Legalistic Language as a Sales Killer

Two of my sons are lawyers, so I have respect and affection for the profession.

That being said, I have often felt that lawyers see their role primarily as sales prevention. In an effort to keep the company out of trouble, to avoid lawsuits or losses, some lawyers seem to think it's a good idea to avoid doing any business at all.

Be vigilant. Legalistic language will kill your proposal. Fight for your right to write clearly.

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Legalistic Language as a Sales Killer

Suppose you were reading the cover letter sitting on top of a proposal and saw this statement:

"All assumptions are considered preliminary until the final proposal, SOW and vendor management responsibilities for each study is approved."

Would that sentence make you feel confident that the vendor will stand by what they are proposing? Or do they already seem to be looking for wiggle room?

Or how about this sentence, also from a cover letter:

"Nothing in this proposal should be construed as a promise to deliver nor a binding commitment until such time as contractual terms have been finalized."

Both of these sentences really appeared in proposals. No doubt the author thought he or she was protecting the company's interests. In reality, they were probably killing the opportunity.

Legalistic language has a negative tone. It typically uses passive voice sentence structures. And it sometimes leaves us wondering what they really mean?

Look at the first example again. The first verb, "are considered," is ambiguous. By whom? Maybe the customer doesn't consider them preliminary. And what about the verb at the end, "is approved"? Again, by whom?

A writer could make the same basic point and sound a lot less negative by rewriting it to put the emphasis on the positive. For example, "After both you and we have approved the final proposal, SOW, and vendor management responsibilities for each study, we can finalize all of the assumptions, too."

As for the second example, I don't know how to fix it. Basically it's telling the customer that we won't stand by anything until we're happy with the contract. Can you think of a positive way to say that?

Seven Magic Questions

Asking the right questions is more important in sales than having the best answers.

Don't think so? Well, consider this: if you're going to sell a solution, you need to know what your customer thinks the problem is. Otherwise you'll never be taken seriously as a problem solver. And there's just no way to find out what the customer thinks unless you ask.

In fact, there are seven important questions that can help you get the most out of each opportunity. Ask them…and then listen to the answers! You'll be amazed how your customer relationships improve and how your win ratio goes up.

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Seven Magic Questions
How to Improve Your Win Ratio by Selling Value Instead of Price

There are lots of consultative sales methods around. You may have been trained in one, or read a book about one, that you particularly like.

Each has its unique strengths and techniques. But they all have at least one thing in common. They try to get sales people to focus on what matters to the customer. You build sales momentum by demonstrating that you are delivering an important solution to an important problem. That is the essence of all these consultative methodologies.

To be able to create a client-centered solution - and to be able to write a client-centered proposal - there are seven questions you must be able to answer.

Oddly enough, lots of people try to write proposals without knowing the answers to even half of these questions. That makes it impossible to create a message that sounds "right" to the buyer.
Here are the seven questions. Make sure your sales people uncover the answers, make sure every proposal and sales presentation is based on them, and you'll win a lot more business.

1. What is the client's problem?
Look beyond the obvious. Your contact in the customer organization may describe the problem in terms that are specific to his or her interests. An IT manager sees the lack of on-line access to customer account information as a data integrity problem. To the vice president of sales, it's a revenue problem, because it's keeping the sales force from separating good clients from the not-so-good.

2. Why is it a problem?
Who is affected by this problem? How are they affected? Try to trace the links as high up the organizational ladder as possible to get a sense of how big the pain is. This will also indicate who else may need to be part of the decision team.

3. What objectives does the client have in mind for a successful solution?
How will the client measure success? In terms of business or financial performance? In terms of improvements in the technology infrastructure? Or in terms of customer loyalty or employee morale? Each of these areas - business results, technical outcomes, and social relationships - is potentially important. Which leads us to the next question:

4. Which of those objectives is most important?
They may all be important, but which one matters the most? This tells you two things: First, it tells you the order in which to put your presentation of key outcomes. You want to put the customer's most important outcome first. That way, the customer will think that you think the way they think. Second, knowing which objective is most important tells you where to look to develop your value proposition. You want to base your ROI or other presentation of value on what matters the most to the customer.

5. What are the ways we can solve the client's problem?
Usually there's more than one way to solve a particular problem. If you're having trouble with how long it's taking your sales force to write sales proposals, for example, I could recommend software to automate the process, training to improve their skills, or a combination.

6. What are the probable outcomes from each potential solution?
Any of the potential solutions might take care of the problem. The important issue is what kind of outcome the customer will get. Will it match up to their expectations for a positive result? Will it meet their criteria?

7. Which solution is best?
Based on the answers to the previous six questions, we should be able to answer the final question. It should be fairly obvious which solution meets the needs and delivers the results the customer desires most.
Trying to write a proposal or make a sales presentation without knowing the answers to these questions is like competing in an archery contest blindfolded. You might hit the bullseye occasionally. But you're just as likely to shoot yourself in the foot.

