Max Mednik
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Readings and musings

Notes on The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson

6/9/2021

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We're working with an awesome sales coach who assigned us to read the book The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. I really enjoyed reading it and learned a ton. Sales is not something I have a lot of formal training in, and this book taught me several new things that I didn't think of as sales before and which are very effective.

At a high level, the authors did a bunch of research and analysis and figured out the type of salesperson/behavior that is most effective. It boils down to three core behaviors: teaching unique insights, tailoring the conversation to multiple stakeholders, and taking control of the conversation and process. The teaching part was the newest to me and the most interesting. I enjoyed reading the case studies and examples and can totally see how teaching your customers unique insights can be super effective.

I read it on Kindle and ended up highlighting 276 things (i.e., I learned a lot!). You can read some of those here. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve in sales or learn about "commercial teaching."

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Notes on SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham

5/12/2015

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Based on Noah Kagan's recommendation on his interview with Tim Ferriss, I just finished reading SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham, and I really liked it.

I was afraid it would be a cliche-filled business book, and I was pleasantly surprised by the thoughtfulness and scientific approach of the authors. It's now pretty clear to me why this is a classic and the #1 best-selling business sales book on Amazon.

I don't think there's any rocket science it preaches. What it does get right is that the SPIN questioning process makes the buyer get down to the nitty gritty details and actually understand the problems he or she is facing. It's like the classic problem of software estimation, where only sitting your butt down and figuring out what you have to do and counting all the little details will give you any remotely accurate estimate (I'm concurrently reading Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnell as part of our eng reading group).

I like that the book puts the focus on how to interview and ask questions instead of how to present and "market" features. This focus on interviewing and gaining empathy reminds me a lot about d-school/design thinking processes and lean startup methodologies for entrepreneurs seeking to "sell" (= learn).

I also liked how the authors tried hard to disprove their own theories, including running multiple studies to check for the strength of the Hawthorne effect on their subjects. They had a entire long appendix devoted to the control and statistics methodologies they used.

SPIN = Situation, problem, implication, need payoff

Preface
Larger sales techniques
Based on research of 35K sales calls

1 sales behavior and sales success
Closing, probing open questions, and objection handling are not the key skills
Longer time frame
Ongoing relationship
Seller not present when buyer deciding
Multiple calls needed
4 steps 
Preliminaries 
Investigating
Demonstrating capability
Obtaining commitment
No relationship between open questions and sales success
Good investigating questions follow 4 step spin model
Situation questions: tell me about your company's growth plans
Problem questions: is this operation difficult to perform
Implication questions: how will this problem affect your future profitability (help understand a problem's effects and urgency)
Need payoff questions: would it be useful to speed this up 10%? How would that help u?

2 obtaining commitment: closing the sale 
Classic closing techniques ineffective
Association between closing and lost sales
Closing techniques work for low value products
Closing success for large sales not only just an order
Judge success by customer actions not words

3
Implied needs vs explicit needs
Less successful salespeople don't separate implied and explicit needs
Implied needs not success signal in larger sales
Value equation: comparison between cost of solution and seriousness of problem
Larger sales need explicit needs uncovered
Can't just rely on problems; need to grow them to something actionable
Purpose of questions is to uncover needs and convert implied to explicit

4 the spin strategy
Situation questions not positively related to success
Use them with purpose
Problem questions more useful
Are you satisfied with your current solution for x? Doesn't it mean you lose out with y?
Linked to sales success
Implication questions: you say x is hard to use. What effect does this have on your output? Could that lead to increased costs?
Keep growing understanding of problem by adding up costs that weren't perceived before
Need payoff question: positive solution based questions. How would that help? What benefits would you see if you got x? How do you think a faster machine would help you?
Get customer to explain to u how ur product solved their problem
Make customer the expert
Rehearse the customer for internal selling
Have buyers explain the benefits to the seller
Implication questions are about the problem (sad)
Need payoff questions are about the solution (happy)
Write down list of 3 potential client problem areas before the call
Think of related difficulties of those problems (implications)
Don't ask need payoff question when u can't meet that need
Need payoff examples: why would that help? Would it help if? Why is that important? How would that help? Would it be useful if? Is there any other way this could help u?

5 giving benefits in major sales
Demonstrating capability
Features and benefits
Features unpersuasive
Benefits better, can only address explicit needs 
Advantages just show how it meet any need
Benefits tied to sales success but only when needs made explicit
Don't neglect needs in favor of features of new product
Turn attention from product to customer
Don't demonstrate capabilities too early in the call
Beware of advantage statements
Be careful with new products

6 preventing rejections 
Objection handling less important skill
Better to prevent objections
Listing features makes buyers want less for expensive goods
Features increase price concern
Link between advantages and objections
Don't talk about solutions until gotten enough info on needs

7 preliminaries
First impressions less critical
Durable impressions made during investigating stage
Don't always begin with connecting about personal interests
Early in call u want to establish ur role as the seeker of info and buyer as the giver so u can ask questions instead of talking about solutions
Get down to business quickly instead of pleasantries 
Don't talk about solutions too soon
Concentrate on questions

8 turning theory into practice
Ppl work harder to learn knowledge instead of skills
Practice only one behavior at a time
Try the new behavior 3 times
Quantity instead of quality
Practice in safe situations
Focus on investigating stage and asking questions
Implications of problems: increased costs, demotivates best people, causes inefficiencies, answers to so what

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The sale starts when the customer says no

6/25/2011

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I just completed my second Jeffrey Gitomer book: his Sales Bible. I can definitely see his style of numbered lists, with an extra "0.5" at the end at all times, and his intense energy and enthusiasm for sales philosophy came through strong in the audiobook. At times, the text seemed to lack structure and direction, and I felt like there was a lot of repetition. However, buried in this tome are a lot of great nuggets and sample scripts, clearly developed after a lot of field testing.

