Complex Sales

Marketing

Complex Sales
by Thomas Fee



Historically, sales has been a relationship-oriented endeavor that relied largely on the ability of a vendor to communicate with customers, solve problems, handle pricing issues and make money for their own company.

With changing markets and new types of competition, sales have undergone another evolution. In recent years it has been suggested that there are different types of sales which require different approaches. In some cases, sales forces have been replaced by an approach that emphasizes customer service. For example, many distributor networks are now serviced by telephone reps in lieu of direct salespeople. This has been an improvement in many cases, where companies have reinvested their resources in better technology for order entry, billing, delivery and customer service. Such an approach enables the vendor to handle greater numbers of customers in less time and at a lower cost of sales.

In some industries, however, sales have become more complex. Many organizations have migrated into complex sales by virtue of the fact that they have entered new markets, have new competitors or because of the impact of technology on their business.

Customer contact in complex sales usually involves a sales team instead of a solo contact. The team is functionally divided into sales, technical, operational, financial or other specialists.

In addition, customers have become more complex. Many customers hire third-party consultants who are paid to teach them how to evaluate goods and services. This is very common in high-tech fields which are rich with complexity and varieties of applications.

To further complicate matters, third parties often have products and services of their own or business partner agreements with vendors who remunerate them if their product is specified.

Characteristics of the Complex Sale

These and other factors have created a new and different “complex sale.” This type of sale can be identified by certain characteristics. In non-complex sales one or a few of these elements may exist, but in complex sales, they are all present. The characteristics of complex sales are:

Long sales cycle

Significant decision to be made in terms of dollars or strategic direction

Lots of resource invested prior to making a decision on the part of both seller and buyer

Multi-level contact within the buying organization

Range of competitive strategies from which the vendor may choose to engage competitors

Buying decisions that have significant impact on the customer’s business

Complex issues and solutions

Political dimension which often supersedes product and business issues

The product or service in this type of sale may or may not be complex in itself. The sale may be made complex by the environment. For instance, selling socks over the counter may be a non-complex sale. Selling socks to the

U.S. army is an altogether different selling situation.

Challenges of Complex Sales

In complex sales, vendors must acquire deeper levels of understanding about the customer’s business and organization in order to be successful. This is one of the reasons for the longer sales cycle.

The first challenge of a complex sale is to know enough about the customer’s business to determine whether the selling organization’s services, products and culture are compatible with those of the customer. The solution that the seller provides will only be as good as their ability to implement it. One aspect of achieving this level of understanding is for the vendor to know the characteristics of their own most successful customer relationships.

Beyond just understanding the customer’s business, there must be a demonstration of understanding the inner workings, or politics, of the customer’s organization. Most complex sales are won or lost on the political playing field. The vendor with a viable solution who is able to analyze the political structure and align with those who have the greatest influence on the decision is usually the winner.

Third, there is a competitive dimension in complex sales. The seller must understand who their competitors are, both internally (within their own and the customer’s organization) and externally (the competitors). The vendor must learn to identify the strategies that are being employed to thwart the success of their efforts. Once they have identified what these competitive strategies are, the seller must then choose the most effective strategy to overcome the competitor, while simultaneously demonstrating the most attractive alternative for the customer.

Traditional sports analogies fall short here, because there are issues beyond the simple face-to-face competition for the win. There is additional complexity in the double-edged sword of beating the competition while winning the customer. You can’t just beat the competition, because there may be another alternative solution available to the customer. In complex sales it is necessary to understand that competitors are vying for alternative uses of capital. Delaying a decision or using current available resources to fund another project is always a choice available to the customer.

In complex sales the vendor must prove their case at the operational, financial and executive level, but there is a fourth dimension affecting the decision that is not so obvious: the dimension of influence. Influence may come in the form of a person, but it may assume other forms as well. Political issues, both internal and external to the customer, may influence the decision. The business environment will affect the sale, such as regulatory changes or even pending changes. In many industries, tax status has an effect on decisions. The importance that the buying organization places on a key individual’s opinion or on elements outside of their control may be the deciding factor in a complex sale.

Preparing for a Complex Sale

One element that is quite unique to the complex sale is that of managing one’s emotions during the sales cycle. Because cycles tend to be long, there are many ups and downs. The emotional cycle, with so much at stake, tends to fluctuate as the process evolves.

The preparation necessary to conduct a complex sales campaign is extraordinary. There are no guarantees that having the most resources will provide the decisive competitive edge. The successful complex sale is as much a result of choosing the right strategy as it is of having the necessary resource. No one should attempt a complex sale without some formal methodology for managing the process. There must be a tool to communicate amongst the sales team, establish and record the achievement of milestones, map the political structure of the customer and define goals and objectives. Nothing, including experience, will replace a good process when managing a complex sales campaign.

The choice of competitive strategy must not be made too early in the sales campaign. The strategy decision is a function of the seller’s knowledge of the situation, the customer and the competition. Timing is the critical element in implementing a strategy. The seller must know the rules of engagement to understand the implications and results of their choice of a strategy. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” can be an expensive and fatal mistake in complex sales campaigns. A better alternative is to size up the situation and win it with the appropriate expenditure of resources. Applying resources to those campaigns where there is the greatest likelihood of winning allows the vendor to compete another day.

The sales plan must map directly to the customer’s definition of success. This implies that the seller understands that definition. In addition to a business strategy, the sales campaign must also emphasize the personal advantages to those allies in the customer’s organization who share the risk with the vendor of the success or failure of their solution. Addressing the personal agendas of key buying influences is a common element of complex sales campaigns.

Conclusions

In complex sales, when there are a lot of resources on the line, sellers must learn to think in terms of return on investment from their sales dollar. The investment in a complex sale is not only direct, but because resources are limited in most organizations, it must also be measured in terms of what else could have been done if the campaign is not successful. This implies that the investment of resources in complex sales should be made in those accounts that represent the best opportunity for success.

Complex sales are risky and resource-intensive. They are not for the fainthearted and certainly not for the organization that understands no more than its own products and capabilities.


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Thomas Fee tomfee@procentral.com