The subtitle of the current business best seller The Challenger Sale (by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson) reinforces BayGroup International’s idea that the top sales professionals are better than most at “Taking Control of the Sales Process.”

Taking control.  How do high performers do it?

Sales leaders from DuPont know the answer, which is why their implementation of BayGroup International’s Situational Sales Negotiation™ has a full chapter of the book devoted to it.  The key lessons?  That the most successful sales professionals:

• Plan for effective sales execution differently than most.
• Are more skilled than others at handling price pressure from buyers.
• Adopt better—often counterintuitive—approaches to challenging customer assumptions and provoking sales dialogue about new areas of need and value.
• Managing tension more effectively in the sales process using a specific, repeatable behavioral strategy.

When it comes to creating high-performing sales teams—whether or not they are labeled “challengers,” “trusted advisors,” or “valued partners”—it’s an approach focused in these key areas that drives bottom-line results.  That’s why it’s no surprise that BayGroup International is the only company (outside of the author’s own) profiled in The Challenger Sale.

Want to learn more about how DuPont got a 68:1 return on its investment implementing Situational Sales Negotiation™ to help their team take control of the sales?  Click here to learn more.

BayGroup International’s President, Ron D’Andrea, recently took part in a thought-leader panel discussion hosted by ES Research.  The subject:  “Selling To and Negotiating With Today’s Tough, Strategic Procurers/ Buyers/ Sourcers.”

Here are some of Ron’s comments:

• “A major change we’ve seen in the last four years is that our clients no longer think ‘how can I avoid the purchasing group,’ but instead focus on ‘how can I engage them in helping make the right decisions.’  In many companies procurement is now a cabinet-level position.  They are looking for ways to add value, to have better relationships with their internal partners, and to be seen as an asset to their firms.  Our job as sales professionals is to help them accomplish this.”
• “We’re often asked ‘how do I deal with tough tactics from purchasing managers?  Our advice starts with this:  Don’t take it personally, and don’t get angry.  Realize that in some organizations this is what buyers have been taught to do, and they do it because it works…with their weaker vendors. The key is to realize that there’s always tension in negotiations like this.  You may not be able to change the process, or their approach, but you can anticipate it and plan for superior results.”
• “To be successful, you have to understand the role and function of procurement in the organization.  There are often formal cost-reduction initiative that affect the approach procurement takes to negotiations.  To win on value rather than price you need to get down to specifics, and ask question like ‘What are the lead times and the need for reliable supply?  What are the service-level requirements?  What are the costs and risks of switching suppliers?’  The most successful sales teams create a checklist of questions like these, and use it to broaden the discussion from price to other areas of differentiated value.”

Want to hear more?  You’ll find archived recordings of this and other ES Research thought leader panels here.

Want to learn more about BayGroup International’s approach to value-added sales negotiation?  Visit here.

Many BayGroup International clients report that it’s harder today than ever before to negotiate profitable contracts…and that they are more frequently required to negotiate their final agreements with tough sourcing or procurement managers. Here are three ideas to help you be more effective in this challenging environment:

1. You have more power than you think. A recent study from the Corporate Executive Board polled sales and purchasing professionals, asking “Who has more power in negotiations?”  Not surprisingly, 75% of the sales professionals said that purchasing managers had more power.  But the same 75% of purchasing professionals said that sales people had more power. The fact of the matter is that most purchasing professionals are under intense pressure to hit productivity targets, to negotiate with suppliers who have strong support from internal influencers, and to finalize multiple agreements at the end of each quarter.   It’s human nature to think the other party has more power than you do in negotiations.  To be successful, it’s imperative to look at the negotiation from the other party’s perspective, to identify your own sources of power and how you can leverage them.
2. Procurement professionals “triage” their negotiations.  The way you negotiate sends a message that procurement professionals hear…loud and clear.  In training programs we run for purchasing teams we’re often told “We have to choose which suppliers to focus on in the limited time we have at the end of the quarter.  When a supplier demonstrates resolve, makes trades rather than giveaways, and keeps the focus on value rather than price…we’re much more likely to move those agreements along quickly…and focus our efforts on the other, weaker vendors.”
3. Negotiate the process…right from the start.  Many sales professionals end up in weak positions with purchasing managers at the end of the sales process because they have failed to negotiate effectively much earlier in that process.  High performers know that Pivotal Agreements negotiated early in the sales cycle (about access to key people, information, requirements, and buying criteria) have a dramatic impact on final contract negotiations.  The lesson:  When it comes to sales profitability, early agreements make all the difference.  To be successful with purchasing managers at the end of the process, begin negotiating earlier to build your power.

Want to learn more about maintaining a disciplined approach to negotiating throughout the sales process?  Read the BayGroup International white paper “Selling Value, Not Price:  Six Keys to Profitable Sales Execution,” found here.

