This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

What are the main issues you face when you target new vertical markets where you don’t  have any experience in that area. Also, how do you overcome these problems?

I get asked those questions frequently. But usually it’s after the decision has already been made and the poor salespeople are struggling to gain a foothold in the new vertical market.

If you’re considering moving your company in a new business direction, here are my suggestions:

Your biggest issue will be credibility. Corporate decision makers don’t want to be your first client in a vertical market. They don’t want to have to educate you since it takes up their precious time.

Even though you’re a good company, they know that your lack of experience could lead to time-consuming and costly errors. They don’t want to risk this happening.

1. Move into the market slowly.
Don’t bet your company on success in the new vertical. Study the industry. Learn their terminology. Know their competitors. Double check for “fit”. I’ve seen way to many companies leap into new markets because they sense greater opportunity there than in their current market space.

2. Define the business case.
Uncover how they’re currently handling things related to your offering. What are the common status quo scenarios? What business objectives will they have difficulty achieving unless they change the status quo? What are the financial ramifications of these? Then define the value they’ll get from changing to your product/service.

Potential clients need to hear a strong value proposition that clearly articulates the business outcomes they’ll realize by using your offering. Use business terminology, not techie talk.

3. Create linkage.
If possible, try to create a link between your current customer base and your new one. If all your clients are schools and now you want to move to theme parks, you need to be able to clearly articulate why it’s relevant.

As an example, last week I had lunch with a good friend who spent over 20 years in marketing with a large accounting firm. She was laid off a while back. Now she wants to work with technology companies.

After analyzing both industries, combined with her experience we realized that her expertise was in helping company’s implement strategic changes in their marketing. That positioning makes sense to potential decision makers – and minimizes the “you don’t have any experience with companies like mine” objection.

4. Pursue smaller opportunities first.
This significantly reduces the decision maker’s perceived risk in moving ahead with a new player in the market. Then, make sure you do a superb job on delivering on what you promised. After that, pursue additional opportunities within the account to expand your footprint.

5. Train your salespeople on all the above.
Without this knowledge, they will flop. That I can guaranteed 100%. Ultimately these people have to make it happen. Don’t send them into the field with some worthless PowerPoints explaining your technology in excruciating detail. They need to be able to have intelligent business conversation with decision makers.

6. Create field-ready sales tools.
Focus especially on the early stages of the sales cycle. Your sales reps are going to have a tough time setting up meetings. Show them how to integrate their value proposition into phone calls, voicemails and emails.

Give them relevant white papers and case studies that are closely aligned with this new market segment. They must be able to show your company’s expertise to customers, so this is a necessity – even if you’re moving to a new market.

Create a “question matrix” that outlines what they should be looking for on calls and the questions they should ask to uncover this information. Develop customer-focused PowerPoints to use on follow-up meetings.

7. Pray!
It takes a lot of hard work to succeed in a new marketing segment. Implement the above suggestions and your chances of success increase. Rush blindly ahead and you’ll most likely waste tons of money, put your firm in financial distress, frustrate your sales force and create incredible internal animosity.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

When I was growing up, the folk rock trio of Peter, Paul & Mary sang an anti-war protest song called, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” It’s funny how after all these years that this tune came roaring back to me as I was thinking about disappearing prospects.

Don’t you just hate it when hot prospects suddenly stop returning your call. It’s especially hard to deal with when they’d been so eager to move forward with you only weeks before.

At first, you assume their lack of responsiveness is an isolated situation that will quickly self-correct. But after repeated failed attempts to connect, you start to question your own sanity.

You could have sworn they were interested, but their current behavior indicates otherwise. And, not wanting to appear too desperate or to come across as a real pest, you’re stymied in terms of what your next steps should be.

Truth be told, they’ve disappeared into the infamous “Black Hole” – sometimes never to be seen again.

Why They Disappeared
As a seller, it’s always important to analyze what may be causing this behavior before taking action. In my experience, these are the typical reasons why prospects disappear into “The Black Hole.” Jill Konrath

• They’re totally swamped. Without a doubt, this is the most common. In virtually ever company today, people have way too much to do and not nearly enough time to get it all done. They fully intend to continue the conversation, but not right now.

• Priorities changed. This can happen overnight. Changing market conditions, bad 3rd quarter results, and new leadership are just a few of the possible root causes. But when this happens, it’s darn near impossible to regain your momentum in the short term.

• Lack of urgency. Sometimes sellers confuse a prospect’s interest level with a desire to take action today. As such, they share all the glorious details about their offering instead of building a business case for immediate change.

• Column fodder. Occasionally prospects just need comparative bids/pricing to justify their decision to go with another company.

• They know everything. When prospects feel they have all the information they need, there’s literally no reason to talk with you any further.

Different reasons call for different actions. Some you can prevent by doing things differently in your customer interactions. Always be open to this possibility since prevention is your best cure. Others you have no control over.

In any case, you need answers! Is it “yeah” or “nay”? Are they still interested or not? Should you keep pursing them or find new prospects?

We’ll explore what you can do  in Part II: Where Did All The Prospects Go

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

In the movie Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise is in the midst of his proposal to Dorothy, she stops him with, “You had me at hello.” Every seller dreams of hearing those exact same words when they approach corporate decision makers.

Unfortunately, the opposite usually occurs. Instead of capturing their prospect’s attention, most sellers create resistance with their opening remarks and blow the opportunity.

Why do bad things like that happen to good people?
In short, weak value propositions.

If you’re running into trouble cracking into corporate accounts, most likely the root cause is your failure to clearly articulate the business outcomes that customers realize from using your products, services or solutions.

