How to close complex, big ticket deals with Martyn Proctor

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Welcome back to the Truth, Lies and B2B Tech podcast. In this episode, I'm joined by a true legend from the B2B tech industry, Martyn Proctor. Martyn has worked for the likes of ICL, Serco and EY, but more importantly, he's built and sold six tech consulting businesses. This episode is all about sales and in particular, how to win big ticket deals. So if that's your thing, you're really going to love this. What Martyn doesn't know about complex B2B sales isn't worth knowing. I really enjoyed this conversation - a great episode, with some great insights. Here it is.

Craig (00:47): So Martyn, welcome. We're delighted to have you on because you are a fountain of insight when it comes to the real nitty-gritty of selling.

Martyn (00:52): Thanks, Craig. I try and live up to being a fountain. It involves lots of spouting, doesn't it really?

Craig (00:58): Yeah. We've worked together for a number of years. I've worked with you. You've been a mentor for a long time as well. I think you've helped us in many respects when it comes to understanding growth and the levers for growth, how to drive enterprise value, also working for you, seeing how you've galvanised a sales team and won some major deals that have been pretty game-changing for the businesses that you've been running. So I think just to maybe tee up the whole conversation, right now it's a tough environment, I think, from a sales perspective. With the economic climate and the uncertainty, I think there are probably fewer opportunities as buyers are holding back to a degree. It's even more paramount for the opportunities that do exist that sales teams are making the most out of them. So we're really talking about complex B2B sales, big ticket deals. You've worked on all sizes of deals from many millions to maybe a few hundred thousand. But in your words, maybe you could just explain what you see as big ticket deals. What do they look like?

Martyn (01:55): Yeah, so I think big ticket deals really means deals that are important to the business. So it might be a big value, with a lot of revenue coming in. It might be an entry point into a key customer where you need to break in and prove value so you can go on with bigger stuff. Competitive displacement, something like that. I think a big ticket deal to me means something that really matters. So you're going to put a lot of effort into it. It's going to be expensive for you to win it. So you need to go into it with your eyes open and be honest with yourself and qualify hard. And really, there are only two ways of doing big ticket deals. You either go for it like your life depends on it or just don't bother, you know, take the day off and go and play golf instead. But don't muck about with it. If you're going to go for it, go for it, really go for it.

Craig (02:39): Maybe talk through the early stages of how those deals start to shape up and what are some of the things that you as the seller will be starting to think about in terms of how you're leading the team that's going to be working on that particular opportunity.

Martyn (02:51): So I think the big thing is you've really got to understand what it is that you can do that's going to help that client be successful. And you've got to have that as a real passion. You can't pretend. You've really got to deep down want that client to be hugely successful in whatever they're doing because you sorted out some issues. So if you've got that sort of mindset, so it's not about winning the deal or getting commissions, it's about helping them be successful.

If you've got that as a mindset, then you've got to really understand what does being successful for them mean? What do you need to achieve for them? So what is their mindset? What are their emotions? What are their requirements? What's going on in their world? So you need to do loads and loads of stuff to get insight, and there's so much stuff out there that's available now. You can be overwhelmed by it. So there's lots of techniques you can use to kind of filter that down and work out what's going on.

You know, Google alerts, reading annual reports, looking at all the stuff on the website, looking at Glassdoor, LinkedIn, know as much about them as you can. And once you've got that, imagine that you're in there running that business and what you would like to see happen. Think about this sort of perfect future. And then once you've got to, you've started to shape that, you think about your particular role as a supplier, as the solution you're going to offer and how you can fit that to what they want to make them successful. And as that starts to shape up, you're starting to define, you know, what we used to call our single sales objective, what it is you're going to try and get them to buy. And in terms of getting them to buy it, you can't use trickery. You know, it's not foot in the door, let's go and play golf and have a few beers type stuff. You've got to have genuine value. You can prove, you can show what's different. You need to be ruthlessly honest with them because the minute you say anything that's not true, you can't prove, you blow your case really. So you start to work at it from that really, and then it builds up from that really and the whole sales process evolves.

Craig (04:41): Yeah. And I know you're - it's going to sound slightly odd - you're big into the concept of visualization. I think, if I'm hearing what you're talking about there, it's a lot about outcomes that you're going to achieve for a client. How do you help them to see what outcomes they can achieve by working with you as the seller?

Martyn (05:00): So probably one of the most basic things is to go back to features, advantages, benefits, FAB, which was sales school 101 that I was doing 40 years ago, something like that. There is still a tendency, even in big ticket sales with clever salespeople, complex organizations, to talk about the features of the product, what it does, or even the advantages. But you really have to think about the benefits and think about it from the client's point of view.

I'm amazed in some of the coaching and mentoring I do for people now, how much they keep going back to their view on stuff, what they're going to do. And really the client isn't that interested in what you're going to do. What they're interested in is what are they going to get out of it? How is it going to change their business? So you need to be able to visualize what's going to happen in their business that's going to be different. And then you need to help them visualize it. And the more you can do it, the better. You've probably heard the story of Muhammad Ali - he used to be able to play through in his mind about a boxing match, even before he signed the contract, and imagine how each round would go. He would think about what the audience would sound like, what the arena would smell like, the sound going on, what he'd be wearing, what his opponent would be wearing, every punch through the first round, second round. And then he'd kind of come up with this idea that "I'm going to knock him down in round four" or whatever. And to get that precision in the visualization makes a big difference.

