What salespeople need to bring to the table in this modern era of sales is significantly different from what they needed to bring in the past. In the past, success was driven by hard work, forging lots of relationships, and having numerous prospects in the pipeline, but that is no longer sufficient.
Below are three tactics sellers need to master to win in this new era of selling.
1) Secure an Executive Sponsor
Having an executive sponsor means you have secured the right level of oversight and motivation to see a successful execution of the buying process. It doesn’t guarantee that you will win, but it does increase the chances that you will be able to move the prospect further down the buying process. So what is an executive sponsor? An executive sponsor is someone within the prospect company who has the authority to make the purchase decision, has the ability to pull together the necessary people to participate in the sales process, and has a problem you can solve.
2) Get the Right People at the Table
If you’re going to be effective in the world of large account sales, then you have to become comfortable with larger numbers—not just the larger economic scale of a deal, but also the larger number of people involved. If you do not bring all of the necessary people to the table from both sides, somewhere in the selling process, a stakeholder from the prospect company not at the table will pull the handbrake. Your job is to get the right people on both sides of the equation to the table, communicating the right things, in the right order, to solve the right problem.
3) Appeal to the bigger problem.
One of the best ways to get organizations to commit resources to the table is to make certain that they see the size of the problem and the urgency to solve it as being significant enough to become an “A-List” priority. It is your responsibility to frame the impact of the problem by showing the buyer organization the pain that would result from not taking action now. If the answer is, “We can always do this later,” you can suspect that the real answer is, “We will always do this later.” Postponing a choice, decision, or commitment of resources is easier than saying an outright no.
Want to learn more about how to grow in this new era of sales? Keep an eye out for the upcoming book: Life After the Death of Selling: How to Thrive in the New Era of Sales.
