by Tom Fedro
After getting in with the company through that first product offering, my ticket got punched into a management role where I was able to leverage our new relationships at the airline to land new projects. Over time, our team convinced them to move to our desktop products for their airport installations around the world; this achievement was accomplished to the tune of more than $20 million. We were the smallest brand in the field, yet we won this major client in front of all the major players. We turned a high-pressure situation into a win, moving the initial deal from a $2 million purchase to well in excess of $20 million in revenue while developing a much deeper, long-term relationship with the airline.
Our win there demonstrates one of the major concepts I’m going to talk about, which is that in most cases you have to get out of the office to make these deals happen. You have to relate to the prospect with a personal, one-on-one approach. In this case, the deal was high profile with many people watching. We had to meet some demanding technical requirements, and that required a lot of face time with the technical team.
It is not your clients’ and prospects’ job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t forget you. – Patricia Fripp
I’ll be the first to tell you that today’s customers can be tough to reach, and that’s another reason I wrote this book. The breadth of my experience spans many years touching on more than one generation, so I’ve had to learn in the trenches to alter my tactics and develop new ways to reach prospects. We’re no longer dealing with the Me Generation; today’s contemporary customer of the Digital Age has become the “i” Generation:
isolated;
informed;
influenced.
What does that mean for today’s small software and technology companies selling high-value software? Moreover, what if you’re one of those companies that doesn’t have the marketing budgets and resources seemingly needed to make the big plays to win those sales worth half a million to one million dollars (or more)?
Before Google, it was much easier to access people and get in front of them early in the sales process. They didn’t have access to nearly as much data as they have now, so you’d be able to talk to them much earlier in the cycle. You could influence your standing in their eyes, and if you were in there first and fast, you could show them the value points, and close the deal before the competition even knew you were there.
It’s a different game today. You’re not necessarily going to have that opportunity to beat your rivals to a first meeting. Your customers will already know you and other companies with a similar offering. Sometimes your competitors are going to get in there first, and that means you’re going to have to fight for mindshare.
Your competition is everything else your prospect could conceivably spend their money on.
– Don Cooper
You must be positioned as a consultant offering value to your potential customer’s business, not just looking to sell them your particular product. You must have industry knowledge and know-how to share with them that they can use beyond your product. With so much information, though, being lobbed over the wall at today’s prospect, how do you ensure you can grab that jaded and overstimulated prospect’s attention?
Today, prospects stay in the information-gathering stage longer because they enjoy the freedom of information granted by the Internet; they can research more easily and access information sources that were once hidden or unavailable. Now, your prospects are able to gather details on your products, then slice and dice that research to figure out exactly what questions they have before they ever engage in the sales process. It may seem like a more efficient process now, but you need to be able to step in exactly where the customer needs you.
Executing a successful process comes down to the skills of your salespeople, as well as that of your marketing team in creating a relevant website and social media presence that drive engagement. Your salesperson needs to know whether to go in with a sniper or a blast mentality. It’s critical for the salesperson to understand the people they’re targeting with their message so they can go in armed with the information that grabs the prospect’s attention.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
It’s entirely possible to win those big sales despite having a budget that is either small or almost non-existent. I see it all the time. Small companies with limited resources and budgets can and do make those big plays. But how do they do it?
They undoubtedly have a few things working for them, such as
a quality, well-trained team;
a dynamic website that educates via new information;
key marketing and sales techniques.
Does that sound easy to achieve? It can be! I’ve got a process. Not only have I done it before, but I’ve worked with many small companies and helped them navigate their way to success as well. You’re going to pick up some powerful new tips, so keep reading. It’s time to unpack these ideas and discuss them in greater detail.
Let’s go!
CHAPTER 1
MEET PAM
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
– attributed to Albert Einstein
Every deal — without exception — revolves around one conceptual package, a core set of qualities that I’ve previously referred to as PAM. While she can be elusive, she must be at the table for a successful sale to take place. The three components of PAM are pain, authority and money. If you can’t find her when you’re looking at a deal, you’re probably wasting everybody’s time.
For example, consider the importance of those three pieces and how crucial it is that they all work together.
If there’s no pain, there’s no motivation to close — and no deal.
If you have pain, but the person across the desk doesn’t have the authority to make a decision — there’s no deal.
If you’ve found the pain and authority, but the prospect doesn’t have the money to move forward — you don’t have a deal.
