3 Sales Deal Killers Keeping You in “Maybe” Purgatory

Complexity. Uncertainty. Time: These are three sales deal killers stranding you in “maybe” purgatory. To overcome buyer indecision, listen to this week’s Labcast featuring Smart Selling Tools founder Nancy Nardin. The Top 25 Sales Influencer offers creative ways for simplifying the buying process, clearing up uncertainty, and prioritizing your sales process.

This Week’s Guest

The Japanese have a word for waste in the production process, and it’s called muda. So I pose the question, “Is your sales process full of muda?”

— Nancy Nardin, Smart Selling Tools

Key Takeaways

• The Maybe Purgatory: that frustrating period of time when you’re buyer shows interest in your product, but can make a decision. [2:15]
• The 3 Deal Killers: complexity, uncertainty, and time [6:55]
• Employ “Ooching” to eliminate uncertainty and complexity: Offer your buyers ways to test  out what would really happen if they moved forward with the decision.  [4:10]
• Be a tapper. Think like a listener. [10:25]
• The Golden Nugget: the critical, must-have element of your product. Make sure your buyers can articulate your product’s golden nugget. [13:00]
• A salesperson only spends 35% of her time connecting with the prospect. To make more time for important thing, like talking to prospects, eliminate the “muda” from your process. [18:30]

Listen Here

Nancy Nardin 9-17-13

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Transcript

Jonathan: Hi, and welcome to LabCast. I’m your host this week, Jonathan Crowe. Today, we have Nancy Nardin. Nancy is the founder of Smart Selling Tools, an information and advisory firm specializing in sales productivity tools and strategies for driving revenue. Nancy’s a pioneer in sales prospecting technology. She’s also one of our Top 25 Sale Influencers for 2013, so we’re very excited to have her here. Nancy, thanks for joining us.

Nancy: Thanks. I really appreciate the invite.

Jonathan: Absolutely. Well, I’m really happy that you’ve accepted and that you’re here. I know that you’ve worked closely with many of the Silicon Valley’s leading VC firms and their portfolios. You have a lot of experience with companies selling software and tech. Therefore, you know that these companies typically run into kind of complex buying processes, and a lot of times, buyers not only have their own decisions to make, but they’re also involved with several stakeholders that have to sign off on things. And despite what we all might like to think, very few products and solutions are no-brainers out there. In fact, many require a lot of decision-making. I know this is an area you’ve been thinking a lot about, and that one of your passions is really simplifying things, and raising productivity, and getting through with solid messaging that really helps salespeople kind of breakthrough that stalling or that indecision that can happen in the buying process. So I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about some of those things that you’ve suggested on your blog.

Nancy: Sure. I’d be happy to. First of all, I’ve been in sales myself for 25 years. And you would think that maybe selling would get a little bit easier over time, especially with the different technologies that we have and that the buyers have. But in fact, as you mentioned, it’s gotten a lot more complex. Not only are more people typically involved, it’s gone from–on the enterprise side–an average of four buyers participating in a purchase to seven being involved. So that adds to the complexity. And then also the period of time that it takes to make a purchase has extended. So we’re looking at somewhere around a six-month period of time to come to a purchase decision. So for a seller, that can be very frustrating. You feel like, well, the buyer has bought off on everything you’ve said. They like the idea of the product. They like the idea of the usefulness. So why aren’t they buying it? Why aren’t they actually making a decision?

And it can be frustrating. I call that the Maybe Purgatory. So you kind of get stuck in this. Forecasts keep getting pushed out. That makes your managers unhappy. But what I’ve realized is that when deciding to purchase is a much longer journey than just coming to the conclusion that a product is going to be useful and valuable. So the purchase decision involves a lot of things that may not have anything to do with the product itself. It may have to do with the person thinking, “Can I really pull this off? Is it really doable? Can I implement the product? Do I have enough mind share? Do I have enough energy and bandwidth? And can I get all of the buying influencers on board with me? And then, also, is it the most  important thing in the context of all the things I have to deal with?” So that, again, adds to the complexity, and it makes it difficult for salespeople.

Jonathan: Right. Absolutely. And so one article that I saw on your blog, you actually referred to a concept that you referenced from a book called “Decisive,” from Chip and Dan Heath. And it was “ooching.” And that was very compelling to me. I was hoping that you could kind of explain how you were taking the concept of ooching and saying how that would be useful for salespeople.

Nancy: Sure. Well, first of all, for anyone who hasn’t yet read “Decisive” or the other books by Chip and Dan Heath, like “Switch” and “Made to Stick,” I highly recommend them. They’re not about sales, but they’re about the psychology of making decisions and making changes, so they’re very relevant. And when I read “Decisive,” one of the concepts they brought up is this concept of ooching. I guess it’s a Southern term. But what it really stands for is this need to test out your decision. To test out whether or not your logic is really in line with reality. So what I suggest, and how it relates to sales, is that you want to give your buyer . . . your buyer wants to test out whether or not they’re going to really make the right decision. And oftentimes, we try to get the buyer to go from, “Yeah, that sounds really good. I like your product,” to, “Yes, I’ll buy.”