Because if you can really imagine that client using your solution in three, four years' time, whatever it might be, and how their life will be different. And if you can really see it, then you start to communicate that way. You start to explain it. You help them see it like that. And then suddenly the whole thing takes off. So you're not talking about the stuff that you do and your processes and your company and "oh, we've got all these offices and we've got all these people" and all this sort of stuff. You're really talking for them about how their life is going to be different. If you can visualize the person you're talking to being monumentally successful, being picked up by the chief executive at the annual conference for being the top performing unit director or whatever, they're going home early because they've just had a big bonus because they've done so well. If you've got all that sort of mindset, it all helps visualize that great future. It is really powerful.

Craig (06:47): So, so my take on that then is that you're really immersing yourself in that business that you're working with so that everything you talk about is all about them because you've understood them, know what makes them tick. It's not about a clever message or anything specific. It's just a combination of that understanding and that appreciation for where they want to go.

Martyn (07:07): Yeah, that doesn't mean you can shortcut all the rest though. You still have to do the ROI and the proof and the detail because you can set the vision and you can help them understand what they're going to get and what their future will be like. But then in big ticket sales, which are complicated and you're not selling to one person - you know, there's a whole structure there which we can talk about - they will need to know and be confident that you can deliver this vision. So they'll want to know, how will you do it? You know, what are the risks involved? What are the bits that I need to do? Well, you know, how's the whole thing unpacked? Prove it to me, show me where you've done it before. You have to do all of that. But if you - and everyone has to do all of that, that's sort of part one. But if you've got the visualization bit, then you can really tune into what they want. And in my experience, the better you can do that, the more you can understand it, the more likely they are to buy from you.

One example of that - years ago, it was really good. I was selling to a local authority, which can be hard work because you're often selling to a whole load of councillors who have to make a final decision, not just the officers. And we ended up mocking up a newspaper from five years' time. And we just left it on the podium at the front one evening and we kind of walked up to it and go, "Oh, we're just about to talk to you about this wonderful solution. And somebody's left a newspaper here." You know, the audience will be, "Oh, that's a bit tacky, isn't it?" And you pick it up and you go, "Oh, it's from five years' time. Oh look, the Hilton Hotel has put its new international conference centre in your local authority. Employment's down to a minimum here. Life expectancy's gone up" and you're reading all these amazing things and the politicians sit there going, "Wow, fantastic, I'd love one of them."

Craig (09:02): So in your view, how can those that are trying to help buyers through that difficult decision-making process - people talk about making it easy to buy, it's more about making it easy to make decisions - how have you sort of worked through that process and made it easier for a buyer to make those critical decisions, which are pretty significant from their perspective in terms of their own reputation, their own career and so on?

Martyn (09:23): Well, I'd like to say there's a very easy way of doing that, but that would be a lie. This is just bloody hard work. You have to do everything. So you have to respond to all the technical questions and all the data points and all the proof points, every time you get asked anything, you have to answer it honestly, completely, make sure they understand it at that level. But I think you also have to help them. You need to understand what it feels like for them.

And in these complicated sales, it isn't obviously one person making decisions. There'll be a whole load of people making decisions. So you have to work out how they all work together. And what you're trying to do is help them be successful. This isn't magic and there's no trickery involved, but how do you help this organization work together or understand their respective responsibilities? Make a decision based on what you can do that you feel would genuinely help them better than anyone else. And how do they bring all that together? So you have to isolate who the different people are, what's in their mindset, what's their emotional position, what's a win for them, deliver them what they need, both factually and in terms of the visualization stuff and the emotional stuff. Because loads of this is very technical and you know, there'll be marking sheets and weighted assessment documents and all this sort of stuff.

People will still prioritize buying from people that they trust and believe can do it and who get their business. So you can't - you have to really think about - you always need that. You have to have that as your big differentiator because a lot of the other technical stuff, you know, you're either good at doing it and you can prove it or you can't really, but that other edge that gives you the chance of winning it is that kind of visualization, putting stuff in their terms, I think.

Craig (11:13): It's hard to understand or visualize how you build trust. I mean, we all know how to build trust - it's done over a sustained period of time really, about being consistent with your message. Obviously you've got lots of credibility and proof points. But if you've got examples of where you've built trust in the sales process, just in quite a short period of time to actually differentiate from the competition?

Martyn (11:33): I think one of the first things you must do is be ruthlessly honest 100%. As soon as you start to exaggerate or say something that's not true or blame a client that you've got that's done something, if there's any chance that's not true, an experienced person on the other side of the table will start to wonder if you're telling the truth. As soon as there's a grain of doubt, you're lost really.

First of all, you have to be dead straight about everything and be a bit self-deprecating. You know, don't try and say everything's marvellous. You know, be a bit honest about, "We don't do that, but we do do this little thing." We'll probably come back to objection handling at some point. That's a key area. I just think about how do you make it honest and real? And because what you want is for the other person to have that trust and confidence that what you're going to do is really going to work for them. So you have to build it up. So sometimes I think throwing in something which is a weakness or something you can't do can actually build the trust a bit more quickly. And it's certainly not worth trying to camouflage it. I would say if there's something that you're not particularly good at in your offering compared to everyone else, it's almost worth bringing it out upfront and say, "We don't do this. We can't do that. It's not our style, but we're really good at all of this."

