THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS: MAX CATES, JOE GALVIN, TAMARA SCHENK, DAVE KURLAN, PHIL KREINDLER, WARREN SHIVER AND MICHAEL PERLA, JASON JORDAN,SURESH BALASUBRAMANIAN, MICHELLE CHEONG & TIM RIESTERER

FROM TOP SALES WORLD MAY 2016

Jonathan Farrington interviews Brian Sullivan, co­author ofthe recently published “SANDLER ENTERPRISE SELLING”

T P SALES MAGAZINEALSO INSIDE: The 2016 Top 50 Sales BlogsAnnounced

Winning, Growing,And Retaining MajorAccounts

JF: Your new book is SANDLER ENTERPRISESELLING: Winning, Growing, And Retaining MajorAccounts. What is enterprise selling? And how is itdifferent from any other type of selling?BS: At Sandler, we believe strongly in the power ofpain. It’s the great motivator and it motivates action.We like to say, “No pain, no sale”. And that’s thetruth. So, we define enterprise selling in terms ofthe unique pains and challenges that organizations

face in selling to and serving large, complexaccounts. Pains and challenges such as lengthysales cycles. Consider that, in dealing with small andmedium­sized accounts, selling cycles can last days,weeks, maybe a month or two. But in selling toenterprise organizations, seasons can pass during asales pursuit. Sales cycles several months long arecommonplace and some last a year or longer. Andwith time comes risk, uncertainty, and doubt for theselling organization. It can be very frustrating,especially if you’re not prepared to deal with it. Butfor the selling organizations that follow effectiveprocesses, their preparation illustrates qualities tothe buying organization, qualities that give thebuyers a view of what the sellers would be like asbusiness partners, after the deal is won. Qualitiessuch as attention to detail, follow­up, anddependability. As a selling organization, with eachtouchpoint that showcases these types of qualitiesover a long pursuit, you get closer to a win –because the buying organization will be evaluatingyou every step of the way. But, for the ineffectiveselling organizations that may succumb to thoserisks, uncertainties, and doubts, they just mightoccasionally drop the ball. Maybe they’ll miss adeadline or submit a deliverable that doesn’t hit themark. Whatever it is, you can be assured that thebuying organization takes notice.

There are several other key pains and challengesthat define enterprise selling such as wide, diversebuyer networks, sophisticated competition, a keenfocus on business value, and more. And SandlerEnterprise Selling provides a practical approach fordealing with all of them, increasing your chances ofsuccess in the enterprise arena.

JF: What is the Sandler Enterprise Selling (SES)approach to selling? Can this approach be adaptedfor other types of sales situations?

Jonathan Farringtoninterviews Brian Sullivan,co-author of the recentlypublished “SANDLERENTERPRISE SELLING”

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Winning, Growing, And Retaining Major Accounts

The Jonathan Farrington Interview

BS: Sandler Enterprise Selling provides a six­stageapproach for winning business with enterpriseaccounts, serving them effectively and expandingthe relationships over the long­term. With thefundamental Sandler Selling System as its bedrock,Sandler Enterprise Selling builds on this powerfulbaseline and enhances it, providing a robustprogram for selling organizations in the enterprisearena. SES is based on six highly strategic stagesdesigned to help you win, serve, and grow large,complex accounts. They are:

1. Territory & Account Planning2. Opportunity Identification3. Qualification4. Solution Development5. Proposing & Advancement6. Service Delivery

While there is a clear sequence to the stages withidentified starting and ending points, there is reallyno end to SES, for it represents a continuousprocess of selling to and serving enterpriseaccounts, and the excellence in serving spawnsgrowth. Streams of transactions over time in a long­term, mutually beneficial business relationship –that’s the enterprise world.

Regarding the question of whether SES can beadapted for other types of selling situations, it mapsbeautifully to any business model that sells intolarge complex accounts. And as such, it’s designedfor customization and the blending­in of company­specific themes. For companies involved in asimpler type of selling to smaller accounts, SES stilldelivers relevant insights that might be streamlineda bit to fit a more tactical and urgent model.

