Secrets of The Salesman

I am in awe of people who work and live on commission alone.

I am by no means a pure salesman. I can sell if I know what I am talking about, and I believe in what I am selling.  

I've been trying to land a whale since February. I am head to head with a much larger company trying to win the business.  They probably have 8 people on the account and we have 2.  There are about 4000 products to sell and I've been given maybe 400 of those to sell.  The other company has the rest.

Both companies are using Google "Adwords" advertising and (it seems) we are being judged on our ECommerce Conversion rate - what percentage of clicks turn into sales. Both companies are driving clicks to the same website and the data is right there side by side, in Google Analytics, for the two companies. So to some extent comparison is not hard to do.

We are beating the behemoth by about 2.5-to-1 but the client is nervous about picking the small unknown company vs the big established brand.  He is under lots of pressure from HQ, he is a new small division of a much larger parent company that everyone would recognize.

I found that the more confident (ballsy) I am the better he responds.  "Billy it's simple: hire me and double your revenue."  
I said to the client: "You feel safer rather failing with those guys, even thought you know you have a better chance to succeed with me.  

I sent him this video to push him along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh9wsrL43RY.

So to my point... you guys who live on commission, Coach, Camp, whoever... what are your secrets? How to you push the prospect over the edge?

 Are you speaking with the decision maker. Does not sound like you are. If not this circle jerk could go on for months. Get to the decision maker and ask for the business better yet get a meeting with them and assume you got it bring the paperwork all filled out and boom your done one way or another. Sending videos it's yag

You are facing the old adage, "you can't fail if you choose IBM". Basically if the chump chooses the established leader his boss can't blame him.

TJs right, you have to get to the person who is in charge and they may be the person above the decision maker. Otherwise, unless the guy is really ballsy he will go with the low risk approach every time or established leader every time.

I've worked on projects where we've had to select a software vendor.  As a client, if I had one question to ask of the vendors I would ask, "where am I in your world?  Am I the big fish in the small pond, small fish in big pond?"  The idea being that they would be the big fish in your small pond.

One argument for landing them is that, assuming you can show that you're in a good financial position (currently and historically), and are likely to be so in the future, you will have their full attention all of the time.

As you probably know, the prospect has all the leverage until the ink is wet on the contract.  With the competitor, it is very possible that leverage will tip in the opposite direction (away from them, the client) very quickly and very sharply.

Edit:  agreed with salesmen/women.  I love them.  Their performance very much affects my job security.

I am not a Salesman, I've tried it, I would rather go to the dentist..

That said my wife is, what she sells is irrelevant. There are a lot of people in her industry selling the same thing. She say's what makes her successful is, she establishes a personal relationship with the person. She is familiar with their families,hobbies etc.. Just my 2 cents..Good luck

TJ - Billy is the top guy in the company. While it may be legitimate to say we are being jerked around, we are being paid fairly for the work we are doing. Our system for this kind of work is unique and proprietary. It has the advantage that once it is built, it takes very little work to mantain and collect the ongoing commission.  Even at the size it is (10% of HIS business), it is my biggest account.  So it's not exactly like I am being screwed.

Peetex, we use a variant of IBM expression and we use it in regard to this relation themship all the time: "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM."  That is precisely the issue and even the client admits it.  The client actually tried to hire me away a month ago.  When I said no, he asked me if I would be willing to (get this) TRAIN my competitor in our method.  I told him I would only do so for a 10% ownership share in the larger company.

Jason is right developing the personal relationship is crucial. I was brought it to this competition by someone lower in the company and was getting nowhere until I started dealing directly with the boss.  When I flew down to meet him it really helped. My own personal liability, I hate air travel and haven't visited often enough. As I said I'm not really as salesman.

Can you get info on their competitors and who they use? "Come with us, everybody's doing it." "Xyz is using us and they've had great results." "Abc is using so and so, that's why your company is beating them for market share."

What did he say when you asked for the business?  

PeeTex wrote

You are facing the old adage, "you can't fail if you choose IBM". Basically if the chump chooses the established leader his boss can't blame him.

I have been in sales for 30 years. I have seen this many times with larger companies. You mentioned that this is a division of a larger company so Billy may be the head of that division but he reports to someone. You need to ask Billy if you and he can have a meeting with his boss together. In the presentation, don't overdo it but, you have to make it look like it is Billy's idea to run this by his boss. If the boss agrees, Billy will not be 100% liable if the deal fails and will look great if sales increase. If your 2.5 to 1 number is correct you should be able to close the deal.
If you can't get that meeting, your only hope is to convince Billy that the risk is worth the reward. That is not so easy with people who are "don't rock the boat" people. If you can't convince him, you are likely better off spending the time looking for new customers who would jump at 2.5 to 1 numbers.

See if he will give you another 400 items to prove you can continue the trend. It would be a low risk for your client. It would also allow you to continue to prove your worth it.

Harv use the fact that you aren't a salesman to your advantage. Sell the fact that you're an owner operator. You've been there 30 years??? You aren't going anywhere,  you're solid. Maybe the other salseman doesn't have that going for him. Leave the product right out of your conversations. I mean at 2.5 to 1 it's a no brainer for him. If he can't see that in black and white, well, you can't fix stupid. Just sell yourself, people want to do business with people they like.

This thread be more entertaining if it was a creepy lifetime movie kinda thing.  

It could star:
 
CoachZ as Borys Bronislaw
TJF as Chaz Kickass
Camp as Jimmy Joe Jitters

And special guest PeeTex as Belvedere whimplepuss III

Hahahahahahahahahahahah

Camp what are your secrets?  You are living on commish you must know what you are doing.

I told my story at the beginning because I thought it would make it more interesting, but I really want to hear from successful salesman how they do it.

I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm heading north to Algonquin Lake for a few days with friends. I'll day this, and that is there are no secrets when in comes to good salesmen. You either have it or you don't, it can't be taught. Kinda like SJ's lame ass fooz game!

What really? No reaction to that larry off the charts HOF material!  Lame

Lots of good advice here, Harv. I've been selling a long time now as well. Though I sell a physical product rather then a service, the important thing in all sales is building a relationship in order to build trust (which you clearly have done) and to really understand and believe in your product (which you do). Owning your own business automatically makes  you a salesman so you probably already know more about sales then you realize.That being said, only thing I might add is that when you're actually doing the selling, you need to be mindful of the difference between features and benefits. Technically oriented people some times get stuck on features and don't explain the benefit of the product to their customer. The other mistake is that a lot of sales people don't actually ask for the sale (though it sounds like you do) as propose a concrete transaction at the wrap up.

Camp, you talk a lot like a guy I know.  He was really hot looking when he dressed in drag.  Was that you?
 
mm

You mentioned he wanted you to train your competition, that's a customer I would walk away from - that was a shitty request

You guys have no sense of humor!!!  Unbelievable