The Business Developer's Playbook

Relationship Selling Principles and the DNA of Dialogue Selling

Peter Nixon

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138322585
• eBook ISBN: 9780429822018
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book is not about selling products -- it is about selling yourself, your ideas, and your services. This book explains an innovative dialogue sales process, and the relationship sales principles that underpin it. In every sales situation, there is both a seller and a buyer and, at different times, either the buyer or the seller may take the lead. The dance they perform may or may not lead to a deal, but it will leave them knowing a little more about each other's strengths and weaknesses. These two dancers are "connected" and follow the same steps -- The five steps they follow are to plan, connect, dialogue, record, and follow up. The five steps are the basis of the dialogue process.

In addition, this book provides easy-to-follow guidance for three groups of people: 1. Professionals wanting to sell their services and improve their business development; 2. Thought leaders, change agents, innovators, entrepreneurs, senior public servants, and advocates wanting to sell their ideas to others; 3. Mid-career job seekers and recent graduates aiming to sell themselves into a dream job role either full or part-time.

1

What Are You Selling?

Before diving into the DNA of selling, it is valuable to step back and ask yourself “what are you selling?” Most non-salespeople conceive of selling in terms of what they have experienced when confronted by salespeople trying to sell them products such as life insurance, savings plans, and consumer goods. The aggressiveness of product salespeople who put their need to sell ahead of the buyer’s need to buy leaves a bad taste in the mouth of most buyers. When you look a little deeper you realise these salespeople push products which pay them the greatest commission and are themselves pushed by sales directors to meet monthly sales targets and earn handsome bonuses if the targets are achieved. When pushed by my life insurance agent to buy yet another life insurance policy I asked him “how many lives do you think I have?”

This book is not about selling products, it is about selling yourself, your ideas, and your services. If the English language were more refined it would have different words for selling inanimate products versus living things (like people, ideas, services) because the two are very different. You need only think about buying dog food versus buying a dog. The dog food remains the same over time, whereas the experience of owning a dog varies considerably from puppy to mature dog.

Despite the significant differences between selling inanimate and living things, we tend to call both selling, although sometimes people refer to the latter as influencing, negotiation, or even conflict resolution. And although both types of selling appear similar, selling products differs from selling yourself, your ideas, or your services in two important ways:

1. Product buyers normally understand what they are buying either physically (e.g. consumer products) or contractually (e.g. financial products) before investing and their ownership experience varies little if at all during the life of the product.

2. People who buy you, your ideas, or your services can only imagine what life would be like if they follow you, and because you, they, and the situation change over time, their “ownership experience” varies considerably over time.

Buyer experience: Inanimate products versus living ideas and services

	Buyer Experience Before Acquisition	Buyer Experience During Life of Acquisition
Inanimate acquisitions = products	Can see, hold, test-drive, understand contractually	Mostly consistent
Living acquisitions = Self, ideas, services	Mostly imagined	Can vary significantly

Examples comparing inanimate versus living acquisitions:

• Buying dog food versus buying a dog.

• Buying dog medicine versus buying veterinary services.

• Buying accounting software versus hiring an accountant.

• Buying new office furniture versus buying the ideas of an interior designer.

The following living situations are all considerably different from each other but everyone encounters some of these situations during their lifetime, either as a buyer or seller. It is useful to consider the uniqueness of each situation, remembering that what makes these situations alive is that over time everything can change, for example: buyers change preferences; sellers change interests, priorities, pricing; ideas transform; service ebbs and flows; needs and wants evolve; and the competition changes too (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1
Selling in the midst of change.

Business Development Tip: Clarify If You Are Selling an Inanimate Product or Living People, Ideas, or Services and Manage Buyer Experience Accordingly

The following living sales situations capture most of the situations you will find yourself in at some point in your life, either as a buyer or seller. Find which applies most to your situation and read on.

1. Selling yourself:

a. for a job;

b. for a raise;

c. for a promotion;

d. for marriage or business partnership.

2. Selling your ideas:

a. for funding start-ups and new initiatives;

b. to change the way things are done;

c. for support of non-profits;

d. for support of your political, social, economic, or environmental vision of the future;

e. for peace and a future together.

3. Selling your services:

a. to members;

b. as professional service providers.

Selling Yourself for a Job

As MBA professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong and alumni representative for McGill and Bishop’s Universities in Canada, I am constantly asked for advice about getting a job. The world has pretty much achieved full employment and robots are picking up the slack. What that means for those without a job is you either “wait for someone to die” (as one of my client organisations referred to their talent management process), become an entrepreneur, or sell yourself into a job by convincing an employer that you are too valuable to ignore. Employers attract, develop, and retain the people they want by, in part, creating jobs for them. If you aren’t having success getting a job, you need to boost your sales techniques by using some of the tips and principles outlined in this book. In addition to my tips and principles I also offer the following advice.

In the developed markets of the world today the best candidates speak several languages, have graduated from reputable universities, and are good at what they do. These three attributes however only get you into the running for a job. Competition today for most top jobs is global. How do you get spotted in the crowd amongst so much talent? Employers need to know you, be attracted to what you can offer, and know you fit their budget.

