By Rick Page, CEO, The Complex Sale

I was talking to a sales executive the other day who enthusiastically told me, “We're starting to implement a whole new methodology - we're going to sell solutions!” I thought to myself, but fortunately didn't say, “Congratulations, that will catch you right up to 1985.”

For some reason, some sales managers think they can get by with a single sales training course. Fortunately, many others have realized that in order to sell in today's complex selling environment, a salesperson needs a full set of skills and methodologies defined by the way their company sells.

Many companies begin their sales training with a course on consultative selling - how to discover, link, and present - and that's an excellent place to start. But don’t think that it's enough.

The benefits of consultative selling have been a given since the 1980s. And yet 40% of the respondents to our recent TCS/CSO Insights 2008 Sales Effectiveness Survey say that they need some or significant help in this area. This is because there is a new generation of salespeople who need it (or the ones who have taken it aren’t using it).

While this type of selling is excellent for building preference with an individual based on business needs, by itself, it is missing many of the necessary components to winning a complex sale with an evaluating committee.

Many salespeople spend far too much time selling to the wrong people, or in the wrong accounts. If we start with the decision-making process of the buying committee, we can sort the key decision makers from the time wasters. Only then can we identify recommenders that will choose a vendor and the influencers that can help them decide. Many programs don't address politics (vital when selling to multiple buyers) or competitive relationships.

If your tactics and actions don't fall out of your strategy, not only will you be wasting time with the wrong people, you may be inadvertently helping your competition! Remember: there are some people who are already too far gone - perhaps, even before you’ve met them. If you spend time selling to these people, they will take everything you've given them and send it straight to your competitor.

While discover-link-present selling is a good foundation, it doesn’t exactly work when selling to executives. Executives don’t have time for “Tell me about your business” or, “What keeps you awake at night?” They were hoping that you had done discovery with someone else and that you could tell them about their business.”

In addition, “demand creation” selling doesn’t allow for consultative discovery until you have gained their attention with a hook – a position statement, research, a referral, a book, or a series of tough questions. They didn’t even know they had a pain until you helped them realize it.

Also remember that one person doesn’t speak for the whole company. The reason one person will buy from you is different than another's. And what some people want isn’t really what they need based on their company’s strategies and initiatives. This lack of consensus about the political priorities of needs and wants will result in a power struggle when the committee has to reach a recommendation and they can’t find everything they want from one vendor.

When they get to the decision-making crucible - where the committee often disagrees about priorities – you better be riding with the most powerful person and the biggest business problem or plan to lose. Without a political strategy and a competitive strategy to guide you - one that has been reviewed by your sales manager – you are an unguided missile in a laser world.

Your sales process should be based on the way you sell, which should be based on the way the customer buys. Your training competency model and hiring profile should be based on your sales process. A full training agenda should include:

Individual Selling Skills – Consultative selling (discover, link, present), selling to executives, listening, presentation skills, product and company knowledge, proposal writing, interpersonal alignment and relational skills, and selling to different personality styles.

Opportunity Management – Qualification, understanding influence and politics, competitive strategy and counter-strategy, selling strategic benefits to strategic buyers, objection handling and negotiation.

Account Management – Territory segmentation, industry knowledge, strategic literacy, account strategies, political navigation, growing relationships to trust.

Lost sales is the biggest expense item in any company and it goes unnoticed because it never hits the books. Whatever you don’t get when you hire, the manager will make up for in either training or lost sales. Training is cheaper.

Want to learn more about how your sales organization measures up? Email us at info@complexsale.com to take the 2008 CSO Insights Sales Effectiveness Survey.