Because that's a qualifier because if the client really wants this thing over here that you can't do, it's great if you have that in the first conversation because then you can kind of wish them all the best, them next time and go off with your head held high and you'll be trusted by them. But you're not going to get that deal, but you'll get the next one.

Craig (13:06): Yeah. I think we're both fans of the blue sheet. I'm not going to necessarily suggest it's an old school thing. You know, Miller Hyman is still a credible outfit, but we still use it in our business from time to time. Maybe talk about the benefits of the blue sheet and how you've used that in your own organizations.

Martyn (13:23): I think more and more my view is that the big value in the blue sheet is the ability to identify red flags. So it's a very structured approach that's been around for ages and genuinely, it's a powerful approach. Some parts I'm not quite convinced about anymore. You know, the analysis of the economic buyer and all the influences and that sort of thing. I think complex sales are a bit different these days and even more complex than that allows you to map.

But when you go through it, particularly if you've got a challenger there who asks you lots of difficult questions, you'll spot all these red flags, the stuff you don't know, your weaknesses. To understand that early on is just invaluable. So I've done so many blue sheets where you go through it and the sales guy who's kind of presenting it feels awful at the end because the blue sheet - the big analytical page you put up or project - will have all these red stickers all over it because of all the things you don't know, all the people you haven't met, all the things you're uncertain about. It's terrifying. But how useful is that to know three months before the decision? Because you can do something about it. You can try and get to these people. You can try and understand stuff. You can plug the gaps. You know what you don't want is a sycophantic blue sheet assessor who says, "You're doing really well. I think you've got a good chance with this. I hope you do it." You know, bloody rubbish.

I'd much rather get ripped to shreds three months in advance, do something about it, panic and react and do well and then win the deal rather than afterwards saying, "We should have met so-and-so, you know, we never did find out about what's-it."

Craig (15:00): Yeah, it's an important process, particularly the larger the deal. As we know, certainly my experience working client-side years ago, some of the deals - sorry, I was involved with selling, but certainly involved on the marketing side - some of those significant bids probably even cost the organization in excess of a million pounds to just bid for the thing.

You know, blue sheet is a great way of qualifying as well. I think sometimes when it's done really well, you almost just naturally think you might as well qualify out of this opportunity because you just literally tore it apart. However, if you come through that, then like you say, it's only going to make you stronger if you can start to think about how to overcome those red flags or deal with those red flags, or even as I say, use them to qualify out. And when do you think it's the right time to say this isn't a good fit for us?

Martyn (15:47): So I tend to think that red flags are different to qualifying. I think red flags will tell you all the things that you don't know before you can get to the sale. The qualification is just so important because like you say, these big deals cost a flipping fortune. And whilst you're working on a deal, again, going back to the idea that you've got to do it like your life depends on it, you've really got to go for it. You can't be doing anything else. You'll be working long hours, late nights, and all the rest of it. So you need to make sure you're going to win it.

So you need to make sure you qualify it all the time from day one right through to the day they decide really. And you need to have your approach for doing it. There's no end of qualification techniques, Scotsman and MENACs and all these sorts of things. But if you go through the elements of that, if you keep running them through in your mind every meeting you have, keep checking it, then that will indicate whether you stand a chance of winning the deal.

And these things are generally different to red flags in my experience. So you'd be looking at, you know, the money side - is there a budget? Can you see them spending it? Are you the sort of company they're going to buy from? Or is there some sort of issue with it? Are the people that you're talking to, are they the right influences? Are they going to actually be able to have an impact on the whole thing? Do they genuinely need what it is you're selling? Because you can often have conversations where everyone gets very excited about it. But actually, you know, a typical company can only do 10, 20 big projects a year. So if they're already doing 20, you're probably not going to get on the list unless you displace something else. So you've got to be a bit realistic about that. And then time scales, another big question mark, you know, are you prepared to hang on for long enough? Because a client will buy when they're ready. There's nothing you can do. All this stuff about "You need to buy before the end of that..." it's not real. You know, a deal takes place when it's ready, when the client's ready.

So if it's going to take two years before they're ready, are you prepared to run at it for two years? Yeah. You have to work through all those sort of things. Keep checking, keep checking, keep checking. And then based on that, you can take a view on whether you stand a chance of winning it or not. Now the red flags, if you've got a whole stack of red flags that you just can't overcome, you may decide that there's no point going for it. It's impossible. But you know, red flags are really trying to show you what are the elements that if you can get that information, that contact, that clarity, will enable you to get the deal, I think.

Craig (18:08): I'll bear that in mind next time we do a blue sheet. Yeah, I think last time you've done that with us, I think I came away nearly crying.

Martyn (18:18): I look forward to coming along and really trying. I'll try that next time.

Craig (18:30): One of the biggest things I wanted to ask you, because we work with a lot of clients that are aspiring to break into that kind of enterprise space and often punching above their weight, competing with some big players. I know from experience of working in business with you that you've done that successfully on many occasions. When it's sort of David and Goliath type scenario, how have you overcome that and been successful? What are the sort of top two or three things you've done to come out on top in those situations?

Martyn (18:52): So when you say punching above your weight, there's some implication that the small company is inferior to the big company.

Craig (19:00): Well, it's just a phrase, but yeah, I can see the point. Yeah. It's a mindset thing, isn't it?