If you are a stranger to your prospective employer, it is impossible for them to know you or know of you. Some job seekers think if they just had the email address for the boss they could send their CV and get the job, but that is not at all how it works. Nowadays, you need to volunteer or work in places where your sought-after employer will get to know you. Employers are hiring their favourite suppliers and clients are hiring consultants whom they have seen in action somewhere else such as the local chamber of commerce or on YouTube. If you don’t have a public presence, find out where your relationship target spends their time and put yourself into their sight lines so they can see you in action.

Once your relationship target spots you there are several things you can do to develop the relationship and these are further outlined in the coming pages. To know if you fit their budget you need to do your homework by asking everyone about pay packages and career paths. You don’t want to offer yourself cheap because your annual increments start with your entry salary and if it’s low, you will be low on the scale for the rest of your career. Similarly, you don’t want to ask for too much because it is normal for buyers to like the most expensive items in the shop and then to buy something similar but less expensive. Employers have a budget but so should you, knowing you can travel to a new market and make more money for the same job simply because those skills are in greater demand and shorter supply, pushing up the price of employment accordingly.

Business Development Tip: Do Something to Stand out from the Competition

Selling Yourself for a Raise

The most common question I’m asked everywhere in the world is “how do I negotiate for a raise in pay?” The question is normal in that most people feel they are worth more than they are paid and everyone would like to have more money. What everyone asking me this question fails to recognise is that employees are commodities and employers are aiming to maximise their return on investment. That means most employers aren’t interested in paying more than they must, nor are they interested in paying more for equivalent service. So how do you sell yourself for a raise? You need to show your employer that you can do more value-added work, either by doing something more important or by doing more of what you have already been doing.

Starting with the latter proposition, since most people are already working 24/7, it is unlikely you will want to do more hours, but many people are willing to work overtime to make more money and sacrifice their personal time in favour of future opportunities for themselves or their families. If this is your situation, then do the calculation and compare the cost of a raise or overtime pay with the cost of hiring another employee. Nowadays, the additional costs and benefits which accompany additional headcount suggests it is cheaper for employers to pay more for their existing employees to produce more output than to hire another employee to help out.

Consider if your employer organisation is growing, shrinking, or stable. If it is growing, they will want to find ways to improve productivity. If it is shrinking, they will want to be cutting costs and headcount. And if it is stable, the attention of employers will be elsewhere.

If you want to ask for a raise in return for doing higher-value work and possibly delegate some of what you are doing to others to free up additional time for the higher-value work then you need to sell yourself for a promotion and ask for a change of title. I address this situation below.

Business Development Tip: Compare Your Cost to the Organisation with the Value You Bring the Organisation

Selling Yourself for a Promotion

Ambition is both good and bad. On the positive side, it riles against the status quo and allows people to climb the corporate ladder and accomplish things others never thought possible. On the negative side, it can lead to animosity between co-workers or lead people to job-hop without really learning the job or proving their value long term in an organisation.

If you are selling yourself for promotion, it is wise to know that the people who tend to get promoted are the ones who are already performing well in the role they wish to get promoted into. In other words, do your work well, remind people you are doing so, and invite them to consider you for promotion without being hurriedly aggressive.

I had the good fortune of being recruited by Coopers & Lybrand (one of the world’s Big Eight accounting firms at that time; there are four now) in my final year of university. I had the requisite attributes they were looking for in new recruits, such as a business degree, eagerness to learn, good interpersonal skills, and proven work experience from part-time jobs. What also differentiated me from the other candidates was that I came to the initial interview with a copy of the firm’s published history, Coopers & Lybrand in Canada: A Chronicle of the McDonald, Currie Years 1010–1973 (Coopers & Lybrand, 1976), which I had read and memorised. Since these books were printed mostly for clients and members of the firm, it was unusual for an interviewee to have one. I had learnt about the book from family connections and asked them if I could read it. Being the only candidate with this book set me apart from the others and was partly what got me my offer letter.

Readers who have worked in big firms know that you can start out as an articling student or apprentice and work your way up to equity partner. If you perform well and people like you, your career can progress quickly up the ranks of the firm with annual promotions. Once you have qualified professionally, you become attractive to clients who like to poach talent from the professional firms to fill internal positions in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Author
• Chapter 1 What Are You Selling?
• Chapter 2 The Dialogue Selling Process
• Chapter 3 Relationship Selling Principles
• Chapter 4 A Business Developer’s Workday
• Chapter 5 Other Important Sales Topics
• Chapter 6 Conclusion
• Appendix I: Relationship Selling Principles
• Appendix II: Dialogue Puzzle
• Appendix III: Dialogue Skills – PRESA
• Appendix IV: Dialogue Opportunities and Methods
• Appendix V: Negotiation Tactics
• Appendix VI: Conflict De-Escalation Tactics
• Appendix VII: Business Development Roadmap
• Appendix VIII: Bulldog Opportunity Tracker
• Appendix IX: RGB Dialect
• Appendix X: Top 20 Negotiation Mistakes
• Index