To borrow a phrase from my good friend Jason Seiden, I have seen HR service providers “Fail Spectacularly” in any number of ways over the years. Having been on both sides of transactions ranging from $100,000 to well over $1 billion, I will tell you that the most common means of self-destruction are often the easiest to fix. And with hundreds of thousands of sales people pitching to HR buyers of all sizes, I’ve narrowed my list of suicidal activities down to the five most common. See if these remind you of a meeting you’ve attended lately while we put on our sales hats and walk a mile in their uncomfortable shoes. Let’s get selling!
#5) Walk In Blind
Don’t bother researching the firm at all. Stroll in with the confidence that companies are basically the same and your solution pertains to all. Nuances? They don’t exist. And who cares if they call their people “associates” or “employees” or whatever. You’ve never read a quarterly financial report and feel the Hoovers feature of Salesforce.com is for entry level wonks. Google searching the attendees or viewing LinkedIn profiles screams of, “I want to be your friend” and you’re not interested in a long term commitment. Plus, the sales engineers and demo people are really quick on their toes and they know how to make you look good. Time to relax and order an in-room movie.
#4) Cut And Paste
So you made it to the RFP/proposal phase. Thank goodness that marketing and product management assembled a massive database of questions and answers that you can simply cut and paste into your response. Better yet, get that young sales support person who didn’t have the benefit of attending the discovery sessions to do the work for you. Customization? That’s what the search/replace feature of MS Word is for and [Client name] seems easy enough to locate. And be sure to wait until the 11th hour to get everything together to eliminate any time for quality assurance, grammar checking, removal of internal questions in the document (“Can we actually do this??“), locate other client names or ensure a comprehensive response to the questions. You met the deadline and said “Yes” so what else can they expect?
#3) Feature Dump
It doesn’t matter what the client thinks they want. You have fifty features in your latest release and they need to understand every one of them. In fact, there is a 125 slide PowerPoint presentation that explains each of the new wizbang doohickeys in intimate detail, so you should spend two to three hours reading every line on every slide. If the client isn’t asking questions, it must mean that they’re simply absorbing the knowledge you’ve imparted. It’s a lot to take in so the best thing to do is press forward and get through it all. Plus, you’re incented to sell the entire package and it certainly won’t help you get to President’s Club if they just bite off a tiny piece of the suite.
#2) Bait and Switch
Bingo. You made it to the next presentation and it’s time to bring in the big guns. Put key executives and thought leaders on planes and parachute them into the client site for the ultimate show of force. “What was that? Are these the same people that will be accountable for your account post sale? Of course!” But of course they aren’t, and come pen to paper, this deal will get tossed over the wall to the implementation and account management teams that had no participation in the sales process. And when they begin to ask all the same questions that the client answered three months prior, your ears will be ringing when your name comes up in conversation.
#1) Talk Down to HR
You do this everyday and these poor HR saps have no idea what you’re talking about. The best thing to do is slow down and use big words at a 20,000 foot level to attain some level of comprehension. It’s complex and these aren’t the sharpest tools in the C-level shed so a few verbal pats on the head will likely go unnoticed. Details? Project plans? Don’t worry little HR friend, you’ve got all of that cared for so HR can focus on Sally’s fundraiser or the next company picnic. Even better, you’ll write the entire business case and would be happy to meet with the CFO one-on-one to help seal the deal. You care that much.
Believe me when I say that these are not contrived examples meant to drive home a point. This is often the real world of today’s sales environment and I have witnessed much worse than what these five suggest. It certainly doesn’t have to be this way and these are so painfully easy to fix.
But what about you? What are some of the worst HR sales calls you’ve experienced? Share your comments below and let’s keep the conversation going.
8 Comments
What questions would you ask a candidate in an interview to make sure that she doesn’t give kitchen sink boring presentations?
Awesome Insight Mark! Every salesperson should read this and take it to heart!
Good stuff Mark. Very entertaining but with plenty of truth in it for those of us on the sales side. Hope SF is treating you well!
@Animal – I wouldn’t ask that in an interview. I would actually have the candidate present to me directly to assess their sales acumen and ability to respond on the fly to client requirements. Hope that answered your question.
@David – Thanks for the comment. We tend to forget the basics at times but these are the items than can make or break your sale.
@Tim – I know you can relate to these buddy. San Fran is great and hope life in Boston is well for you guys.
Unfortunately the sales pitch cynicism doesn’t fall far from the biz dev tree.
Bill Kutik was right in the LinkedIn group: because of infrequent HR software purchases, companies really do need objective consultants — product/service interpreter/analysts if you will who can help champion, define and help manage the buying/implementation process (although “HR buyer” isn’t always literal HR, more of a collective executive management buyer).
I’ve worked with many HR suppliers large and small across the landscape — TA, TM, T&D, Wellness, LD, OD, WFP, EB — and too many of them still believe that flashy marketing spangles get them in the door and then your points above help them land a deal.
Forget about knowing the space, knowing the organizational (buyer) pain points and needs, educating the buyer by sharing best practices content applicable to their org, and the long daisy chain of marketing and sales activities that lead to the hopefully eventual sales conversation tipping point.
We’re the best-of-breed vendor! (queue cute dog images)
Really?
*sigh*
There ain’t no easy button.
Those are great “knock-out factors.” Sales performance like that will get you kicked out of the running real fast.
It’s actually hard to believe that organizations have Sales people that haven’t been trained in Sales 101.
Assuming that most vendors do provide sales training and/or hire experienced sales people, what are some additional perhaps more subtle sales blunders?
Some biggies are:
1) Not knowing very clearly (from a business/HR perspective) how your product will help the organization run its HR shop and overall business better than it does without your technology.
2) Not having honest discussions on the suitability of your product/service based on the needs/requirements/processes of the buyer’s organization
3) Not being able to advise the buyer on the various approaches (and the pros and cons) to the issue they are looking to solve.
4) Getting the right balance of follow-up so as not to hound the buyer but to keep in touch, make yourself available, and ask appropriate questions to help the buyer move forward.
5) Forgetting the golden rule in selling — Sell people what they want to buy!
Mark.. Great post.
Here are a couple to add:
Bad mouth the competition. That always makes you look better.
If you (sales) know others at the organization, bad mouth HR to them. It never gets back to the people in HR. Never.
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[...] thought leader Mark Stelzner at Inflexion Advisors recently authored a fabulous blog post on ‘5 Ways to Torpedo Your Next HR Sale‘. As someone who has sold into HR and managed a team of sellers doing likewise I have seen [...]