Often sales people do not actively follow up on marketing generated leads. This may be a result of poor sales behaviors, but it is more likely that sales teams are not confident in the quality of the sales leads they are getting. Marketing Automation is a powerful technology, but it is important not to “over automate” the classification of the lead.

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For some of our most strategic accounts over the years, we always took the time to develop a very robust and detailed account plan. One of the fun features of these account plans was the “wine glass” analysis. It was a great way to understand the level of relationship we had with certain critical stakeholders in the account.

If we placed a wine glass next to their name on the org chart, we could see at a glance the depth of the relationship. The wine glass, of course, meant that this is a person that would join us for a dinner or cocktails and with whom we have developed a personal relationship.

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Guest Post By Vanessa Fox

The energy was palpable among the 250 sales enablement professionals at the start of the Forrester Technology Sales Enablement Forum 2012 — then Brad Holmes, VP, Practice Leader, Sales Enablement and Technology Marketing, Forrester took off his jacket, and then his shirt — to reveal his Sales Enablement HERO tee shirt. He fortunately stopped there, but the enthusiasm didn’t!

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A year ago, we posted this blog article “I will pretend to sell, if you pretend to buy”. This was a mantra of my old boss and friend, Sherwin Uretsky and one of his famous “12 sins of selling” that I am still trying to remember.

I thought I would dust off the conversation and reinforce the ideas with three key  points.

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“I will pretend to sell if you pretend to buy” This is one of my favorite quotes from Sherwin Uretsky, one of our Revenue Architects advisors and one of the top revenue architects that I know!

What does it mean?

So many people engaged in sales imagine that they can win business after gaining access to a particular client – or after a warm meeting with a prospective client. But too often, they fail to really listen to their gut . They fail to perform the basic qualification that they need to do:  BANT –  Budget, Authority, Needs and Timeline. Or SCOTSMAN: Solution; Competition; Originality; Time Scales; Size; Money; Authority; Need.

They are kidding themselves… meeting after meeting of friendly banter with the client….pretending to sell, and the client pretending to buy.

• Wrong opportunity
• Wrong decision maker
• No BANT
• Free consulting
• Long sales cycle

When you see it, stop it. Ask yourself the question – what is the compelling event? What is the implementation date? What happens if the client doesn’t buy? There likely won’t be an answer and you will see that there likely is not an opportunity after all!

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Today, we communicate in multiple ways across media types – including emails, blogs, articles, reports, proposals and presentations. Too often we present a complex collection of individual ideas with little meaning or structure. Effective presentation style is critical, yet inadequate. Without a clear top-down structure, our arguments and key messages are lost or misunderstood. The audience is not persuaded to take action and teams are misaligned. The result is lost value.  Today’s leaders need to present ideas effectively across channels. They need the tools to develop a focused, logical, structured communication and the skills to deliver and present ideas persuasively.

We offer a unique approach for persuasive communications:

• Persuasive Communications Workshops:  This is the foundation course for effective persuasive communications. Equip yourself with tools and techniques to understand the client’s problems and get your point across clearly and succinctly.
• Document and Presentation Review: Review your presentation or written work for structure and sound argumentation
• Persuasive Presentation Workshop: Intensive workshop with video recording and personal feedback
• Executive Coaching in Communication Skills: Individual coaching and preparation workshop for executives who need to continuously excel and present to management and board members.
• Workshops to train and integrate selling techniques with SCQA Single Minded Messages for end-to-end consultative sales.

Single Minded Message: Structured Thinking and Delivery Workshop

Whether creating proposals, presenting, or just writing emails, our programs are highly relevant to anyone who needs to better structure,simplify and influence through all their communications.  The “Structured Thinking and Delivery” (ST&D) workshop is the foundation of our approach. It sets the framework and approach for more succinct and effective communications. The tools and techniques acquired truly change the way you think and communicate your thoughts – whatever the channel. From analyzing the audience to making the messages more compelling, the approach helps you think clearly through your arguments and convey them as simply as possible.

The approach draws on the core elements of logical rationale, as well as current best practices in structured thinking used in worlds leading businesses such as management consulting, advertising and technology companies.