Martyn (19:05): I remember going back some time, being scared of big companies. Yeah, we'll go through it. I remember the first time I did a million pound deal thinking it was going to be somehow magically different because I'd only done a hundred thousand pound deals and it was going to be a million. It's exactly the same. It's no different. And it's the same with companies. What are they good at? What are they bad at? Big companies, a lot of the time, are rubbish.

They have full sort of administration of overhead, a process of strangulation. You know, they impede people, they reduce you down where you can only do things in the corporate way. You can't actually be flexible or creative or innovative. Yeah, they're easy to compete with. You know, it's the little specialists who's really good at stuff. I do get a bit passionate about this really. So the smaller specialist companies, you have so much more freedom to sort of come up with what you really think is right for the client. You can decide things quickly. You know, the client will probably meet the most senior people in that company. You know, if you're going to buy from a big company, an IBM or Accenture in the IT world or something like that, you're probably not going to meet the CEO. If you're a little company, you probably will. So, and again, it's the same stuff, you know, work out what you're good at, play to your strengths, decide to, you know, go and compete if you know what you're good at.

There was one example which we worked on together a while back where we were in relatively late and we were competing with some of the biggest companies in the world and some of them combined. You know, so it was big software companies and big consulting companies and little old us with a hundred people going up against them. And we looked at it and we just thought, I think we can come up with a better solution and express it in a better way than the others. They're all getting caught up in "Well, we've done this 400 times before" and stuff. But for us, it was about get to know what the client really wants. And actually on that one, that you probably know which one I'm thinking about there, it started off with this company being a very special sort of company. It was a very well-known company. But the founder, 100 years ago, wrote a book about the founding of the company and its values and how it became the sort of company it was.

And we started by reading the book because then we knew more about the culture and the philosophy and the way they thought, what their passion was, so we could start to tune into what they really wanted. And then it was just about some very clear thinking about what could we do that the other big guys couldn't? And we wanted to provide more value for the client because that's what it's all about, providing more value. So we were saying to the client, "You really need to think about this being the endpoint you want to get to. You need to visualize a world in which this is happening and we will show you how to get there. That's what you need and this is the process to get there. This is how we would do it. This is where we've done elements of this before."

So we were fixated on selling that, you know, most valuable solution. The big guys who suddenly noticed us in the corner doing reasonably well and being talked about quite highly, thought, "the little guys are here. Well, they'll be cheap." I better shrink our solution. I thought, this is great. They're making this less and less valuable. Mine's more and more valuable. So we went in and we won against, I think there were seven other bidders, huge companies. And ultimately I found the proposals and the pricing that the others had. And they also saw mine because one of the companies ended up buying us. And so we shared views.

And we actually sold at 2.4 times their price because we were selling that big value solution. So again, what's all that about? The key is understand the client, what they really need, what would deliver most value, and then just be true to doing that. Tell them how to do it. Tell them the bits you can do, the bits you can't do. You know, the big guys, yeah, they might have 400,000 employees and I've only got 100, but actually I bet I could put 10 people on site there next week, which they couldn't do because their utilisation is high because they're busy, because they've got lots of other obligations because they've got other bigger clients who are more important. Big companies in my view, don't have any inherent advantage over small companies. Small companies need to think about how they can actually do better if they just keep a clear head and just follow the basics. Understand the value, think like the client.

Craig (23:18): I think if you've qualified well and you're going after the right opportunity as a smaller company, it's like you say, you've got to really go for it. You've got to go the extra mile, haven't you? It's moving beyond the standard slide deck and the standard pitch to have something. Every slide screams about the customer. If you can really understand them before you start the whole process, then it makes a huge difference.

Martyn (23:40): I was going to say that the slide deck that we used, I remember the first slide was drawing a picture of what the world would be like in two years' time if they took our complete solution. When we saw the slide deck for the others, it was the history of what they'd done before and why they were so big and so successful. There's like 10 slides about the company before they started talking about the client. Simple stuff.

Craig (24:02): Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, we obviously can't talk about that deal specifically, but I think these are things I always remember you saying - just some of the basics, turning up on time and getting everyone really well prepared. Because we've done pitches where they've been in London and we were travelling down on the same day, train gets delayed and you're under that whole kind of stress getting to the pitch. I think preparation and just giving yourself the time and just some of the basics can have a huge impact as well.

Martyn (24:29): Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to you. If you're going to go for it, go for it like your life depends on it. You know, get down there the day early. I mean, on that one, we ended up flying half the team to this other place in Europe to be there a couple of days in advance to rehearse the slides. You know, we got - we worked out who was going to be on the panel that was going to assess us. So we've got photographs of them all, LinkedIn profiles for them all. You know, we would know who was who. So when my guys were answering questions, they could say, "Sue, it's because of whatever." So they would know the names of everybody, their position, the background. You just got to do everything to win. And it comes from a real understanding and a passion about wanting it to work.

Craig (25:12): Yeah. We talked about objections a little bit earlier without getting into detail. I think that's one of the areas that we see where salespeople can often fall apart when they get an objection and not always have the right answers. But objections are part of every sales process. You know, what's the sort of infinite wisdom on how to handle objections?

Martyn (25:30): Well, first of all, if you get objections, that's usually a good sign because if you're not getting objections, if people pat you and say, "It's very interesting. Thank you very much. We'll get back to you next week." You might as well pack in then. If people come back with an objection, that's really good because there's no sales gimmickry here, but objections in life normally come down to three different areas. It's either that they don't believe you or they're not sure if they believe you, but they're a bit doubtful. You know, it sounds, is it true or not? Or there's some, you know, real hard solid objection like, "Well, I wanted it in red and yours is in blue." Not much you can do about that. And so all objections in my 40 something years of sales have always been one of those three. It's, you know, I sometimes amaze myself when I go back and look at anything.

