Closing b2b sales for Staffing

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- A couple weeks ago, we had a webinar all about how to close large B2B deals with Mark Hunter who runs The Sales Hunter and Philip Schweizer, the CEO of Saleswings. We've got a link down to the full hour, down below, but I recommend you don't waste your time with that. And instead, check out this edited down version. Enjoy and know that I will be watching it alongside you. (beep) What has this channel become? (beep) What is the idea sales process? So, what does that look like, especially when it comes to B2B services businesses? - You want to understand the priorities and you want to understand the way your client makes decisions and then drive that agenda that fits his specific requirement. And that starts you out with understanding your market, understanding the dynamics inside these businesses and really understanding how to go about buying. So, the process is key of course. But it's about building trust. It's about asking the right questions. It's about understanding the problem for your client. So, the process is important and of course, it depends a little bit, there's different ways you can approach that but, the fundamentals you have to get right. - Well, yeah, I think without a doubt if you don't get the fundamentals right, and what I always say is, the bigger the deal, it becomes incumbent on getting in earlier in the development process. The earlier you are in the development process, the less price driven the transaction will be. 'Cause if you come in at the end after that RFP efforts gone out to bid, the only way you're really gonna win this, and win, I hate that term, is if you truly have the lowest price. So, that's why I say the bigger the deal, the closer you are to that inner prize, that big level, you gotta be in earlier with them. And here's the other piece that I always say. We're touched on this, Philip. You gotta be seen as a peer. If you're not seen as a peer, they're gonna throw you out. 'Cause you've got all these challenges. They've gotta see you as a peer. - So, yeah, the price doesn't really matter if you fit the needs, especially with these huge companies because, let's say a company makes a hard million in revenue. There's no difference to them between spending 50,000 on something and 500,000 on something. - The more strategic you can make the offering, the less price pushback you're going to have. We just spent money on something that was absolutely huge. It did not make tactical sense. But, strategically, I spent the money, because strategically it positions me where I want to be long term. - The great thing about large companies is that there's, the kind of buyer that approaches you and he has a need. Sometimes if you offer, let's say, ten different services, just hypothetically, even if he just buys one from you, you got a foot in the door. - Okay, so let's bring it back to closing for a second. One of the issues a lot of people have, especially when it comes to, so you're writing about igh profit prospecting. I'm talking a lot about cold email. You get that first meeting. It's exciting and then you might go, what? 50, 60 times with this client before they close a deal, especially at the larger companies. So, Mark, what is your approach? How do you keep a company engaged? What are the sales people supposed to be doing during that process? - Well, that is so key and I was just with a company there where we closed. It was the largest deal by about a factor of three, that this company had ever closed. And it took two years, large entity and we figured out it was over 100 communications. 100 touches with probably about eight or nine different people. Some people along the way had even left. But, here's the thing. You gotta keep the ball moving forward and what this means, is it means really understanding the customer on a couple different fronts. One, you gotta understand them personally, because if you're dealing in an enterprise level, people say, "Well, gee, no, its purely an economic, it's a purely a spreadsheet..." No, it's not. It is amazing that personal, emotional touch still comes into play. So, what I want to do, the earlier I can let my personality become to come through in the sales process, the better my follow up communication is going to be. I don't hesitate to put something personal out there. - So, we started doing that a lot with our production meetings. So, with (inaudible), we're doing movies, and whenever we're sitting down with a new group of people, I got this from Aaron Sorenson's Master Class. He calls it, "Talking About Pop Tarts", which is, you said, if you have to set a timer, set it. But, for the first 10, 15 minutes, you're not talking about the project, you're not talking about anything, you're just interfacing as people. - And it's amazing how we create trust based off emotional experiences. - Okay, so you brought up a really important point, Mark, which is at these B2B companies, it is more about who the sales guy is, 'cause they're gonna have to be hanging out with you for a long time. Even more important than the budget a lot of times. Because it's not their money, right? It's their company's money where they might have a certain amount to spend, but it's not that same pain a start up founder would have spending money out of their own wallet. - Yeah, that's a very interesting point, 'cause when I used to be in a Fortune 100 company, I had a very senior level position. The bigger the company, you have to come in and be seen as a peer. You have to become, as seen as one of the industry players. You may be with a very small company. You may be a start up. You may be not sure if you're even gonna get paid next month. But, when you're sitting across from that IT, that CMO, that, whoever it might be, you've gotta be at their level, talking about their pains, their gains. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people selling into an enterprise level, they don't even understand the fiscal year of the company they're talking to. And, if you, as a salesperson, came in and began talking about the calendar year as if that was my fiscal year, I'm sorry, you have not done your homework. You're gone, you're outta here. Those are just some very basics. - What a client expects from you, is that you know at least as much as him, if not more. Don't be afraid to disagree with your client. If they feel that you know what you're talking about [Inaudible], all of a sudden, they're on your side. - I think the selling process, how you pitch them, is a reflection of how they feel you will work with them, if they become a client. - How do you deal with that kind of risk in the sales processes where you built that great relationship? You went for dinner with them... You did all that stuff and then they leave. How can somebody prevent that? - You have to be aware that there will be people who will leave. They may get assigned to a different division. Don't give up the ghost. And the other piece is this if your whole future of your agency, your company is based on you getting one deal, you know what? You might as well turn out the lights right now. Because as much as I'm hunting elephants here, I wanna make sure I'm bagging squirrels... oh, that's creepy...I'm bagging squirrels over here (laughs) to keep the machine going. - Well, so it's similar to retirement, right? Once I got to a point where I was like, even a small amount of money, like 3,000, 4,000 dollars a month in just like salary, right? Small salary. That gives you the ability to experiment and do crazy stuff in the rest of your life. And, it's the same in your company. If you've got those four or five clients that are making you enough money to pay the bills, then you can go after these large enterprise clients. But yet, you need to, in order to win someone like Ford, you have to not need them, and that could be not needing them because you have 20 other enterprise companies that you're working with, or not needing them because you're fine as a company either way. So, you were talking earlier about closing this client that was three or four times bigger than anything this other company has had. - Yeah. - What are they dealing with now? How do you process that as a corporation, as a company? - We've gotta be prepared that we're not going to see any cash flow from them, even though they've signed a contract and here's the terms, and all this other stuff. It isn't gonna happen for three or four months and you just gotta factor that in. - What does that look like from a money point of view? Because, it sounds like, if the contract's larger than it should be, that means they're making new hires, like they're doing all this... - Right! They're looking at, is, you're right. 'Cause they're gonna have to hire additional people. You can sit there and say, well I'm sorry, people, you're not gonna get paid for another three, four, no. You gotta pay those people now. So, what they're saying is, they've gotta say, what are the smaller accounts? What are the smaller customers that we have in the pipeline now? How's that cashflow? What's our receivables? What's our payables look like? And, can we front this? Because, in rapid growth, you can very easily outstrip your cashflow. Very easy. So you gotta understand then, if I'm gonna outstrip my cash flow, what are the financial resources you can access to be able to sustain that growth. - So, that makes a good point actually, it segues nicely into negotiations. So, when you're dealing with these large B2B deals, how are those differing, maybe from the smaller deals that most people watching this are used to in terms of negotiating, pricing, payment terms, all of that. - The larger the enterprise you're selling into, the longer the periods of radio silence you may incur. And, you just have to be willing to say, it's okay, it's okay, the sun's still gonna come up in the morning. It's gonna come up It's gonna be okay, because, see, what'll happen is you put the contract on the table, and you don't hear something back for 24 hours, 48 hours, so you panic. So, then you start throwing discounts out on the table, discounts and then what do they say? Hey, this is great, we're just gonna stay radio silent and the price will come down even more. And, that's just becomes a huge, huge mistake. - Okay, so this is interesting. So, for the typical agency sales process, that call number one, ideally. You call number one and you get whatever they wanna buy from you. Then you draft a proposal, there's a proposal presentation. Then usually there's a contract presentation, or whatever where you go through the contract, you negotiate all these lines, and then its' the signing, right? It's never that quick but