I just read an article about a fascinating Silicon Valley company called Palantir, which is in the business of mining huge data sets, primarily for national security clients. If you recall the 9/11 Commission Report, which found that many of the clues about the terrorist plot were missed because of a failure to “connect the dots”, Palantir designs the systems to connect the dots, and apparently they are very good at it. As the article relates, a Special Forces member stationed in Afghanistan said “It’s like plugging into the Matrix. The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.’”
There are a number of interesting practices the company follows, but the one I want to focus on is their approach to selling. They don’t use traditional salespeople. Instead, they have what they call forward deployed engineers, “the sometimes awkward computer scientists most companies will avoid putting in front of customers.”
This book, by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon, comes very highly touted, especially by Neil Rackham himself, who calls it “the most important advance in selling for many years.”I’d restrain my enthusiasm a little short of that description, but overall it is an excellent book, with provocative insights and useful information for salespeople looking for ways to break out of the pack, especially in difficult economic times.
The key to a really good book is that it makes you say, “I never thought of that before,” and to use that insight to improve your life in some way. Interestingly, that’s also the key to a really good salesperson, as well.
I’ve been in the training and consulting business for twenty years, but in many ways the past year has been the most exciting and gratifying time of my career, because of a huge lesson I’ve learned about friends, colleagues, and even competitors.
When I began my sales training career, I was unknowingly infected with a terrible attitude. The founder of the company I worked for was extremely protective of his intellectual property and egotistical enough to believe that his way was not only the best way but the only way. Competitors were enemies and there was nothing to learn from industry peers. And of course, you never gave anything away—no one but paying customers would ever get a chance to see your materials.
Even though I left the company 15 years ago, I carried that attitude lodged in my bones and have only recently taken the steps to cure myself. I’m happy to say the attitude is in remission and hopefully gone for good.
Two steps I took put me on the road to a cure. First, I began blogging and second, I reconnected with Dave Brock, a colleague from the early years.
Blogging taught me that exposing my ideas to a wider audience only helps make them better. It taught me that giving value to others (and I hope I have) is reward enough in itself, but also plants the seeds for future rewards if you’re patient.
When I reconnected with Dave, he was incredibly generous in offering his time and advice, and most importantly his connections. I at first thought it was strange that the people he seemed most connected with could be considered competitors to him and to me, but I quickly learned that his openness and generosity were not unique in the community of sales experts that he introduced me to. I’ve received advice from many of them, served on a few panels with others, and have had some graciously agree to review my new book.
Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned from hopping out of my tiny pond into the big ocean is that in fields such as sales, persuasion and communications, there really is no such thing as “intellectual property”; we’re all just stewards of the knowledge we gather and the best we can do is refine it, maybe add a little to it, and most importantly, pass it on.
From them, I have received three gifts for which I am very grateful this Thanksgiving week:
I’ve learned more about myself and my profession. I’ve learned that my ideas and expertise are solid, but that there is always more to learn and different and—yes—better ways of saying and doing things.
It has made me more useful to my own clients, because now I have a vast pool of resources to draw on to refer to them when it’s outside of my sweet spot.
It has been a lot of fun dealing with driven people who love and respect knowledge and are fascinating to interact with.
I would like to thank some them here below, which is always risky because of the chance I might leave off someone. If I have left off an important name, it’s a memory problem, not ingratitude.
Dave Brock, of course. John Spence–Grasshopper, the pebble you snatched has become a boulder. John Jantsch, whose book, the Referral Engine was the catalyst that stopped my procrastination. Clients Alex T., for your support—it didn’t work out this year but, as the Dolphins say, there’s always next year…Bill D. for all your help—I’ll raise one of my greenies to you this Thursday. Thanks also to those who agreed to read my book and give me their honest opinions: Jill Konrath, Charlie Greene, Andy Rudin, Anthony Iannarino, Jim Keenan, Andy Blackstone, Chip Bell, Spencer Penhart, Dan Waldschmidt, Paul McCord, Mike Weinberg, Dave Stein, Reg Nordman.
