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Fast Way to Grow: Hire a BD Pro

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2012-05-16T14:22:18-04:00

This month’s Alexander Insights feature article is on how to best Coordinate the Selling Team when attempting to sell complex services and solutions to complex clients in complex environments. One of the key players I recommend having on your selling team is the business development specialist--the talented professional that gets the qualified first appointment with the appropriate prospect executive. From my experience, this is a very important role that many services businesses fail to fill, leaving it to the services seller to handle. ... Yes, I know a really good BD person is both hard to find and (potentially) expensive, but don’t pass up the probable ROI. ...For example, pay $2,000 for each appointment set and an additional $10,000 when that appointment leads to business. ...I’m quite interested in your success with business development specialists, so please drop me a note and share your experiences.

Handcuff Your Executives’ Compensation to Services Success

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2012-04-16T17:24:47-04:00

A short while ago, I was contacted by the senior vice president of a technology company who was tasked with growing their services business. ...He told the organization that selling services, especially selling services contracts, was an absolutely critical, must-do, top priority for the business and that he expected each and every salesperson to sell services every chance they could. ...Year Two, the CEO took positive action by putting a senior member of his team in charge of the initiative, an individual who had solid success leading services within their industry. ...The company contracted me to give a keynote speech at their global sales conference to demonstrate the services potential, share relevant examples, provide best practices for selling services, and motivate their salespeople into action. With all modesty, my presentation seemed to connect with the audience, and I believe helped to gain their commitment and increase their motivation to get serious about selling services. However, one other action taken by the CEO was the prime driver of change: from that day forward, every executive’s bonus was based upon reaching the company’s services goals.

Customize Each Solution: A Question of Balance

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2012-03-19T14:38:09-04:00

My third commandment of selling services is to Customize Each Solution, in which I emphasize the importance of making each customer feel special and unique even if your solution is off-the-shelf. All good services sellers know the importance of sharing stories from other experiences that are similar to the customer. ...However, no one likes to be told that their reality is exactly like those of others, and the seller that emphasizes similarities too much will find that this strategy backfires--causing resentment in the prospect. ...Explore Uniqueness: However, I must admit that we have never worked with a start-up, and I’m sure there are some unique considerations. ...Explore Uniqueness: However, I don’t recall our working with an organization that has the type of competitive challenges you do. ...Share Similarities: “We are pleased that over 80% of our customers are under services contracts and 93% score us as “Excellent” in performance evaluations.

Selling the Invisible: Turning Feelings into Facts and Concepts into Cash

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2012-02-13T13:43:07-05:00

A really big selling sin involves expecting customers to connect the dots--to understand issues, concepts, ideas, and services that they have little or no experience with. ...Provide both positive and negative case examples that the customer can relate to in order to bolster your cause, spotlighting what businesses and individuals gained by taking action or what they lost by not taking action. ...In addition, a customer may never have purchased a business assessment before, but he can probably relate to the need for a physical checkup before taking on a new sport or strenuous activity. Furthermore, if you find yourself in a competitive position, you might make the medical analogy that your organization is not a general practitioner but a heart specialist, and thus the most appropriate choice for an important decision such as the one the customer is facing. ...For example, if you know your customer is a big football fan, you can use the concept of “the huddle,” “going deep,” “game plan,” and many others as a way to relate the importance of ideas in terms the customer can understand. ...If two or three well respected people in well respected companies with similar issues are happy with your offerings, your customer will likely be willing to accept the premise that he will be happy as well.

Clarify and Verify or Estimate and Speculate

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2012-01-11T13:56:46-05:00

My first commandment of selling services is to Clarify Complex Customer Issues in which I strongly state the critical importance of always starting with an assessment. How in the world can you make an accurate diagnosis and recommendations regarding complex situations from just one or two client conversations? If you go to your doctor complaining about chest pains, are you comfortable with her recommendation for heart surgery without more data? ... You’d expect her to request a personal and family medical history, lifestyle inventory, blood tests, scans, and whatever else might provide insights. ...The CNO (head nurse) may well be most focused on improving customer care, with cost not being an issue. ... Furthermore, even the most broadminded, intelligent, altruistic person only has limited information--rarely does he have knowledge of the broad systemic factors that impact success.

Compare and Contrast to Get Good Business Fast: Best Practices in Offering Choices

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-12-13T11:11:45-05:00

In a recent article* I wrote about the importance of providing customer choices, but limiting them to two options or ideally three. ...Require it of your sellers in all they do--from making suggestions during initial discussions to outlining three options in formal proposals. ...Your bare-bones option should be the minimum offering that you are still confident in to meet customer requirements. ... Assuming that all three of your options are strong on value, about two-thirds of your customers will choose your middle choice. ...For example, if you go into a clothing store to buy a suit, shoes, and a belt, the savvy store clerk will always sell you the suit first. Once you have laid out $1,000 for the suit, paying $250 for shoes seems very reasonable, and a $40 belt seems like a bargain.

