Teams involved in complex B2B sales often  struggle with these symptoms:

• ‘Busy Busy Busy’ – this is being ineffective. It results in wasted opportunities, is tiring and stressful and means the focus is on the wrong activities to deliver results

• ‘Olde Worlde’ – this is being old fashioned. It is when salespeople are too self-centred rather than customer focused, too technical in their approach or use bad techniques better suited to a bygone era of selling

• ‘Muddled Mindset’ – this is being misaligned. It can happen at organisation, management and individual level and means that the confusion leads to frustration and wasted effort

The 'fix' is based on how salespeople can use a ‘partnering mindset’ to develop more a modern and collaborative approach to working with customers. It is based around using the VALUE Framework to deliver results by:

• Countering ‘Busy Busy Busy’ by becoming more effective. Prepare to make the most of opportunities, plan to balance work and reduce stress, use process to focus on the right activity

• Countering ‘Olde Worlde’ by getting up to date. Flip attention to the world of the customer, follow an approach that identifies issues rather than forces a solution and focus on things that actually work rather than old school tricks

• Countering ‘Muddled Mindset’ by creating better alignment. Develop clarity within the organisation, encourage coaching by management and allow individuals confirmation that the way they work is making consistent with top performance

A study of the evolution of sales can provide reflection on how to make the shift to avoid the mistakes some salespeople make by not adapting

• Process - is it focused around the seller selling or buyers buying?

•  Psychology - are they reading this and using tools to help understand personality styles early on?

•  Benefits - are these now shaped around customer problems rather than your features?

•  Closing - using old fashioned techniques, or helping make advancements to help the customer in their decision making?

•  Consultative selling - are questions trying to create a pain or are they trying to validate your hypothesis?

• Value based selling - instructing customers what value should be or trying to uncover this together?

•  Personal branding - is it clear that they are the ‘go to’ salespeople

•  Collaborative selling - is the whole focus on thinking like a partner and co-creating value together?

A collaborative mindset can be strengthened by understanding and applying 'partnering skills' or PQ

This helps to

- Cultivate a customer-centric mindset:
Focus on understanding the customer's business goals, challenges, and priorities.
Shift from a transactional to a long-term partnership approach.

- Establish trust and credibility:
Be transparent, honest, and reliable in your interactions.
Demonstrate your commitment to the customer's success by providing valuable insights and recommendations.

- Foster open communication:
Actively listen to customers, empathise with their concerns, and address their needs.
Encourage collaboration, feedback, and mutual respect to build a strong foundation for the partnership.

Elements of PQ are:

🔶 Trust

The basis for all healthy and productive relationships it is also the key to enabling yourself and others to use the six partnering elements effectively
.
Without trust, you cannot achieve real collaboration. Trust must be both put into the relationship and result from it.

🔶 Win–win orientation

This means building trust and finding an outcome that works for both parties by understanding mutual benefit

Think of how you solve problems and negotiate and whether this is about achieving the best for all concerned or is biased one way or another

🔶 Comfort with interdependence

This is all about collaboration, striking a balance between teamwork and individual input.

It helps us learn how to be independent (play our individual part) and dependent (trust and rely on partners, both in our own organisation and in customers). When we get this right, the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

🔶 Transparency

How we communicate is as crucial as what we try to communicate.

This includes honestly sharing relevant, information (personal and business), providing honest feedback and listening to what we receive. This will help build trust.

🔶 Comfort with change

Change is constant. As salespeople we sell change

We need to understand how customers respond to change (is their instinct to initiate it? Adapt to it? Or resist it?) and be prepared to communicate appropriately

🔶 Future orientation

Salespeople and their organisations that get stuck in the past will get left behind.

Look to the future and ensure you and your customer hold each other accountable for results. in doing so build trust and learn to collaborate with each other

The VALUE Framework helps salespeople to consider how they can do a good job selling with a customer focus

🔶 Validate - How to check fit for doing business
- What is our target market? Why?
- What is the problem we are solving?
- How important is it to them?

🔶 Align - How we to consider work together
- What roles are being affected? How?
- What pressure is this putting them under?
- How do they try to fix it?

🔶 Leverage - How to make a sales approach
- What questions should we ask to get them thinking?
- What insights can we offer to stimulate?
- How will they most likely respond?

🔶 Underpin - How to present, prove and agree
- What stories can we tell?
- What references have we got?
- How can we make them the hero?

🔶 Evolve - How to develop the business
- What can we do to ensure we deliver outcomes?
- What is our promise to them?
- How do we prevent ‘buyer remorse’?

Based on 'attractiveness' and 'their perception' we can identify different types of opportunity

Bees make honey. These can be dealt with in a more tactical way where both sides recognise the short-term advantage of optimising transactions on a deal-by-deal basis. If there is an option of helping the customer buy ‘mechanically’, for instance online or through scheduled orders this would be encouraged

Goats are loyal and give you milk, but not much. The sales approach should be one based on co-operation as the customer recognises the supplier's business strengths. However, salesperson needs to be clear that there is little potential for a meaningful relationship and adjust time spent accordingly

Fish are attractive, but at present do not have a high perception of the sales organization (or salesperson?). This is a case of ‘choosing the right bait’ and treating them very much as a prospect by targeting the customer to develop a relationship even though the customer might not yet recognise the value of such a relationship.

Geese lay golden eggs. These customers are the ones to be dealt with strategically as both supplier and customer stand to gain from a long-term relationship.

Artificial Intelligence is now part of our world

Salespeople who do not use it are at a massive disadvantage

Competitors are using it 

Customers are using it

We need to get comfortable in daily use 

Understanding our customers better than ever before is a brilliant way to harness the power

The 'RAPID Research' model is one way to do this

• Role
• Aim
• Pressures
• Impact
• Dreams