They all come down to one of those. So if it's they don't believe you, you just have to prove it. Now sometimes you can't prove it because you're doing something which is leading edge, you've never done it before. Like if you're doing some AI as we were playing with recently. So you have to explain the logic about why what you're saying is valid and how you can de-risk it and make it as likely as possible. If it's one about cynicism, they're not quite sure about it, again, you have to prove it by references. You have to show where you've done it elsewhere, give examples, give demonstrations, make it real, make it genuinely understood. If it's a hard, a genuine objection, something you can't change, they wanted it in red and it's in blue or whatever, you have to accept it. And there's a very clear technique for doing this, for an objection. First of all, if a client comes up with an objection, clarify the objection so you really understand it. One of the things that really used to annoy me with salespeople is where they handle an incorrect objection. You know, where the client says something like, "I wanted it in red and I wanted it, you know, we want it in blue, whatever." And they'll say, "Yeah, well, ours is, you know, it's much longer than all the others. It's much better because of that." It's like, "What? What are you talking about? That's not the bloody question." So make sure you understand it. So if somebody objects to something, read it back and say, "So you're worried about this being the issue." So you're both clear on it.

And they know you're taking it seriously. Because one of the other things that some salespeople do is they just gush out a response, you know, they'll say, "Oh yeah, but it doesn't count." You know, the clients think, "You haven't really thought about this. You weren't listening. That's not what I want from a respond." So listen carefully and clarify it. And that also buys your brain a bit of time to think about what's the right answer. And some of these you have to take away and do something with, but if you can answer it there and then that's better. So then you go back with whatever your response is.

And why the objection wasn't bad? This is how you're going to kind of manage it. And then the third part is just to remind them why your solution is good and better. You know, that's what I've often called why you're differentiated in a useful way. So in all of those and when it's that hard objection when it's just it's something which is real - they say like your price is twice that of the others or something - you know, well you have to say, "Well it is," and accept the objection and say, "But look at all these good things. It might be twice the price, it might be the wrong colour, but all this stuff over here is worth having." And then try and balance it. So actually objection handling, I think if you dismantle it into those three things and use that process, you can handle it in a very structured way and it's very powerful and it is almost a closing technique. Because if you can handle the objection, the objection, presumably, is the only thing between them saying yes and no. So it's often a good sort of sales closing approach, I would say.

Craig (28:59): Yeah. So there's a few other questions I wanted to ask you. I mean, we've focused very much on the actual sales process. Are there any other pearls of wisdom that you'd share with someone that is actively working on a major deal right now that we haven't already covered before we move on?

Martyn (29:14): So one of the complicated areas that people get into a real bloody mess about is price.

Craig (29:20): Yes.

Martyn (29:21): So I used to have a principle that if a sales guy worked for me and came back and said to me that we lost it because we were too expensive, then they'd be flipping heading towards the door. It's like, you should price - this is a complicated story. It's a very simple principle, but let's just dismantle it. You should price whatever it is you're selling based on the perceived value the customer's going to get from it compared to any alternative.

Martyn (29:48): So that's what sets the price. That's the winning price. You think about what else they could do and how much it would cost them, how much value I'm going to deliver? That sets the price. So if you've got the price right, you should win. Knowing how to get the price right is a difficult thing. Price and cost are completely different to each other.

Martyn (30:09): I tell you what, 80% of the people I talk to who run businesses lose the plot with this bit. The price is set for the market, what the client thinks you're worth compared to everyone else. Cost is how much it costs you in terms of resources and assets to deliver whatever the solution is. Now with a bit of luck, your price is here and your cost is here. And this bit is profit.

Martyn (30:30): Unfortunately, if your price is down here because you're not very differentiated and you don't know your client very well, and the cost to do it is up here, you will make what's called in the trade a loss. Get enough of these, well, yes, you're probably down the job centre.

Craig (30:45): Not ideal.

Martyn (30:46): So price and cost are completely unrelated. So whenever you get a position where people say, "Yeah, well, we're going to put 15% on our costs and set that as our price" - that's guesswork, complete guesswork.

Craig (31:01): You're in trouble.

Martyn (31:02): You really need to understand what value the client sees in what you're doing compared to the alternatives. So you can easily win a deal at twice the price of everyone else if you're delivering more value. I mean, that's just logic from what I said.

Craig (31:15): Does that mean you price the client in every situation? You don't have standardised pricing? How does it work?

Martyn (31:21): Price to the client, price to the client, price to the value that they're going to get from it really. In complex B2B sales, it's different if you're selling sandwiches or widgets or standard software. But if you're doing complicated stuff, it won't be a simple day rate-based solution. It'll be some complex mix of experience and assets and reused stuff and new as well. But all of that needs to come up with a price that you're comfortable with.

Craig (31:46): So how do you, or how have you in the past, determined where the client might go to? Because everyone has a limit, everyone has a budget. How do you determine what the likely budget may be of that client? Are there any things you can do there just to not make it guesswork, make it a bit more of a science than an art?

Martyn (32:02): So budget is slightly different, I would say. It is very useful to know the budget because it's a lot easier for the buyers to buy if it's within budget. They'll often buy if it's more than budget.