Selling Is Not Evil

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-11-15T11:10:26-05:00

In this week's Alexander Insights article, the “The Four R’s of Services Account Management,” I talk about the services account manager's (SAMs) expanding role when it comes to getting new business. ... When I discuss this new expectation in my workshops, I am often met with rolling eyes and people sitting back in their chair staring at the ceiling. ...Probably you, and everyone reading this, can remember at least one time in your childhood where you came across a vacuum cleaner salesperson following a script trying to trick your parents into buying something they didn’t want, or a slick-talking house siding seller similar to Danny DeVito in the movie Tin Men*, or maybe some selling shenanigans you observed in your own sales force (heaven forbid!). ...Professional selling is influencing with integrity, making recommendations that are in the best interest of the customer, actively looking for ways to help the customer do things easier, better, faster, cheaper. ... That is exactly what the professional management consultant does, and the technical support rep, and clerk at the clothing store, and the field service engineer, and the SAM at a key customer’s site. In fact, if a customer-facing person is not actively looking for ways to improve a customer’s situation, he is not acting as a professional.

The 90-Day Window

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-10-17T09:30:26-04:00

As savvy politicians and insightful leaders know, there is always a “90-day window” that opens after any significant change. This window is the time frame in which change adoption is the most critical--late enough for individual performers to have some familiarity with the effects of new roles, organization structures, and processes, and early enough so that organizational inertia has not stepped in, blinding individuals to objective evaluation and limiting their openness to the necessary enhancements required of any new effort worth doing. ...Yet, it’s amazing to see, in situation after situation, this marvelous opportunity wasted on endless meetings on tactics, discussions with no plans, and speeches with no action. Soon the chance to move ahead is twittered away as the window closes, returning the old “way we did it before” behaviors and the mindsets that shape them. So, adopt the mantra of sea captains of old preparing for an important voyage: “There is not a moment to lose.” ...Act as if you are facing an outgoing tide, making your every action advance your agenda while you still have the water to make headway.

Lessons from Lazy Leaders

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-09-13T09:43:49-04:00

“Lazy” almost always has a negative connotation, but for the sake of this article, I am thinking of lazy in the most positive light--the enviable position of having time on your hands to do what you want because of good planning or strong prioritization or smart delegation or practical creativity. One of our “lazy” sons was a master of “getting out of work” in his youth by figuring out the easiest (and often fastest) way to accomplish chores--these are executive traits not to be admonished, but to be admired! Furthermore, a U.S. president was termed lazy (Ronald Reagan), yet many would say that he was one of the most successful presidents (forget about your political leanings) in accomplishing his agenda. ...A natural state of affairs (particularly for those of us who are engineers) is to get caught up in methods and procedures of “how things are done.” ...To make the biggest gains (and, thus, make your life easier), challenge your mid-level performers to demonstrate their capability by giving them the organization’s problems to fix. ...The best organizations limit their critical issues to three, and the best leaders limit their personal focus to one--one area where they can personally contribute the most to their organization, and they stick with this one area for a quarter or for a year…whatever it takes to accomplish it.

In for a Penny, or In for a Pound

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-08-16T17:26:08-04:00

In talking to services executives in charge of leading their company’s transition from product support services to professional services, a common story line develops: ...Addressing A is straightforward--the core and best practices, key benchmarks, and proven transition methodologies can be obtained (at least the 20,000-feet version) very economically and relatively painlessly. ... They will read the books, buy a study or two, attend a workshop, and/or have services industry consultants in for a day to learn trends, issues, and best practices. ... • “Solid voice-of-the-customer research sets the foundation for our services organization, and I’ll commit some money and the necessary 90 days to do things right.” ...This is a priority to me, and I’ll work with the vice president of sales to provide services-specific training and coaching.” ...In leading the transition from product support services to professional services, commit the time and money to do it right or you are probably better off (at least from a career perspective) not doing it at all.

One Foot on the Boat, One Foot on the Dock

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-07-13T14:15:24-04:00

Every boater knows the feeling, the queasiness in the stomach that comes the instant you feel you are no longer in control--stretched (literally) between where you have been (the dock) and where you’d like to go (the boat). ...In this situation, your immediate actions will determine whether you cast-off on your new intended voyage, tie-off back to the firm ground from which you came, or splash-off “down to Davy Jones” (as old sailors would say). ...As a leader of a services organization, you may find yourself with one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat much more often than you’d like. As you work to steer your services organization ahead to accomplish your goals, you may feel a constant current tugging you back to support the different objectives of the product-side of the house. ...So take the time to meet with senior management on a regular basis to force the question, “How can the services organization best help the business accomplish its mission and achieve its goals?” Sure, there will be times when it is necessary to steer a little off your desired heading, but you can plan for this ahead of time and put contingencies in place.

