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Tips For Winning Those First Sales | |
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Helping You Make the Most of Your Small Office/Home Office
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Comment The Post Below...
Greetings,
If you are just starting a new business, you might need a
little direction to attract those first sales. Today's
article includes an interview with Neil Platt, vice
president of sales and business development at six-year-old
CashEdge Inc. He offers valuable tips to help you attract
customers and build a sales force.
Best,
Mandi
Be sure to visit the SoHo News and Tips blog!
SoHo News & Tips Blog
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NEWS & TIDBITS
- H&R Block Inc. dupes clients into investing
their tax refunds in retirement accounts that
cost more in fees than they generated in interest...
- US Airways Group Inc. working with GE Commercial
Finance to refinance about one-third of its
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- Britain threatens to scrap a planned 10 billion
pound purchase of the new Joint Strike Fighter
if the United States refuses it access to
American military secrets...
- Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex to invest
around $37.5 billion over the next 20 years to
develop the Chicontepec on-shore oil field...
- Sony confirms speculation the Japanese launch of
its highly anticipated PlayStation 3 has been
pushed back until November from the original
target for a spring debut...
- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - the nation's
three major consumer credit bureaus - create a
new credit-scoring system designed to make it
easier for financial institutions to evaluate
loan applications...
- A freak lightning bolt triggers an underground
gas explosion which traps and kills 12 American
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Tips for Winning Those First Sales
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
Generating initial sales is among the toughest
challenges for new businesses. We asked Neil Platt,
vice president of sales and business development
at six-year-old CashEdge Inc., for tips on attract-
ing customers and building a sales force. He faced
this task in 2000 on joining the New York-based
provider of online financial applications for banks,
credit unions and wealth-management firms. The
privately held company now has more than 450
customers and eight full-time sales professionals.
How do you gain the trust of first-time customers?
If someone is uncomfortable doing business with
you because you are new and untested, ask them
what it would take to make them comfortable, and
try and work with them to implement those changes.
One of our earliest prospects was very interested
in our services, but felt that we didn't have the
operational and security infrastructure to support
such a large institution. We were a small, untest-
ed company at the time. We asked what it would
take for them to do business with us. They gave us
a list of changes, which helped us build security
systems and procedures to support any size
financial institution, and we made the sale.
What do you do to build client relationships?
We've tried very hard to establish deep ongoing
relationships with our clients. Each of our major
clients has a dedicated relationship manager, who
is responsible for being the voice of the customer
within the company. That person also represents
the face of the company to the client and is
responsible and compensated for growing the client
relationship over time. You cannot underestimate
the value of relationships and service.
There's no question that our best clients keep
coming back to us because of the strength of our
relationships and the value we have provided them
in the past. The biggest challenge here is success-
fully institutionalizing your relationships. For
the first or second sale, the CEO or founder might
be more involved than he or she will be in the
future. He or she might be building on a previous
relationship, for example. But when a company gets
bigger, it will be impossible for it to give same
level of personal service or attention to its 100th
customer as it did for its first.
Tell us about a sales mistake you made when start-
ing out.
-
I failed to understand all of the steps necessary
to get closure. If you are dealing with a person
at a prospect company who seems over-eager, then
you can get the impression that you're moving
faster than you really are. But if you haven't
completed the steps, you're not going to close the
sale. I once spent a lot of time with a prospect
who was very interested in our products, but had
no way of getting a budget for them. Had I deter-
mined this up front by asking whether the products
were budgeted for, I could've more effectively
used our time.
Can you give a tip for closing a sale?
The best way to close a sale is to maintain a
tight control on the process and continually get
feedback from the prospect as to where you are in
the sales process. Early in a sales process you
want to ask questions like: "What kind of steps
are we going to have to go through for you to
make a decision as to whether or not you will buy
our product?" You may agree you have to pass steps
"A," "B," and "C," and come to a decision.
Continued below....
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In my industry, before we can sell a complex
piece of software to a bank, we first need to
develop a shared business case. Then we need to
get approval from the prospect's internal techno-
logy, risk-management and compliance units. Then
we need budget sign-off. If we haven't completed
all the steps, we can't close the sale. I encour-
age our salespeople to develop a relationship
with a "coach" inside the prospect to help us
make sure we are covering the appropriate steps.
If you follow that process, you should know rough-
ly when sales are ready to close. The most
difficult part of this is the back-and-forth
communication and making sure you're always moving
forward. Sales like this can involve an enormous
commitment of time and effort. If you're not in
control of the process, it's easy to lose sight
of the whole game plan.
When a customer isn't interested in buying, how
far should you go when trying to find out why?
You need to find out what the problem is as early
as possible. At the end of the day, anyone can
talk about the features and benefits of your
product or service. What makes a truly effectively
salesperson is the ability to ferret out and
address customer objections throughout the sales
process.
We learned this lesson when a potential customer
professed to liking everything about our product
and service, but then ultimately decided not to
do business with us. Had we been able to unearth
the problem earlier on in the process, we could've
addressed it effectively. But we didn't, and, as
a result, the business when to a competitor.
Eventually, we asked what went wrong, and he said
he felt our company was too small and potentially
unstable. No question it was our responsibility
to get that out in the open sooner.
When did you know it was time to hire a full-time
salesperson?
At some point, you'll realize that there's more
demand than you can meet with your existing staff
-- whether that's one person or a team of a dozen.
A good time to think about it is after you've got
an initial one or two satisfied customers. A new
product or service often develops around them.
Until the product is fully developed and your
initial customers are satisfied and willing to
serve as references, you may not need additional
salespeople.
Salespeople tend to be very entrepreneurial by
nature, and, in my experience, good salespeople
are always scouring the market, even if they're
not explicitly looking for a new job. We've had
success with the online job boards. If anything,
the only risk you run with those is you get piles
of resumes, and it's a little bit of work sorting
through them.
I don't think it's necessary to use a search firm,
unless you're searching for something very
specific, such as a salesperson who sold a
particular kind of engineering part. Good sales-
people strike a balance between being motivated
to bring in a commission and meet the company's
goals. Not all salespeople are natural team play-
ers, but I believe that is ultimately an important
characteristic.
DID YOU KNOW?
Liability issues can be addresed through insurance,
so while limited liability is one reason to choose a
corporate form of organization, check with knowledge-
able advisors before making a final decision.
So what did you think about this issue? Drop me a line and let
me know at mandi@gophercentral.com
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Copyright 2006 PENN L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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