Selling Strategically into the Recovery Professor Lynette Ryals SM There are indications that sales people particularly need to take account of some important variables. Now in the studio today is Professor Lynette Ryals; she is an expert in this area, but there are some cautionary notes that she would like to sound. Now, Lynette, what are these cautionary notes? LR The big cautionary message here is as we come out of a recession don’t rush around trying to gather all of the green shoots of recovery; or putting it into more straightforward terms, there is a terrible temptation for sales people and key account managers to chase too many opportunities and that can be positively damaging for their organisation. SM Now this is surely counter intuitive, after a lull period the sales people need to get back in gear and really start to rev up again. LR You would think that wouldn’t you? And we see that, we see sales people behaving like that; we see them thinking oh, the more opportunities I chase, the better my performance would be and the better the organisation’s performance will be. That is only true if your sales are transactional. If you are in a situation where you are developing complex solutions for customers, which increasingly organisations are, then actually chasing more opportunities is worse for you not better, because the more opportunities you chase, the fewer you will win. SM Now maybe there is a bit of slack in the system, so isn’t there a temptation to do just that and chase it and what is the harm in that? LR I think the temptation is very strong to do that. The problem – the harm – is to do with the cost of selling because we have seen that many organisations have experienced a substantial increase in their costs of sales and a substantial lengthening of the sales cycle. So customers are getting more demanding, they want more customisation and actually we have moved to a service economy. So increasingly we are providing customised product service solutions to our customers. Now a lot of that customisation process takes place during the sale. So we know one of the major computer solutions providers – I can’t name names here – but they have calculated that the cost to them of winning a major contract is in excess of $400,000. Now if that is the case, you can’t have too many of those major bets, those major investments Professor Lynette Ryals
running because it is too costly to the firm. You need to focus on the few key opportunities that you are the most likely to win. SM So the message is look for value, go for winners? LR That is absolutely right. SM Thank you very much Lynette. Page 2