1. Sales Techniques and Strategies
By Bob Coutu May 31, 2012
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I wrote the following white paper in 1991 but I have kept reviewing and updating it as a refresher
for myself and for training new Account Managers. These techniques and strategies have
constantly proven themselves in the market place. When I first started in sales in 1982 I had no
idea what to do in my new job as an Account Manager to be able to say at the end of the day; I
did my job.
The niche markets that I have sold in Canada are very small and therefore a long-term
commitment is necessary with each customer. In the decisions that were made I tried to do
what was necessary to meet the customer’s needs and to keep the customer for decades.
Winning and losing work was stressful until I understood why certain sales efforts worked or did
not. Initially in my career I focused on customer loyalty and satisfaction but once I started to
learn about how value drove decisions and differentiation separated competitors, selling
evolved from hit or miss to a process that is defined and repeatable.
In each of our lives we run across a mentor and I have taken many courses but the ones by
Boris Krantz's firm, Krantz Marketing Services really made sense to me and taught me selling is a
process.
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To continue our success in today's markets, companies must be competitive and maintain our
leadership position.
Too often, the word competitive is misinterpreted as the lowest priced supplier. This is not true
as it is value that our customers buy on not price.
If being competitive meant buying the cheapest item we would all be driving “Rent A Wreck’s”,
sleeping in $20.00 per night “No-Tell Motels” and eating Big Mac's while we are on the road.
Selling is a process not an art. A good Account Manager understands the buying and selling
processes and listens well to people. The following steps and ideas are the tools of the trade.
To be successful we must all understand and practice how selling and buying works.
Our company is positioned as the supplier that offers the highest value in the market place.
Account Managers must accept that this high value also carries a higher price and you have to
learn how to promote our features and benefits and explain to our customers the value of
these benefits.
If we wanted to be the lowest priced supplier, we would cut our expenses, training, quality
control, and numerous other items to Market (position) Our Company as the lowest priced
supplier.
Market Position: What is Marketing versus Selling?
Are we Toyota (Quality) Mercedes (Engineering) or Chevrolet (Domestic). Mercedes is a
regularly priced family car in Germany and when they came to North America the domestic car
manufactures were already in that position. Mercedes chose to market (place) their product in
the Luxury German Engineering position in the market. Our company is the value added
supplier for our services not low price. Our market position needs to be understood and then

2. your job is to then sell it. Trying to be all things to all people is not possible and leaves you and
your customer confused.
In selling your goal is to fill that spot in your customer’s brain for our service. When it is needed
he thinks of you.
Solutions Driven
One powerful marketing position we hold is that we are Solutions Driven. Let me tell you the
story of how our engineering support dealt with …. for a customer. Tell them Our Company is
there to use our resources to support a best practice method to resolve his problems. Not just
sell a service.
Understand how the buyer makes decisions. First Qualify Your Customer
Contacts
Who in your customer’s organization actually makes the decision to buy? This is one of the
hardest parts of selling…getting to the right person. There are also people who influence the
person who makes the decision to buy, and do they value our features and benefits. There
are also people who cannot say yes to use Our Company but can say “no” Our Company
cannot be used.
There are also three decision criteria of Purchasers. Sell the first job on value as in #1 and
subsequent jobs are sold because of #2. Number three is a no win for us unless it is for a
strategic reason. Keep in touch with them but do not cave in and sell on price only.
1: Purchasers that buy Our Company because they believe in the company’s added value. You
have done a good job and have convinced them.
2: Purchasers that buy on relationships. Loyal to you because they trust you to make it happen
as you always have in the past. Our company performs and you have resolved all of the issues
good and bad that occur in any relationship.
3: Purchasers that will buy on price alone and do not respect their suppliers or the value issues
of the product benefits. These should become your competitions customers as they go for “you
lose” “they win” therefore no deal. Until they get burnt and you can differentiate our company
from our competition and sell added value.
The Buying Process
Your customer only thinks of his basic need for your products and services. Allowing this to
remain unchanged will lead to a price based decision.
A basic need, for example, is ... I need a hotel room to sleep in tonight. The features that I
value (will pay more for) are a convenient location, telephone, fax, restaurant attached, clean
sheets, no surprises. Naturally I choose a national franchise and pay double what a "No Tell
Motel" would charge. I have bought the features that provide me a benefit that I value. I may
not consciously understand my buying process, but large hotel chains do.
Buyers are professionals and are trained on fear, greed, and value and understand that if they
can convince you that price is their mandate they will get the best value if you cave in and sell
price.
Every decision to buy is based on either fear or greed!

