1. From Unstructured Sales to Professional Selling
How to survive and be successful in the today Economy
stagnation using an Enterprise Class Sales Methodology
Dott. Maurizio Milazzo
Senior Associate Partner
2012 Artax Srl – www.artaxconsulting.com

2. Global Economic Outlook 2013
Some Points of Optimism, More Reasons to Worry
• Global growth dropped to almost 3 percent in 2012.
• This slowing trend will likely continue.
• Two possible explanations for the slow growth of the global economy: a lack of
demand or the weakening of supply drivers.
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3. Market Issues
• Financial Crisis
• Economical Crisis
• Monetary Crisis
• Political Crisis
• Social Crisis
• Uncertainty
• Ongoing Euro Zone Issues
• Europe’s Debt Crisis
• Reduced Companies Shares Value
• Reduced Investments
• Reduced Bank Loans
• Tax Increasing
• Pessimism
• Companies Locked
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4. Market Keywords
• Value
• Reduced Budget
• Payment terms
• Delay
• Focus on personal employement
• Tender
• Short View
• Lack of Strategies
• Tactic Solution
• Do more with less
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5. Customers
• No budget
• Project & Decisions Shifting
• Decision taken only to “survive”
• Re-Organization
• Merge & Acquisition
• Cuts
• Priorities re-definition
• Longer Approval Cycle
• Customers focused on maintaining there own working place
• Suppliers Consolidation
• Focus on Price, not on Value
• Price Squeezing
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6. Sales People
• Hungry Competition
• Salesmen are Nervous
• Customers pay Later
• I do not remember next step to enhance my deal
• Consultative approach; Serve the Client do not Sell… is it enough ?
• Provocative selling approach (my solution is essential for your
Company) is it really exhaustive to build a strong relationship with
Customers ?
• Dark Side approach doesn’ t work more
• How can I reach my Quota ?
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7. Sales People to be
Economy stagnation is asking to the Sales People to be:
• More Efficient in Customer Relationship Management
• More pro-active in Customer Loyalty
• More Effective in New Business Development
• More Accurate and Trustworthy in Forecasting
• More Effective in Selling
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8. Unstructured Selling
• Low or Lack Action Plan
• Low Timing Focus: “Every Time is Good”
• Low Focus on what to say, to Whom, When and Why
• Selling Activities are Unstructured and Flows Uncontrolled
• Troubles in Realiable Sales Forecasting
• Sales are strictly related on Salesman feeling at that time, and on
Customer reaction, at that time
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9. … Unstructured Selling
• The Unstructured Salesman is sure he is doing the best possible, no doubt
on it
• If he doesn’t close the Sale is because a Customer Problem, or is a Product
Problem, or there is not enough time, or other…
• The Unstructured Salesman Abilities are based on its own Origin, in the
Family, in the Environment seen, in the previous Working experiences
• They are convinced that who has language easyness is a good Salesman
• Selling is based only on the Individual Creativity
• The CRM tool in the Unstructured Salesman hands, cannot reach the
awaited Value (Example: the Tennis Player that play a wrong shot look at
the Tennis racket because he appartently do not understand the error he
did, he never think he was not well trained for the Match)
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10. Professional Selling
• Based on Enterprise World Class Successful Selling Methodologies
• Based on Strategic Analysis as Market Approach
• Strongly contribute to define the Action Plan to know What to do, When
and Why
• All the Actions done are part of the Selling Process with measurable
Results, when partial target is reached you can make next step
• Professional Selling is based on a common Language that encourage
conversation and mutual understanding in the Company.
