by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded to focus first on relationship and value demonstration, then on the commissionable task.

On a spring afternoon long decades ago, we sat almost knee to knee in a hotel lobby after a sales and marketing conference we’d both attended. She, leaning back, almost lounging, on a hotel lobby couch. I, sitting on the edge of an arm chair, facing her, leaning forward. She reached into her purse, fished around, and pulled out a pencil.

“Sell me this.” Her eyes barely moved.

I looked at the pencil. It was a standard yellow wood #2 pencil that, in her hand, looked as big as a shovel.

“Come on,” she purred, extending her pencil-bearing hand toward me. “Sell me this pencil. It can be anything you want.”

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that, to win in a competitive situation, we need to build our fan base inside our prospects’ organizations well before we make our move to sell.

The Boston Bruins (National Hockey League defending Stanley Cup champions this year) began their training camp last Friday.  The seventh (final) game of their 2011 Stanley Cup series against the Vancouver Canucks was electrifying hockey, whether one was rooting Bruins or Canucks, and Boston’s win at the end was a surprise because… .through the first six games, each team had won on its home ice,  the seventh was game was played in Vancouver, and, in the National Hockey League, home teams win 59% of the time. Home ice advantage.  Fifty-nine percent!

Shocked?  Well hang on. If you’re a National Basketball Association fan, home teams win 62.7% of the time.  Almost TWO THIRDS of the games are won by home teams.  Home court advantage. And it’s about the same in the WNBA as well. Amazing, eh?

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded to clarify terms we don’t understand before presenting ideas.

One person’s golf is another person’s word play – meaning, I love a good pun as much as my golfing friends love a good drive or putt.  I love rough puns a lot more than my friends enjoy hitting balls into the tall grass.

Anyhoo, a couple of weeks ago, during the “warming up” stage of a conference call, a few of us on the line began fooling around with puns and plays on words we remembered hearing from our elementary school children.

One of the group offered:

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, “Dam!”

The folks on the line guffawed appropriately.

Another offered:

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded to step back and look for the broader picture before we pitch solution for the problem we’ve just heard.

Watching classroom sales training role-plays is a little like watching football teams practice without pads…  Low intensity.  Move through the motions.  Nobody trying too hard to take anyone else out.  Still, an observer can get a general sense of the team.  Essential tendencies shine through.

So, as I was watching and coaching this particular set of “pad-free practice role-plays,” I saw an essential tendency.  As the “sellers” in the role plays heard a bit of information that suggested a potential need for a product, they would say, almost reflexively, “if I could show you a way to…”  or “we have a product that would help you….”

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that the value we create in our sales conversations is proportional to the quality of the questions we ask and whose interests we are attempting to serve by asking them.

This is a story about a sales call. A  very experienced, productive (among the top 25% of his sales force) commercial banker took me on a call to one of his customers.  Since rates are low and many banks are urgently seeking to lend money, the lender wanted to refinance the company’s building which, today, is financed by another bank.  The objective of the call was to gain the company’s agreement to consider a proposal for refinancing the building.

The lender opened the call by indicating he wanted to discuss refinancing the building,  then worked through a series of “fact” questions (how much is outstanding on the existing loan, when is the maturity date of the current loan, how big is the balloon payment at the end, what’s your current interest rate, who’s your attorney, when  do you want to close), then led the conversation as follows: