SELLING BY RESEARCH: The Concept of SBR

This blog is proud to say that the phrase "SBR " which stands for  'Selling by Research"was first coined here and the SBR techniques which have been lightly touched here is ORIGINAL to this blog. The idea first germinated here in the form of the written word.

Many Sales/Business Development Managers/General Managers/even VP's think that the more prospects, a salesperson visits, the better. Never mind, if it lays emphasis on quantity rather than quality. The Manager has the data to justify his sales forecasts for the next quarter. And at the month end, when the CEO is surprised to see that the sales person has visited the highest number of potential customers but has flopped in actual selling, the same manager will tell him “there is something wrong here, you lack application, you lack communication skills” the newbie can hardly say that the strategy was devised by the manager himself.  "Gee!! that’s not fair" you may say but trust me, these kinds of managers do exist and they are in the majority.

                  In industrial plants and manufacturing organizations, decision makers have no time to entertain sales-people on fishing expeditions. In Industrial Marketing, which comprises of selling of high or medium value systems, “cold-calls” can backfire on you. Before the net, cold calls were a must. Information is power.Cold calling in industrial marketing was done for collection of market information. Having information gave a party an immense advantage over its competitors. Today, the internet can help your sales-people to collect all information about prospects, making cold-calls redundant.

     " We live today in tumultuous times. In the future, people will think us as the most lucky people for never before has a generation witnessed such sweeping technical and socioeconomic changes within such a short time. If you want to survive, you need to adapt, to change with the times unless you want to be extinct. "

The Internet as an Information Source

          How do you collect information from the internet? Check websites of service providers usually involved in projects.  A few website types, where information is available free are as below. (This is only a partial list and you can find many more classes if you are interested)

(1)B2B trading portals and Business Directories: These contain all information and all you have to do is collection and compiling. 

Screen Shot of site. Look at the projects link at the lower right

(An example is http://www.processregister.com  which has a section on projects, which gives the location, value, status and the promoter. The website even has the projects classified sector wise. What else do you need?)

 Different types of projects classified typewise

 

(2) Job Portals: These give out information in the form of “Project Managers required for…” or “We require for our new project…”

(3) Websites of Consultants: Consultants often give out details of new consulting jobs they are working on, or have bagged.

If you think that you will get full details of a project from tapping into the above or similar resources, you will be disappointed. What you will get is “leads”. You will get all your detail information then by doing some web research on these leads.

Industrial Marketing &Selling initiated by researching the web, has been named SBR (Selling by Research)-by yours truly because it appears that I am the first person to discuss about this site in public, for which unfortunately processregister.com is not paying me anything. 

Selling By Research (SBR) : THE FATE OF THE COLD CALL

Hi Friends,


This blog post has been republished on popular demand. Have a great day.
Regards
Bilbo

The day is very near when the “Cold Call’ will become extinct. Yes! ---I mentioned exactly what you heard.

Before all of you come onto me for ‘blasphemy’, I would like to clarify that I am only talking about High Value Capital Equipment selling and this is not generalized to include all types of selling. But why should cold calling be extinct in capital selling.
The answer is simple. Because of the internet and globalization.


Tell me one thing. Suppose you are the customer and you have allotted one hour of your precious time to Mr.X who is from a company manufacturing water-line valves. Say, you carry out turn-key projects involving water distribution and you need some competition among your vendors. But what does Mr X do? He asks you what you do, he asks you about your projects, tells you that they manufacture valves and asks you whether you have any requirement. You conclude that this gentleman is on a cold call..What you do next depends upon the selling capabilities of Mr. X and I'll leave you people to think of a way vide which Mr. X can  be penalized because of his audacity.
Now consider this. You receive a phone call from a reputed valve manufacturer who knows about your company etc. He tells you that he has learnt about your bagging a multi million dollar contract (you are impressed) and that he, Mr Y, would like to give a presentation on his valves..how they save you energy, etc)
I don't need to be a magician to tell you that the next order will be bagged by whom.


Now, let's bring you onto a secret. Mr Y received some news that the project has been allotted to your company. He then finds all about you, your requirement. He is a make approved by the consultant. He wants to come and tell you all about why his valves should be purchased. Mr Y has done his research and therefore wins.Mr Y shows the customer what's in it for him or where the customer will win, unlike Mr.X.


This is all the more true in recent times because technically almost all brands are equal. Their prices differ because of quality. Unfortunately, quality is not a tangible parameter. Whether you get the order today depends still more on your research therefore.


This , ladies and gentleman, is the art of SBR at the basic level. No more cold calls in this segment will succeed. If you recognize this and accept it, you will save valuable time.


Recently, a slogan called "Never cold call again" has become popular, but I think it was me who first said those words, in capital equipment and heavy machinery selling'. Anyway, whoever was the first, the fact remains that cold calling is a dying art and as soon as SE Asia leaves it, the better.

SELLING BY RESEARCH or S.B.R.

[Note:The SBR concept is the intellectual property of this blog. Not to be reproduced either in whole or part thereof. All rights reserved]




Howdy folks!

Today we talk about Selling By Research or SBR. However,we have to carry out two tasks before we start our discussions.
Before I start talking about SBR we have to again draw another fine line of demarcation. As I had told you before this method is applicable for high value capital equipment selling or bidding for a high value tender. So , me and those of you who are still interested cross over this hypothetical line with me, we have to leave you others behind. Actually -you are welcome to come with me everyone but all that “time’s precious..mustn't waste it crap makes me write this line. ( The bottom line is that its your time, right? and no one can spend it for you or give you extra time . If they can do nothing, why listen to them in the first place? Moreover, I ‘ve been getting pretty lousy reports from so the more of you come, the more is my interest. Did that feel bad? I can’t help it friends.. I just can’t be a hypocrite.Yes, seeing and reading my theory on the net does give a boost to me …but uh, if you people click at an ad or two, I’ll appreciate it. Everyone needs resources to survive and yours truly is no exception). By the way 2-3 million USD should be the minimum value of your offer. The item quantity being huge thereby big order value,also will not suffice. What you are selling should require expertise.

The second thing I will want to tell you is please keep an open mind..If I write that two and two makes five, don’t jump to the conclusion that I passed my examinations bribing my math teacher. Hear me out and then form an opinion. In selling, what is important your oratory skills or your listening skills?

The correct answer is listening skills.So you think that you already knew that. The next time you visit a customer who is known to you, just stop whenever you feel your mouth opening to speak, count 1, 2 ..upto10 and if you still feel like speaking, go ahead. The truth is that human beings are all in love with their own voices. And so ensnared are you by your voice’s …what-sex appeal? ..that you don’t even notice that you are interrupting a customer. It’s rude to interrupt someone speaking to you..he is giving you a few minutes of his valuable time and instead of being appreciative, you are being rude to the customer. Don’t believe me ? Fine take your colleague with you and ask him to keep notice. Do not take your direct subordinate. Take someone who will give you a neutral and unbiased report. Do it and the result will surprise you !!!

This post has become very long but the above were essential to state before we have detailed discussions on SBR, which we will definitely do in my next post.

Till then friends, stay safe and keep on clicking

BILBO