by Kurt Ballard |
06.16.2009
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If you’ve been in sales more than a month you’ve experienced a situation where buyers are calling relentlessly to gather some must-have information to make an informed buying decision. As highly motivated sales professionals, we drop everything and respond appropriately. Then something strange happens. We never hear from these frantic, gotta-have-it-now buyers again. No response to phone calls or emails, and requests for meetings never get past the gatekeeper. It’s as if you’re invisible.
Welcome to the “Nobody Zone.” When you are in the Nobody Zone your voice is silent. Your words are invisible. You become a ghost – and ghosts don’t close deals, they haunt houses.
Three Tactics to Avoid the Nobody Zone
To steer clear of the Nobody Zone, sales people must first understand the buying process and the buying drivers for the prospective customer’s organization, i.e. “why are they interested in my products?”
- Distinguish Between Genuine & False Buying Signals
Very early in the process all buyers conduct research to learn about potential solutions. In this stage buyers are eager and often send RFPs/RFIs to potential vendors. They scour the web, instantly return emails and phone calls, attend webinars and engage with sales people whose solutions are the most remote of possibilities. Some sales people confuse this hunger for information as a buying signal. Take it at face value – it’s nothing more than information gathering.
This stage is where your company messaging and product positioning can fully engage buyers or push them away. If your sales people are requesting new product literature for each account, it may be an indication of messaging that’s too product focused instead of buyer focused.
- Ask More, Learn More
Telling isn’t selling. Asking questions is the only way to learn about problems your buyers are trying to solve and why those problems have suddenly appeared on the organization’s A-list. A good product marketing team will educate sales people on macro level market trends of their target customers and the impact those trends typically have on an organization. Savvy sales people will use that information to jump-start a discovery conversation and determine the problems and challenges and why they’re critical to solve.
Once understood, sales people can begin to articulate your value story and ensure it speaks to the needs of the buyer in their own language. Get this step right and you will fully engage potential buyers. Miss the mark here and immediately feel the Nobody Zone pulling. Use the two-ears one-mouth rule and buyers will tell you exactly how to earn their business.
- Keep a Little To Yourself
After the information gathering is complete, the comparison of potential solutions begins. Sellers beware! This is where the gravitational pull of the Nobody Zone begins to tug on you because buyers tune out sellers unless they need more information or seek clarification. Welcome to the black hole of unreturned calls and meeting requests. You’ve given them everything and they no longer need you.
To stay out of the Nobody Zone provide the buyer just enough information to arouse interest and get into the game. This is where good positioning pays huge dividends because your sales and marketing materials speak the buyer’s language before the issues have been formally discussed. They communicate credibility which is the lynchpin to securing a meeting where the true scope of the opportunity can be uncovered.
If your sales and product marketing teams finds themselves in the Nobody Zone too often, sign them up for a Positioning & Messaging for Sales workshop where they’ll learn how to separate the contenders from the pretenders, ask the right questions and articulate value in the language of the buyer.
Positioning & Messaging for Sales - $795 per person
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Last Updated ( 10.05.2009 )
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