Archive for March 26th, 2009
Q&A: How Important are Relationships to Selling?
Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.
Q: How important are relationships in selling? Are they the only reason people buy, a prerequisite or not that big of a deal? I understand that some customer’s do make a buying decision in our favor, but is it the 80/20 rule or relationships?
A: A relationship could be critical to your success or of absolutely no value. In my opinion it depends on where the customer places value in a given situation.
For example, I have bought products from sales professionals that brought a lot of knowledge I valued, but did not like them or care to see them again. The value of their knowledge drove the transaction, not the relationship.
I have bought products from sales professionals that I had a great relationship with where the product was average to not as good, in retrospect, I suppose because I placed more value on extending the relationship than I did the product.
I have also bought products that I was enamored with and placed so much value in having that I bought them regardless of the sales process/relationship or the professional.
So, speaking just for myself, a strong enough desire for the product, or the value I place in that product, can render a relationship unimportant to me. (Unless I think I am going to need support or handholding to get the full value out of the product.)
Otherwise, the importance I place on a relationship is directly proportional to my perceived need for that relationship in finding, acquiring and implementing the end product or service.
Hope that makes sense. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
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Lessons Learned from an ERP Implementation that went Sideways
Two minutes into a conversation with a good friend, who works for a major national insurance provider, our casual banter took a sharp turn into a series of rants about the technology industry, incompetent sales professionals, ignorant project managers and grossly inadequate deployment teams.
I had some time to spare so I just listened until finally she took a deep breath, blinked, looked up at me and said “Sorry about that.”
Two years ago her company decided to gut their technology infrastructure and start over with a major ERP software package. The plan was to completely integrate their organization in one mass of technology and human efficiency. Unfortunately, two years later it was still a work in progress, and missed milestones were being measured in quarters, not days or weeks.
I am certain the account management team thought they had struck gold landing this marquis account, and were already looking for ways to leverage this win into their next opportunity. In actuality, all they have really struck is one big fat nerve that has an entire organization throwing them under the bus at every opportunity.
So what turned a fantastic win for the sales team and the entire company into a life sucking vortex?
In a word, implementation.
When the implementation team began mapping the existing processes in the organization to mirror in the software they made one fundamental mistake that derailed the entire project on day 1.
They built their process map primarily from the information collected from executive and departmental management not the actual people doing the work. The only input from the front line users came by way of survey forms.
If they would have interviewed the front line team members and mapped their work processes then confirmed with management and integrated new efficiencies, moving to pilot phase and final implementation would have been a much simpler affair.
So what is the lesson? Account Managers, stay engaged until deployment is complete because you have a vested interest in things going well as a hunter or farmer. What should have been a great sales win leading to many more for this team is instead a disaster they cannot shovel dirt over fast enough. The next big mistake would be to bury this, you should parade this “loss” and the lessons learned, but that is a different post.
Sales Managers, the impact of this cluster will never show up directly on a forecast, but it can be an invisible force working against your team morale, your ability to leverage future sales, and your reputation. Watch for the signs as you performance manage your sales team, evaluate their forecasts and committed numbers for the next few quarters. I would advise pushing for bigger committed numbers over the next several quarters to counter any fallout or delays this black eye might introduce.
For the implementation side? Simple analogy. Design the new wrench based on what the guy who actually uses the wrench says he needs, not what his manager, a guy that will never use the wrench, says he needs.
