I read this post about selling provocatively in the Selling Power blog.
The comments on tightening in budgets are absolutely true – I have seen it in action. Business is just being done in a different way now than 2 years ago.
2 years ago, we focused on all the classic solution-selling, Sandler-based techniques we always have. It worked great – we listened to customers, discussed their pain, and won a lot of deals.
Now, a lot of customers just do not want to talk much. They seem pretty scared – they might want to do lots of stuff, but they know they will need 17 levels of approval to get it. Even when money is allocated and sitting there, people cannot spend it.
Selling provocatively (to me) means you spend a little less time asking questions and a little more time offering solutions to people. You need to poke and prod them more to see how much they can do right now and how much they are willing to do to management for. You should start with your strongest points at an early point in the sales cycle and actively look for failure points. You probably should share these possible points of failure with your customer and look for solutions in advance.
Some of this is part of any kind of selling, but in this more provocative mode, you need to stir up the waters constantly. Even when you think the deal is done and everything approved, you might want to offer them a little more something (discount, services, something) to make sure it gets done.
For proactive salespeople who want to get decisions, this kind of selling is liberating. You get to the end more quickly – your deals are more certain – and you know when you are in trouble. Are you one of these?