Whistling through the Graveyard

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-06-15T15:52:22-04:00

When I asked him what would happen if there was not dramatic change to his company's business model due to major competitive challenges, his response was, "Well, for the few of us left, it would be like whistling through the graveyard--the business would be dead, and all that would be left are memories of what might have been." I share this stark but vivid picture with you as a warning signal for all of us who are currently "doing OK," "have things under control," "are meeting our numbers" and so on. If our focus becomes an obsession of doing things better, driving efficiencies, or fine-tuning our plans, we are vulnerable to competitors (both old and new) who don't know the rules of our schoolyard and don't care. If we don't have an eye out, before we know it, the sand might be removed from our box, tag switches to dodge ball, and recess becomes study hall. ...So don't let your milestones become headstones, dedicate 10 percent of your thinking and your resources to innovation--speculating, scheming, and pondering questions like: "What if we give the product away and really focus on selling services? ...If you proactively balance your existing model of efficiency with a portion of innovation, you'll not only keep your organization alive, but you’ll be whistling a happy tune.

The Need for Speed

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-05-17T10:18:36-04:00

Just about all of us, when facing tough decisions, can well relate--it is much more inviting to hesitate and procrastinate than make a choice that you just don’t want to deal with. In retrospect, it is fairly easy (although not always comfortable) to look back upon major decisions and discover that there was plenty of information available early on to justify/confirm/demand the decision. In fact, in almost all cases of importance it is not a lack of cost-benefit justification that slows or stalls big decision making, it is the defenders of the status quo, Fear and Dread. Here is an example: Think about senior management in a product company (maybe your company) who are faced with overwhelming data supporting the business need to transition from product-centric to services-led. ... They probably also feel Dread when anticipating all the hassle (challenging the organizational culture and dealing with individual personalities) involved in bringing about a change of this magnitude. ...A little Fear and Dread are a part of all decisions, but they really become a problem when dealing with those big, complex, gooey issues that have potential for major impact, either good or bad.

Leadership Lesson: Focus or Flounder

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-05-03T14:52:40-04:00

This very rare club of esteemed folks had the ability to “multi-task” and “multi-produce” at an extraordinary level--doing many (and sometimes quite varied) works simultaneously and doing them all brilliantly. Alas, most of us aren’t members of this elite club, but because of the “do more with less” movement brought about by downsizing and cost-cutting programs, we find ourselves facing a laundry list of goals, projects, and tasks covering a variety of areas--some we are good at, and some we are not as good at. ...The vast majority of people (even really smart people) can hold only three goals, or three issues, or three ideas in their mind at one time. ...The Rule of Three is also a maxim of good communication--limit your message to three main points, and your power of persuasion will go up dramatically. ...However, you do have the power to focus on the few--to concentrate your best efforts on the top three that will have the most impact. ... Delegate as many as you can (in the name of developing your people!), and try just forgetting the least important and see what happens.

You Gotta Give to Get: A Cardinal Key of Influence

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-04-13T14:05:50-04:00

The couple was nice, but not the type of people we wanted to invest the time to cultivate as friends (I hope this doesn’t sound snobby; it isn’t meant that way). ...Think about how strong this reciprocity principle is: you drop everything to do a task that by logical definition has no value. ...Whenever I talk to someone whom I feel has an interest in building a better services organization, I ask them if I can give them a copy of my latest book, Seriously Selling Services. ... Later (and without me asking), I often see that this person has bought more book copies that they give to others in their company. ...Before every important conversation, think about what you can provide that the other person will value and do so without being asked and without any strings attached. ...*Cialdini’s research shows that because of the reciprocity principle people will return holiday cards from people they don’t even know!

Genius without Education is Like Silver in the Mine*

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-03-13T09:19:25-04:00

This good-looking Great Egret chick :) has lots of potential, but it is up to the parent to nourish, encourage, teach, and support development (pretty much like the job of a manager, don’t you think?) Just as precious ore has little value unless mined and processed, human potential alone has little value unless seasoned through education and refined through purposeful experience. This was true back in Ben Franklin’s time and resonates even more today with the rise of the knowledge worker. Human potential is a requirement as is employee self-motivation, but it is the managers job, no duty, to transform the ore into the silver of success. ...If you want to know, spend time with each employee on the job--out visiting customers observing your sellers and services professionals, sitting and listening to your technical support people on the phone, participating with your marketers as they build portfolios or create branding campaigns. ...Schedule time to help them learn the “how to get things done around here” that isn’t in an employee handbook or knowledge management system.