The goal of training is to improve corporate performance.  Yet a common complaint of executives is “I don’t see the connection between the training we do and bottom line results.”

Connecting training to bottom-line profitability requires a focus in five important areas:

1. Measuring the connection between skill/tool use and financial performance. Most training managers measure participant reaction to training, and sometime learning gain.  It’s critical to go further, and document the direct connection between skill use and profit improvement.
2. Preparing managers to embed new skill/tool use into their regular routines. Many training inititiatives include a “management coaching” component.  Although this is important, it is even more important to arm managers with specific tools, coaching questions, and models for effective profit-oriented discussions of sales and negotiation situations.
3. Emphasizing application of new skills/tools to situations that most leverage profitability. Many training departments strive to offer a comprehensive curriculum to their people.  This is helpful…but what works even better is to focus performance improvement on the critical topics that drive profitability:  sales execution, effective negotiation, and team effectiveness.
4. Focusing on the (few) right things…not everything. It is tempting to deploy training that fully reflects the complexity of the world of work, that provides a comprehensive, detailed method for succeeding at work.  Unfortunately, the more comprehensive and complex the training, the less likely it is to be remembered and used back in the field.  The solution:  “boil down” learning into smaller, more actionable checklist-like tools that can be remembered, accessed, and used at the point of need.
5. Keeping the message in front of the team. The task of connecting performance improvement to profitability doesn’t end when formal training sessions are over.  It is critical to leverage online technology to keep the “profit message” in front of the team when they return to work.

To learn more about BayGroup International’s approach to implementing client projects that tie performance to profitability, visit the “How We Work” section of the our corporate website.

Given the rapid pace of business today and the proliferation of CRM systems, it’s not surprising that many organizations are implementing online solutions to improve the performance of their sales teams.

Unfortunately, sales leaders often report low compliance to online sales training, low usage of online tools, and lower-than-expected return on investments in online technology.

What should a sales training executive consider when evaluating online solutions for the sales force?  A review of best practice implementations suggests that they should ask themselves these ten questions as they evaluate options…

1. Will this online solution save us money?  How much?
2. Is it “turnkey,” so my company’s administrative burden is low (so we can fully leverage our training staff on other projects)?
3. Is it easily and quickly deployed, with minimal involvement of internal IT resources?
4. Is it designed to motivate and maximize use of online content and tools?
5. Is the solution implemented using a process that fosters and improves the quality of on-the-job coaching?
6. Is content delivered in through a variety of channels, such as podcasts, asynchronous online training modules, and downloadable tools…and through mobile devices?
7. Is the quality of online video high enough to appeal to today’s discriminating audience?
8. Does it use online social media and community features such as threaded discussions groups and user ratings of content?
9. Does it allow the delivery of Virtual Live Training (VLT) that engages users with video and high levels of interactivity?
10. Can it be tailored, co-branded, and delivered in a secure manner from behind the firewall?

BayGroup International’s suite of online technology solutions are designed with these requirements in mind. They not only provide a wealth of live and on-demand content, but do so in an easily accessible, easily deployable, and highly secure way.  Find out more here.

In the movie “League of Their Own,” Tom Hanks tells his 1940’s professional women’s baseball team “There’s no crying in baseball!”  Since the recent global economic melt down sales executives have had to give their teams similar advice about the “game” they play:  negotiating profitable agreements with customers.  Complaining about the problem won’t get the job done.  Managing for profitable negotiation will…

What are top performing companies doing to address the challenges of slow economic growth, increasing price-focused buyers, and aggressive competitors?  Here are three strategies some of our most successful clients are using:

1. Focus the sales force on broadening the discussion of value with their customers.  Rather than responding to the customer’s stated needs, make sure you get your team exploring unconsidered needs, those the customer hasn’t thought about during their sales process.  This strategy helps create differentiated value that supports profitable pricing.
2. Coach the sales team to exchange rather than concede value. Too often in tough economic conditions we “give away the store” to close business, and forget that no value is created for our customer if we don’t ask them to give us something back in return for our concessions.  It’s surprising how often coaches fail to ask their sales reps a simple question:  “If we give them ______, what do we get back in return?”  This simple question can drive a conversation that leads to more profitable agreements, and more value in the mind of the customer.
3. Embed a simple coaching process that reminds the sales team to do the right thing with customers when the negotiation tension increases.  A number of BGI clients are implementing solutions that distribute short videos to the sales team on regular basis suggesting strategies they can use immediately on sales calls, and then encourage coaches to use those videos as a springboard for more productive, profitable discussions about account negotiation strategy.

Contact us to learn more here.

Your team makes hundreds of agreements with customers every day…but only a handful, usually fewer than 20%, create 80% of the value created in your sales process.

When the goal is execution of high-margin sales, you should focus first on these “critical few” agreements that drive bottom-line results.