JF: One of the six stages you mention in the bookis Service Delivery. What can sales teams do inconjunction with delivery teams to expandaccounts?BS: We like to say, “There’s no better time to winbusiness, than after you’ve won business”. What do

we mean? First, enterprise accounts are huge. Theyare vast ecosystems of opportunity ­ diversifiedbusiness organizations typified by multipledivisions, groups, partners, and family trees ofconnected firms. Understanding this network ofpotential, think how much more credible you areonce you are on the “inside”. With the selling anddelivery teams collaborating to clearly understandthe client’s needs and pains and address them in allthat they do, the two become one in sharing thecommon goal of serving and growing theirtreasured account. The continuous process that isSandler Enterprise Selling provides the frameworkto make that common goal a reality.

JF: Why is it crucial for selling organizations toqualify opportunities effectively, especially in theenterprise world? And how can you help sellingteams make educated decisions regarding whichopportunities to pursue?BS: Enterprise opportunities are typically largedeals with big revenues that often represent long­term arrangements, making them very attractiveand extremely tempting. Given the magnitude ofthese deals, they can be game­changers for sellingorganizations. But, of course, games can changepositively or negatively. Consider the president of afirm in Texas that sells into and serves theenterprise market. She met with one of our teammembers and told him, “Every deal that we decideto pursue costs us $40,000. Win or lose, $40,000”.She continued, “If you can help us determine thatthe deals we decide to go after are the ones we’remost likely to win and if you can help us knowwhether to exit a pursuit or continue on, we’re veryinterested”. She and her firm, of course, are facing aclassic challenge of enterprise selling. But thefinancial investment cost is simply the tip of theiceberg. When an organization commits toembarking on one of those lengthy sales cycles,they commit much more than money. They commitother scarce resources as well – their people, theirtime, and their organizational energy. And then

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there’s the opportunity cost. When you commit topursuing a major deal, you’ll clearly be foregoingother initiatives, be they sales opportunities or otherorganizational projects, because the funds, people,time, and energy you’ve committed to the enterprisepursuit are simply less available. And if you try topursue a big deal on the cheap, cutting back onthose scarce resources, one of those sophisticatedcompetitors that are fully committed to the deal willeat your lunch.

Qualification, then, in enterprise deals, is asurvival skill. And in SES, it begins early in theTerritory & Account Planning Stage. Here, you makedecisions regarding what you do well as anorganization, your strengths. You also build theprofiles of the accounts that align to those strengths– a really critical baseline activity that is oftenignored, and you engage in team account planningfor those targeted profile accounts. That’s the basisfor the first question asked by the president of thefirm in Texas – how to determine that the dealspursued have the highest likelihood of success.

And what of her need to know whether to stay inor exit one of those lengthy pursuits with the faucetsof money, time, and people flowing? Over thecourse of time, much can change in an enterprisepursuit. Buying team members can come and go.Business requirements can change. Companies canbe bought and sold. And your ability to refresh yourqualification process based on new information isvital. Getting out of a deal that will cost you $40,000in the end, when you’ve only spent $20,000, is a gift.A gift not only in expenses saved, but in redeployedorganizational resources. Redeployed, perhaps on toanother pursuit where you have a much greaterchance of success. A pursuit much more aligned toyour profile. And Sandler Enterprise Selling providesthe logical framework to help you make theseeducated decisions to pursue and stay connected toonly the deals you’re most likely to win.

JF: In SANDLER ENTERPRISE SELLING, youshare many tools that assist with the sales

process. What is the KARE Account PlanningTool?BS: KARE is a powerful and innovative tool inSandler Enterprise Selling. Most sellingorganizations have designations that they apply totheir accounts. They label accounts by size, verticalmarket, geographic location, commercial vs. publicsector, etc. But what do those labels really tell youabout the traits and tendencies of the accounts?What does knowing those designations really do tohelp you understand the relative importance of theaccounts to your overall strategy?