The Myth of Knock-Your-Socks-Off Service

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-02-14T17:07:49-05:00

A while back I was asked this question: “My professional services organization is thinking of adopting the concept of ‘knock-your-socks-off service.’ ...Implementing a strategy of ‘knock-your-socks-off service,’ ‘under-promising and over-delivering,’ ‘creating customer delight,’ or whatever you prefer to call it for across-the-board usage is the kiss of death.” ...But in most cases, when you deliver more than the customer expects, you have wasted resources and made a customer wonder why you are so foolish as to give away services in a highly competitive marketplace. ... The secret is customer acceptance--clearly defining exact expectations (what they will pay for) and delivering exactly that…no more no less. ...Research shows that fast, no hassle, great service can turn around a bad situation and actually generate customer loyalty. ... Other than these two scenarios, just do what you’ve promised to do and customers will be satisfied and you’ll be more profitable.

Ninja Principal: Move Quick, Grab Tight

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2011-01-18T20:14:37-05:00

I am always fascinated about the possibilities of applying concepts successful in one arena to another: What can research scientists and emergency room physicians learn from each other? ...Hence, when I learned that Austin, our three-and-a-half-year-old grandson was a “Little Ninja” practicing the ancient art of karate, it made me think along those lines. ...I knew from history that the traditional Samurai warriors of feudal Japan had a culture of strict rules about honor, and highly detailed, well-established, not-to-be-varied-from rules of engagement. ...Much fewer in number than the Samurai, the Ninjas knew they could not win against them head-to-head; it would be a disaster. ...Use feints (e.g., press releases, rumors, etc., about aligning with other Samurais to defeat your foes) to confuse your competitors about your true aims and stall their reactions. Launch multiple new offerings in niche markets that you know they do not want to invest in, make bold guarantees that their legal departments will never allow.

Three Must-Haves to Seriously Sell Services

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-11-03T16:42:38-04:00

If you want to know more about how big a challenge it is and what it takes to be successful in getting sales to sell service, I dedicate an entire chapter in my book, Seriously Selling Services, on this topic. ...3. Sell services first. I know this may be blasphemy, but customers don’t see much difference between your products and those of your best competitor. ...However, while competitors have followed this conservative prescription of idling their vessel during these rough business seas, Billy Gamble, CEO of Wesco, has charted a different course: one path over the waves and straight into the gale. ...Fourteen months ago, while competitors were waiting for the wind, Wesco decided to start a new business, ramping up a for-profit services organization while its customers—golf courses and municipalities—were cutting back spending dramatically. "] ...

Realize the Reality—Step 5 in the 5 Steps to Selling Services Success

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-10-15T13:44:06-04:00

It is hard to do, but again, firing your number one box seller, Ace Flanagan, when he refuses to try and sell services sends a powerful message. ...A few people adapt quickly and intuitively, most people, over time, can be adequate at selling intangibles given enough training, tools, and reinforcement, but another group will never quite get it. ...Even if you follow all of this advice exactly as outlined, and I hope you do, about one in three product salespeople will not be successful in selling services. ... You should understand this from the beginning and be prepared to help them find new jobs inside or outside the company. ...To be effective, all aspects of the sales performance system musty be changed, coupled with solid training, backed by strong reinforcement, and supported by a leadership team willing to make some tough calls to make sure that the change sticks. ...Future blog entries will outline the steps to kick-start selling services by getting everyone who touches the customer involved in the selling services process.

Reinforce, Reinforce, Reinforce—Step Four in Seriously Selling

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-10-13T13:43:11-04:00

Participants may not want to “look dumb” to their management, but if trust was developed with the facilitator during the initial training, sellers will be more open to shoot straight and thus get the help they need to improve. ...You are asking salespeople to perform much differently than they have in the past, and providing one-on-one modeling with real customers and coaching afterward are powerful motivators to personal change. In organizations where sales managers are responsible for hands-on coaching of their people and spend most of their time working with their sales reps, it makes sense to extend their skill set to coaching their people on selling services. ...Before sending them out to coach sellers on how to sell services, they will need to acquire not only the core training provided to the sales force, but additional training in how to coach. ...The sales managers are the top sellers, and it is in the best interest of the company that they spend a minimum of 90% of their time in front of their customers. ... If your company follows this model then you should also look for outside expertise to do the one-on-one, in the trenches, customer-facing sales coaching needed to accelerate selling services performance.

Tailor Your Training: Step Three in the 5 Steps to Selling Services Success

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-10-05T13:42:13-04:00

Make certain that the following components are part of the curriculum: why sell services, how to sell intangibles, selling how customers want to buy, building trust, qualifying great services business, developing services power maps, selling services to the “C” level, compressing sales cycle time, and so forth. ... It is important to get your product sellers both competent in their selling services capabilities and confident enough that they will try it with customers and prospects. ...Appropriate tools for selling services include feature-benefit profiles for all of your key services offerings, qualifying checklists, case studies of customers espousing the value of using your services, ROI calculators, and sales call planners. To maximize buy-in to a probably skeptical group, when I develop selling services training I like to involve the top product salespeople, the Ace Flanagans, in the development of the course. ... Even better, when possible I conduct interviews of key people within my client’s key customers to learn their issues, expectations, wants, and needs regarding services, and then I build this into the training. This is an extremely powerful way to drive change, as it is fairly easy to dismiss your own views as biased, but it is difficult not to pay attention when your best customers say they want to buy services!

