RFP

E-Auction

Decision-by-committee

Supplier reduction programs

The popular book by the Corporate Executive Board, The Challenger Sale, tells salespeople that they need to take control of their sales conversations by offering new and unexpected insights into potential threats to their customer’s business objectives.

The question is, what does that mean in practice?

Here’s a hint:  it requires going beyond “what to do,” and showing your people “how to do it.”

Want to learn more?  Watch this two-minute video to learn how DuPont demystified the process with a four-step program that maximized the profitability of their sales cycles, protected their margins…and resulted in a 68:1 return on their investment:

Excessive discounting. Margin erosion. Deal “sweeteners.” Whatever it’s called, the problem is the same: “value leakage” in customer conversations that costs your company money.

Stopping this “value leakage” is key to maximizing the size and profitability of customer contracts. Learn more now by watching this video:

We’re thrilled to announce that BayGroup is now a part of Corporate Visions! The combination of BayGroup’s sales negotiation and sales execution skills training, and Corporate Visions’ sales and marketing messaging, tools and training, creates a powerful and comprehensive approach to improving the customer conversation across the entire buying cycle. Click here to learn more about the acquisition and how the two companies will work together, or watch this short video…

http://www.brainshark.com/cvi/BGandCVI

In a recent study by ES Research Group, 72% of buyers and 62% of sellers agreed that buyers have gained power in supplier negotiations over the past three years. In many companies, purchasing organizations have gained C-level influence, reflecting a growing sense that effective supply chain management can drive strategic success.

At the same time, new developments in online purchasing technology (such as e-Auctions and online bid management processes) have made it difficult for sales teams to establish their full value. This “power shift” has important implications for today’s B2B sales teams.

What does it take to succeed in this new, more challenging sales negotiation environment?  Three proven strategies were shared by BayGroup International’s Ron D’Andrea and Paul Hennessey at a recent webinar on the subject:

1. Move beyond price to frame new value in order to avoid commoditization of your solution and premature focus on pricing in your negotiations.
2. Negotiate the process before the price in order to gain access to critical information and influential people who can help you shape a proposal that is easier to defend in negotiations with purchasing managers.
3. Manage the tension to maximize results in order to avoid costly negotiation mistakes that give purchasing professionals the

You can learn more about these proven strategies (as well as the research mentioned above) by viewing the on-demand recording of the webinar “Sales Leadership:  Helping Your Team Succeed in the Changing World of Purchasing Negotiation.”

You can download a complimentary copy of the “State of Sales and Purchasing” research study here.

Yesterday hundreds of sales executives and managers attended an important webinar sponsored by Sales & Marketing Management magazine: “Improving Sales Performance: New Rules for Leaders.”  The session featured BayGroup International’s Ron D’Andrea and Paul Hennessey sharing actionable insights for leaders on how:

• Recent research on selling to purchasing organizations can help leaders implement a more effective sales execution approach.
• Critical new pressures in the B2B purchasing environment should prompt changes in the way leaders think about sales performance development.
• Sales organizations can move beyond skill improvement, and create sustainable change in habits and behavior on the sales team.
• To most effectively leverage technology to support stronger field coaching by front-line sales managers.
• Training can be deployed as a platform for change management in the sales organization

A complimentary “on demand” recording of the webinar is now available here.  If you are responsible for improving revenue and profit performance of your sales team you’ll want to view this important session.

If you are involved in improving the results of negotiations between buyers and sellers you’ll want to read “Dancing Lessons,” an article in the latest issue of Sales & Marketing Management magazine.

The article is by Dave Stein, CEO of ES Research Group, and highlights key findings of its recent State of Sales and Purchasing study.  According to Stein, buyers and sellers are moving away from sales as a competitive event and moving toward greater collaboration.  Stein’s view:

“Faced with increasing complexity and a shift in the balance of power, both buyers and sellers are learning the moves they will need to know to collaborate and negotiate successful deals.”

You can read the full article here, and download a complimentary copy of the report here.

If you’d like to learn more about responding to the new world of sales-purchasing negotiation, attend the February 27 Sales & Marketing Management webinar: “Improving Sales Performance:  New Rules for Leaders.” 