that's at a high level of what it should be. When it comes to this legal process, this contract process, what are some things that are different now when you're closing large deals than what somebody would be used to with the smaller deals? - Well, keep in mind that the larger the company, the more legalese they're gonna play with it. And, I look at it this way. I hope the value of my contract is not based on the merits of the contract. - This is something that I've seen brought up on our own sales team where it's little things on the contract. For instance, so it's like one part where it's like if they sue us, it has to take place in Wyoming. And then like, some people wanna change it to California, or some people want to change it to Illinois. And, I've been telling them it doesn't matter. Let's do whatever the client wants. Is that the right approach? - Yes. Just default to whatever the client wants because at the end of the day, the last thing you wanna do is be in the game of providing meaningful employment to attorneys (laughs). - Agreed. - All right, let's take it to Q and A. Guys? If you want to ask questions down in the chat, feel free to do it now and we'll tackle them. I see one from Addmorecolors. He says, "Alex, I notice the emails you send out to subscribers are often very long. (laughs) Okay. Is there a strategy behind writing lengthier emails to people you already have commitment from?" And, you're saying versus a cold email where you're keeping it short and I think there is. So, I follow the copywriting philosophy that it's better to tell a good story in an email, especially if they're already willing to hear from you than it is to just do like a quick three or four sentence email. But, if you do look at the drip, especially if you go back and look at the emails that were sent for this webinar, there's a good mix. So, there's longer emails for people that are into that. There's more data driven emails. There's one that's more emotional and there's one that's like two or three sentences. So, it's approaching them from however they want to be communicated with. Okay, so another question we had is "I've had a couple prospects choosing cheap agencies that charge 300 dollars a month over me." He says his minimum is 900 dollars. So, we're dealing with super small deals here. "I'm not sure how to rebut them. I just say good luck, I'm here if you need me. Is there a better response that I can use?" Show value, just simply show value. What's the outcome that you provide? I mean, that's, price is irrelevant. 'Cause I look at it this way. Nobody buys anything, they invest. - Even with smaller clients, too or were you dealing with 300, 400 dollars a month? - Well, then the question becomes do you even want to waste your time with smaller clients? That's the whole thing. If they're not bringing value to you as an agency, to you as a company, you don't want them around. Get them off your plate. - Right. Most of the feedback I give to people if they say we're too expensive or we can't afford it, the first thing I'll say is double your rates. (laughs) Right? Charge them more. You don't have to change the offer, you don't have to change the services. You don't even really have to change testimonials. Just start asking for more when you go for those negotiations. So, last question we're gonna take is "I feel like I've been burned by a lot of smaller clients. I'm actually preparing to start going after the clients who have advertising budgets of 250,000 dollars or more annually. Let's say you're charging 2,000 bucks a month right now. How would you approach that or what would be the idea process to get to that level?" - Your price is now 6,000 dollars or 8,000 dollars a month. Just, that's what it is now. You will attract the type of customers based on how you present yourself. If you present yourself as a little kid, you'll wind up with little kids. If you present yourself as going after bigger opportunities, that's who you'll wind up with. And, the easiest way for somebody who's at 2,000 now, I'd say your new price is 10,000. 10,000! But, you know what, we're gonna go ahead and let it go right now for 7,000. So, you're thinking 10,000 but 7,000. Wow, 7,000, that's a bargain. You see? 2,000 to 7,000 is quite a bump, but because I've already set my rate as 10,000 but I'm only gonna go at 7,000, it just becomes psychologically easier for me to handle. More discounts are given. More lost revenue is created because of the inability of the account manager, the agency, the company in believing their own price than given based on the demands of the customer. - Thanks for watching, links to Philip and Mark are down below in the description box. Also, if you want to see the exact questions we use on client calls to help close more deals, the link to that is down below as well. If you want help closing large B2B deals for your agency, I would head over to experiment27.com. That's what we specialize in and I would love if you would subscribe to this YouTube channel for more content like this. Also, if you wanna help the channel out, I would love if you would think of a friend you know would get value from this specific video and send them a quick email. Maybe something that says, "Hey, found this video on how to close large B2B deals, and figured you might get some value out of it" then send the link. I'm Alex Berman. Thanks.