Craig (32:12): If you can justify it.

Martyn (32:13): Well, I have to say over the years, I've found that provided you really care about the client and you're really looking for their success, you're doing the visualization bit, then you can discuss with them and say, "We'll try and build a solution that delivers this thing for you because we recognise why you want it. This is how you think and all these sorts of things. What budget do you have for this?" Because if you're both working towards a successful outcome...

Craig (32:38): Relationship.

Martyn (32:39): Yeah, they will often, and if you've built the trust, they will often just tell you what the budget is. Now, you do get some slippery buyers who play the game and say, "Actually, our budget's this," which is lower than they actually have. And you just have to kind of...

Craig (32:53): Well, they don't know what it's going to cost, therefore they haven't determined a budget and they're waiting to see what proposals they get.

Martyn (32:59): Exactly. So that comes back to the pricing bit, which is why I think budget and pricing are different. Price is how much they'll pay for your solution compared to everyone else's really. So it's usually just to think about that and try and work the price out. And getting that, I mean, it's a glib statement for me to say that, but it's really hard to find that out. You've got to look at what other deals, similar deals have gone for recently elsewhere, what you've discovered about what your competitors might be pricing theirs at, any sort of clues like that, and then try and pitch yours compared to that.

Craig (33:34): Is there something around that when you talk about value, also that, you know, the need that they have, how strong is that need? Can you base it on that to some degree?

Martyn (33:43): That would help you with the budget guess, but not necessarily with the price. Because if somebody else can fulfil the need better than you at a lower price, then they'll probably win the deal.

Craig (33:52): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you say, it's a complex topic, pricing.

Martyn (33:55): It is, yeah, it is very complicated. There's a couple of analogies I use. It's a bit like if you've got a pacemaker and you're at the top of Snowdon and the battery starts to give out, and the bloke standing next to you has got a spare battery and says, "Yeah, it's five grand." You'd probably pay it, wouldn't you? However, if you stay outside Boots and they've got a battery sale on that day and the battery is 37p and someone says, "Well, I've got a battery. It's 38p." You go, "Piss off, I'm going to get it for 37p in there." The price is all about context and what else is available at the time.

Craig (34:29): You've really got to use as much time as you can to focus on selling the value and leave the price right to the end. Just push it as far away as you can ideally.

Martyn (34:37): Well, I think the clearer you become on the value, particularly your value compared to what value your competitors will be able to come up with, then the closer you can get to where they're identifying your price. And you can try it with a client. You have to get the timing right with that a little bit. But you can start to say, "We're thinking that we're going to come in at this sort of price" and see what sort of reaction you get. Although buying these days is a very procedural thing...

Martyn (35:01): There's lots of checklists and lots of metrics involved. You will still need to have human interaction with people and start to get some sort of response as to whether it could work.

Craig (35:09): Yeah. And do you have any stories around how you've overcome when the nasty procurement team gets involved and tries to drive it all based on the lowest price? Ideally, you want to avoid that scenario if you can, but it's not always possible.

Martyn (35:20): Most of the time it ends up like that. And particularly, if you're selling to big enterprises, the procurement teams will often be in offshore locations and stuff, whether it's in Luxembourg or Switzerland, or they've outsourced it to India or whatever. So you're going to have to deal with a whole load of stuff like that. You need the person who's going to be the beneficiary of what you're doing, the business unit you're selling into, to be your sponsor a little bit. And you need them to try and handle procurement as best you can...

Martyn (35:47): Because in most businesses they will have some amount of clout, but procurement gets stronger and stronger and they try and standardise on things and bring the rules in. But then with procurement, despite all the science to the contrary, they are human beings. You can still talk to them and find out what success means for them. You can make their life easy.

Craig (36:05): I think the mature procurement organisations, and you've seen this in local government or central government, where they historically or traditionally tended to go on price, and now they've realised that actually they've not got the best value outcomes as a result of going with the cheapest alternative or cheapest option. So yeah, it's just getting the right balance from a buyer's perspective, I guess.

Martyn (36:25): Yeah, and making sure that they understand the extra value you can provide. I mean, sometimes you can't provide extra value, in which case you're going to go cheaper. You know, you can win being a cheaper solution that does it not as well as the others. Sometimes you just go give one.

Craig (36:40): Take a loss leader to start working with a client that you can see a long-term relationship with.

Martyn (36:44): And that goes back to the price cost thing. The price is going to be pitched down here, but the cost is up here. But the value to you is you actually get them as a client that you're in then.

Craig (36:55): It's so difficult for buyers because they've got complex processes, they're running with so many different stakeholders to navigate and manage and try and get a consensus view. Making decision processes as easy as possible is really the best way. So more and more options is definitely not the right way to do it.

Martyn (37:11): Yeah, and I think with big ticket sales, you're unlikely to just sort of throw a price at them unless they insist you have one. You're probably gonna say, "Yeah, we like you, you're our preferred supplier, can we now negotiate?" And that's often a standard process. And then they'll kind of to and fro on what they're looking for.

Craig (37:30): And then you come up with the best and final offer and go from there. So we focused a lot on the sales process, but I did want to get your view on the whole prospecting side of things as well. So how people find opportunities, how you found opportunities. Because I know you've certainly got a view on lead generation. You've got a view on brand, but you've also got a view on referrals and all that. How best have you seen in your own experience the ways of setting up the business to find new business?

