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B2B Sales

Things will never be the same.

August 11, 2019

As a Sales & Business Development Consultant, I was in meetings with Business Owners, Managing Directors, Executive Directors, who raised often the same concern: “We have done our SWOT analysis, created a great value proposition, offer outstanding quality, established solid-proof processes and still we fail to reach our sales-numbers and acquire new customers.!” Indeed, one of those frustrating moments in executives careers. 

Before tackling a potential root-cause of this nightmare, we need to take a step back. As I mentioned in previously posts, the business models have seriously changed over the past 5 years. The digital era and the current world economy has enabled small- and mid-sized companies to expand their sales territory from nationwide to worldwide. So, the competition can come from un-expected sides! Keep this in mind once you are executing your SWOT analysis.

Anyways, back to the issue. Almost all B2B business transactions are done between humans, that’s a fact. What many executives of companies forget, is the basic rule of “doing business” is based on trust, not only price! In order to establish trust, you need to create a business relationship with your potential customer. Like in any relationship, this means: start to know each other, have very regular contact, discuss different subjects, … and finally start to trust each other. There is a brilliant quote from Zig Ziglar.

“If people like you,
They’ll listen to you.
But if they trust you,
they’ll do business with you.” 

Zig Ziglar

It is the responsibility of the Sales Account Manager to ensure that he or she and their supporting team have the capability to bring new, valuable information during each step of the Account Sales Plan. Initially, the Sales Manager’s key-research goal: what topic(s) or risk(s) keeps the customer awake at night! Only the sales manager will be able to create a detailed strategic Account Plan, which is a “must-have” for each sales person! Do not under-estimate this task! This requires a significant time of preparing your “homework” thoroughly. It is the Sales Manager’s task to bring his company from a “Commodity Supplier” towards the status of “Trusted Advisor”. Just be aware that this road is not easy and requires attention to details and ultimate cooperation between all members within the sales-cycle (both from vendor as customer side). 

The road from “Commodity Supplier” towards the status of “Trusted Advisor” 

Mobirise

We need to remember an important point: People are buying services or products to solve a problem, make their company more efficient, become more competitive and many other reasons. So, the main goal is to see an improvement in their financial bottom-line numbers. If you want to reach the goal of becoming a “trusted Advisor”, the sales manager needs to focus on use-cases and solution-selling, not purely technical specs. And this topic is where lots of sales people fail. The main topic of many company presentations are focused mainly on technical specifications, company profiles and not so much on the solution you can bring as a vendor. So, we all need to re-think how we will present ourselves and our company. Make your presentation intriguing so your audience will not loosing focus after 2 minutes. To create an astonishing presentation, start with the question “Not WHAT, but WHY am I selling this product to my prospect?” and tell your answer with a story. For the simple reason; “Why” you sell, is only the enabler of “What” you sell! Keep this in mind. 

“Why” you sell, is only the enabler of “What” you sell!

Ouch! This thinking pattern is very different of how most of us do business. But sales managers must take ownership and control the entire sales-cycle. If they don’t, I compare them with the “Blindfolded businessperson shooting arrows and missed the target”. Most often, they don’t even know why they missed an opportunity. 

Mobirise

Credit Picture: https://www.123rf.com/photo_69822842_stock-vector-blindfolded-businessman-shooting-arrow-missed-the-target-.html

As a business owner, you do not have the time to loose more projects and new customers. Training and education of your sales team is mandatory and the first step to bigger success. Selecting a Sales / Business Development Consultant is a critical phase in your success story. The external consultant must take the time to engage with each sales person individually and also with the supporting teams inside the company. Each department within the company plays some kind of role in the sales engagement with customers. The creation of a 360 degrees theatrical view of both inside-out as outside-in perspectives is extremely valuable to improve all segments within the sales process. The goal is simple; The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
I will provide more details in one of my future posts on the advantages of this Sales / Business Development Consultancy training. 

Anyways, this post is only the start of a series of posts (and probably videos) which will cover individual topics about sales processes and techniques. Just to share with you some preliminary list of topics: Create a Prospect Profile Map, Strategic Account Plan, Prepare Presentation, Go-To-Market Strategy Conduct Meetings and follow-up, Contract Negotiations, Sales / Business Development Consultancy training and many more interesting topics.



I hope some of the concepts above, made you start thinking about improvements in your sales-processes. If there might be anything I could support you with, feel free to contact me.


LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/b2b-sales-luke-van-lierop






The Ultimate Quest to Succes.

August 25, 2018

The road to success is long and not easy. Obviously, tough decisions need to be taken in a very fast changing business environment.
 