You can find out more at our site, http://www.santcorp.com/?c1=newsletter&source=MTM. You're also welcome to call us at 888-448-7268 (USA) or +44 (0) 870 734 7778 (UK).

Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

Do you remember Leo Durocher? He was inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1994. He was a shortstop and second baseman for the Yankees, Reds, Cardinals, and Dodgers, and was the manager of the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, among other teams.

But he's probably best remembered for one cynical comment: "Nice guys finish last."

Do they? Can a sales person or a company win while behaving ethically, or does winning require sleazy behavior? That's our topic this time.

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Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

Here are five easy questions. Answer them for yourself. Nobody's reading your mind:

1. If you were very confident that the customer would never find out you had lied, would you do it?
2. Have you ever told a customer that your product has features or functions that it really doesn't have to close a deal?
3. If you knew those features or functions were in development and would probably be available in a couple of months, would you tell the customer that they were already in the product?
4. Have you ever told a lie or made a misleading statement about your competitors or your competitors' product so that the customer wouldn't look at them?
5. Have you ever told a lie to a customer in order to win business?
   

The point of these questions is obvious. Sometimes when we're trying to close business, we may be tempted to stretch, shrink, hide, or otherwise handle the truth like a piece of Silly Putty.

It happens. We're all human.

The more interesting question is how you feel about it. What kind of dialogue do you have with yourself to justify acting that way?

When you recall instances where you misled or misinformed a customer (assuming that ever happened!), do you wince a little bit? Or are you actually kind of proud of your ability to get away with it?

Sometimes, in an attempt to quiet a disturbed conscience, people will tell themselves that business is "war," a form of "survival of the fittest," a competitive domain that is "red in tooth and claw." They resort to a variety of metaphors to justify savage or inhuman behavior.

Is it true? Is sales a form of combat? Is business a form of predatory behavior?

Hardly. Business is a form of social interaction. Comparing it to war demeans the experience of anyone who has actually experienced war. Sales is no more inherently a form of combat than shopping. Yeah, it requires a competitive instinct, but not dishonorable behavior.

So why do people lie and cheat? From what I've seen, when people are desperate, when they doubt their own skills, or when they believe their products and services are inferior to their competition's offerings, they have two choices: improve their situation or resort to lies and deception. For some people, lying and cheating looks easier than fixing the problem.

And sometimes it works. The reality is that people who lie and cheat sometimes do win.

But it doesn't work indefinitely. Eventually, what goes around comes around. After all, how many lies does it take before customers begin to catch on? Before the buzz begins to build?

And even Leo Durocher, who supposedly said "Nice guys finish last," really didn't think decent, ethical behavior and winning were incompatible. After all, it was Leo who faced down members of the Brooklyn Dodgers when they rebelled against playing with Jackie Robinson.

The challenge is to find a balance among our competitive instincts (our drive to win), our ethical standards (our sense of honesty, mainly), and our company's short-term interests (closing the deals). And, of course, the ultimate challenge is to find a way to conduct ourselves so that we don't wince with shame when we look in the mirror.

You'll find the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth at our website, www.santcorp.com. You're also welcome to call us at 888-478-7628 (USA) or +44 (0) 1329 227535 (UK).

Sales Productivity: Where Do Sales People Spend Their Time?

Sales productivity is one of the hot topics of recent years. Unfortunately, there's generally been more heat than illumination.

But George Smith used the principles of total quality management to analyze sales processes. He found out where the "average" sales person is spending time and how to eliminate some of the waste. We've summarized his findings in the accompanying message. How do you think his numbers compare to your sales team?

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Sales Productivity: Where Do Sales People Spend Their Time?

How do sales people spend their time? How many hours do they work and how much of that effort is productive?

In Sales Productivity Measurement, published by ASQC Quality Press, George A. Smith, Jr. summarizes research from a variety of sources. He found that the average sales person works 47 hours a week, but the majority of that time was spent on non-selling activities. In fact, Smith suggests that 50% might be a conservative estimate of non-selling time.

A typical distribution of effort looks like this:

These numbers suggest that only 40% of a typical sales person's time is spent in direct customer contact.

New technology may eliminate some of the need for traveling. Using Internet-based presentation systems, sales people can make presentations in real time, talking with one or many prospects over the telephone while everybody has the same information displayed interactively on their computers.

But for many sales people, travel will always be necessary. It's going to be difficult to sell a big ticket solution without some face-to-face contact. Instead, the big gain will come from eliminating or slashing the amount of time spent on labor-intensive activities, particularly the creation of proposals and presentations.

In fact, I think in a few years it will seem as silly to do proposals and presentations the old-fashioned way, cutting and pasting and writing by hand, as it would be to go back to typewriters.

To learn more ways to improve sales force productivity through automation, visit us at www.santcorp.com.