• Consultative engagement that can build on your use of the popular SPIN® model from Huthwaite*
• Persuasive communication using the powerful SCQA model

What is Persuasive Argumentation?

This course delivers against the 3 core elements to drive effective communications and presentations:

• It starts from the core idea, not the delivery. While there are many ways to improve presentation skills (often hard to learn) this course addresses the more common issue which is the lack of a meaningful, single minded point to make.
• Focuses on results not on means. The focus is to help individuals figure out what they are trying to achieve, and how to most effectively and succinctly achieve this objective. This prioritization of information and recommendations, based on sound logic, is core in the digital age
• While the core concepts are “media neutral” the course translates the approach into ways of making presentations, pitches, emails, documents, web sites or other communications EASIER and more IMPACTFUL for the participants to develop, to ensure that the concepts go from “ideas” to “behaviors”.
• We provide a set of online tools to support the ongoing development and growth of people using the concepts and tools presented.

Note:  The SPIN framwork is a registered trademark of Huthwaite, Inc.

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Use the principles of Persuasive Communication to enhance your selling and marketing communications, online content and blog posts.

Persuasive Communication is a powerful approach. The method helps you deliver a key argument or message and deliver it in a logical way.  You can capture the essence of the situation or problem,  ask the key question your audience has on their mind, and deliver the single-minded message and evidence that you want to deliver.  From my earlier work at PA Consulting and continuing today, I use what I believe is a very powerful model for communicating and delivering persuasive arguments. You will often find me asking members of my teams, “What is your SCQA? ” – a typical question I heard while at PA.   The title of this post is from my colleague, Murugasan Nielsen and his company,  NotaBene. (Full disclosure, I work with and recommend NotaBene for the advanced delivery of facilitation workshops around persuasive communications).

What is Persuasive Communication?

Persuasive communication is a structured way to position and communicate that ties your answer - or proposed idea -  to the situation and complication that must be overcome by your audience.  Let me guide you through an example by introducing the model to convince you that you should embrace this approach within your organization. To do this, I will use “SCQA” or Situation, Complication, Question and Answer which is the structure that will help guide the delivery of your messages.  SCQA can be used in more subtle ways, but to illustrate how the logic it works, I will use the structure explicitly in the following argument about the impact of Persuasive Communications:

Situation

Communicating a clear and persuasive message to your audience is critical – whether in a sales or service delivery situation or presenting a solution or new proposition to the marketplace, people and organizations need to deliver their content and ideas in a clear and directed way that speaks to the key issues and challenges that your audience wants to fix. If you can more effectively communicate your message and persuasive argument, you will be much more likely to convince your audience that they should take the action you propose.

Complication

Unfortunately, too many of our communications lack the clarity and structure of good top-down thinking and problem solving. Bloggers of all quality and experience make arguments without tying together key issues, sales teams meander through client conversations without delivering a clear and persuasive argument backed by logic, and corporate presentations miss the mark in delivering a single-minded message and instead offer only a reflection of the company itself – without a focus on the audience and the opportunities they seek to address.

With the proliferation of online media and brand messages, it is critically important to differentiate your message and deliver it in a clear and compelling way. In order to use a more persuasive communication technique, your writers and presenters need better tools to apply structured communications in their day-to-day activities. It is difficult to ensure that teams learn and apply an understandable approach consistently across the organization.

Question

How can we change the way our teams engage their audience and deliver single minded messages to drive results?

Answer

Build structured communications into the fabric of your organization by helping communicators deliver compelling arguments that drive the results.

You can do this by following three strategies:

1. Formally introduce Structured Thinking and Delivery using  workshops that use hands-on practice, case studies and real-world examples.
2. Reinforce the approach by applying structured communication techniques across all your interactions day-to-day – including presentations, emails, blog posts and marketing communications
3. Ensure adoption across the organization by leading by example and recognizing the impacts that come from applying the approach.

Persuasive Communication is a critical element of an effective organization and a foundation for realizing results from your audience engagement.How have you used these techniques in your organization? Please share your ideas and comment at the Revenue Architects blog.  Good luck and good communicating!

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