I first met PAM in the 1990s/early 2000s when my team and I were selling large software deals in the million-dollar range (and higher). As we gained experience in our industry, various patterns came to light on the projects we won and the projects we lost. It became clear that the opportunities that we weren’t closing shared common denominators. Upon closer examination, we saw that we were always missing at least one element of PAM.
We didn’t have solid confirmation on the pain.
The cash or budget (money) wasn’t there to move forward.
We weren’t talking to the real decision makers (authority).
There was no urgency; inertia stalled progress.
There was a failure to disclose critical details or perhaps dishonesty around pain, authority and money.
Once we became aware of the patterns, we realized that closing a deal always required the presence of pain, authority and money.
When we analyzed each deal that we’d lost, one or more of those elements was missing, or else the prospective client had misled us or perhaps even lied to us — that unfortunately happens regularly. Some people aren’t comfortable telling you the truth and will lie to avoid conflict or letting you down. (While it would be much better if they were comfortable enough to admit they would not be moving forward, sometimes that doesn’t happen.)
Meeting PAM is the primary objective whenever you visit an account. There’s no better business partner than PAM, I promise you. She demands and deserves a great deal of respect because she’s always right. Locate her in every deal, make her your best friend, and you’ll win more business than ever before. Pain plus authority plus money equals your deal; you have to have all three. Like death and taxes, there’s no getting around that equation.
PAM’s business-minded. She only cares about one thing, and it’s the one equation essential to closing high-dollar agreements. PAM likes three letters — REP (revenue -
expenses = profit). Your solution or product — whatever you’re selling — has to increase revenue or decrease expenses, and hopefully both, ultimately helping your client generate measurably more profit.
I caution you that inviting PAM to the table isn’t a one-shot deal. Make sure that PAM is fully understood, confirmed, and reconfirmed throughout the sales process. Change can occur and often will as you’re working with a prospect; people come and go, or perhaps a new CEO comes on board while you’re working a sale. Be sure that for the length of the selling journey, PAM is right by your side, signaling imminent success.
→Finding the pain↓
A person’s success in life can be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. – Tim Ferriss
When it comes to large, million-dollar-plus software and technology transactions in the business world, pain is beyond the ‘nice to have’ category; it’s required for a successful sale. The kind of pain PAM requires needs to be solved and it needed to happen yesterday. When you and your prospective client have identified why they’re either losing money or missing out on making more, you’re creating a well-defined path edged with urgency that steers them toward your solution.
Hone the quality of your discovery questions to understand the depth of that pain. Identify it, codify it, and put it down on paper so everybody sees how big the pain is. Peel back the onion to determine the source of the pain. Examine what your prospect has done in the past, and why it didn’t work. Ask a whole series of questions to understand what’s causing the pain, the consequent bleeding of cash in some cases or the inability to take advantage of a market opportunity. Show the prospect how your product or service can solve their pain points.
This process might at first feel frustrating; a pull-your-hair-out part of the process that slows progress. Feel confident, though, that once you’ve uncovered pain of that magnitude, you’ll be sitting in the catbird seat. The number of eyeballs on the issue once you draw their attention to that pain will multiply. When you show that your product or service offering is going to ease that pain across their organization, you’ve significantly improved your chances of winning the business.
Remember, however, that closing the sale will invariably come down to the REP: R minus E equals P — increase revenue or decrease expenses to increase profits. Explain which part of that equation your product or service will address for your prospect.
→Finding the authority↓
Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.
– William Clement Stone
Finding the authority in your prospect’s organization could very well involve guessing to a certain extent, based on your understanding of the vertical market and the prospect’s particular spot in the ecosystem. You could guess based on an organizational chart or prior deals but ideally, your marketing department has worked closely with sales to define the ideal customer profile (See Chapter 2.) and pulled together an updated and appropriate contact database.
Be sure to do your research on those contacts once you’ve identified them. Review their profiles. You need to know that, for example, the CIO is going to be the ultimate decision maker, while his director of security software and his technical team are going to be the key influencers in selecting which offering to accept. Once you’ve identified the critical roles, make contact, and set the meeting to determine if there’s pain. Get in there and ask your discovery questions until you clearly understand who in the organization has the authority to decide in favor of your offering.
→Finding the money↓
The same wind blows on us all… It is not the blowing of the wind, but the setting of the sails that will determine our direction... – Jim Rohn
With this step, as with the others, it’s the salesperson’s job to do sufficient research before deploying significant resources in a pre-sales environment. You must ensure the cash is there. You must also understand that although the prospect has the money to move forward with your solution, you may not yet understand their particular situation affecting their financial decisions.