Jonathan: Right.

Nancy: Well, it doesn’t work like that. They need little ways to test things out. To test out their thinking. And that’s what ooching is all about. So a lot of times, when we’re stuck in Maybe Purgatory, it’s actually because we haven’t given the buyer any way to ooch. To test out what would really happen if they went forward with a decision. What happens next? What is the next step? So I’d like to talk about, don’t try to get them to the actual purchase right away. It rarely works, especially in complex sales. It never works in complex sales. What you need to do instead is help them visualize the process, and help them visualize what the next step is.

So if I can give you an example of what an ooch might be. Let’s say that, you know, someone has said, “Well, I’m interested. You know, call me in two weeks.” Or they just keep pushing you off. So what do you do? I think a good ooch is to say, “Well, Jonathan, listen. I understand it can take time to make such an important decision. Why don’t we do this: why don’t we just put the decision aside for a short time, and let’s just run a simple test. Let’s see how just one of your folks responds to the system. You know, that’s a great way for you to quickly learn whether we’re on the right track together. And would it be worth getting that feedback before going any further?”

Jonathan: Right. And that’s a great way, too, to take the pressure off from this person. Having to make that decision, which can be kind of an intimidating thing to do.

Nancy: Very intimidating. And they can’t put themselves there because of that. And listen, complexity kills deals. So anything you can do to eliminate that complexity or uncertainty. Because uncertainty is the other factor that kills deals. Time is the third one. And so ooching helps with all three of those.

Jonathan: Great. And so, what’s one way that you can take this concept of ooching, you’re trying to take kind of baby steps forward, in a way. And how can you, as a sales manager, say you’re interested in this concept, and you’re interested in your reps doing this, but you’re also interested in them moving forward as quickly as possible. You don’t want to really introduce additional steps into what they’re supposed to be doing. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Nancy: Do that and still not extend the sales process?

Jonathan: Exactly.

Nancy: Yeah. Well, that’s a really good question. I think that by introducing these steps, it actually shortens the sales cycle, because it puts what the buying process is into a more concrete process for the buyer. So they don’t always know how to buy. They don’t, especially your kind of product, because they haven’t bought it before. It’s the sales rep’s job to help them help them understand what the visualization is, or what I call a process visualization. The prospect has to have a clear visualization of how the process is going to work, not only to make the decision, but also once they’ve made the decision to buy. So anything a salesperson can do to help them understand that is going to shorten the sales cycle, not elongate it. And therefore, you want to lay out what the steps are. To maybe say, “These are the typical steps that my customers have taken. This is what it looks like.” You’d be amazed that a lot of times, the buyers will just go, “Oh, okay. Now I . . . that’s very helpful.” Because, for instance, let’s say they’ve got a complex product, and it’s at some point going to require the IT approval, or an IT’s input. And you know that IT is going to have questions about it, and that always comes up in your sales. Why not have a document put together with FAQ specifically for the IT community? And you can say to your buyer, “Listen, what typically happens is your IT group is going to say to you, ‘Hey, wait a minute. I’ve got a bunch of questions.’ So help them understand what’s going to happen so they’re not surprised by it.” And then give them the ammunition that they need in order to be able to handle that situation.

Jonathan: That’s really great advice, because I think it’s easy for any of us to get stuck in our own heads. And when a lot of people in sales or marketing are talking about buyers and buyer return, it almost sounds like they’re talking about breaking into this puzzle that they’re trying to solve, and there’s an assumption that the buyer knows exactly what the right path is, and all the keys. And the buyer themselves may not really know the process, because, like you pointed out, maybe they don’t know how to buy this product or solution. They’ve never done it before.

Nancy: Absolutely. And again, that leads to uncertainty, and uncertainty is a deal killer. Have you ever heard of the study called the tappers and listeners?

Jonathan: Actually, no, I haven’t.

Nancy: Okay. So you brought up a great point about how the buyers don’t always know everything that the salespeople would probably think they know. And so this study, what it was is a group of students were put into the tappers category, and a group were put into the listeners category. And the tappers were tasked with tapping out songs. Different songs, right?

Jonathan: Okay.

Nancy: So they had to just tap it out. Nothing else. Just taps. And then they were asked ahead of time what percentage of the listeners did they feel would get the song they were tapping out. And most of them said something like, oh, you know, 75, 80% are going to understand it. In reality, the number was much lower. Something around 10 or 15%.

Jonathan: Wow.