Martyn (37:56): So I think it has to start with a really, really clear differentiated value proposition. By which I mean, you need to be clear on who your market is, not just in terms of the sort of customers, but perhaps the size, the geography, the sort of people, segments, all that sort of thing. So know who you're trying to sell to. You need to understand what's in their head, what's the issue that you're trying to solve for them.

Martyn (38:20): You need to know what's different about what you're going to do. You need to be very careful about how broad you go. In general, I would say you're better off being quite niche and focusing on something and rifle-shotting it. I think it's better to be either the best or one of the few best in a particular sector rather than just generally quite good at doing stuff. One of my pet hates...

Martyn (38:39): When doing coaching used to be when you say to people, "Which markets do you focus on? Which industries will you focus on?" "All of them really." Yeah. Focus is the art of deciding what you're not going to do. So just drip it back down to what you do and then be really, really, really good at it. Get to know it in total detail and be really good. Have loads of reference ability to all their language and everything. So it starts with doing that. So once you've decided what your bit is, what the thing you're going for is, whether it's...

Martyn (39:09): UK based discrete manufacturing between two and five billion pounds turnover or whatever it is. Then, you know, live that market, get to know it, go to the events, talk that language, get known there, get referrals. And the more you do that, the more you get referred, the more your win rate will go up. There's always a temptation to say, "Yeah, but somebody's come along and they run a school and they're looking for something. Can I sell to them as well?"

Martyn (39:32): Well, of course, they've got their money in a little pot and they're shaking it at you. It's fine to do it. But, don't try and turn your whole company to suddenly say, "We do both discrete manufacturing and schools" because you're just going to confuse the hell out of everyone. I don't like the sound of that. You need to focus.

Craig (39:51): There's a lot of talk as well right now in terms of lots of buyers certainly in the early stages of the process, the sales process or their buying process. They're wanting to talk to salespeople far less. So they're relying on more digital channels to do their research using content or the rest of it. I think Gartner's research suggests that they're almost 80% of the way through...

Craig (40:11): Well, it certainly will be in next few years, just going through that kind of self-service digital buying process, which obviously for large deals, that's not going to be the case. It's always going to be led by a sales team. And it feels just intuitively wrong that it's going to go that far through the process until they're speaking to a salesperson. I guess you kind of see the trend towards digital in some way. So what's your take on that?

Martyn (40:30): I think digital just becomes more and more important, but I don't think it takes over from the rest of it really. Again, I think it's in big ticket sales in particular, it is different. If a client is going to spend a lot of money and make a big important decision, which may change the nature of their business and help them with either success or if they get it wrong, failure, they need to be really sure. And ultimately...

Martyn (40:52): It is unlikely that the solution they have will be a purely digital solution. People will be involved doing stuff, reviewing stuff, whatever. So there's going to have to be a bit of human to human assessment of can that organisation feel comfortable buying from your organisation because your culture and your values are similar. So the digital part, I think will get bigger and bigger. And I think suppliers want to get much better...

Martyn (41:14): At providing details about what their solution is and does. So moving away from like the glossy sales brochures of yesterday into more sort of objectively factual ROI self-building models that a client or a prospect can look at and try and get as close as they can to deciding, "Yes, we like them. That might be the one that we want." Probably a bit like the way we buy cars these days because you don't go to a showroom and say, "I'd like to buy a car, please."

Martyn (41:39): You kind of do all the research, read all the magazines, look at all the technical stuff. You can actually do all of that sort of stuff. But then when you're ready, you probably still quite like to go to a car show and meet the dealer.

Craig (41:51): But you've done one of those simulators where you've configured your car online and all the rest of it. Exactly. Like you say, you're going into the dealership probably for a test drive and just to find out a bit more about the car.

Martyn (42:01): Yeah, there's something about you kind of want to meet somebody and talk it through. I know Tesla do it a fairly hands-off sort of way.

Craig (42:07): I suppose my own take is the more you can combine digital and the kind of human aspects in certain stages of the sales process, that's where the magic happens, I suppose. Because I think that, again, you see there's quite a lot of remorse if someone goes through the whole digital process, if you're buying something online like a SaaS product without any intervention from a salesperson. You just buy that...

Craig (42:29): Probably some bits of information are missing. Probably the price point's quite low and therefore that's why you go ahead with it. But there's been so many purchases of different SaaS tools over the last few years that certainly in our world, marketing, some organisations have maybe 100 plus different tools that they're not using and they've got loads of remorse. They've probably been through the process of doing the self-service sale without a salesperson and that's proven when it goes the other way...

Craig (42:53): And you've got a salesperson advising you and they're not overly overtly selling and they're more of an advisor, they're not pushy, it's a far better outcome for you because you just get a lot more certainty when you make the purchase.

Martyn (43:04): Yeah, absolutely. For years, I've had the view that I would love to have an organisation which doesn't have salespeople. Because salespeople, I love salespeople, I love salespeople, but they're a real pain in the arse. A bunch of prima donnas, a bunch of thoroughbred racehorses, they're bloody expensive. Good ones are really expensive.

Craig (43:26): And they cause a lot of internal problems as well, I know. I can take the rough with the smooth.

Martyn (43:30): Lovely, lovely people, lovely people. Pain in the arse. So how can we do it? How can we be successful in sales without having salespeople? And the thing that I've been pursuing for ages and ages is to have my best, or even any of my consultants, if I'm selling consultancy services type stuff, who are able to manage a commercial relationship.

