From Hello to Deal - Masterclass - Batenborch International

Hovingh & Partners Masterclass

Last Friday, the 29^th of April, we welcomed a small group of senior executives from various industry, ICT, services and FMCG environments to our offices. Jordi van Berkum, Partner at Hovingh & Partners, led the session on how to get from hello to a deal when meeting with a (potential) client. Hovingh & Partners is a renowned sales and negotiation consultancy, offering training, coaching and implementation of the world’s best methods. Jordi himself has a background leading (international) sales teams at Tech Data and Clariant.

Key To Success

Using the Ray Leone methodology, we learned how to focus on the emotional reason to purchase and present solutions that help and create value for your client. However, first the attendees were asked to portray issues they faced in terms of increasing sales and enhancing performance. We discovered the leaders to face challenges in transitioning to consultative selling, in pushing their sales force to be more creative and in influencing the DMU. Then, we spoke of trends we see in the field of sales. So we learned that transparency and availability of information has led to clients being better prepared and tending to have already formulated their own solution, regardless of what the actual problem may be. Additionally, in B2B environments the size of the DMU has expanded from 6-9 stakeholders to 10-12 per deal.

Best in class organizations are characterized by a number of features, ensuring their success regardless of trends and challenges. A few that stand out are, for example, pipeline management and the sales funnel leading up to a negotiation. Successful companies are not only focused on closing the deal no matter what, but are able to timely assess when a prospect or potential deal should be eliminated from the pipeline due to a higher likelihood of failure. Time spent on it would simply be wasted. Furthermore, numbers show that 83,7% of a negotiation is influenced before it actually takes place. Top performing businesses are aware of this and use it to their advantage.

"The bigger the headache, the higher the value of the aspirin."

Ultimately, we learned that the entire process begins and ends with your connection to the person across the table. A client decides whether or not to buy from you based on 4 conditions: 1) Do they trust you? 2) Do they like you? 3) Do you add value? And 4) Do they respect you? For this, it is important to understand what drives these decisions for your counterpart. A lot can be gained from using the DISC model, which you can read more about here. By touching upon the elements that are central to their personal preferences, your chances of closing a deal increase immediately.

Following Ray Leone’s methodology, the way to uncover the Dominant Purchasing Motive of the client is through 3D.

Step 1: Determine the criteria.

Step 2: Define each criterium.

Step 3: Diagnose

Using questions, we call them “pain questions” you add value and gain respect. Instead of taking the problem and solution the client developed for themselves, you discover the potential underlying issue that might require a different solution. Additionally, you will probably push some buttons that let your counterpart experience the pain of not having the solution. The bigger the headache, the higher the value of the aspirin.

From Hello to Deal – Masterclass

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