultimately, closing the sale is no one’s responsibility but yours. It’s not your clients. It’s not your bosses’. It’s not your colleague’s. It’s not the government’s.

It’s yours.

The sooner you realize that, the better you’ll be at staying in the driver’s seat and seeing things through until the very end (which, by the way, is not the signature of the contract – but I will expand on that in another post).

In my experience, the strongest and most powerful way to increase sales wins directly is a seller who is willing to keep moving forward, keep encouraging their buyer to take action, removes all roadblocks and remaining issues until the final answer can only be – “yes”.

As a former B2B buyer, manager and senior executive, I believe many sellers’ opinions about understanding buyer behaviour are fundamentally behind the curve. Years of “traditional sales training” continue to have a (mostly negative) impact on how sellers and buyers interact.

Don’t believe me ? Let’s take a deeper look at the sales language we use on a daily basis. I am talking about things like overcoming objections, challenging your buyer, “hitting your targets”, …

I don’t know about you, but to me, that sounds a lot like we’re at war or something. This language descends down from an old style “command and control” model where the seller was in charge, and the buyer had precious little information to go on and was heavily dependent on the seller to tell them what they needed to know. This is no longer the case.

(How to) influence buyer behaviour in three key ways.

“How To Make Buyer Behaviour Work For You, Not Against You “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCDMLz3zsTo

Buyers today are much more educated, much more informed, much more aware of their options and have done massively more research before they are ever in front of the seller. In fact, our own research at RAIN Group clearly shows that “collaboration” is one of the biggest factors that buyers value from sellers.

The number one reason why buyers choose one firm over another is because the seller educated them with new ideas and perspectives.

1. Collaborate with your buyer.

But the number two reason is: because the seller collaborated with them. In other words, they made a significant contribution to the conversation. Buyers and sellers developed these new ideas and perspectives together, rather than laying them on the buyer and saying, “You know what? Here is the holy gospel. This is what I believe you should do.”

Taking a collaborative approach where you help the buyer sharpen their thinking, think through the different options, identify the potential risks and pitfalls, and together construct the best approach moving forward is definitely the way to go today.

I can’t stress how much this attitude of collaboration is valued by buyers. As a former Fortune 50 financial services executive, I have had the good fortune of working with dozens – if not hundreds – of senior executives on the buying side in a buying process.

And as a former “insider”, I can tell you that nothing works better to influence buyer behaviour by a senior executive or manager inside a large or midsized corporation than someone from the outside who is coming in, gives them an external perspective, helps them sharpen their thinking and helps them identify and address and mitigate the risks and the pitfalls they are facing.

2. Help them help themselves.

Another great way for helping the buyer along is to help them build a business case and help them make the internal sale.

This process also revolves almost entirely around collaboration. Most sellers see “developing the business case” as a process where they cook up some ROI model in a spreadsheet, and then come in and present that to the buyer.

Savvy sellers know it’s about understanding and developing an opinion of the factors, drivers, monetary and non-monetary elements – and how to combine them. Then, it’s about developing some intelligent scenarios together in terms of what a potential investment and return may look like. But doing it together, not in isolation.

Keep in mind that in today’s world, most buyers don’t have a set budget. They’ll have funds they can tap into, but rarely if ever are those allocated to something specific like the product or service that you might be selling. Rather than developing fancy ROI spreadsheets, your job is to help your buyer build the business case and help them sell it internally to their constituents.

3. Act like a valued advisor (not a salesperson).

Probably the biggest shift I have seen, in terms of what makes sellers successful in the post-recession, post-2007/2008 world is that most sellers today who are successful act like consultants – not sellers.

In other words, they adopt a collaborative approach from the start, working with their buyers towards a joint goal. I know this sounds quaint and perhaps even a little cliché, but it’s really taking that approach of “us versus the problem”, rather than “you versus me”.

Think collaboration, not confrontation. Help your buyer build a business case together and make the internal sales to their constituents, to their peers, to their management team. And finally, think and act like a consultant first, and a seller second. Three practical, easy-to-implement yet powerful ideas to help you influence buyer behaviour.