The art of Large Deals and B2B selling

Selling is an art?

Having spent a good time in it and loving every moment of selling, i have come to beleive it is. Yes, to a large extent it is. Science is the ability to understand the industry, connect the dots to solutinise, price it right basis market awareness, understanding of the competition etc etc. The art part of selling in B2B business is the conviction and trust that you can derive in your action and words. Unlike B2C selling, B2B has higher stakes, longer lockin period and stronger business cases associated with it.
B2B selling is about the image of the business and sales person's personal ability to carve out the best win win deal between the customer and the organization.

I have been fortunate to be a part of some of the largest contracts in European and Indian geography either as the key sales person or as consultant. Some that were won and some that were lost. Analysing each deal i have realized that there are some common patterns in victory and i will keep the pure price play out of this pattern but will talk about the ability of the sales person to drive the price. You will notice that there is very little science and a lot of people and art of running business inherent in the leadership driving the deals which makes the difference between win and loss.

Here are some interesting aspects which drive me to the art of the victorius B2B sales person:

• Ability to understand the requirements, internal motivation and organizational constraints to deliver on the same
• Ability to bring together the best of organizational capability aligned to the deal (Read people)
• Strong hold on competitive move
• Understanding and acceptance of weak points and ability to drive the senior management to accept and invest/outsource the gaps to create an end to end proposition
• Understanding the key make or break points of key stakeholders and assurance on the soft cover/alternative on the same
• Endurance to stand by, keep hopes, and constantly positively look for mutually beneficial path
• Relationship and trust with customer - This can not be faked, its a genuine effort to make the two organizations marry and succeed. It needs a very fair messaging and mentoring to assure fair path for both organizations
• Ability to identify the specialized skills that client is keen on and fears losing in the large wipe off- in short targetted alliances forged not for the capability but for comfort

The art of the B2B sales guy is the ability to tweak a large, dis oriented machinery to form a proposition which looks like an extension of his own organization to the customer. Its the understanding of people, market and power play. Most importantly, a very genuine mindset to build large enterprises with two different lineage and culture to come together as integrated organization through contractual and people structure elements. The best of deals are cracked by visionaries and people who derive power from their people.

 

Interactable Prototype is the foundation to Running Lean

Recently, i got hold of books on startups titled, "Running Lean". Given that everyone in startup world was talking about it, i picked up the same to know what is it that i could learn and use from it.
The books revolves around concepts on how to do away with business plans and keep a short and quick view on your business/product leavarging lean canvas. How to identify risks and mitigate the same. How to iteratively build the product and take the same to market. What should be the way to measure your venuture on the way.

I had some thoughts moving in my mind, so i thought why not use this book on a real business idea. So, here i was, with the book, a pen and a paper trying to define the lean canvas.

BOOM!!
Those are good thoughts, infact as a business advisory person i know that its important to solve a problem, find the customer, market it rightly, know the basic numbers and not over invest specially today, when capital intensive business are not the only way. Isnt' that like a generation old wisdom packed for business since years.

STILL, people dont faulter because they dont know it, they default because they ignore it or they over understood the customers who did not understand themselves. Process is good, but thats exactly what innovation might not be about.

BUT
Is this what will really help entrepreneurs? The fundamental issue with people is what is in their head does not match what others perceive or use. It is important to put the thoughts on a piece of paper and ask the real users if this were to be real, will it make sense to them.

PROTOTYPE
I would say inplace of writing so many documents, investing so much time thinking and planning, why not just create a quick prototype with minimal flow, take it to your "assumed" user set and define your products with them. According to me there are only two kinds of products:

a) Which people define to solve their problem and you make it
b) Which you present to people because you think they will love it

What an entrepreneur really needs:
a) A good easy flowing wireframe of his idea which pictorically tells user the problem, solution and its flow and asks them to use it and give feedback on the way.
b) Refine the prototype with users and assure a meaningful feedback mechanism
c) Once the wireframe is complete, develop this efficiently for its own users

NO
Please dont waste your life in too many documents, too many books and too much of common sense. If you have the broad idea, and the assumed user segment and a basic view on who you think you will pay. PROTOTYPE and build along with users.