and other sales and marketing

myths that just arent true

Creating Conversations That Win

Creating
Conversations
Creating
Conversations
That Win
starts
with
having
That
starts
starts Win
with having
with having...

Convince your prospects

to change and
Convince
your prospects
then choose
you.
to change and
then choose you.

MARKETING
MARKETING

Deliver your story with

impact and articulate
Deliver
your
story with
your
value.
impact and articulate
your value.

alignment
alignment

SALES
SALES

For B2B companies, the execution of your companys growth strategies,

including new product launches, go-to-market initiatives, or even merger
and acquisition activity, comes down to one thing: great conversations
between your field salespeople and your prospects and customers.
And, making sure your company delivers great customer conversations is
based on two critical activities in every company:
Creating the right stories
the development of sales
messages and tools that
communicate enough value to
break through your prospects
status quo and differentiate you
from competitors.

Enabling the right skills

delivering your stories to
prospects and customers with
power and impactcreating
value, convincing skeptical
executives, and protecting
your profitability.

The following popular myths which are allegedly the most effective ways
to sell and market to prospects just might be leading you astray when it
comes to developing and delivering your messaging. Discovering the truth
behind these myths, and embracing their alternatives, will convince your
customers to say Yes to change and Yes to you!

1
#
H
T
MY
is dead!
The salesperson

The Truth
Industry analysts are reporting that buyers are at least 60% done with
their buying process before they seek out a salesperson. After all, with the
wealth of information provided online to research solutions and compare
competitive alternatives, what value does a salesperson really add to
the process?
But guess what your buyers only think theyre self-sufficient in their
purchasing decisions. According to Sales Benchmark Index, 60% of those
same buyers end up making No Decision. Theres a big difference between
their declared preference (what they say they prefer), and their revealed
preference (what they actually want). Can prospects really be 60% of the way
through their buying cycle if, most of the time, they end up choosing their
status quo? Maybe they needed to talk to a human after all.

A Better Way
Your salespeople with their lips moving are your companys greatest agents
of adding value in the sales cycle. And your ability to create a buying vision
for your prospects helping potential customers see the need to change
and view your offering as a valuable solution is what will separate you from
your competitors. Only salespeople can do this for your companybut they
need the right messages, tools and conversations skills to do it right.

Declared vs. Revealed Preference

People will say one thing when nothing is on the line, and then behave completely
opposite when money and personal reputation is at stake.
Source: Samuelson, P. A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumers Behaviour

2
#
H
T
Y
M
ol for developing
best to
e
h
t
re
a
s
a
n
o
rs
Pe
ging.
effective messa
The Truth
Your personas those fun fictional
characters embodying the traits of
your prospects have been lying
to you. Your prospects dont make
purchase decisions and change their
current approach, or status quo,
because of who they are, what they
are responsible for, and their personal
characteristics. Instead, prospects
respond to messages based on the
situation they are in, how they perceive the future unfolding, and if they
believe theyre in danger of not achieving their business targets. They must
be convinced their desired outcomes are at risk if they dont do something
different, and do it now.
Knowing who youre selling to isnt enough. To create real opportunities, its
far more important to have a message provocative and compelling enough
to get them whoever they are to care enough to move off of their
status quo.

A Better Way
Develop a status quo profile as the starting point. Identify how they are
doing something today, what unknown gaps and deficiencies exist, and
how changes in their industry and environment could put their business
outcomes at risk. Use the picture of your prospect built by this knowledge to
create effective messaging that moves them to make a change.

Fundamental Attribution Error

People overestimate the impact of disposition on a persons behavior and underestimate
the impact of their situation. A persons situation (status quo) is a bigger driver of
behavior and change than their disposition (persona).
Source: Ross, L. The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process

3
#
H
T
Y
M
OC) research is
omer (V
Voice of the Cust
e messaging.
iv
t
c
e
f
f
e
r
o
f
l
ia
essent
The Truth
When it comes time to launch a new
product or create a new message, many
marketers make the time- and resourceconsuming mistake of looking to VOC
research to tell them how to position
it. The problem is, your customers will
only tell you what they already know. But
those problems, challenges and pains
they express, while real, are not significant
enough to get them to change. Why?
Because theyve already figured out how
to work around those issues. So, your so-called solution and the change
management needed to bring you in, looks more painful than the pains they
are living with.

A Better Way
Your job is to introduce underappreciated or unconsidered problems and
make them see the imminence and magnitude of those. To create urgency,
you need to identify and expose real-life issues that are going to impact
their status quo regardless of your solution: new threats, obligations,
requirements, and/or potentially missed opportunities that they must
respond to.

Old Brain Decision-Making

Neuroscience tells us that decisions to change take place in the part of the brain that
doesnt contain the capacity for language, so prospects really cant articulate reasons they
will change. But, this part of the brain is motivated to ensure your survival and is more
responsive and willing to take risk to avoid pain and loss versus acquire gain.

4
#
H
T
Y
M
ues are the cure
techniq
Zen presentation
blems.
for PowerPoint pro
The Truth
Though getting rid of the bullet
points, stock photography, and
product photos in your slide
presentations is a step in the right
direction, replacing them with Zen
presentations large, metaphorical
or borrowed interest imagery and
minimal text is not effective. Youre
trying to set yourself apart, conduct
a memorable conversation, and
compel your prospect to make a tough decision not put them to sleep.
Metaphorical images are too abstract and detract from, rather than enhance,
your message.