• Professional Selling build a stronger and efficient Salesman, orienting
Customers to repeat Orders
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11. … Professional Selling
• Provide tools for Sales Risk Management and Risk Mitigation
• Helps to make a trustworthy Forecast
• Helps to define a real and successful Action Plan
• The Professional Salesman knows exactly his Selling Cycle Positioning,
answering to eventual boss questions, with right and measurable
informations
• Professional Selling allow to raise Sales Volumes, in terms of Products,
Territory, Market Segment etc…
• Professional Selling generate Orders in Industrial way
• CRM in the Professional Salesman hands will be a Successful Tool
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12. CEO that Focus on Sales Department
• CEO that put sales management at the heart of their agenda have
captured astonishing growth
• CEOs at the World Class companies are willing to roll up and
transform their sales organization
• The best CEOs call on their management toolkit to transform Sales
into a growth engine by focusing on Sales Performance Improvement
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13. Sales Performance Improvement
• To detect a professional grow path to spur individuals in developping
behavior and professional attitudes to build a more effective Selling Process
• Identify a Common Language
• Improve Forecast Reliability
• Helping Sales People to reach Selling Targets
• Identify the Deal strengths and weakeness
KP2 Survey
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14. Risks
• Leadership
– “little or nothing is done towards coaching, training, compensating and rewarding staff/sales
team”
• Inflexibility
– “Inflexibility in our approach compared to our clients changing expectations.”
• Economy
– “The state of the economy is a huge risk for my company”
• Customer Connections
– “If we don't become more strategic and link to customer business objectives and align our
processes and rewards I fear we will miss opportunities and continue to be seen as a
product focused company by our customers.”
2011 Sales Best Practices Study
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15. Rewards
• Fewer Competitors
– “Competitors going out of business because of financial climate.”
• Structured Sales Process
– “We have started to implement a structured approach for the sales process and starting
using CRM supporting the sales process.”
• Existing Clients
– “The greatest reward for our business next year is our ability to seek out opportunities and
grow our revenue within existing clients.”
2011 Sales Best Practices Study
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16. Strategic Selling® e Conceptual Selling®
• Effective Selling Methodologies used by the World Class Sales Organizations
• It is the most effective questions process to ask to the Customer to highlight
all its interests and to capture all the most relevant informations
• To have the Customer engagement, reach next deal stage and to shorten
the selling cycle
• To overcome an obstacle in a deal
• To build a Successful Win=Win relationship
• Sales People will have a solid Sales reason to interact with Customers
• To build a more effective long term relationship with Customers
• Excellent grow of positive closed deal because the Win=Win approach
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17. World-Class Sales Organizations
• The World-Class Sales Organizations, as per most recent Miller Heiman
Survey, have a very structured Selling approach and apply Best Practices at
Sales Department, in particular in the Opportunity generation and
Management area
• The World-Class Sales Organizations provides right support to the Sales
Department with Training and Coaching, Methodologies, Tools and
Technologies
• The Survey in addition confirm that this kind of Organizations reach high
Performance in Sales, measured with specific metrics, and strong grow in
qualified Opportunities generation, in New Customers acquisition, in
reaching Selling Targets, in closed Deal Rate, in Forecast accuracy and
Revenue grow.
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18. World Class Sales Organization, some results:
MH 2012 survey participant
• “The greatest risk I see is our team creeping back to
thinking we know better what our customers’ wants
and needs are than they do.”
• One Salesperson’s Perspective: “The largest barrier to
my productivity is ineffective CRM and the database
for our business...I created my own and use it rather
than the company’s.”
• “Our biggest challenge is being able to articulate the
value we deliver to our clients. We need to be able to
demonstrate ROI on every opportunity we are
chasing.”
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19. Technology’s Role in Improving Business Results
World All
Class
Our sales management team is highly confident in the data available 81% 25%
from our CRM system
Our CRM system significantly improves the productivity of our 66% 23%
salespeople
Our CRM system significantly improves the quality of interactions 73% 24%
with our customers
Our CRM system is highly effective for enabling our organization to 69% 21%
collaborate across departments
Conclusions?
It’s challenging, but World class get it right:
competitive advantage to be had
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20. Why Act as a World Class Company ?
• To be Successful
• To repeat Success with same Customers
• For Successful New Business Development
• To have a cohese Sales Department
• To navigate accross the Economy Storm
• To do not lose one’s bearings
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21. Professional Selling Scenario
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22. Thanks
From Unstructured Sales to Professional Selling
How to survive and be successful in the today Economy
stagnation using an Enterprise Class Sales Methodology
Dott. Maurizio Milazzo
Senior Associate Partner
2012 Artax Srl – www.artaxconsulting.com