As part of the research for my book on executive sales presentations, I have spent the past two weeks interviewing senior executives in order to get an understanding from them about what they see when they are on the receiving end of sales presentations. Although I haven’t completed all of the scheduled interviews yet, some very clear insights have emerged. I have bad news, worse news, and ultimately some good news.
First, the bad news: I asked each executive how they would rank the general quality of the sales presentations they see, and the average is between 5 and 6 on a ten point scale, with a very wide variance within individual estimations. In other words, those who said “5” also said they saw some 10s and some 1s. What this tells me is that there is a lot of inconsistency and a lot of room to improve.
Here’s the worse news: the salespeople that senior executives thought were average presenters are generally the best of the best. They have to be in order to earn the right to be in the room presenting to begin with. Most senior executives listen to sales presentations at two times during the sales cycle. In the early stages, they may get involved to set the initial vision for the project and commit resources. At closing, they get involved with their teams to help make the decision. When it comes to initial calls, they may get up to 100 requests a month from salespeople, but generally agree to see one or two at most. You have to be really, really, good to get to that initial presentation. By the time of the closing presentation, their staff has probably spoken to many vendors and has filtered them to the top two or three.
Fortunately there is good news. While it may require hard work, it’s not that complicated to do the things that will make you stand out, or to cut out the things executives hate. Here’s a list of some of the dos and don’ts that came through loud and clear in my discussions.[1]
Top 3 “Dos”
Prepare. Telling salespeople to prepare is like putting warning labels on cigarettes: it’s amazing how many of them ignore the warning even at these levels. It’s not just time spent in preparation, it’s the focus. Spend less time on the fonts and pictures in your slides and more on getting to know my company. Do enough homework to be able to articulate a clear idea of how you can help me, but don’t go too far and assume you have all the answers. “Preparation is paramount”—the care you show in preparation sends a clear message to us about the care you will show in implementing the solution and handling the account. Preparation becomes even more critical in team presentations, and at the level where we get involved, they’re almost all team presentations.
Get to the point. Most of the executives I talked to expressed frustration with rambling presentations where there is little clarity what the main point is or even what the salesperson wants them to do. One of the biggest surprises from my interviews is that this is not actually a time issue; it’s about getting value from time spent. In fact, because of what’s at stake in most of these presentations, executives are willing to spend whatever time it takes making sure they have what they need to make the best decision—as long as the presenter makes the time relevant.
Make it interactive. Ask questions and expect that they will ask you questions as the presentation is progressing instead of waiting until the end. There are two reasons for this. First, it allows them to go right to the parts they find most important. Second, it’s often their way of separating gold-plated from real gold—they like to scratch the surface by asking questions and see the depth of thought underneath and gauge your confidence from your answers. Of course, in order to be interactive you have to cut back substantially on the number of slides you present.
Top 3 “Don’ts”
Don’t have 17 slides telling me how great your company is. By the time you’ve reached me, you’ve passed those tests. I want you to talk me about my company and how you can help me.
Don’t ask for me to attend unless there’s a good reason. I like to push decisions as far down the organization as possible. What are the good reasons? If it’s strategic to my company direction, if it involves a major risk, if it impacts multiple functions, or if it’s a large dollar amount, then I will probably want to be involved. Otherwise, don’t try to get me in the meeting just because your boss says you should call high.
Don’t get so focused on the big picture that you screw up the little details. One of the CEOs I spoke to formerly headed up a small company which had the same name as another company in the Midwest. Whose logo do you think the salesperson put on the slides? Another executive was a prominent member of a university athletic department. When I asked him about don’ts, he said, “Don’t wear an orange and blue tie if you’re selling to the University of Georgia.”
There is a common misconception that senior level executives do not like to see salespeople. My interviews showed me that’s untrue. One executive, who just retired from a company that was so large that he only sat in on sales presentations which involved at least a half a billion dollar investment, told me, “I was always open to seeing vendors. We needed them.”
The truth is, they just don’t like to see bad salespeople.
[1] From a methodological standpoint, it’s important to realize that the question about dos and don’ts is very open-ended—none of the answers were prompted or skewed by the way I asked the question.
