Anecdotally yours...

ROI - everybody asks about it.  While everyone looks for proof of ROI, finding a partner to work with to produce a meaningful ROI study remains a challenge.  If you are interested in participating in such a study, please contact us - we will jump at the opportunity!

Meanwhile, we regularly and frequently hear from people across the world who've picked up messages through our training programmes that they've used to good effect.  As they are reported back to us, we will share them with you - provided of course that the stories continue to flow.  So, if you are out there and you have a story (and you know how powerful stories can be), please submit to info@ioweu.com.

3 June 2010

From Hong Kong

It's reassuring to know that traditional salespeople are still out there delivering standardised sales pitches extolling the generic virtues of their products without any thought of adjusting for the people or industry that they're speaking to.  The rest of us should be thankful that these people and their Powerpoint decks are still out there, making our job of differentiation that much easier!

What is perhaps more surprising is that the latest story to be recounted to me involved the salespeople for some very large and supposedly sophisticated CRM providers.  Software demonstrations included references to Call Centre functionality and consumer reports despite the fact that the buyer was a strictly B2B organisation in professional services. 

The buyer wondered how much effort it would have taken the salespeople to gain at least a basic understanding of how they operated and change some of the language in their presentation so that they gave at least some sense of wanting to understand the buyer's business.  They described their experience of talking to various CRM providers as "underwhelming".

14 May 2010

From Hong Kong.

I was walking down the street the other day and i saw a van emerging from a new building.  Where the exit to the building joined the road (a hill), the clearance was very low.  The front part of his van hit the road surface scraping it.  He reversed and tried again with the same result, then a third time.  I suggested he stopped and change the direction of his van so that he drove across the exit and parallel to the incline of the hill.  He did this and exited without further trouble.

So what does this have to do with sales conversations.  As I carried on walking I thought about the parallels:

• from behind the wheel, he couldnt make the right decision - he was too close to the problem
   
• despite getting the wrong response, he kep trying the same approach
   
• a different perspective (i.e. from outside the van) provided the answer
   
• aligning the van to the road, as opposed to exiting head-on, was the right approach - in the same way that aligning our ideas parallel to our customers/clients typically yields better results
   
• he wanted ot go down the hill and couldnt see that he needed to go up the hill first and then trun in an opening where the ground clearance was better, before continuing in the direction he wanted to go

So, the lesson for me was about not driving head-on into questions.  Better to try from different directions - and directions that may even run against where you think you want to go.

14 April, 2010

From Australia.

"With this case, the Business Development Manager had sent me a standard "pitch" letter which I hadn't received by the time he called me to follow up.  On the phone has asked me a range of questions like "what did I think of the letter" (I hadn't received yet) and then said something like "assuming you are interested in developing your people, I'd like to make a time to meet with you".  I made a time, in spite of his poor approach, because I'm interested in the subject matter and also was curious to see how he would operate in a meeting.

At the meeting, he launched into a rehearsed spiel about the company, its history, its "world class" and "cutting edge" programs, a book full of client testimonials, access to free trials and money back guarantees.  His only questions to me were things like "how does that sound?".  My anger was growing and I almost lost it when he brought out a detailed questionnaire that he wanted to complete with me about my requirements (number of  staff, etc).  It was effectively an order form.  I grabbed one of our brochures and suggested he complete it later based on the information contained inside.

Soon after, I asked him if he would be happy to accept some feedback on his sales style?  He said yes but was obviously a little taken aback.  I recalled his phone call and he identified the approach as one of the scripts they are given.  I told him that I thought that the programs he was offering would be useful for our clients (about 2000 a year nationally) but that his approach was a barrier to me wanting to work with him.  He hadn't engaged in a conversation about the subject matter, hadn't identified my needs (if any) apart from an attempt at a written questionnaire/order form and couldn't substantiate claims such as "world class" and "cutting edge".

After my "intervention", we had a great conversation.  He has some personal experiences in the subject matter and we had a good discussion about trends in organisations and limitations on business success.  It was much more engaging and some of his credibility was regained.  It is a shame that an obviously engaging, knowledgeable human being with some great services was forced to deliver an irritating standard spiel that was a barrier to effective selling.

He did send a follow-up email but it was a link to a website that delivers a standard "thank you for considering us" presentation.  He said that he'd consider some information that I'd sent him and contact me the next week.  I haven't heard from him in the month since then."

12 March, 2010

A story from the USA that makes the effort of developing IOWEU worthwhile.  Bill Vlcek, an IOWEU certified facilitator in the USA decided that he needed to prove to himself that IOWEU approaches worked so that he could talk convincingly to his clients. 

Just to make things more difficult for himself, Bill chose to try the techniques in one of the toughest sales environments in the depths of a major recession.  Read his amazing story by clicking here.

15 February, 2010

From Hong Kong.

"Following on from IOWEU coaching sessions I flew to London for a series of meetings with three existing and potential clients.  All three conversations were different.  I tried to use an I We U opening and SHAPE questioning in each conversation.  When I asked my colleague for some feedback he said I sounded a bit wooden - that I wasn't as natural as normal.  That's true, but what I said to him was that each of the conversations went better than previous conversations. "