Jim Heffernan Sales process expert

Many of us are most comfortable and effective talking to customer contacts where the focus is on products, operations, and integration. But studies show there is a 75% failure rate when we have to talk business with executives - where investment decisions are made about your project. First, take executive conversations off the pedestal and re-frame it as just a different conversation required inside an organization. Second, recognize it's an organizational competency and does not belong to your sales people - if you have any. Do three things to expand your engagement model to include executive decision makers. - speak the customer's language - understand the customer's business and initiatives - measure the value impact of your solutions against their initiatives You need to do a bit of homework but the web makes that easy to do. And, you need to simplify your messaging. A bit of work but the process will help spend less time on accounts critical to your business performance.

Marketing efforts can produce amazing results, driving people to your website, generating leads, etc. But, marketing stuff often does not translate to face-to-face selling situations for larger, more complex offerings. So, I encourage you to restate your value propositions by adopting the buyer's perspective. Start with understanding your customer's business initiatives, how they measure success, and then link your offerings to those. Doing a 180 degree on value props will transform your results.

If you are doing high volume, low cost, transactional selling then this is not for you. For larger or more complex offerings, bundling products and services into a contractual offering drives up revenue and margin while delivering greater value to customers. This leads to a better customer experience which drives customer loyalty. To get there requires you to revisit your value propositions and messaging. And, perhaps, a few steps in the customer engagement model. But offering your products as a service can be a real differentiator.

Large contracts are tough to get. Once you win them, losing them can kill your business. What's not clear is what you do during the contract period to keep growing the business relationship and to make sure that renewal is a no-brainer for the customer. This has been an area of mystery (can you say opportunity?) for even the largest companies. Truth is there is a low-cost strategy and a few key things you must do to effectively manage the contract relationship.

You become such passionate and expert about your own business that it can be a challenge to effectively engage potential customers. New or established, big or small, the problem can be universal. After you have all your operations and go-to-market figured out then stop and realize that your customer doesn't care about your products. They care about their own business. Now, seek to understand the buyer's perspective and re-frame your communications to speak the customer's language and demonstrate that you understand their business. Only then can you link your offerings to what they care about and get paid to do.