Getting It Right the First Time

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-30T13:41:02-04:00

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal called "Getting Fit without the Pain." I believe there are some things we can learn from this article from a business perspective. ...In my area of focus, services, I often get hired by executives who have already bought into the philosophy of transitioning their services business from free to fee, and have started taking action with minimal impact. The learning here is that what is a best practice for one organization trying to seriously sell services might be a worst practice for another.

Improving Personal Productivity with iPhone Dragon Dictation

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-29T13:39:26-04:00

Anyone serious about selling services should be constantly looking for ways to improve their productivity. ...I don't know about you, but I hate typing on iPhone's tiny keypad. ... All I need now is a relatively quiet area and to speak moderately into the iPhone. ...Whether you're a seller of services, a services manager or any professional you will gain tremendously by using this handy tool. Please let me know your thoughts and experiences with other other productivity tools like Dragon, or anything else you found, to make you more successful. By the way I wrote this through dictation and did not have to touch the keypad at all.

Likeability Sells

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-23T13:38:08-04:00

For those of you who have attended my training related to building trust and selling services, you'll recall that one of the "six trust builders" is likeability. I espouse that things being mainly equal, the person you select to work with is the one you like better. ... Finding common ground, showing respect, and being positive are examples of actions one can take to improve being likable. An article in the Washington Post demonstrates this fact in politics as well as it highlights the defeat of D.C. mayor, Adian Fenty. Here is an example of a person that most people approved of what he did but disliked him enough to kick him out (you may need to scroll up to the top to see the article). ...Likeability is important in every situation where trust is a factor, so be more likable and you'll be more successful.

From Tactical to Strategic—Shifting Services Priorities

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-22T13:36:04-04:00

When services inside of product companies were seen as tactical cost centers, the mandate was clear: make the product work, keep the customer happy, and manage costs. ...However, as services have transitioned to strategic profit centers and contribution expectations have increased, the services business is under much greater scrutiny. Hence, services leadership must re-think their priorities and figure out how to shift emphasis from enabling products to enhancing the business of their customers. ...Opportunities to move the services business ahead are mired in the day-to-day tactical world of dealing with problems that should and could have been avoided. A large proportion of these problems can be eliminated by proper thinking and planning early in the product development cycle. ...Gain insights and learn from your peers. Participate in this survey on designing products for serviceability.

5 Steps to Selling Services Success—Step Two

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-20T13:34:31-04:00

A. Fitting performance specifications. First, make it crystal clear that selling services is now an important focus of the company and an important required responsibility of the sales force. These expectations should be translated into quantifiable services sales goals (how much, what type, when) and should be in place and outlined in all sellers’ quotas and in their performance plan. ...C. Minimal interference. In all probability, you have just added more responsibility and more work to your sellers, but have not taken away any of their product sales quotas. ... For example, for the first six months, ask the marketing department to eliminate all requests of the sales force, minimize the amount of time you expect sellers to take executives around to visit customers— unless those visits include services sales coaching by the executive—try to hold off involving your salespeople in task forces, and reduce required paperwork and all the other things that keep them out of the field selling services along with products. ...Second, add a stick—put negative consequences in place if services selling goals are not met (no trip to the Bahamas for the services slackers, no product bonuses if services sales goals are not achieved). ...Even if they put the negative consequences in place, it takes a steel-backed sales executive to keep the top-producing product seller (and his or her spouse) from making the trip to Rio for not selling enough services.

5 Steps to Selling Services Success—Step One

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-15T13:32:55-04:00

• Lowers their income potential because, compared to the price of products, services are small change, and time spent on services takes away more valuable time spent on products. • In addition, most product salespeople will not say it, but they feel that selling services challenges their abilities, as it is much different than selling products and, actually, a little scary. ...• Lengthens the selling cycle, thus jeopardizing their 30- and 90-day numbers. False. Top sellers understand that services are a vital part of the customer’s value proposition and need to be sold with the product at the time of the product sale. ...• Lowers their income potential because, compared to the price of products, services are small change. Really False. When your selling arsenal only includes products, you are quickly viewed as a commodity seller, where price becomes the customer’s hammer and you become the nail. ...• Challenges their abilities, as it is much different than selling products and, actually, a little scary. True. Selling services and solutions effectively is different, more difficult, and initially frustrating to those used to transaction selling. ...In the meantime if you want all the details on services selling success, please feel free to buy a copy of Seriously Selling Services from this site, or from Amazon.com