In his best-selling book The Last Link, author Gregg Crawford (President and CEO of BayGroup International) explains:

Any given company’s customer engagement process might require crafting hundreds of agreements.  But typically there are no more than six to eight agreements that dictate the ultimate success of failure of the sales process and corporate strategy:  the Pivotal Agreements…the agreements that are connected to the financial metrics of your corporate strategy.

Pivotal Agreements determine if your sales process leads to large, high-margin contracts.  A key to profitable selling is identifying those Pivotal Agreements (which often happen early in the sales process), and developing strategies for executing them.

To learn more about embedding a sales execution discipline in your organization that gets the team to focus on Pivotal Agreement exectuion, visit here.

To learn more about The Last Link: Closing the Gap That is Sabotaging Your Business, visit here.

For a team wielding the most expensive roster in baseball, you’d think the New York Yankees would know how to handle their money.

But think again…

There is a reason the Yankees perennially spend more money on player contracts than any other team in baseball… and recent negotiations with pitcher Cliff Lee serve as a prime example of why.

The 33 year-old pitcher, was the subject of hot competition in the baseball “free agent” market.  Would Lee use his negotiating power to get the largest contract?  Remarkably, he didn’t.  Instead, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies for $30 million dollars less than the final offer from the New York Yankees, known in the baseball world as having the deepest of “deep pockets.”

While there are many factors contributing to the Yankees’ failure to sign Lee, the fatal error in their negotiation strategy was thinking that all they needed to do was buy out the competing offers from other teams. The size of the paycheck was clearly not the pitcher’s main criteria in choosing which team to sign with, or he ultimately wouldn’t have agreed to a contract that offered a significantly less amount of money.

What the Yankees failed to see was that when it comes to negotiating, there are many other factors at play than money. Here are some wrong turns the Yankees made along the way that led to a failed negotiation:

• Making public statements that implied the Yankees had everything to gain by signing Cliff Lee, without ever stating how Lee would benefit by joining the Yankees. “He could take higher offers, he could take lower offers, he could take our offer,” said Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman. “Ultimately, it’s all in his court to decide.”
• Conceding on price without getting anything in return—the Yankees continued to up their offer to Lee without receiving any reassurance or signs from the pitcher that he was leaning towards signing with them. If anything, this just made the Yankees look desperate.
• When asked whether he viewed Lee as a want or a need, Yankee contract manager Joe Girardi was direct in saying that Lee is “important to us.”

Alternatively, the Philadelphia Phillies made Lee believe that by joining their team, he would have the best chance of winning the World Series. Cliff Lee wanted a six year contract. This is perhaps the last contract he will sign in his major league career, and what he wants more than anything is a championship ring before he retires. The Phillies understood this, and ultimately used this knowledge to their advantage when negotiating with Lee.

If the Yankees had taken the time to understand the Cliff Lee’s needs, instead of trying to accommodate what they thought he wanted (the most money possible) perhaps they would have been successful in signing him.

Even though sales is a “whole different ballgame,” you can learn a lot from this Major League parable when negotiating your next big sales agreement. Take the time to identify your customer’s needs–beyond money– and be creative in your attempts to address them.

How do you achieve high-impact, award-winning sales negotiation performance?  Follow the lead of CA Technologies.

Chief Learning Officer Magazine has awarded its 2009 Business Impact Gold Award to CA Technologies for its implementation of BayGroup International sales negotiation methodology.

According to the article, which appears in the December 2009 edition: “As a result of its employee development initiative to enhance negotiation skills, CA has brought in some $42 million in top-line revenue. And that’s only from April 2008 through March 2009 – last fiscal year’s deployment.”

The CLO Magazine article highlights the leadership of Dan Braunm, Vice President of global learning at CA Technologies in implementing CA Inc.’s award-winning sales negotiation initiative. The Business Impact Gold Award is awarded annually to learning executives who have demonstrated measurable business impact of their workforce development programs in the past year.

Braunm attributes the success of the CA Technologies initiative to the fact that “the program was executed a little differently than negotiation skills had been delivered in the past. [In the past], we had used lots of vendors and courses that talked about winning negotiations as you get to the table. We didn’t sit down with executives and talk to them about business objectives in terms of expanding the deal.”  His mission, according to the article, “was to get people to think differently about that, to promote give and take, and to always consider how to expand the size of each deal being made without giving away unnecessary concessions.”

The article also describes how the initiative went beyond workshop training, and included a “series of post-workshop follow-up activities for managers as well as sales professionals, including coaching to ensure the new skills and behaviors remain active throughout the life cycle of a sale. There is also post-measurement to examine deals made and how they might be improved, along with how negotiation contributed to their success.”

Based on its success to date, CA, Inc. plans to deploy its sales negotiation initiative in the next year to four times as many sales professionals as it had originally planned.

Click here to read the full article in CLO Magazine.

Learn more about the sales negotiation methodology implemented by CA Technologies here.