Martyn (43:51): I'm a bit hesitant about calling them salespeople because first of all, if you ask a consultant to be a salesperson, they go, "No, I don't do sales. I don't do sales. I can't do sales." And they've got this mindset that being a salesman is somehow this sort of fast talking, slick person who can lie through their teeth but sleep at night. It's just garbage. You don't need that. So don't call them salespeople. Don't give them targets. Just give them some encouragement to kind of find business.

Martyn (44:17): Because the consultants probably know better than anyone what the solution is. They probably had good experience working with clients. They can really handle this. They just need to know a few techniques, like the objection handling stuff, so they don't get floored by it. And I do believe you can show, you can teach any consultant the principles of the sales process, because it is just a process. There's no gift of the gab. There's no flipping...

Martyn (44:41): Magic to it. It is just a series of things that you do to establish what the client is and what they want, to build a solution that works, to put it in front of them in a way that they understand, to deal with any objections, and then to finish off the deal by just signing it up. The thing out of all that process that consultants struggle with, and the difference between the ones that make it and the ones that don't really, is the close. Because the close, I mean there's books been written about the...

Martyn (45:07): Flipping 22 standard closes and the Duke of Wellington close compared to your turnship and these sorts of stuff. But at the end of the day, at some point in a process, there's a time when it's right to close a deal where the salesperson or the person with the sales responsibility should say to the prospective buyer, "So do you want it?"

Craig (45:25): Yeah, yeah.

Martyn (45:26): Simple expression as that. In complex big sales that we're talking about here, often it's much more confusing than that because you've got procurement cycles and proposals to do and all this sort of stuff. But there is a point where you just need to know there's a decision going to be made. And a consultant that can face that and deal with it and take the "yes, you won it" or "no, you didn't get it this time because..." and not get knocked by it...

Martyn (45:49): Is the one I think is the person that you really want. You can take it through all that.

Craig (45:54): I mean, I think tracing back in my experience, when I've seen some of the big deals take shape, you've obviously got the buyer side, bunch of stakeholders, but equally on the sales side, you've got a sales team of people on that particular bid, and you'll probably have the sales lead who's a relationship kind of person, but they'll be wielding in different subject matter experts that will really do the selling. And then you've got a team that will...

Craig (46:16): Come in and do the negotiations, the commercial team, et cetera. So, but for smaller deals, we're still talking fairly sizable deals. You want a salesperson that's got all of those different skill sets. We could talk for hours on this, sadly going to have to try and wrap up at some point. But I think before we do, I wanted to give you the opportunity to call out bullshit.

Martyn (46:36): I think the things that bug me most is the one I mentioned before about price. People say, "Yeah, we lost because of our price." No, you lost because you were stupid and you didn't know the value of what you were giving. So you priced it incorrectly. That's one that bugs me quite a lot. There's the other thing, this whole culture of what sales is about, it isn't about fast talking, gift of the gab, beer drinking, golf playing, socialising.

Martyn (47:00): The best people, the best sales people are ones who really care about the customer and understand and are very professional and calm and are probably not particularly extrovert. If I had to pick one top sales skill, I would say it's listening. And by listening, I mean, not just listening with your ears, but reading stuff. When you go to see a client, reading what's on the wall, see how people are walking through the office.

Martyn (47:21): See the mindset of whoever's on reception, how they greet you, what they talk about, what their values are. Just find out everything you can to tune into it all. And if you're a good listener, then you'll do it. So salespeople are not about busting in there and talking all the time.

Craig (47:36): Do you think that's an unfair perception that still remains then?

Martyn (47:39): Yeah, everyone still kind of rubbishes salespeople, don't they? Apparently in America, it's very different. If you're at a dinner party or something and somebody says, "What do you do?" If you say, "I mean sales," they go, "Oh, that's pretty good." It's an important thing. If you say you're in sales here, well, you don't, do you? "What do you do?" "I'm in business development leadership," you say something like that.

Craig (48:02): I think it's a tough game to be in, equally very rewarding.

Martyn (48:05): Yeah, I mean good salespeople are worth their weight in gold. Ultimately, for any business, their oxygen supply is winning business. It's getting sales in because if you haven't got sales, nothing else matters. So you need somebody who can actually make it happen or a capability that will make it happen. So you need to find a way of being able to do it. And people that can manage that process well create a huge amount of value.

Craig (48:28): Worth paying a lot of money to grab or poach off your competitors really.

Martyn (48:32): Absolutely.

Craig (48:33): That may be the kind of summary of the conversation, I don't know, but is there anything that you would, thinking about someone who's watched or listened to this podcast, what would be the sort of main takeaway if you're involved in a complex sale that you would share with them?

Martyn (48:46): I would think, I would say complex sales are not different to any other sales really. It's a structured approach to going through the process. Make sure you understand the process. Be honest with yourself about where you are at any time. And the biggest thing you can do is think about it from the client's end. Stop worrying about how you're going to do stuff and almost act as if you were the client as the buyer and think about how you would feel. If you can really get into that mindset...

Martyn (49:12): And make the process work, then most times you'll do very well, I would say.

Craig (49:16): Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe to our podcast on your favourite podcasting channel. If you enjoyed this episode then do us a solid and leave a review and a rating. If you want more insights and resources head over to rommie-associates.com. We'll see you next time.