Nancy: Because what happens is the tappers are sitting there, and they are humming the tune to the song in their head. So they have the benefit–or the curse, if you will–of knowledge that the listener, or the buyer, doesn’t have. So salespeople have this song, if you will, or this knowledge, or this insight or perspective, that buyers do not have. And they’re sitting there tapping, thinking that the buyer’s going to understand it, when in fact they don’t, because they don’t have that knowledge that the rep has.

Jonathan: So really, we need to be able to get the buyers involved in the song more, and be able to hum with them.

Nancy: Exactly. Now, you might, sometimes we think of that as dumbing it down. And in a sense, we have to do that. And not because buyers are not smart. They’re very smart. In fact, that’s why we have to dumb it down, because they will start to analyze everything. And it’s our job to help them know what limits to put on that, and what to do when, and the kinds of questions to ask. So that’s what I mean by dumbing it down, is helping to simplify that process of analyzing it for the buyer.

Jonathan: Right. And that actually kind of segues nicely into another question I wanted to ask you, and that’s tied into the idea of the concept of the golden nugget. Because, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about making things clearer for the buyer, and helping them take away complexity, take away uncertainty. Kind of leave them with something very clear. And I think that that’s what you’re talking about with the gold nugget. Can you talk a little bit about that, and why it’s so important?

Nancy: Yes, definitely. So the golden nugget is all about getting your message to stick. Have you ever sat in a sales call, maybe, where you’re the prospect, and someone describes their product to you, and you were feeling more and more excited about it. And by the end of the meeting, you’re thinking, “Wow, this is a really cool tool, or a really cool product.” And you’re very excited about it. But now you walk out of the meeting, your colleague says, “Well, what was that meeting about? Why did you like it so much?” Now you’re the one that’s forced to have to put that into words.

Meanwhile, you’ve been in the meeting, and all of these thoughts have been floating around your mind. You have this sense. It makes sense to you, because of your internal dialogue, about why you like what you heard. But when you have to articulate it, which is what happens every time a prospect is done with a sales call. They have to articulate it to someone. They have to, you know, rally their internal influencers, and the other six people that are involved in the project. So they have to articulate it.

Jonathan: And now I’m a tapper, too.

Nancy: Exactly. Yeah. And you need to make sure that they’re prepared to articulate it before you leave that meeting. And that’s what the golden nugget is all about. What is the most critical, must-have element of your message that you want to leave them with? And buyers are only going to be able to understand probably one main message. You want to give that buyer help, arm them with that one message, so when that person asks them, they can say, “Here’s why I like it. It does this.” They won’t necessarily know that. And it may be different for every buyer. So it’s your job as a salesperson to help them articulate it before you leave. And you might say something like, you know, “We talked about a lot of things today. And, a number of them seemed to get you excited, or seemed to be something you can relate to. But, if it really came down to one thing, what would you say is the main thing you’ll remember most from our conversation today?” Because they’re going to stop and think about it for a minute. They’re not going to know the answer to that. And if they need a little help, isn’t it better for you to know that now so that you can help them come up with it? And if they’re kind of stumbling, or they come up with a couple things, maybe you can even help them out, and say, “Well, would you say it’s this?” And help them put it into words. That goes a long way towards helping them feel more confident in why they were excited about it, but also being able to defend it afterward. And so much of the sale happens not when you’re in front of that customer, but in between.

Jonathan: That’s a really good point. And I imagine, too, being able to deliver that golden nugget, and getting this down, is something that takes a lot of practice on a salesperson’s part. To be able to kind of hone in on what that is, and also be able to give the buyer ammunition effectively. And so one other thing I know that you’re super passionate about is basically time with sales. You mentioned before, it’s one of the killers that can sink a deal. It’s also one of the most important things for salespeople. To have time on the phone, to have time talking with your customers. And so going kind of back all the way to the beginning of the podcast, we were talking about how with sales tools, it’s very common for people to think, “Oh, all these things, all these advancements, everything should be easier.” And as you pointed out, things are actually a lot more complex a lot of the time. Can you talk a little bit about some of your work, and some of your tips and thoughts about, productivity and improving it?

Nancy: Sure. And my site, Smart Selling Tools, is all about sales tools. But I’m not interested in tools just because I think they’re neat. I’m only interested in tools to the extent that they can lead to productivity improvements. And productivity improvements are the most effective way to increase revenue radically. What happens is managers get in a bit of a trap in their thinking that the way to increase sales is to hold more sales training, to hold more product training, to hire more sales reps, to put the hammer down on them to say, “Go on more calls. What kind of appointments are you having?” To really apply the pressure. But there’s another way that is a lot smarter and a lot more effective, and that is to make sure that the use of their time efficiently. And I don’t know why we don’t look at it that way today, because it’s sort of like the automobile industry used to, started to look at things early on, when they realized that we need to go from craftsmanship to a more production line approach.

