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How do we master the challenge to transform people, processes, organizations from "push" to "pull"?

Asked at: The Future of Selling

Push systems I'm referring to are systems, we designed our businesses over decades, based on the assumption that we are in a seller market, that we can forecast demand and design detailed push programs to make resources available, when and wherever we need them. Prerequisites are hierarchical organizations and decision making done by a elites.

The world has changed, we are in a customer market. Technology changed the game, changed the buyer's behavior fundamentally. They often talk to vendors, when they are already pretty much down the road with their purchasing process (50-60% according to a variety of research). So, forecasting is getting more and more difficult, economic uncertainty is increasing - for all.

From my point of view, pull systems are designed backwards from the customer - completely. Selling strategies start always with understanding the customer's desired outcomes to be able to add value before we are mapping to our capabilities and come up with a tailored solution. Pull is more focused on demand creation, focused on talking to the customers long before their make-or-buy-decision - in case the vendor wants to be a strategic partner. That does not mean, that vendors don't shape a deal towards their capabilities to fix the customer's problem, but the design point is not pushing a product, it's delighting a customer to deliver on their outcomes.
That's a huge difference!

More on that here: John Seely Brown and John Hagel On why the power of pull represents the end of command and control economy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCikMA6W-Hw

Topics

Buying Process

Field Sales

Inside Sales

Lead Management

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Tamara Schenk

asked on Jan. 7, 2012

Recommended by:
Craig Rosenberg,
Catherine Goldberg,
John Lake,
and 2 others

Dave Brock

President and CEO, Partners In EXCELLENCE

Posted on Jan. 9, 2012

Tamara: Interesting question, I'll take a bit of a contrarian point of view, stating that Push is critical--but the Push that I'm speaking of is different than what most sales people execute.

Inappropriate "push" is what sales people do when they focus on pitching their products and always asking for the order. This creates no value to the customer, yet it seems to dominate much of what we do in selling.

Great sales people get their customers to think about their businesses differently. They help them identify new opportunities to grow, serve their customers, improve their operations. The whole orientation of the Challenger Sale is a push approach.

Through the buying process, sales people must continue to push--but from the point of view of helping the customer accelerate the attainment of their goals and objectives. Helping the customer understand (or remember) what they are trying to achieve, helping them understand the lost revenue opportunities, the lost savings, etc. is critical to keeping the customer on target and driving a sense of urgency in helping the customer achieve their objectives.

I think relying on Pull is dangerous. By the time the customer "pulls" the sales person, they have already made a large number of decisions. They have defined their problem and solution (perhaps completely inappropriately), they have created a short list, and are purely focused on making a vendor selection. The value we can created in these opportunities is very small, relative to a Push strategy.

I think sales still needs to be about Push. But is has to be appropriately focused. A "me" orientation, focusing on "my product, my company, my goals, my orders, my commissions" is never appropriate and does not create value. A Push focus on helping the customer achieve new things, helping them see possibilities they may have never imagined, helping accelerate the change and the attainment of the goals they want is always appropriate and what top sales performers do.

Matt Pinckley Replied on Jan. 9, 2012

Great comments Dave. I agree 100%.

Brian MacIver

Partner, BMAC Sales Consultants

Posted on Jan. 7, 2012

Recommended by:
rakesh gupta

One of the difficulties we have is that "Push" still works.
Sending Messages from the Organization to the suspect/prospect Marketplace still works.
How we do it, and what Content we use has changed and continues to change, but it works.

Transformation is difficult.
Sudden Transformation is next to impossible.
If we want to Transform from "Selling Products to Markets" into "Responding to Markets with Products" then we will have to change gradually, in parallel.
It may come down to who has the most patience and persistence.

It may be metamorphosis, rather than transformation.

Show 3 more replies

Tamara Schenk Replied on Jan. 9, 2012

@Kim: Adding value is definitely a major concern. What I'm experiencing is that adding value and delighting customers is getting more and more difficult in classical push systems which is based on internal design points.

@Brian: From my point of view, the basis of the question is first of all how do we add value to our customers, how do we delight our customers. Secondly, it's about making money. So, delighting our customers is the prerequisite to make money.

Brian MacIver Replied on Jan. 11, 2012

Thank you for that additional information, Tamara. The Transformation of Big IT and Big Telco in particular has been underway for 2 decades. They were Command & Control, but social, technological, economic, political and Competitive forces have been changing them from monoliths and monopolies to part of a rich Competitive Marketplace. Many, yourself included, Tamara see an end game of “Collaboration and Communication”. However, if we use the metaphor of a bus journey then ‘Colab & Comm’ is the last stop, the terminus.
IMO there is a very successful bus stop at “Halfway House” which many Corporate are reaching that is “Coordinate and Cooperate”. This is using your Internal Capability for the benefit of your Customer, but crucially retaining an independence from them, and them from you. This is intra-dependence; your success is my success. But, I have more Customers than you and some of my other Customers are your Competitors which makes us expert at Value –add in your Product/Market!
(http://www.beyondphilosophy.com/customer-experience/2012-customer-experience-...)
My friend and Colleague Colin Shaw of Beyond Philosophy’s research and thought leadership,
packages Customer Value-add into ‘Customer Experience’, and he links our performance to Customer Experience. It is in our hands, when we maximise (Coordinate) our capability to Cooperate with the Customer for best Customer Experience then we succeed.
The research conducted by The Challenger Sale authors is a clear insight into moving to a ‘Pull Based’ “Coordinate and Cooperate” basis from the CEO, Product, Marketing and Sales to the Customer. Using deep Customer Insights to bring Value through our Capabilities and Cooperating to deliver Customer Value.

Neil Licht

VP, Business Development, Here We Are

Posted on Jan. 9, 2012

Sales is now in the hands of the prospect. In this online world, nothing can be hidden and everything is "googled" before any buying or contact you decision is made. Tha'ts why online reputation management is the critical answer to a great pull through, inbound sales/marketing approach

Here's why:
* Prospects are looking for solutions online at precisely the moment they have a problem of need a product. They are ready to buy and they go looking online via a category search in Google.They are not waiting for your call anymore.
* They initiate YOUR sales opportunity by searching online for a solution at precisely when they need a problem solved or a product.
* They then decide to call you based on page 1 results where the businesses offering the "answer" are found in google.

And here's the real kicker that can make or brerak you re getting a call:
* In the google search results by category ( they do not know you name to search under) they also see the reviews displayed in the result, automatically read each and decide based on the reviews if they will call you or not!

Thus the answer is managing your online image, reputation and reviews so they help and do not kill you off in the search as worthwhile.

There are two very short posts statistically validating this as the process taking palce in the buying cycle and also what to do to manage it.so it works for you. Please read them and RSVP with any questions. Thanks, Neil Licht, VP Business Development

http://mybusinessreputationonline.wordpress.com/