Although, do we always take a very good, objective look at all the business intelligence data available to make a profound decision? Is the information based on different perspectives of the problem? For sure, these decisions will impact the future of our company. Often, the data is prepared within the company by a team of knowledgeable people. It may happen that the retrieved information is viewed from “inside-out”, not always from “outside-in”, which can create a completely different perspective on the problem to be solved. Based on my experience, hiring an executive consultant, with a deep knowledge of sales, marketing, business development, strategic roadmap-ping and of course the market circumstances, is a great investment for many companies. This “outsider” can provide an objective outside-in view without relying on the habits of a specific market or company. 
 
Companies are spending significant amounts of money on executive training, conferences and exhibitions and many well-defined sales courses to accomplish higher profitability and revenue. Even though, it is rather a challenge to calculate the ROI on some of these programs. It is unlikely that a budget is allocated in the annual financial plan for a consultancy. Notwithstanding the fact that these consultancies can bring significant value to multiple segments of the business: for example creation of a Business Development Plan, Strategic Value Proposition, a new Business Model, Transformation and many more. An advantage is the fact that these external people will bring often a non-conventional view on your business and/or processes. Obviously, new ideas will need dedicated attention by the executive team for adjustment and implementation. It is indeed a long path, but remember, if you don’t fail, you are not even trying. One of the basic rules of creating a new business model is based, is greatly explained in the following quote: To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did!*

If you don’t fail, you are not even trying

Over the years, I have been very interested in corporate decision processes and I am trying to learn from the mistakes. In some cases, I don’t have access to all data on which the decision is made, but I am always asking myself how the market intelligence was presented to the decision makers … . I read recently two remarkable articles of companies who were the market leaders in their industry many years ago: Nokia and Yahoo (links below). Today, they are hardly noticeable and most youngsters don’t even know them. I always ask myself if during the decision process, those companies had an outsider as advisor. Somebody who had another perspective, another view on the company, the market and the future of the industry… . 

Nokia refused Android // https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/12/elop-explains-nokia-android
 
Yahoo refused Google // https://finance.yahoo.com/news/remember-yahoo-turned-down-1-132805083.html

The past several years, I have been assisting partners, friends and business associates to stimulate them to differentiate their business models significantly. It ain’t easy, but certainly worthwhile! 
 
Good luck to all of you during your ultimate quest to success! 

Resources: * Denzel Washington - Fall Forward
LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ultimate-quest-succes-luke-van-lierop/



Technology Innovation and Market consolidation.

October 2, 2017

My main purpose of posting this article is to hear from business leaders, how their industry is evolving due to technology innovations, market consolidations and so many more influences on existing business models. Do you see similarities in your markets as well as the one I will describe below?
 
Looking at the telecommunication industry for over two decades, we all do agree that this landscape has changed significantly. Not to mention the consolidation of the network operators, but innovative solutions are entering the telecommunication networks in a rapid pace.
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Turning back the time for only a few years, the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) industry was a reasonable, profitable business. The value proposition was a mix between hardware and software to enable consumer’s broadband connections. Although, the software part did not played a large role in the price negotiations. But times are a-changing. Several influences have change this market into a harsh business environment. Market consolidation (“Economics of Scale” principle: large volumes = low prices) and an industry movement towards hardware and software separation (cfr. RDK-B (Reference Design Kit for Broadband) concept within the CPE industry). 
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Referring to the network operator product strategy, there is an imminent separation of hardware and software, for obvious reasons; the economics and significant operational advantages are reflecting tremendous savings. In my opinion, HaaS (Hardware-as-a-Service) will become a very low value-added model, but creating a full portfolio of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) can only bring the real value for a sustainable business. 
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Those vendors, with a limited product portfolio, are facing tremendous challenges to maintain a healthy sustainable business and necessary resources for designing the next technologies into their products. It is inevitable for them to expand their portfolio, but change is difficult, sometimes even terrifying. Often we see decisions made to enlarge their portfolio and invest into an existing market. Unfortunately with the similar results compared with their current business model: over-crowded market which results into a fast price-erosion sequence … a vicious circle. 

Technology Innovation and Market consolidation ...

Changing your Business Model is Inevitable!

There are several good books and articles available, for example the implementation of the “Blue Ocean Strategy” (authors: W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne), although this require a full support from each level within the company and profound knowledge of the customer’s needs.
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I am always very excited to read that well-established companies taking a shift into a disruptive value proposition which is definitely encouraging for all executives out there, who are preparing the implementation of a completely new business model within their organisation. 
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I believe that the ultimate goal for each CEO is to expand their portfolio into a software driven model. To close this posting, I wanted to share with you a very interesting article I recently read from Mr. Timothy Chou, who is a lecturer at Stanford University. (Link: https://disruptionhub.com/why-should-you-care-about-the-iot/ ). This article reflects more then just an IoT strategy, but also a deeper involvement of hardware manufacturers with their Products’s lifecycle and Operational support, which could be a game-changer for many companies out there. 
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Resources: LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technology-innovation-market-consolidation-changing-your-van-lierop/


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