If you’re losing sales then it’s usually down to these very basic reasons (despite what sales gurus might tell you!):

1. You’re missing the mark on value.

If what you’re offering doesn’t solve a problem or make life easier for your customers, they’re not going to buy. It’s as simple as that.

2. You’re not really listening.

Ever been on the phone with a salesperson who just talks at you? Not fun. Listening to what the customer needs is the first step to making a sale.

3. You’re jumping the gun.

Nobody likes feeling rushed. Pushing for a sale before you’ve built any kind of relationship is a surefire way to turn people off.

4. You’re wasting time on dead ends

Not all leads are worth pursuing. Learn to spot the ones that are just going to waste your time.

5. You’re ignoring objections

Brushing off concerns instead of addressing them only makes the customer more hesitant. Take objections seriously and work through them.

6. You’re forgetting to follow up

Out of sight, out of mind. Don’t let prospects forget about you—follow up and stay on their radar.

7. You’re making things complicated

Keep it simple. A confusing sales process is a sure way to lose customers.

8. You’re pretending competitors don’t exist.

Know your enemy. No solution is so unique that it doesn’t have any competition. Ignoring the competition won’t make them go away—it’ll just leave you in the dust.

9. You’re blending in instead of standing out.

If you’re just another fish in the sea, why should anyone choose you? Find your unique selling point and shout it from the rooftops.

10. You’re skipping the relationship-building part.

People buy from people they like. Take the time to build relationships—it’ll pay off in the long run.

Losing sales feels awful but it’s not the end of the world. Learn from your mistakes, tweak your approach, and carefully rebuild your pipeline being mindful of the above.

Is there anything I’ve missed? What would you add?

#sales #selling #edtech #pipeline #relationships #closing #saleprocess #edtech

It’s a well-known good practice to do your research before you meet with a potential customer.  Spending some time understanding them so you can have a decent conversation with them when you meet goes a long way and shows you’re serious about them.  The question is: how much is too much?

When selling in education, I worked with a guy for several years who made a point of researching the schools we were due to meet with; he wanted to come across as a ‘trusted advisor’ as opposed to a salesperson.  However, he would take it far too far and spend the meeting quoting their school motto at them, discussing their school trips and questioning their exam results; they didn’t feel like he had done his research, they felt like they were being stalked!  It ended up having the opposite effect and the staff would become suspicious and back away – it rarely ended in a successful sale.

If you veer too far into the realm of over-research, you’ll likely give your potential clients the creeps rather than impressing them. Striking the right balance is the key to a successful client meeting. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Background Research: Start by gathering some basic background information about your potential customer. This might include their mission, vision and values, size, and any recent news or developments related to their school or trust.
2. Tailored Questions: Use your preliminary research to frame thoughtful questions. Focus on inquiries that demonstrate your genuine interest and understanding of their needs. For instance, instead of quoting their school motto, you can ask how they envision their future.
3. Active Listening: During your meeting, pay close attention to what your potential client says. Listen for pain points, challenges, and objectives. This is where you can showcase your expertise by aligning your solutions with their needs.
4. Engage in Two-Way Dialogue: Make the meeting a conversation, not a monologue. Share relevant insights from your sector and how your business can provide value. Encourage your potential customers to share their thoughts and expectations.
5. Respect Boundaries: Remember that your potential customers have their comfort zones and boundaries. Respect their personal space and the information they choose to share.

The key to successful customer meetings lies in a balanced approach to research. While thorough knowledge is valuable, your customers ultimately want you to be an expert in your own field, not theirs.

So, be curious, be prepared, but most importantly, be attentive and adapt to your customer’s unique needs. By doing so, you’ll forge more genuine connections and create a stronger foundation for successful sales relationships.

The So What? test is nothing new but I thought it would be worth covering here as it’s something I have discussed with a number of people this week.

If you’re unfamiliar with the So What? test then there are lots of great books out there on it but, in essence, it is the practice of looking at your messaging and asking yourself “so what?”  Are you talking about what matters most to your audience?  The idea is to help you focus on what’s important to your client base and communicate effectively as a result.

To give you an example, how many presentations have you seen that start with an introductory slide listing facts about the company?  A typical first slide will usually contain some company facts along the lines of:

While these facts are important to your company, the client’s response will probably be so what?  So you were established in 2012, so what?  Why is that important to me?

It’s crucial to always look through your messaging, and particularly opening slides such as these where this will often be your first contact with your potential client, and ask yourself so what?  And keep asking yourself so what until you get to a satisfactory answer.

So, for the example above, let’s do the So What? Test on the first bullet point

• Established in 2012

So what?  Well, it means we’ve been in business for a few years now.

So what?  So we’re not going anywhere, we’re established and have a good reputation.

So what?  Customers can trust us.

By asking so what you can usually find a better way of getting that message across.  In the case of the above, a much stronger opening bullet point would have been something along the lines of:

• Trusted provider since 2012 with an excellent service track record

Try it with the other bullet points and see what you come up with.  Try it with your own messaging and share the results.  I know this has helped lots of companies in the past so hopefully, it will help yours too.