Common Approaches that Just Don't Work

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-09-02T13:32:11-04:00

When advised by a services expert that selling services is “way different” from selling products and requires special actions to succeed, they respond that they have a good sales force, and a good sales force can sell anything—just tell them what to do and back it up with solid incentives. ...As the four-color glossy listing the new expectations of the sales force and the new compensation program is passed out to everyone in the hall, sellers are asked to stand up and swear their personal allegiance to the “Six Selling Steps to TVS.” ... As the year goes by, an obviously frustrated senior management continues to beat the drum of TVS, but sales of services hardly improve at all. ...Although everyone may cross their heart, swear allegiance, and drink the Kool-Aid at the global kickoff, it will take much more than that to change selling behavior. ...For example, in organizations that primarily reward sellers on gross sales, sellers are highly motivated to do whatever it takes to sell the product at the possible expense of everything else. ...GIST: If you want to change selling behavior (in this case, selling services and not giving them away), you must address all the factors that impact seller motivation.

Leading and Managing Technical Talent: Turning Technical Experts into Trusted Advisors One-day Workshop

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-08-26T13:30:41-04:00

Implementing what is taught will help you increase the number of your trusted advisors and improve the competencies of all your people to add more value for your customers and more value to your organization. ...LEARN MORE ...Jim Alexander, the workshop leader, has conducted five studies (including the industry leading Transitioning Technical Experts into Trusted Advisors) to determine the best practices that separate the very best from all the rest. ... Participants will leave this hands-on session motivated to use the information and tools learned to immediately improve the performance of their technical talent. ...Any executive or manager who has responsibility for technical talent who interact with your customers and all others looking for ways to improve profitable growth. ...LEARN MORE

Immense Upside for Your Firm—The Time is Now

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-08-24T13:29:12-04:00

Managing the transition to seriously selling services has an immense upside for most companies. New, profitable revenue streams, more sales of products, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and competitive differentiation are all probable outcomes of a well-executed shift to services. Know that the path to services success is clear and the obstacles are well-known. ...A services leadership framework exists, and executives willing to listen to the voice of those who already have made the journey will enjoy major rewards in a relatively short period of time. For most organizations, the time for seriously selling services is now! If you'd like to know more or would like to see how I can assist your organization in seriously selling services, please contact me at alex@alxeanderstrategists.com or call me at 239-671-0740.

Best Practices for Seriously Selling Services

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-08-19T13:27:22-04:00

1. Create a sense of urgency. When people are reluctant to do something, they will come up with every excuse imaginable to put it off. ...Everyone will be watching for the slightest wavering at the top to justify stalling or just plain non-compliance, and the best way to prevent this is a one-for-all-and-all-for-one approach to compensation based upon hard numbers and firm time frames. 3. Make heroes out of those who attempt the change. As I’ll discuss in greater detail later, this is a scary change for many people, and you want to look for every opportunity to reinforce their new, seriously selling services behavior, even when the results aren’t as good as you like. ...4. Give zero tolerance for slackers. Here is the scenario: It is year end, and overall you have made good progress with selling services. ...You are sorry, but he will not get any bonus, he and his wife will not be going to Bora-Bora as part of the President’s Circle, and if he misses his quota next year, he will be fired. ...Anticipated services sales may not materialize as people try to figure out how to do it, and product sales will drop due to lost time out of the field and the lowered productivity that comes with the deer-in-headlights stare when people are passively aggressive.

Strategic Alignment—Do it Right the First Time

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-08-13T13:26:08-04:00

Do it right the first time—conduct a strategic alignment assessment where you consider how services can best contribute to organization success balanced against your existing capabilities, your customer issues and needs, and your competitive position. This is too important to the future of the organization not to get it right. Confirm your services strategic role today, and get the facts to demonstrate what the role needs to be in two years. ...• Align your services with the practices and processes most appropriate for your strategy. ...• Involve senior management and other team members in the process to develop momentum for future changes. ...Once you’ve got the strategy right, it’s time to take a serious look at your commitment.

Go Big or Stay Home

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-08-10T13:24:54-04:00

I’ve also seen this same group of executives agonize over the course of several meetings and several months over spending $60,000 to launch a pilot services project that would validate the services assumptions and business model that all agree is vital to long-term business success. ... However, as pointed out, services are a different business, and as any of us would do when faced with something out of our expertise, the tendency is to cautiously go slow and keep a very tight rein on funding. ...If there are doubts about the value of services within your organization, then conducting a pilot is a low-investment, low-risk way to confirm your services assumption and demonstrate its value. ...In building services, there’s no such thing as a toe in the water. When you take this plunge, it’s full-body immersion…I’ve said repeatedly that this is the kind of capability you can’t simply acquire (though our competitors keep trying). The bet you’re really making is on your own commitment to invest both the years and the capital, then build the experience and discipline it takes to succeed. ...There are many obstacles that can cause a selling services initiative to stumble, and like any meaningful change, it takes stalwart executive support to make it successful.