The recent ES Research “State of Sales and Purchasing” study included a provocative finding:  although both buyers and sellers feel that the current negotiation environment is competitive, more than half of both sales and purchasing professionals believe that it will become more collaborative over the next three years.

What’s going on here?  Can negotiations between sales and purchasing professionals be competitive and collaborative at the same time?

Absolutely.

The emergence of e-Auctions, buying committees, structured RFP processes, and third-party purchasing consultants has made the negotiation environment more competitive than in the past.  At the same time, B2B purchasing and contracting professionals are realizing that they must move from a “cost and compliance” model of negotiation to one that simultaneously prompts more partnership and relationship building.

For example, a recent survey conducted by Ariba Inc. on “The Future of Contracting” found that:

• 63% of contracting executives believe “contracts will shift from use as a legal vehicle to use an economic vehicle” focused on improving business performance, and
• 74% of organizations anticipate B2B contracting will change through more collaborative planning and negotiation, with more emphasis on agility, flexibility, and innovation.

This shift has important implications for for sales leaders and front-line sales managers.  Here are three:

1. Focus on “tension management” in sales negotiation:  Coach and train your sales team to avoid either predominantly tactical (competitive) or “win-win” (collaborative) strategies.  Instead, emphasize an approach that helps them to manage the tension in a sales negotiation process that is simultaneously competitive and collaborative.
2. Coach for the right kind of dialogue:  create and execute a sales process that engages buyers—from the beginning of the selling cycle—in a dialogue that both protects your interests, yet opens the door to partnership, creativity, and innovation.
3. Get on the same page with marketing:  make sure your marketing and sales teams are aligned about the ways your solutions create measurable, differentiated value.  Make sure marketing tools and messaging are designed to prompt a value- rather than price-based sales dialogue.  Read about DuPont’s approach to this here.

The ES Research study mentioned above was sponsored by BayGroup International.  Listen to a webinar on the findings here, or download a complimentary copy of the report: “The State of Sales and Purchasing.”

A recent study of buyers and sellers by ES Research Group highlighted the fact that the top challenge to effective negotiation for both purchasing and sales professionals was complexity.  In fact, 83.3% of the buyers, and 79.4% of seller polled reported that the level of complexity in their negotiations had increased during the past three years.

This isn’t surprising, given the increasingly complicated legal environment for B2B contracting, the growth of cross-border purchasing, and the expanding influence multi-player buying committees in the B2B purchasing process.

Here’s the problem:  responding to this complexity with a more complicated selling and negotiating methodology probably won’t improve results.  In fact, it might make the problem worse, and drive down the level of innovation and creativity in the sales and negotiation process.

Here’s the good news:  simplicity helps drive adoption and use of new behavior.  Think of how effective the simplicity of Google’s main search page is to motivating its use.  Or consider how much easier it is to remember the three things at the top of your “to do” list rather than the top ten.  Organizations that harness the power of simplicity in their negotiation training are more likely to see adoption of better negotiation approaches, and achieve better results.

Here are three proven strategies for building the power of simplicity into your sales and negotiation training:

1. Emphasize principles, not tactics:  Focus your team on a manageable set of memorable, “sticky” and universal negotiation principles rather than a complicated multi-step negotiation process or a “tactics-countermeasures” training approach.
2. Use technology to deliver insights in small pieces:  Many organizations use web portals and other online technology to make large amounts of information available to the sales team, then complain when users don’t access the resources.  Think differently:  harness technology to simplify field adoption of new selling and negotiating approaches.  Deliver content to to your team one simple “chunk” at a time, in a way that prompts conversations with managers on how those single ideas will be applied immediately on actual upcoming customer calls.
3. Streamline your planning discipline: Many negotiators today are too busy to complete elaborate planning tools they’ve been given in training.  The result:  little or no planning occurs, and results suffer.  There’s a better alternative: train to a planning approach (based on the principles as mentioned above) that can be completed quickly, but is robust enough to support more detailed sales team discussions when needed.  The promise of simplicity (“I can get this done quickly”) will drive more adoption of the planning methodology taught in training.

The bottom line:  the best way to help sales professionals deal with their increasingly complex job is to arm them with simple, practical training and tools.

The ES Research study mentioned above was sponsored by BayGroup International.  Listen to a webinar on the findings here, or download a complimentary copy of the report: “The State of Sales and Purchasing.”