How to close a sale by demonstrating positive company culture

Sales is not an easy process, and it's definitely not an exact science.  How do you demonstrate value to someone you may have never met before and then convince them to pay you at your stated price for that value?  Or, perhaps you're selling to an existing Client who believes they know everything about you.  That's a tough one.

Usually the sales process follows a pattern:  (1) Find potential clients and introduce yourself; (2) Discuss their needs and demonstrate the value of your product or service; (3) Earn the relationship by submitting a proposal, making a demonstration, and negotiating terms; (4) Maintain the relationship through exceptional customer service and support.

Now, this is a vital process for every company in every industry.  It is so important to your business that there are THOUSANDS of sales consultants waiting to help you close 100% of every deal you come across (hyperbole added).  Will they be effective?  Maybe.  But sales isn't self-sustaining.  Businesses don't just "sell".  They create, install, maintain, support, fulfill, build, plan, advise, and a hundred other tasks that together provide a benefit to their customers.  Want to know what a sales consultant will (probably) not help you focus on?  ALL of those other things.

Remember the sales process above?  #4 includes all of these other things you do to support your customers, and it might just be the most important piece of the process.  Just about everything you do in your business can be used to demonstrate value in the sales process, and often demonstrates the most value.  This is where company culture comes into play in a big way.

Let me give you an example.  Think what would happen to your organization if you responded to a customer's pain by applying your knowledge from previous experience, or sharing the insights you gained from our Talent Assessments.

Brad Wilson of IRIS Solutions is one of my favorite Clients.  Why?  He works hard to apply what he learns.  He emailed me yesterday to share a story.  Here it is (my notes added):

Yesterday we are in this meeting with a prospect.

I am telling them about backup.  All of a sudden they ask, "How long will we be down?"  I told them what I thought, and they said "Well to our current vendor, they think 5 minutes = 1 hour. They tell me 15 minutes and we are down for 1.5 hours.  They really fail to understand what the downtime means to us.  They don't communicate well and we are always trying to drag something out of them to get the real expectation."

I let her finish and then said, "Techs are horrible communicators.  We know this about our guys and do all we can to overcome this.  We have a school that each tech has to attend once a year called Charm School for I.T. Geeks and it talks about expectations."

All of a sudden the conversation changed.

Brad was no longer just selling, he was sharing something about his company, specifically about the people this client would be working with.  He continued:

A few minutes later she said, "I just can't get them to answer my questions." (referring to her current IT services tech)

I asked her if she did personality tests on her employees.  She replied, "I would like to, but no."

I explained that we do and what we learn from this is that techs are poor communicators by nature of their personality. She might want to test the ones she is talking to.  We tend to put these people in an environment where they don't have to talk much to clients, but still have impact.

Again a change in conversation.

Brad demonstrated a deeper knowledge of their people, which is impressive to any client.  It shows he cares not only about his employees but also about the client experience.

The last thing I said was this: "We use the test to help educate the tech on their tendencies when communicating and serving our clients. This way they at least know they have a weakness and what to do about it.  This helps us drive improvement."

Brad's very kind, closing words in his email were this: "David - YOU are the difference here.  See the pattern.  Thanks so much for your help."  I greatly appreciate all of my Clients, and I am honored by Brad's praise. However, the fact is, our work with IRIS Solutions is not rocket science.  They have simply embraced tools like Charm School and Talent Assessments to improve their company culture and achieve their goals.

I hope this story encourages you to look at your company and work on your culture.  You, your employees, and your Clients will all benefit.