The only way that the sales process can get implemented is through communication with the customer. Salespeople usually think of this dialogue as sitting in front of the customer and telling the story face-to-face. Being able to see and feel the impact of the conversation, good or bad, provides the best way to adjust tactics midstream if needed. But a complex sale can’t be conducted face-to-face through its entirety.

OPM defines a couple of distinctly different types of interactions: one-way and two-way. Two-way interactions are where both customer and salesperson are involved in conversation in real time. This happens in face-to-face or phone conversation. One-way interactions are just that–sending an email, letter, or fax is one-way. Sometimes, it is acknowledged with a reply, in which case it becomes two-way.

One-way interactions can also be important in the sales process. A customer’s time will always limit the number of face-to-face or phone conversations that are possible, so it is much easier to get material in front of the customer if the interaction is one-way.

Both one-way and two-way interactions can be of high-value to a salesperson, because they make up a key component of any strategic planning process. Top level strategy is always played out in conversation between customer and salesperson, and that conversation happens through interactions.

–Excerpt from OPM: Opportunity Portfolio Management, the upcoming book.

Giving a sales demo is hard work. Giving a really good sales demo is even harder, especially if you don’t know what makes a demo good. A great way to learn how to give good sales demos is to experience some from the buyer’s perspective.

I just sat through a demo that was given to me by a  sales rep from another company. We are looking for some 3rd party solutions and I have been reviewing different options extensively.

At the beginning of the call, the rep told me that he wanted the demo to be as much of an interactive demo as possible. But saying that doesn’t make it so.

The demo was an hour long. And it felt long, because it was clear that the salesperson was reading a script. He was simply following through a tour of all of his product’s features. When I had a question, I had to interrupt him. He would then give a quick answer and launch back into his script. Many of the features he showed me were not even features that I was interested in, and he would have known that if he had taken the time to ask. After all, I was not looking for a description of what their product can do, I needed to know if their product could solve the problems I was trying to solve.

One hour later, I still didn’t know if their product could help me. The salesperson had wasted an hour of his and my time, and I knew little more than I already knew from reading their website. He was no further along in his selling process because he hadn’t helped me further my buying process.

So, if you want to give good sales demos, just ask the customer what they want to see. Know your product inside and out so that you can answer their questions, but don’t just give them a tour. Understand the problems they are trying to solve and then show them how your product can solve those problems.

In OPM, we call these the Probing and Proving phases of the sales cycle. In your early interactions with a customer, most of your efforts should be in Probing them to understand what they are trying to accomplish. Only then can you Prove that your products can solve their problems. You can’t write a script for a good sales demo, because a good sales demo is a conversation with a real person who has a unique set of goals.

Although he didn’t intend it this way, Newton’s law on action and reaction works well when we try to unravel the sales process. The sales process is a reaction to the buying process.

The mantra of “the customer comes first,” leads to the conclusion that the deliberate steps defining the buying process should initiate responses from the salesperson that form the sales process. The OPM Sales Methodology works on the assumption that the sales process is a reaction to the buying process.

If the buyer is concerned, understand the concern and work to eliminate it. If the customer wants to know more, provide the information and explain it. If the customer wants proof, provide the evidence and references to back it up. If the customer wants a better deal, reconstruct the deal and prove that it is better.

Cause and effect, give and take, push and pull, action and reaction—whatever you want to call it, the salesperson has to be adaptable to every nuance of the customer’s process and any change in direction it may take.

–Excerpt from OPM: Opportunity Portfolio Management, the upcoming book.

We have all sat through our share of boring training courses, designed around disseminating vast amounts of information to as many people as possible, and in as little time as possible, without any thought of incorporating the attendees’ past experiences, or providing individualized attention to attendees who need more support, or who crave more of a challenge.

This won’t work in the sales training setting. There are a great many inspirational speakers who can deliver a rousing talk to a large audience, but is this training? Are you actually developing skills in this setting? In order to learn and really get something out of a sales training course, you need to be engaged: you need to be a participant, not an attendee.

A good sales trainer should offer a course that can motivate, engage, and involve the participants. Instead of being lectured to, they should participate actively in their own learning. The trainer should work with the participants to help them understand that sales training is a skills development course that can not only help them in their day-to-day tasks, but help them down a path of life-long improvement with practical sales skills that they can use every day.

There is an interesting Answers discussion thread on LinkedIn asking, “What impact does sales training typically have on a group of sales reps?” There are many responses citing how most of what we learn is forgotten within a few days, and that salespeople go back to what they were doing before and lose what they’ve learned because there is no recurring reinforcement of what the course taught them.

This is a major concern, considering that $5 billion is spent annually in the US on sales training. What’s your ROI on sales training if this money is mostly going to waste?

