Hi, I'm Ted Smith and I'm Senior Vice President of CNETNetworks Business to Business portfolio and today I'd like to share with youone of my favorite topics, "Surviving a sales rep: 101."
Now I know what you're saying to yourself. "What do Ineed to know about sales reps?" Well, let me tell you what I think youneed to know about sales reps. For one thing they're trained and they're highlytrained and I'm talking about, you know, a couple of hundred million dollarsevery year spent training sales people how to sell to you. Now let's think justfor a minute how much money is spent training you to buy something. Well, I'mjust going to go out on a limb here and guess that the number is zero becauseI've never met anybody that's gone to buyer training. I'm not talking about procurementpeople and I'm not talking about negotiation, I'm talking about literally beingon the other side of the table from somebody who is trying to sell yousomething. So training is one part of the equation.
Let's think a little about the rest of it. Well, as it wouldturn out, sales professionals also have a bevy of tools available to them.Sales force automation systems, customer relationship management systems,business intelligence applications, a lot of stuff. Now let's think for asecond about all of those things that you have. It's true you don't have any,not one.
So what are we going to do about this? Well, why don't wejust go ahead for a minute and establish the playing field in the drama that itis, we have 2 people. The sales person and maybe you, the buyer. Now youprobably know this from your own experience, but they're filling up that salesforce automation system with something and let's think about some of the thingsthat they ask you. Well, they probably want to know how many users there are inyour organization. They definitely want to know how much budget you have. Theyprobably want to know about existing contracts that you have with otherproviders and they probably want to know something about where you are in theorganization chart. There is a lot more that they ask you and you know it. Soit's a very long list of things that they're trying to get out of you toestablish the kinds of business that they think they can do with you andthere's nothing wrong or malicious about this except for when you look overhere and you say, "well, what's on my list?" So they took a bunch ofnotes, they filled out some big complicated system and I had a nice meeting.
So what can we do to combat this? Well, let me just suggestthis. Well, you don't have a really expensive application to work with. I cansuggest that you open up a word processing document or something and actuallystart asking them some questions, be clear about it. How much budget pressureare you under? When did your fiscal quarter end, show me your org chart? Whoelse have you done work for, in exactly the same context that you're talking tome about? What's the lifecycle of the product or service that you're sellingme? Are you under any pressure to get this sold now? Is this brand new? Am Ithe first person to use it, your discounting practices? What's your generalphilosophy around this? Can I get that out of the upfront so that I can save alot of time in the back and in negotiations?
So as you can see, we established a long list of things thatthe sales professional wants from you and now a pretty nice list of things thatyou might want from them and the very good news is many of the items areexactly the same. So when they're busy asking you those questions, you can askthem right back. So just maintain the flow, information from you, information fromthem, and come to the table fully equipped. It's a level playing field, you'llmake your best deal.