Align the Services Strategy with the Business Mission

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-07-28T13:22:33-04:00

For example, maximizing utilization rates can be an important target of a mature, free-standing professional services organization (PSO), but if the appropriate strategy of a PSO is primarily that of supporting the parent company by helping to sell products, the goals may be in conflict to the overall detriment of the company. ...On Monday I had my review with the CEO, and she assured me that my mission was to support the company by profitably growing services revenue while keeping our customers happy. ... On Tuesday the vice president of sales stopped by, really concerned about services pricing and the need to ‘value-price’ (code word ‘deep discount’) services to help land strategic business. I laid out my best defense—my mandate to drive business, the need for the sales force to really sell value—but in the end I lost the discussion as I knew I would. ...Then on Wednesday morning I was called into a crisis meeting and ordered by the CEO (the same person I talked with Monday) to board a Boeing to Boston with my best technical experts to fix the problems at Galactic Enterprises and not to come back until the client was satisfied. ...Implementing a product-enhancement strategy requires a focus on effectiveness—balancing the requirements of profitable growth with the necessity of helping to sell products on one hand, and keeping customers satisfied on the other hand.

The Biggest Challenges in Transitioning to Selling Services

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-07-22T13:21:15-04:00
What was (or is) the single most significant challenge your organization faced (or is facing) in building and selling services? ...As you see, culture change dwarfs all the other obstacles that must be dealt with for a product company to be successful in building and selling services. ...Services now must be viewed as an equal offering of the organization, a true value-adder, the potential differentiator in the marketplace, and an important contributor to profitable revenue. ... This is not an easy transition to make, as it flies directly in the face of the tried and true. Furthermore, certain departments are more threatened than others, as different internal groups, possibly product marketing or engineering, for example, feel that making services more important makes them less important. Transitioning to a more services-friendly, services-are-good-for-our-business mindset confronts internal tradition, established ways of thinking, and embedded power that will work together to try and squelch the selling of services.

Special Challenges of Transitioning to Seriously Selling Services

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-07-19T13:19:50-04:00
Evert Gummesson, a services researcher, probably said it the most eloquently: “Services are something that can be bought and sold but can’t be dropped on your foot.” ...For example, even if all the recommendations in my book are followed, an estimated one-third of your product sellers will never be successful selling services! ...Any manager who has been around for a few years understands the power of the company culture to resist change, even change that is necessary for survival. ... Aggressively selling services in a product-thinking, product-acting business is a full frontal attack on the existing culture, and the defensive mechanisms of the organization will resist any way it can. ...Their past successes built around products helped create, develop, and nurture the culture—a culture that lives, breathes, and reinforces products-related success while shunning other alternatives to business. ...Services now must be viewed as an equal offering of the organization, a true value-adder, the potential differentiator in the marketplace, and an important contributor to profitable revenue.

10 Common Obstacles to Any Change

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-07-14T13:15:46-04:00
There are ten common obstacles that occur time and again when organizations and the people who compose them attempt to do things differently are outlined below... ...Lack of leadership regarding change. ...Inability to mobilize commitment to sustain change. ...Do you recognize any of them? I don’t believe further elaboration is required. Needless to say, all must be recognized, and steps need to be put in place to deal with each of them.

Seriously Selling Services: Accept the Difficulty of the Task

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-07-12T13:14:12-04:00
Let’s face it, for most product companies, getting serious about aggressively building, marketing, and selling services is a big deal—a major change. The troubling truth of the matter is that about three out of four major change efforts fail to achieve and sustain the desired objectives (Alexander, 2004). ... Think back over the last few years during times when you experienced the launching of initiatives (e.g., implementing an ERP or CRM system, adapting Six Sigma, going “Lean”). ...And anyone who has participated in an organizational change effort knows the tension that develops and the resistance that naturally occurs when the people of the organization are asked to behave in new and different ways. Productivity immediately drops as water-cooler conversations (both face-to-face and electronic) speculating on the impact and political ramifications of the change and the always-present “what’s going to happen to me?” ... In addition to the obvious loss of focus and efficiency, other multiple “costs of resistance” take their toll, touching everything from loss of key employees to lowered corporate credibility to stifled innovation.