This is why at SalesWays we believe in integrated methodology training: sales training based on a method that you’ll actually use each day through software tools that make your life as a sales person or manager easier. Depending on your needs, we also offer consultation follow-ups to measure success and ensure that things are running smoothly on an on-going basis.

This is how we ensure a return on your sales training investment. Why would you settle for any less?

Successful salespeople won’t often dissect the dynamics of the sales environment, and what they do within the environment, but most will agree that there are two sides to selling: using sales skills to make a sale, and using people skills to make a sale.

We call these opportunity focus, and relationship focus; the two dimensions of selling.

Opportunity Focus

Salespeople need to know how to sell. Through experience and trial and error over many years, experts have developed the science that governs a winning sales process. There are countless interpretations; hundreds of books have been written describing it, and literally millions of successful salespeople have been weaned on it. Knowing how to sell—using proven rules and experience—that’s opportunity focus.

Relationship Focus

In the sales opportunity, both customer and salesperson pit their skills against each other. The customer wants the best deal, and the salesperson who wants to win the sale without compromising their company’s profitability. The selling process has a large element of negotiation about it, and all aspects of the process create tension. Relationships, if they can be struck, used, and sustained through the sale, can ease the tension. Leveraging interpersonal skills is the other dimension of selling, and that’s relationship focus.

The key to being a successful salesperson is not just using one or the other—it’s blending both, and also knowing when to shift focus from one to another.

–Excerpt from OPM: Opportunity Portfolio Management, the upcoming book.

SalesWays Brazil is conducting their second OPM Sales Methodology Workshop on May 25, 2010 from 9:30 to 5:30 pm.

2nd Open Workshop – “Opportunity Portfolio Management”

What makes the difference between success and mediocrity: gaining extensive knowledge about your products or the mere acquisition of the best CRM on the market? No, today you need more than just product knowledge and customer information.

To guarantee success you must be able to derive maximum value from your portfolio of opportunities. Success in sales depends on a rediscovery of the fundamentals of selling.

Do not miss the date is 05/25/2010, 09:30 to 17:30.

- SalesWays Brazil Team

For more information, visit SalesWays Brazil

The objective of the Opportunity Portfolio Management sales methodology is to unlock the potential in the overall portfolio of sales opportunities. To do this, each opportunity must be valued; once a value is established, salespeople can correctly apply their resources, most importantly their time. The most valued opportunities will be those most likely to be won, given appropriate attention. This caveat is important!

At first glance, valuing a sales opportunity may seem straightforward, but it isn’t. Putting effort into a one million-dollar deal at the expense of a twenty thousand dollar deal may not be the best way to go. There are many important factors other than dollar value that can, and do, come into play.

The attention given to one sale might be at the expense of something else, because there is only so much time to go around. The ability to administer sufficient attention to each opportunity is the only way for the salesperson to get the best out of their portfolio. Some opportunities may need a lot of attention, and others, hardly any.

If you are not valuing your opportunities properly, and therefore investing your efforts optimally, you could be losing out overall.

Will technology ever make the salesperson obsolete? In short, absolutely not.

This is a common refrain at every step in technological advancement. Back in the late 1990s, there were whispers of how Internet technology would remove the salesperson from the transaction between buyer and seller. Now, over a decade later, we know that is not the case.

For the buyer, Internet technology allows them to conduct research on their own (with popular and trusted review websites like CNET, and Consumer Reports), and go through early phases of their buying cycle without contacting any vendors.

But technology also plays a big role in helping the salesperson achieve their goals. Advances in technology help salespeople reach prospective customers better, and provide the tools to manage a salesperson’s day-to-day workload.

Technology is neither the buyer, nor the salesperson’s enemy; it facilitates both the buying and selling process. In fact, technology is even right at the core of what we do here at SalesWays. The sales tools we develop at SalesWays allow salespeople to expand their opportunity portfolio, driving up overall value, and bringing them the results they are looking for.

So, technology is not going to replace the salesperson or leave them behind; for those adopting the best tools, technology will propel them even further toward their goals.

Salespeople usually get trained by “learning on the job.” Depending on who’s teaching, that may be OK, but it often leads to non-conformity of understanding from one salesperson to another. As salespeople move around, they find that they have little in common with their fellows as far as understanding the fundamental language of the sale.

Without formal academic teaching, the language of sales has developed in a distorted way. Even some of the most commonly used words, such as opportunity, can be understood differently from one salesperson to another. Some are convinced that an opportunity is a lead, an indication that someone may be interested in your product. Others say that the opportunity really doesn’t have any bite until there is concrete evidence that the customer is serious about buying something, such as when a request for a proposal arrives.

If the latter idea is taken to the extreme, opportunities are not recognized until late into the customer’s buying process–this is not a good way to sell against competition who know better.