It's interesting how many of the sales techniques presented link closely with the principles of psychology from some of the other books I've recently been reading.

Below are my main notes and lessons from each section.

Think: the sale is in your head
  • Walk in with the feeling of certainty, that your product is the best value
  • Listen to inspirational messages
  • Pump yourself up
Believe
  • In your company
  • In your product
  • In yourself
  • And that the customer is better off buying your product from you
Engage
  • Develop rapport
  • Ask people where they live, where they grew up, where they travel, how they landed here, how they got to this career
Discover
  • Find their reasons first; why they buy is much more important than why you need to sell
  • Find out why others buy
  • Learn from customer wisdom (ask past customers why bought from you)
Ask
  • The right questions
  • Get them to reveal value and benefit of ownership
Dare
  • Chutzpah
  • Cold calls
  • Asking for something
Own
  • Know whose fault it is when the sale not made
  • Always your fault
  • Learn from it
Sell for relationship, not commission
  • You "earn" a sale, not make it
Prove
  • Testimonials are huge; use video
  • Make them specific
  • Use them on site, in sales visits, with proposals
Become
  • Daily work towards big goal
Values and techniques of the sales professional
  • Create difference
  • Know the difference between satisfied and loyal
  • Ability to speak and be compelling
  • Stay a student everyday; apple a day of learning
  • Friendly relationship
  • Humor
  • Creativity
  • Ask for the sale
  • Believe in yourself
  • Be prepared
  • Don't whine
  • Yes attitude
  • Set and write down goals on post it's on mirror
  • Positive attitude

Customer management
  • Add value, ideas to prospect instead of just following up routinely
  • Show testimonials like crazy
  • Present just facts, no fluff
  • Ask personal, deep questions about awards, history of customer's company, goals, family; use these to sell to
  • Be friends with customers
  • Call people, add value, do things that are not selling to them at all
  • Take them to events, outings
  • Join a business council where you can sell to each other
  • Your current customers are your best prospects
  • Use humor
  • Listen to affirmations

Meetings and questions
  • Answer people's deeper, underlying questions and concerns that lead to close
  • Ask, What do you look for? What has been your experience? What did you like about it?
  • Power statements: Sell value to user, not value of product
  • Develop an elevator pitch with clear call to action
  • Study the other person deeply beforehand
  • Cold calls in person or phone: ignore no soliciting signs, ask for help, ask for some passive info, say want to leave some important information, ask who decides on this sort of stuff
  • Carry article about you, testimonial video, give referral to customer they can talk to, keep a list of loyal customers big and small
  • Craft words carefully
  • Never say "honestly" or "frankly"

Presentations
  • Involve the prospect in the sale; make their experience tactile, hands on
  • Ask for help in setting up presentation, projector; accept others' offered drinks
  • Wrong: "I'm not finished with my presentation," "Don't buy yet" -- others' questions and agenda always take priority
  • Create presentation from customer's perspective, not product's perspective
  • Have at least one laugh per 5 slides
  • Use a white background
  • Logo in corner
  • Use Impact type face, 44pt, shadow on font
  • 1 point per slide
  • Tell a story instead of relating facts

Handling objections
  • "No" is a required step to "yes"
  • The sale starts when the customer says no
  • Get down to the real objection
  • Every conversation is sale: your selling them on yes or them selling you on no
  • Prevent objections before they're voiced
  • Closing: If I could x, would you buy?
  • Have good answers to real objections
  • Present in front of all decision makers, don't let them be your salesperson for internal decision-making
  • Do prospect's competitor comparison for them ahead of time
  • Clearly ask for the sale
  • Buying signals: asking about cost, availability, timing, questions on company (these are Indicators of Interest -- IOIs)
  • Answer questions with questions (When can you deliver it? -- When do you want it?)
  • Use the puppy dog close: let them try it out (they can return it anytime but won't)
  • Use the negative sale (hurt that comes from not buying)

Persistence

  • As children begging for a candy bar, we learn the art of persistence
  • Sales requires persistence and getting through 5 No's before you get to Yes
  • Get prospect's work schedule and call before or after secretary's hours
  • Always leave a voicemail anyways
  • The shorter the message, the more likely to be returned
  • Just leave your first name and number
  • Trick: leave a message and hang up mid-sentence on some important point having to do with them
Customer service
  • Guru: Ty Boyd
  • Aim: not just satisfaction
  • Put in as much work to keep customers as to acquire
Exhibitions
  • Be the first in the room, last one out
  • Write down notes on business cards, personal rapport details
  • Give talks
  • Be brief and move on when meeting people in a row/networking
Networking
  • Ask customers what events they plan to attend and be there
  • Spend most of your time with new people
  • Chamber of Commerce publishes events
  • Give first to others
Sample sales schedule for a true sales hustler
  • 10 prospect calls per day
  • 10 follow up calls per day
  • 10 new appointments booked per week
  • 4 client lunches per week
  • 2 networking events per week
  • Damn, sales is hard!
Philosophical lesson from his dad
  • When facing a problem, ask yourself: "Is it anything $10,000 won't cure?"
  • If it's not, it's not a problem.
Afterword/When I grow up
  • Make decisions as the person you want to be
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