Improve your SaaS sales results
A 10-minute read of bespoke material designed to be read in a Polish-Anglo context.
The authors of this article are:
Bob Spence Director of International Business Development for C4DI.
Kaja Szczygieł International Business Development Lead at C4DI and Relationship Specialist at Future Processing Software Gliwice.
Bob Q. Why should you care about the UK Tech economy?
Kaja A. It has the biggest need for Tech talent!
The UK is the ‘Number One’ Tech revenue opportunity in Europe! An exceptional country to raise capital…less exceptional in terms of available talent and scalable Tech capacity. Tech vacancies make up 12% of all available jobs in the UK, with just over 50 per cent of these jobs available outside of London and the Southeast.
More opportunities to subcontract, partner, collaborate, sell to, and engage exist in the UK than anywhere else in Europe.
Tell your marketing Director and shareholders that:
UK ‘spend potential’ in the Tech sector should be your target market..
UK Tech investment was 35% of the £76bn that flowed into the European tech ecosystem 2021.
2021 was the best year ever for UK tech sector with £26bn in VC, 116 unicorns
63% of investment into UK Tech was International!
The UK Tech ecosystem is valued at $585bn. 120% more than in 2017.
Germany is valued at $291bn. (Less than 50% of the UK).
The UK Tech sector launched a new business every 30-minutes in 2020.
Our material has been developed from experiences in 2020 and 2021.
This content will be re-edited and rewritten into a unique comprehensive ePublication for release by Barclays Eagle lab C4DI International later in 2022 entitled: ‘20/20 vision- the post pandemic sales approach’.
Bob:
We explored the impact of national culture on sales methods and business development. Our reference point used to measure differences were the national culture models of Geert Hofstede. Prof Hofstede is renowned for his thinking and research on cross-cultural behaviour.
Kaja:
Our research represents an interpretation of the progression of the selling methodology that is used today. Bob and I analysed this odyssey and made a calculated estimation as to how the modern Polish sales professional created their current skill set. It will help you improve your sales results, by looking at the evolution of the sales professional from the early 1960’s to the mid 1960’s. During this period there is anecdotal evidence that this is the era of presentation-selling.
Bob:
It is also referred to as the canned-sales-presentation. Let us be clear though that this thinking predates the early 1960’s. In the 1920’s J. H. Patterson President of the National Cash Register Company, introduced the first company prepared sales presentation. The sales talks of the leading NCR salesmen were typewritten, analysed, and combined to produce a standard company message which all salesmen were required to memorise and use. NCR sales increased substantially.
The early 1960’s into the mid 1960’s is the period when this approach dominated business development. What may have caused this standardisation was the paucity of skilled sales professionals in a booming US economy. There was a continued US requirement for sales representation by representatives and inducting new professionals by accompanying existing skilled practitioners was a cottage industry approach. Inducting groups of new professionals into memorable methods created from the experience of the most successful salespeople is easier to replicate. NCR was a relatively sophisticated offer for its period. More and more offers were becoming sophisticated, and this may also be the foundations for the presentation selling approach that continues today.
It is essentially a company-prepared selling presentation.
Sales representatives memorise and repeat it verbatim when making a sales presentation.
Based on our international experiences Kaja and I suggest that this is inadequate for complex SaaS transactions.
Our thinking is that:
Presenting an argument that is framed for one listener may precludes others.
Presenting an argument by framing it for a group may damage the message.
First take out:
What differences may exist between a Polish-to-Polish presentation and a Polish-to-British presentation? Would there be a discernible difference as to how this would work?
Presentation-selling and the canned-sales-presentation usually include the use of visual aids rather than rely just on the power of speech. These aids will have the goal to persuade someone, a group of ‘someone’s’ or an organisation to make the purchase. We still use the terminology of the basic sales pitch today.
The approach of the sales pitch is where the importance is on presenting a pre-packaged series of opinions and facts. These are designed to engage with the buyer and then the presentation visuals are designed to support this dialogue.
The major advantage of this approach is that it can be rehearsed and polished. The major downside of this is that it may accidentally appear trite or over rehearsed or if it fails to engage with the buyer. You are also committed to a set of arguments. The presentation is designed to deliver the function of the actual selling.
'A picture is worth ten thousand words'
This process takes away some of the emphasis behind the ‘5-P’ thinking of an earlier article. Historically the presentation-based sale is the journey from the elevator-pitch and the 60-second pitch into a 30-minute narrative. This sales strategy requires that the presentation portion of the meeting does the actual selling. Essentially all the ‘heavy lifting’ in building a deal is delivered via a presentation. This is normally sourced from the best sales arguments that the top salespeople in the organisation have selected.
Second take out:
This approach may diminish the impact of people-buying-people as there is less opportunity for that people chemistry to work through in a presentation. What could be done to compensate for that and what might that be? Often this process includes a selling feature described as ascending-close arguments. We describe it below as a series of test closes.
EG
Is this where we are?
Does that make sense?
Does that cover that point?
This approach identifies where the prospective client is in terms of a decision during the key ques of the presentation. The presentation method usually has a key component of using trial-closes and test-closes which are designed to elicit questions and objections.
The format then normally leads into the final part of the presentation and inevitably this will be a closing sequence of which there are different variants. In its pure form the ascending-close was and still is most commonly used in the high-pressure sales situation.
(By high-pressure we do not mean the pressure to buy but the pressure to decide).
Eventually this pilgrims-journey will take us 30+ years later into ‘death by PowerPoint’ and all the variants of this communication method. Most of us will have a day-to-day recognition of this mid-60's evolution that often means the overuse of slide decks to communicate the value of arguments.
Our third take out:
Does the use of language generate a variation as to the way arguments sound? Our observations are that Polish presentations might feel somewhat ‘harder’ with a stronger focus on the actual sale. This need not be a positive or a negative, just something to be aware of.
Kaja:
We finish with a breakdown of the use of the canned-sales-presentation!
Fully automated
This can include sound movies, slides, or film strips dominating the presentation. The salesman professional has participation by setting up the technology, answering simple questions and many audio-visual systems are available.
Semi-automated
The sales professional reads the presentation from text copy already printed on flip charts, read-off binders, promotional broadsides, slide decks or brochures.
They then add their own comments when necessary.
Memorised
The sales professional delivers a company prepared message that he has memorised. Supplementary visual aids may or may not be used.
Organised
The sales professional is allowed complete flexibility of wording; however, they do follow a company pattern, check list, or outline. Visual aids are optional.
Unstructured
The sales professional is on their own to describe the product any way they see fit. Generally, the presentation varies from prospect to prospect.
All of these methods are valid, but Bob recommends that you choose one and then master that approach rather than mix them up.
Our next article?
Our next article engages with sales models from the mid 1960’s into the early 1970’s and we will refer to this period as the launch of the problem-solving sales model!