A couple weeks ago, I did a new exercise while training a group of sellers. In small groups, they rated common value propositions that sellers could use when prospecting for new customers.

Using a 1-10 (tops) scale, they evaluated value propositions such as these on their effectiveness in initiating change from the status quo:

__     We offer one-stop shopping for all your (fill in the blank) needs.
__     We’re the industry leader in (fill in the blank) and have been
recognized for our exceptional (fill in the blank).
__     We specialize in ( fill in the blank) and work with well-known
clients such as Microsoft, Best Buy and Kraft.

After serious discussion amongst the sellers, these value propositions received scores between 4-6. Their rationale? They were nice benefit statements about the company, but not quite as punchy as they could have been.

Since my book, Selling to Big Companies, was required reading prior to the session, I assumed these sellers would ace this exercise. Not so! In fact, they were way off.

The truth is that all the above value propositions really deserve a score of one. Not four. Not six. Just a measly score of one.

“C’mon, Jill,” you might be saying. “How can that be? They’re not horrible statements. They’re nice.”

Yes, they are nice. I’ll give you that. But they’re grossly ineffective and that’s why they rated so poorly.

Capturing the Decision Maker’s Attention
While those commonly used value propositions listed above might be important at some point in the decision process, they’re totally and utterly worthless when prospecting.

When it comes to capturing a decision maker’s attention, here’s what you need to think about:

• Strong value propositions pique curiosity and entice. When prospects hear them, they want to learn more.

• Strong value propositions create a stark contrast from the status quo. When prospects hear them, they’re willing to consider making a change.

Consider this: If you were on the other end of the phone and a seller called with this message, what would your impression be?

“Eric. Jill Konrath calling from Selling to Big Companies. We offer one-stop shopping for all your sales training needs – everything from lead generation to closing. We use state-of-the-art methodologies to ensure our training sticks.”

Does it entice you? Not one iota. Does it get you to consider switching sales training vendors? Not likely. Does it make you want to invest lots of money that’s currently allocated elsewhere? Not on your life.

Statements about your company and what it does are NOT value propositions. Period. They are not value propositions.

If you want to get decision makers “at hello”, you need to clearly articulate the results the customers can expect from using your product, service or solution. That’s results, spelled R-E-S-U-L-T-S.

For example, a few months ago I trained the national accounts team of a well-known media company. All sellers identified one large corporate client with whom they wanted to set up a meeting.

As a result of the workshop, 87% of the sales force landed an appointment with their targeted account.

Those outcomes are unheard of in my business. Virtually every Vice President of Sales will want to learn more.

That’s the power of a strong value proposition. Even decision makers who weren’t considering a change will think it’s worth their time to find out about the sellers offering.

If you really want to “get them at hello,” then make sure you:

Talk results.
Decision makers don’t care about your products or services. They only care about the results they’ll see. Stress that and you’ll catch their attention. Omit those results and you’ve lost them.

Get real.
Refer to actual client successes and include measures or statistics. Success stories from other companies in their industry are especially compelling. By giving specific examples, you really pique their curiosity.

Test your message.
After you’ve planned what to say, ask, “If I were the decision maker, would this message entice me? Would it make me want to spend an hour of my valuable time with this person?”

If your answer isn’t a resounding yes, rework and revise your message till it is enticing. Don’t leave it to chance. Don’t hope that it will work. Your job is to make it so compelling that your decision makers “get it at hello.”

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

Calling Don Diggerman was always painful. Much as I wanted to do business with his company, I dreaded talking to him. I’d sit at my desk, staring at the phone, trying to figure out how I could avoid dealing with that man.

But it was just wishful thinking. The decision rested on Don’s shoulders and unless I won him over, one of my competitors would get the order.

When I couldn’t delay any longer, I’d close my eyes, take a long deep breath, and then slowly exhale. Over and over, perhaps twenty times or more. To the casual observer, it might have looked like I was meditating in the middle of the office. In reality, I was calming myself down before I called him.

You’re probably wondering what was so awful about this man that caused me to go through all those gyrations. Was he abusive, ornery, or downright mean? Was he sneaky, manipulative or slimy?

No, this man was not an ogre. He was the nicest man in the whole wide world. Kind. Gracious. Warm. Everyone loved him – even me.

It was just that talking to him required a tremendous effort on my part. You see, Don was the slowest talker I’ve ever met.

When I’d catch him on the phone, I’d say something like, “Don, Jill Konrath calling.”

“Oooooh, Jiiiiiilll,” he’d say ever so slowly. “Howwwww niiiiiiiiice of youuuuuuu to caaaaaall. Weeeeeee’ve beeeeeeeen taaaaalking abooooout commmmming in for a deeeemooonstraaation, buuuuuut caaaaan’t deeeeeciiiiiiiide if Tuuuuuuuesdaaaaay or Thurrrrrsdaaaaay is beeeeeettttter.”

It took him forever to say anything – and it drove me up a wall. But he never knew, because I’d respond, “Donnnn. Caaaaaaaan weeeeee doooooo it onnnnnnn Thurrrrrsdaaaaay? It’s beeeetter for meeeeeee.”

Our entire conversation went at that speed – on purpose. If I’d talked to him normally, I would have scared him away. My goal-oriented behavior was totally out of synch with his laid-back, slow-paced manner.

Because I recognized this, I made a conscious decision to relate to Don in a manner that made him feel comfortable. Maintaining this calm demeanor was certainly not one bit relaxing for me though.
But, it wasn’t about me. It was about my customer. I was treating him the way he wanted to be treated. And that’s a good thing.

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com