A Better Way
Your visuals need to tell your story in a simple, concrete way. Really good
visuals are memorable and recreatable, meaning they can be quickly and
easily drawn, redrawn, shared and clearly understood. Visuals are there to
wake up the part of your prospects brain that identifies the need for change,
and make complex ideas easier to understand and act on.

Picture Superiority Effect

People remember 10% of what you say three days later, but that number jumps to 65%
when you connect it to a simple, concrete visual that your audience can remember
and retell.
Source: Paivio, A. Mental representations: A dual-coding approach

11

5
#
H
T
Y
M
e
ry approach is th
discove
The 20-question
s cycle.
le
sa
w
e
n
a
rt
a
best way to st
The Truth
Though it may have been a somewhat effective approach in the
past, executive buyers arent reacting as favorably to the 20-question
methodology anymore. The expectation of executive buyers is that you
come in knowing something about their business and their pain points. They
dont want to waste time answering your probing discovery questionsthey
want you to tell them something they dont already know.

A Better Way
Dont act like a product seller, act like a problem solver. Tell your
prospect about a disruption or opportunity in their market or business that
they might not know about. They believe you see more people who look like
them than they do. So act that way. Share your experience all of the things
youve learned from working in their market, with customers just like them
and build a buying vision for them.

Hero Model
The most successful stories follow a proven choreography and so should your selling
conversations. The Hero Model introduces a change into an environment and requires
the would-be heros (prospects) to respond with the help of a mentor (you and your
company) to help them understand the changes, clearly see the new call upon their lives,
provide direction for the proper response, and overcome their reluctance to accept
their quest.
Source: Campbell, J. The Hero With a Thousand Faces

13

6
#
H
T
Y
M
other value-

bies and
Throwing in free
rospects.
p
r
u
o
y
r
e
v
o
in
w
l
s wil
added feature
The Truth
When you are in a heated competitive selling situation, you may be tempted
to throw in or highlight value-added features that the prospect has not
asked for. Your thinking is that these bonus capabilities will tip the scale
in your favor when everything else is considered equal. Not only does
it not give you an advantage, it actually pushes your prospect toward the
competing alternative.

A Better Way
If you find yourself with unrequested capabilities that you believe will add
significant value, you need to create the context that makes those things
necessary and urgent. Start by identifying an unconsidered need that
your unique or advantaged capability addresses, then amplify that need by
showing your prospects what they are missing. Now your features look like a
value-added opportunity, instead of a wasted throw-in.

Unwanted Extras
Decision-making research shows that when you add a feature that is positive, but weak
or irrelevant to the conversation, it actually provides a reason against choosing your
option, especially when competing options are otherwise equally attractive. The addition
of a potentially attractive feature that proves useless to the reasons someone is making
a decision can provide a reason to reject your offering in favor of an alternative offering,
which has no wasted features.
Source: Shafir E, Simonson I, Tversky A, Reason Based Choice

15

7
#
H
T
Y
M
blem.
sales pro
Discounting is a

The Truth
According to McKinsey and Co., a 1% change in discounting has a 9% impact
on your operating margins a seemingly small capitulation on pricing that
can have a significant impact on your companys bottom line. But thats a
sales problem, right? Well, not entirely. The #1 reason why companies find
themselves in such tough price negotiations is that your customers arent
convinced your solutions are sufficiently different from the competition. And
thats a marketing problem.

A Better Way
When developing your positioning and seeking differentiation, stop
relying on known customer needs, problems, or concerns. To get out of the
commodity trap, you need to create messaging that helps others see their
situations in fresh, more revealing ways. You need to identify problems they
dont even realize they have.

Creating Contrast
Neuroscience studies on decision-making tell us that contrast is necessary for making a
decision. In the absence of clear contrast between the vendors and their solutions, the
brain defaults to price to create the contrast. Thats why price pressures arent a budget
problem; they are a contrast problem.

17

Attend Corporate Visions Annual

Marketing & Sales Alignment Conference
Swisstel Chicago
Sept. 24-26, 2014

Join us for our annual Marketing

& Sales Alignment Conference
Conversations That Win! This is the only
conference dedicated to your customer
conversations.

To take advantage of discounted early registration pricing, visit:

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Conversations That Win.

Corporate Visions is a leading marketing and sales messaging, tools, and skills
company that helps global B2B companies create more sales opportunities,
win more deals and increase sales profitability by improving the conversations
salespeople have with customers. Companies engage Corporate Visions to help in
three key areas:

Developing compelling messages to break the status quo, differentiating

their solution, justifying a purchase decision and protecting margins;

Deploying that message through tools and visual stories to enable

salespeople to engage multiple decision makers across the buying cycle; and

Delivering sales skills training that helps salespeople confidently use these
messages and tools to create, elevate and capture more value in their
customer conversations.

Corporate Visions helps clients such as ADP, Motorola, Philips, UPS, Cisco and others
align marketing and sales with a repeatable approach for developing and delivering
winning customer conversations.

19

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