Make sure they understand how the money spent with you will improve their business. Establish the value you’re providing, the pain you’re eliminating and the great feeling that you’re going to provide for those stakeholders once the deal is completed. Once you’ve made it through the first two gauntlets, you have certainly earned the right to confirm that the cash is budgeted and ready to be spent on your project, and that empowers pre-sales resources to organize for the next step in the process.
During the discovery process, you will have already identified the pain and the associated cost with the prospects you approach, so the price shouldn’t be a scary discussion at that point. Instead, it’s a brilliant opportunity to review with your prospect how much money they’re going to save over time by using your product.
Don’t sell life insurance. Sell what life
insurance can do. – Ben Feldman
Case study: Rogers Communications
The Hail Mary
Rogers Communications is a Toronto-based innovator in communications services that offers wireless services to more than 10.1 million subscribers, along with cable television, telephone, Internet and home monitoring. They also provide business communications services, and strive to bring world-class innovations to their customers.
The company’s pain was their need for a software platform to monitor their wireless network for fraudulent users. The company was losing revenue and wasting their airtime on illegal, fraudulent subscribers. Those fraudsters would use sophisticated equipment to capture a phone number right out of the air and put it into another device for use on the network — a cloned phone. They got away with free usage, wasting valuable airtime, while the customer got hit with the bill.
The level of fraudulent activity soon became a nightmare for everybody involved, including customer service, the consumer and the revenue assurance team responsible for making sure the cash was collected. This was real pain that Rogers (as well as every major wireless network provider in the world) was facing. Rogers needed a software platform to monitor their wireless network and flag fraudulent users for immediate termination.
The authority to make the decision had risen to the CEO of the company, but the people making the recommendation of which vendor to choose were the technical and end-user evaluators in the revenue assurance department. They were tasked with seeing how our product (and competing offerings) would integrate with their existing systems, and how comfortable their users would be interacting with the product. The project lead and procurement confirmed the money to pay for the project as the pain had become acute. PAM was definitely in the building!
Unfortunately, the technical team chose a competitor’s product and recommended it to senior management and the CEO instead of ours. We asked why the decision went the other way, but our many queries went unanswered after months of hard work. We were confident that our solution was the best fit, and decided to pull out all the stops and throw the Hail Mary pass.
We created a compelling communication to the CEO, pointing out our top position in the market while sharing more details on how many of his peers and competitors were using our solution. We provided deep industry insights that we had shared with the evaluation team but felt might not have made it to the executive suite. Our compelling communication was the key to reopening the opportunity and getting us back in the door for more detailed discussions (with the CEO’s blessing). Ultimately, we won the business, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!
Lessons learned
You have to build relationships at the executive level, as well as the technical evaluation level and the mid-management level. Having senior-level visibility is what lands the big deals in many cases. It’s always best to have a multilevel approach throughout the deal-making process. In this case, we should have been in the executive suite with PAM earlier in the process. A win is a win,
however, and as Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never give up.” That Hail Mary letter was the key to great success for the team and was worth well in excess of $1 million in net new revenue for the company.
The three components of PAM are
pain, authority and money.
If there’s no pain, there’s no motivation to close — and no deal.
If you have pain, but the person across the desk doesn’t have the authority to make a decision — there’s no deal.
If you’ve found the pain and authority, but the prospect doesn’t have the money to move forward — you don’t have a deal.
Closing a deal requires the presence of
pain, authority and money.
CHAPTER 2
A MILLION-DOLLAR
FRAMEWORK
Prospecting — find the man with the problem.
– Ben Friedman
There are eight critical steps to finding PAM and building long-term relationships — and those steps make up what we call a million-dollar framework. It’s vital that you comprehend and internalize each part of this framework.
Identify the ideal customer profile.
Engage the prospect.
Ask quality questions to establish the pain.
Establish the authority.
Ensure the money is there.
Create a compelling proposal.
Implementation
Growth and renewal
1. Identify the ideal customer profile (ICP).
The ICP is a relatively well-understood concept, so let’s dive straight into discussing the ICP as it relates to PAM. Consider the look of the ideal customer in your industry. Examine metrics, such as the size of the company by revenue and employee count, their vertical market, geographic location and which vendors they currently use. Are they growing or shrinking? Who are their competitors? Once you’ve roughed out a profile, you can create a database of prospects. (See Chapter 3.)