I keep reading that Sales is something people get into ‘accidentally’.

Apparently people don’t set out to do it but before you know it you find yourself in a role where you get to earn some lovely commission . . . but have to make dreaded calls and meet a ‘too high’ target to get it.

Is that really true for everyone??

My first job after uni was a for a finance company in the underwriting department.  I was green as hell so knew nothing about business at all. Once I’d been there a few months I’d gotten a feel for what bits of a business does what . . . and I knew at that point I wanted to get into Sales.

Being the person who wins the new business to keep a company moving forward was, to me, the most interesting role by far.   And creating something out of nothing sounded amazing!

So I started at the beginning on a telesales desk and have worked in all sorts of ways with all sorts of clients.  It’s been brilliant all the way and there’s still loads more I want to do. I definitely chose to go into Sales.

What about you? I’d love to hear how my sales connections found themselves where they are.

It can’t all be accidental  😉

When it comes to selling to the education sector, using discounting as a strategy to close a sale may seem tempting. However, this approach may not be a good approach. Here’s why you should steer clear of discounting tactics and focus on building value instead.

1. It diminishes your perceived value

Offering discounts can inadvertently devalue your product or service in the eyes of potential buyers. The education sector places great emphasis on quality and long-term benefits. Instead of slashing prices, highlight the distinct advantages and tangible outcomes your offering brings to the table.

2. It seriously affects profit margins

Discounting erodes profit margins, which can have a significant impact on your business’s sustainability. In the long run, maintaining healthy margins allows for continuous innovation and the delivery of exceptional customer experiences. Focus on showcasing the unique value your product or service offers, rather than lowering prices.

3. It establishes unhealthy precedents

If you rely on discounting to close deals, you risk setting a precedent that can be difficult to break in the future. The education sector is a close-knit community, and word travels fast. Instead, aim to position your offering as a premium solution, tailored to meet the specific needs of schools or educational institutions.

4. Long-term relationships are better than short-term gains

Selling to the education sector requires a long-term mindset. Building strong relationships based on trust, credibility, and a genuine understanding of their challenges and goals is key. By focusing on the value your product provides and fostering partnerships, you’ll establish a foundation for sustained success.

So instead of discounting, aim to differentiate through quality and service. By emphasizing value, maintaining healthy profit margins, and building long-term relationships, you can position your product as a premium solution while meeting the unique needs of schools and educational institutions.

Success lies in creating meaningful connections and delivering exceptional experiences that transcend price.

So here we are, almost at the end of the month and most people are desperately trying to close those last few orders to meet what are probably very challenging targets.  Time to bring out the discount – that will work, surely?!  Well, not necessarily.  Here are my 4 reasons why offering a discount to close is not always a good thing:

1. It devalues your product. If what you are selling was worth, say, £5,000 two weeks ago, why is it only worth £4,500 now?  While a discount designed to get the customer to order before the end of the week might just incentivise them to do so, it is also likely to leave a lasting impression that the product was priced too high in the first place which won’t help your long-term relationship and future sales.

Which brings us on to . . .

2. You risk ‘training’ your customers to expect a discount. If a discount is usually offered towards the end of any given month, term or year then the customers will learn to expect it and wait for it to happen.  We all know how we feel about certain large out-of-town furniture and carpet stores that advertise their sales an awful lot; we wait for the sale until we buy as we know there’s probably going to be one just around the corner.

3. It’s obvious but, by discounting to close, you are lowering your revenue and margins. To hit your overall business plan, how many more sales will you now need to make?  Would it be better to take a longer-term view and aim for a smaller amount of committed long-term customers who are willing to pay the true price of your product than a larger volume of customers who bought it because it was a bargain?  It’s a question only you can answer for your business but it’s worth considering.

4. You’re no longer in control of your sale. Most companies will spend a significant amount on sales (account management and new business development) in some way, shape or form.  Those people that you hire are there to add value to your business and, by offering a discount to close, you’re moving all the control over whether or not that potential customer will order onto your client – the decision is now theirs and there is little your salespeople can do to influence.  Unfortunately what this means for the business is that you’re really not getting the best value for money from the salespeople.

Instead of offering a discount, consider how you could add value to the sale.  Is there something you could offer that not only has a financial value attached to it that your potential customer would appreciate but also helps them get the best from the product they’re buying which will increase loyalty and long-term revenue?

Don’t get me wrong, used sporadically discounts can work and sometimes it can help you launch a product with early adopters or build a preferential relationship.  However, give it some thought before you do as it may be that the long-term pain isn’t worth the short-term gain.

How good are you at predicting the future? This image has resurfaced as the article was written 110 years ago and talks about climate issues linked to coal – amazing foresight! What it doesn’t get quite right is the timeline; it says “the effect may be considerable in a few centuries” when actually we’re at a crisis point already.

How often do businesses fall into the trap of thinking a problem is somewhere out there on the horizon when it’s really about to smack them in the face?

I work with the edtech industry and there are quite a few examples I can think of:

👉 The need to access all teaching, learning and school management technology from outside of the school came into VERY sharp focus in the face of lockdowns – lots of people were caught out.