The SES KARE Tool takes a totally differentapproach. While the more tactical designationssuch as the vertical will still provide guidance,KARE’s four meaningful profiles ­ Keep, Attain,Recapture and Expand, give you a view into thetraits and tendencies of the accounts. Let’s look atKeep and Expand. All selling organizations haveKeep accounts – accounts you definitely want toretain, your bread­and­butter clients. They’re notrainmakers, and likely never will be, but you wantthem to stay with you forever. Now considerExpand accounts – those in which you see greatpotential for expansion and those in which you arewilling, and often eager, to invest. That differencebetween Keep and Expand accounts is critical andunderstanding it earns you the right to taketargeted actions, based on the specific needs ofaccounts in the profiles.

The Recapture accounts are previous clients andAttain accounts are those profile targets mentionedbefore, developed in the Territory & AccountPlanning Stage of SES. KARE provides theframework and you build the profiles based on thespecific attributes of your selling and service model.You then craft the common actions to be takenbased on the profiles. And you’ve also developedvery meaningful labels for all of your accounts,providing an organization­wide lexicon buildingclarity and understanding in team selling.

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The Jonathan Farrington Interview

JF: You devote an entire chapter to Client­CentricSatisfaction. What does that mean and how isclient satisfaction a key to long­term salessuccess?BS: Think about typical customer satisfactionsurveys. From a consumer standpoint, you receiveone of those emails from the chain hotel you stayedin and you’re asked to give ratings on yoursatisfaction in pre­defined categories. Categorieslike “Quality of Food”, “Friendliness of Lobby Staff”and “Comfort of Shower Cap”. But your room wasnext to the ice machine and across from theelevator and you didn’t sleep a wink. But “RoomNoise” was not one of your options. You delete theemail and never stay at the hotel again.

The same often happens in business. The servingorganization delivers a satisfaction survey filled withpre­chosen criteria that may or may not haveanything to do with the client. In fact, the clientcould rate you highly in the boilerplate areas whileat the same time be planning your exit. But you’dnever know. Because the criteria were yours, notthe client’s.

SES approaches client satisfaction verydifferently. The process guides you to visit with theclient at the start of the relationship and ask themto define their success factors for the upcomingpartnership. The SES Client­Centric SatisfactionTool provides some suggested factors from whichthe client can choose but they are free to addothers if they choose – welcomed to do so, by theway. The client chooses five factors and alsoprovides weights for each. And in choosing thefactors, lively discussion typically ensues.Discussion about what’s most important to theclient in the relationship. Sound like a meeting you’dlike to be part of? And what you’ll find is that therewill be surprises in the choices. Why surprises?Because things have changed. You’re no longer thevendor seeking business. You’re the provider ofservices, a “partner” in some sense, even at thisearly point. Think about it. If you asked this sameclient what was most important to them weeks

before, when they were a prospect and you werebidding on their business, you can imagine whatthey’d have said. “Drop your prices”, “Cut yourdelivery times” and “Give me more pro bonoservices”. What’s changed?

You are now working together. You havecommitted to one another. Now, in many ways, youshare goals with your successes also the client’ssuccesses. The honesty factor has gone way up.And what you learn will absolutely increase yourchances of being successful in delivering. Why?Because now you know exactly how the clientdefines success. In learning that, you’ve earned theright to further refine your delivery focus, based onthe direct client input. As your probability ofdelivery success increases, so do your chances ofmaximizing client satisfaction. And with that, you’llbe in a much better position to expand the account.All because you bothered to ask what’s reallyimportant to the client. The SES Client­CentricSatisfaction Tool provides you the process forreturning, down the road, to gain the client’s actualsatisfaction ratings. Ratings against those criteriaspecifically chosen by the client. And that you havebeen internally tracking. You’ll continue to ask if anyof the ratings or weights have changed since thefirst choices were made, because things do change– and you need to know, learn, and adjust as aresult. The SES Client­Centric Satisfaction Toolprovides the vehicle to success in this arena.

JF: Is there any other information you would liketo share with our audience? Where may ourlisteners find out more about you and the book?BS: The book is available online and in bricks &mortar retailers everywhere. Download a FreeChapter here. For those interested in a lively forumfor discussions around enterprise selling, please jointhe Sandler Enterprise Selling LinkedIn Group. n

Brian Sullivan is Vice President of SandlerEnterprise Selling. Find out more here

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