We don’t have that yet. In sales, it’s still very much a craftsman-like approach. And the Japanese have a word for waste in the production process, and it’s called muda. So I pose the question, “Is your sales process full of muda?”

I’ll give you an example. So you have 215 selling days in the year, by the time you take away for vacation time, sick days, holidays, weekends, etc. That’s your sales capacity. You only have 215 selling days.

The number of people that you can talk to within that time, that’s all you have. That’s all you can sell to. You can’t sell to more prospects than you can talk to within that time. So your goal is to talk to as many prospects as possible. To have as many high-level, quality conversations with quality prospects.

Jonathan: Right.

Nancy: But you don’t actually have 215 days, which is an equivalent of 1,720 hours. Because we know that approximately 35% of a salesperson’s time is spent actually communicating with prospects. The rest of it is part of the production process, if you will. So it’s creating proposals, and arranging meetings, and figuring out what your schedule should be, and reporting on forecasts. All kinds of things. Some of which is muda, and some of which isn’t. So the key is to become more efficient at the things that are important but are not selling, like talking to a prospect, and eliminating the muda altogether.

And if you can actually increase the amount of time you spend selling from 35% . . . you know, move that needle. If you can save one hour a day, and convert that to time that you spend holding sales conversations, and you have a million dollar territory, because you had to do lots of math, then you can figure out what your average per hour sale is. Once you move the needle, and you free up an hour for communicating with more prospects, that translates into more than $350,000 of increased revenue. That’s a 35% increase. I don’t know of any other thing that you can do that’s going to move the revenue needle that radically.

Jonathan: No, absolutely. That’s real value. And, so it’s not focusing on the tools because they’re cool.

Nancy: Right. Yeah.

Jonathan: It’s finding the right tools to use because they’re going to bring that type of value. Because they’re going to save you that time.

Nancy: Absolutely. In fact, I would say CRM is not a productivity tool. So don’t be buying CRM because you think that it’s going to help with productivity, because it doesn’t. And that’s because it introduces as many new processes and time consumers as it saves.

So is it an important tool? Probably, for most companies. But is it a productivity-saving tool? No. So you’ve got to look beyond that. And sometimes, it doesn’t have to be hard. It can be really simple things. I don’t know if you heard about the UPS, you know, classic example of the left-hand turns.

Jonathan: That’s such a great example.

Nancy: Yes. So just for the audience — UPS, at some point, realized that if they could just eliminate left-hand turns altogether, then they could save hundreds of millions of dollars in time and fuel charges, because when you sit at a left-hand turn light, or you wait for the cross traffic, you’re just losing time. So they made the strategic decision to figure out how to route things so that they only made right-hand turns. Now that’s a pretty simple kind of concept. It didn’t require them to invest a whole bunch of money into tools or processes. So look for those kinds of simple steps that are getting in the way and keeping your salespeople from being efficient. And to do that, though, you have to get involved in how your salespeople spend their day, but not from a disciplinary point of view, but from a point of view that you want to help the salesperson earn more money, and they can do that if they’re more efficient. So let’s figure out where the wastes are, where’s the muda in the process, and let’s systematically figure out how to eliminate that.

Jonathan: Right. Well, Nancy, that’s great. And I have to say, I’m really so happy that you were able to join us today. I love your site. And for those listening, can you explain a little bit about where people can find you and your writing and your work, and then also connect with you?

Nancy: Sure. Well, Smart Selling Tools is where you can find all kinds of information about the top 40 sales tools, in our opinion, and what they do. Then we also have a site called Sales Productivity University, and that is a place where you can go and take a short course, for free, on different tools, so that by the end of it, you have a good understanding of what that kind of tool does and whether or not you would need it. Because a lot of times, we just get so confused. We hear about so many different tools, and we don’t know where to start. So Sales Productivity University is a great place to start. And then, if you’re considering tools, another site to check out is one that I’m launching this Thursday, and the site is called Hushly. So if you are looking at tools and you want to know what should you be considering, you’re trying to gather information, shorten that sales cycle, purchase process, decision process down, and go to Hushly and invite multiple vendors at once, anonymously, and communicate with them to gather the information you need to create your short list. So that’s the third site that I would recommend. Hushly.com. And then last is the blog post that you mentioned. And thank you so much for including me as one of your, you know, top influencers and bloggers of the sales topic. That was very flattering. The blog can be found on the Smart Selling Tools site.

Jonathan: Okay, great. And I definitely recommend all of those sites. Nancy, this has been a pleasure. I hope we get to do it again soon. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Nancy: Thanks. I sure appreciate it.

Which of Nancy’s tips did you find the most helpful? How do you overcome sales deal killers?

Photo by: Rick Payette