1. Sharpening Your Competitive Selling Skills
Larry matte, SCORE Counselor,
Co-founder: Cyber Marketing Services

2. “We Can Provide You With 650 Channels of Entertainment”

3. So What!

4. You Always Have Competition!

5. What’s Critical Focus - beware of distractions
Business and marketing plans – implementation critical
Create value added
Key benefits – differentiation – know your competition
Enthusiasm

6. Defining Your Market Big Enough? Narrow Enough?
Need to Have vs Must Have
Cost of Market Entry
Sales Channels – Direct/Partners/Distribution

7. Defining Your Market
ROI
Market Trends
Repeat Business
Scalability

8. Criteria for Unique Benefits
Match Target Audience
Your Strengths vs Competitors’ Strengths
Your Weaknesses vs Competitors’ Weaknesses

9. Criteria for Unique Benefits
What are the substantial objections?
Are they deal breakers?

10. Competition
Who Wins?

11. The Basics
Establish credibility – knowledge, language, professionalism
Be consultative – sell solutions
Strategize with associates – what works, what doesn’t
Measure results
Provide high quality customer service – repeat business, referrals

12. The Basics Don’t chase bad business Be concise Don’t assume – ASS U ME
Be yourself!
Dress appropriately

13. Prospecting Define greatest strengths – uniqueness
Define target audiences – establish criteria; identify key contacts and titles
References

14. Prospecting Where are the prospects?
Competitive sites, Google alerts, industry directories, conferences/directories, associations, social media/LinkedIn, local online news sites and print, webinars
 Provide legitimate reasons to contact somebody
Current events, new products/services, special “deal”
 People invaluable to get to right people
Monitor quality and quantity of leads
Use contact management software

15. Research company/people before contacting
Prospecting
Research company/people before contacting

16. Prospecting
Generate interest as early as possible – two or three unique benefits
Mention references in same type of business
Be concise – short and sweet
Use some graphics
Close with action item
Monitor opens and click throughs

17. Prospecting
Phone
Generate interest as early as possible – two or three benefits
Have additional benefits ready, if needed
Mention references

18. Prospecting Phone Be concise – short and sweet
Be yourself, use conversational tone
Be respectful of prospect’s time
Close with action item
NEVER! – sound canned, confrontational, arrogant

19. Effective Follow-up
Two messages in five business days, then once a week
Keep it conversational, never get arrogant or upset, use humor if appropriate

20. I Understand ……
How salespeople might be afraid to ask “difficult questions”
Ask questions that might upset the prospect

21. Need to Know How you can not know how a decision is made
Who is involved in making the decision
Who you are competing with
When a decision is going to be made
If there is a compelling or impending event

22. Probing/Qualifying Identify needs - what is important to prospect
Top priorities, consequences if not met 
Listen, ask questions, control the discussion
Avoid reacting, ask more questions if not satisfied
Start broad and narrow down 
Define influencers, time frames, budgets

23. Probing/Qualifying
Identify Leverage Points
Identify Pain Points

24. Probing/Qualifying Stress benefits in context of prospect’s needs
Limit number of benefits – avoid “laundry” lists
Stress differentiation
Plant seeds to establish buying criteria – set traps for competition

25. Probing/Qualifying
Avoid negativity – address competitive weaknesses in context of your strengths
Do up front selling
Create action plan with prospect
Confirm next appointment

26. Presentation Skills - The Basics
Be concise
Modulate your voice, appropriate posture, use gestures, walk around, be enthusiastic!
4 to 5 bullets/slides – don’t read, no sentences
Include case studies, stories, references
Avoid the obvious, avoid clichés

27. Online Presentations Be concise Modulate your voice Be enthusiastic!
Use video, if applicable

28. Presentation Skills - The Basics
Get to the ‘meat” of presentation quickly
Check products/equipment beforehand
Turn off cell phone
Sense of humor helps, smile, have fun
Know roles of participants, have someone preview and critique presentation

29. Presentation Skills - The Basics
Address priorities of decision maker/s first
Audience involvement – what do they think
Use support people as needed, i.e. technicians, must know roles beforehand
Practice! Practice!

30. Presentation Skills - Flow
Overview of your company
Restate needs and current situation – prioritize
Reiterate buying criteria
Focus on key, unique functions and benefits – avoid “laundry” lists

31. Presentation Skills - Flow
Reiterate benefits in different ways throughout presentation
Keep some benefits in reserve, if needed
Discuss investment and payback
Next steps, close
Control!

32. Objection Handling Use up front selling to diffuse objections
Be quiet and listen, don’t overreact
Acknowledge, don’t agree - ask questions if objection is unclear, get at real concern
Agree on minor objections – establishes credibility

33. Objection Handling
Respond - don’t over complicate, answer directly, use analogies if appropriate
Go back to major benefits, put objection in perspective, see “Big picture”
Confirm –is customer okay?

34. Objections
You’re too expensive!

35. Objections
You’re a start up with no proven track record!

36. Objections bad rating on Angie’s list!
If you don’t reduce your maintenance cost I’ll give you a
bad rating on Angie’s list!

37. Follow-up and Closing Use combination of email and telephone
Consequences of not moving forward, timeline
Something new each time – scheduling issues, price change, product enhancement
Frequency of follow up - persistent but not annoying

38. Follow-up and Closing
Keep in touch - send appropriate articles, events that may affect them, i.e. competition, industry info, webinars
Don’t assume – constantly reinforce benefits
Ask for the order after outstanding issues have been addressed
“Are you okay?”

39. Follow-up and Closing Do not send proposal too early – pace deal
Coach - what is happening?
Negotiate face to face

40. Proposals Customize within standardization
Concise – minimize boilerplate
Video or audio summary

41. Identifying Problem Areas
Marketing
Product or Service
Sales Skills
Lack of Focus
A combination of

42. Identifying Problem Areas
Customer Feedback Surveys
Sales Feedback -% of qualified leads
Won/Lost Analysis
Third Party Evaluations
Focus Groups

43. Sales Skills? Prospects qualified, fit target market, budget
Decision maker involvement
Closing ratio
Overcoming objections
Deal breakers
Drop off points in sales process

44. Marketing? Lack of feedback from salespeople Lack of qualified leads
Lack of branding
Not measuring results
Marketing activities not synergized

45. Product or Service Product does not function properly
Lack of functionality; incompatible with other products
Services don’t delivery what’s promised
Non competitive pricing

46. Customer Service Not responsive Not courteous
Caught in phone transfer hell
Issues not resolved

47. Customer Service First Call Resolution
People Remember How Issue is Resolved
Your Value Added!

48. Customer Service No referrals No repeat business Lousy reputation
RESULT!
No referrals
No repeat business
Lousy reputation

49. A Combination of Outside consultant – another set of eyes
Create a roadmap of potential problem areas – prioritize with milestones, test
Feedback from people involved

50. In Summary
It’s You!
It’s Your Company!
It’s Your Solution!

51. Contact Information
Larry Matte -
SCORE -