Selling Services: Tools & Techniques Workshop

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-30T13:11:17-04:00
You’ll learn how to sell more services easier and faster from James “Alex” Alexander, a recognized services expert, a master at sales effectiveness, and a top-notch instructor. The course is peppered with lessons learned from star services sellers, best practices in selling services, and proven models and tools that work. ...You will leave the session with enhanced persuasion skills, effective selling tools, and the energy and confidence to accelerate your personal success. ...Dedicated services sellers desiring to be more effective, product sellers wanting to win more business, account managers with sales targets, sales and services managers tasked with growth and customer satisfaction, and executives striving to differentiate their business through stellar sales capabilities. ...The workshop is designed with one goal in mind: to help you and your organization sell more profitable services easier and faster. ...LEARN MORE

Create New Markets

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-28T13:06:07-04:00
Business consultants like to talk about adjacency strategy (Zook, 2004), the strategy of building upon an organization’s core competencies in one market to transport those capabilities to an adjacent, but different market space. For example, a company with specialized battery technology designed for the automotive industry could potentially attempt to build upon that battery expertise to develop and sell to the marine market. ... For example, an energy utilization assessment developed for the automotive industry could be adapted for the marine market. ...To summarize, services have proven themselves to be able to contribute significant value to many, many product companies through profitable growth of both products and services. ... In addition, for some companies, having the right portfolio of services helps smooth the entry into new markets. Finally, in some cases, having an arsenal of new or better services can create competitive differentiation.

Differentiate Yourself

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-23T16:54:15-04:00
Depending on the maturity of your industry, your competitor’s strategy, and your competitor’s dealings with distribution, services can differentiate you in a really big way. The more complex your products, the more they cost the customer; and the more mission critical they are to your customer’s business, the more the value-packing promise of services. Leading services researchers note from their studies that more and more companies in tough competitive markets are looking at services to yield competitive advantage (Brown, Gustafsson and Witell, 2009). If your competitors don’t have full portfolios of strong service offerings or if they don’t know how to sell them, this is a huge opportunity for you if you embrace the challenge. Give your customers what they need, want, and will pay for while locking out everyone else. GIST: Services are the drivers of market dominance.

Enjoy Predictable Revenue Streams

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-15T16:42:18-04:00
Want to see a CFO’s eyes light up? Watch her face the first time she grasps an understanding of the predictable, repeatable sales that come from a services business built upon service and support contracts coupled with a finely tuned professional services capability. This is pure joy to a bean counter. The services annuity stream makes life a whole lot easier for all of management, as it helps to take the guesswork out of business financials and becomes an early warning, leading indicator of organization success or failure. GIST: Strong services help you manage your business more effectively.

Handle Fewer Train Wrecks

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-10T16:22:26-04:00
Sadly, sometimes products are positioned to the customer with these words coming out of the salesperson’s mouth: “Our products don’t break. You don’t need any additional services,” or “It is so easy to implement our software. ... This is all a bunch of baloney, especially if you are dealing with a fairly complex situation, an important customer process, ...Rare is the product that will not need some type of service in its life cycle, whether a tailored implementation, ongoing maintenance, software updates, refurbishing, and on and on. ...• Irritated customers ringing the bell of the fire engine, escalating their concerns up your organization ladder, will be greatly minimized. GIST: Selling services upfront saves your organization, time, hassle, and money over the long term.

Why Sell Services Anyway?

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-08T16:05:40-04:00
Here is a bit of blasphemy: Most customers view your products as commodities! Regardless of how truly unique or elegant or innovative your products are from your perspective, in most all buying situations, customers see no meaningful difference in the top two or three products in any category, across all industries, across all geographies. Yes, I understand this may not be 100% factual, but from the perception of the customer it is true. ...Once customers have determined their short list of the two or three potential products or bundles of products that they will seriously consider buying, they almost always cast their product ballot based on what they believe are the best services that surround the product—services that will best ensure the product works as promised, keeps working, and does so with a minimum of hassle and added expense. It is important to note that, in many cases, they will pay a premium for your offering if they understand the higher value your services bring to them. ...Furthermore, if your salespeople were strategic and sold an assessment early in the buying process—before needs were clear and products were specified—the probability of you getting the product business later on is greatly improved, giving you the chance to shape the final recommendations early while building relationships with people key to the final purchase.

Selling Services: Tools & Techniques for Top Performance

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-06-02T16:00:52-04:00

Selling Services: Tools and Techniques for Top Performance

August 12-13, 2010
...I'll be facilitating the two-day hands-on session to show you how to sell more services easier and faster. The course is peppered with lessons learned from star services sellers, best practices in selling services, and proven models and tools that work. Participants will be actively involved in exercises, discussions, demonstrations, and role play, all linked to selling services success. You will leave the session with enhanced persuasion skills, effective selling tools, and the energy and confidence to accelerate your personal success.

Papa's Got a Brand New Blog

info@alexanderstrategists.com — 2010-05-27T09:32:17-04:00
In today’s digital age it’s important to give people what they want, when they want it, the way they want it. ... Anyone as serious about selling services as we are can’t ignore the important social media, which act as both a dispenser and collector of valuable information. ...If it takes a year or more to get the product sales force effectively selling services, what can companies do in the meantime to generate results? ...My latest book, “Seriously Selling Services,” shows you how to tap into your hidden sales force—what it takes to get your technical talent competent, confident, and committed to seriously selling services. Pick up a copy of “Seriously Selling Services” to learn how you can unleash your hidden sales force. ...Click here to learn more or to purchase.