👉 With the academisation agenda, the way schools make decisions and purchase solutions has been turned on its head which has had a major effect on some company business models that probably thought they were safe (the school MIS market in particular).

👉 Free and ‘freemium’ solutions have changed what schools are willing to pay for, you need to find ways to add extra value or risk being ditched altogether.

Here’s what can you do to future-proof your edtech business:

• Listen to your customers
• Encourage employees to speak up – find out what your workforce wants
• Challenge every assumption
• Embrace imperfection
• Iterate, don’t reinvent – be agile
• Be willing to grow
• Test out new marketing strategies
• Harness the power of tech

I’ll talk more about each of these in future blogs, but we also cover all of these in detail within our coaching programme.

How are you future-proofing your education business?

We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders this term, and the insight they provide us and our community is invaluable.

So thank you Tony Lockwood for talking to us about how companies can improve the performance of their products and develop new solutions.

Thanks to Duncan Baldwin for giving us an insight into teaching, his time at Capita SIMS, influencing government as Deputy Policy Director at ASCL and his current Headship.

We were delighted to welcome Winston Poyton back for a follow-up chat on IRIS Education, especially given how much has changed in the world of school management systems in the last 12 months alone.

It’s great to speak with colleagues from MIS support teams as it gives such a unique and insightful view of the landscape, so thank you Keren Wild for getting involved and giving us your perspective.

Sue Macgregor talked to us about Alps Education’s focus on providing the right analytical tools to schools so they have the power to help every student achieve their full potential, thank you!

And finally, thank you to Ian Koxvold of Supporting Education for talking to us about changes across the education sector, what the future might hold in terms of new solutions, and new strategies.

Sarah and I have thoroughly enjoyed making the series, and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new term with industry thought leaders Andy Kent and Jonathan Coyles – watch this space!

Have a great Christmas and see you in 2022!

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In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all our thought leader Q&A sessions from last term.

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I’ve been on the end of some pretty spectacularly bad sales experiences recently and the reasons they were bad is because they involved some or other of the below.  How many do you recognise?

1. Making you feel guilty

Depending on the type of product or service you sell, the sales process involves a journey to a client meeting and it can be a long one (it’s not unusual to drive 2-3 hours or more to have a face-to-face meeting).  Never harp on to your client about your journey though; it’s not their fault you’re not based locally to them and you’re just going to make them feel guilty.  Business don’t generally buy based on guilt.

2. Telling you everything they know about their product

Unfortunately you get this in IT and technology and lot; the salesperson wants to show you exactly how much they know about their product and they won’t be happy until they’ve demoed every single thing.  Two hours later everyone in the meeting is yawning (they switched off 1hr 45mins ago) and the salesperson has no more idea of what is important to their audience than when they first walked in – they haven’t asked and they certainly haven’t listened.

3. Telling you nothing at all about their product!

Conversely, you also get the situation where the salesperson doesn’t seem to be able to tell you anything about the product.  No-one expects the salesperson to have an in-depth, technical knowledge of the product and it’s fine to say “I don’t know the answer to that but I will put you in contact with one of our experts who will be able to help”.  However, they should have a basic knowledge of what it will do for you and how it will help.  (N.B. the salesperson who just agrees and says that the product will do absolutely everything the client wants is no good either – that’s usually called mis-selling!).

4. Making assumptions

You can get great, experienced sales people who know their market, know their product, know the likely objections that will come up and know how to respond to them.  The problem here though is that all this knowledge often stops them asking the questions they once would, assuming they know the answer.  And if you don’t ask questions you’ll never really understand what your clients want so stand a much smaller chance of being able to come up with a value proposition which meets their needs.  Always ask questions.

5. Hassling

This doesn’t take much explanation but it still happens all the time, everywhere you go.  Have you ever bought anything because you were hassled into it?  Thought not.  By all means follow up the meeting, send your clients everything you said you were going to and keep you promises.  But don’t cross the line into hassling, they’ll just stop answering their phone.

What’s the role of Management Information Systems in schools these days?  Something to save teachers time?   That’s what is was first invented for in the 80’s but it’s not what it’s about now.

Something to give the government more insight?  While government and academy chiefs want to know more about each child, teachers say data entry has become burdensome and a source of stress.

We work with MIS suppliers all the time but I wanted the opinion of a school leader, so I asked my headteacher friend what she thinks schools need from an MIS.  Her response was straight to the point:

1. Everyone needs to be able to use it whenever they want, however they want
2. It’s not just about school staff any more – it’s for parents and students too
3. You need to prove you’re getting value for money
4. It needs to make your lives easier every day
5. It has to support your School Development Plan
6. It can’t be unnecessarily complicated – people just won’t use it.

So what do you choose to achieve the above?

There are more choices available now than ever. Local MIS support units who traditionally only supported a single supplier now offer their customers a range of MIS contracts. They support the process, not the product.

MIS will continue to evolve as schools and academies evolve – it has to.  There’s no point in sticking with the old way of doing things purely because “this is what we’ve always done”.