3. Greed is defined as buying from the cheapest supplier. If a customer perceives two suppliers
as being identical, then he can easily make the buying decision on price alone. He believes
both suppliers have the same value.
Fear is defined as buying from the supplier that provides the best value and most buying
decisions are based on fear. If you have ever bough something that you thought was quality
and it turned out to be junk, you fear to make the same mistake again.
Differentiation is the mechanism that is used by sales professionals to showcase the value of
their products and be competitive. “Selling” is explaining the features of your company,
describing the benefit of those features over your competition, in a way the customer will value
your company more than your competition.
Think of the simple hamburger and how the fast food chains differentiate themselves. Two all
beef patties, square, flame broiled all for a simple hamburger and each of us buys what we like
not the lowest price hamburger.
I received a voice mail from a customer one day that said “Hi this is … I received your quote, it
is 18% high; but that is ok. It is with experiences such as this that involves a leap of faith you
will become a true believer of selling value.
STEP 1 – The Selling Process
Customers do not know what their needs actually are. They think of their basic need such as
requiring a weld to be heat-treated. Unconsciously they really need the following features that
are different from their basic need.
- Crew will be on time - the invoice will match the quote
- Crew will be trained - safety is not compromised
- Use the correct procedure - quality of the job is high
- Supply a chart - follow the client’s work place
- The recorder is calibrated procedures
When selling Our Company it is these points that are the features of Our Company that are a
benefit to the customer, which they place a value on.
For example, a feature of our company is that we will mobilize anywhere in Canada in 24 hours.
This is no benefit to the machine shop across the street and therefore of no value, but being
across the street is a feature that provides a benefit that has value. Knowing your customers
will allow you to sell value.
You are wasting both your customers and your time selling features that have no benefit,
therefore no value. I call this throwing up on the customer.
Asking open-ended questions that cannot be answered yes or no keeps the information flowing
to you during a sales call. Only from listening can you understand what your customer’s value.
Asking your customers what they value from a supplier is of paramount importance to your
success. Another tactic to keep the information flowing to you is to prompt your customer to
continue talking by repeating his last few words back to him, he says our shut down is in April,
you say “so you shutdown is in April?” and he will elaborate, pregnant pauses and being
fascinated with what they are saying help. Lean in to him for positive body language. Mimic his
style to build a bond with him. If he is loud and aggressive you should be to and reverse if he is
mild mannered.
If you approach your customer and say our company will give you the lowest price what you
have done is told him how to make the decision and you have shot yourself in the foot.

4. STEP 2 – Overcoming Obstacles
Once you have overcome all of your customer obstacles to buying, you can close the sale.
People are private and it’s up to you to dig up their obstacles. What concerns are not
addressed? What fears are holding them back? Fear of not getting value, do they need back
up to convince their boss? What is holding them back?
If your customer informs you of an obstacle, an attentive Account Manager will address his
concerns until they are resolved. A customer told me that we were used on only the largest
projects and Brand X was called in for the 4" butt weld jobs... I told him the story of the $975
million dollar fire at Syncrude that was caused by a 4" butt weld failure. I changed his buying
decision parameters from greed to fear. The high level of "quality" and "certified technicians"
working on a 4" butt weld is a feature that provides a benefit that he now places a value on.
Our price is $2.00 per man-hour too high. The correct response is to show the features and
benefits that the customer receives for his extra $2.00 per man-hour. Quantify it; then evaluate
it; Ok so that is $16.00 per 8-hour day and for that amount you get...ISO Certification etc etc...
Remember, the customer buys value and you must overcome his obstacles or you sell on
price only and anyone can do that in fact it is not selling.
Training and educating your customer on the features of your company that provide a benefit
that your customer value's is the definition of the selling and fear is your focus!
STEP 3 - Closing
Closing a sale is finalizing the deal. You can lead your customer to review all his concerns
(obstacles) and ask him if they are sufficiently addressed. Then ask for the PO! So we have
the contract then? Closing must be presented as a closed yes or no question.
Leading into the close you should ask numerous questions that will be answered yes, yes, yes,
yes, then "go for close" usually gets a yes response.
If no is the answer then you still have an obstacle that is not addressed, go back over your
customers concerns and when they all are resolved you can close.
STEP 4 – Follow Through
Once the sale is closed, you have to personally ensure that your customer’s needs are met by
clearly informing the technicians what must be done. The "Follow Through" will determine if
your customer stays with you or keeps looking.
Fear determines whether a customer stays with what he is comfortable with, or risks a new
supplier, the greater fear of the unknown.

5. Other Techniques
Communicating With Stories, Pictures and Numbers
Our ancient history was passed down verbally and our minds easily remember 1: stories, 2:
Pictures (i.e. faces) and 3: Numbers. Ideas are passed along inside stories like in Aesop’s
fables. People remember pictures, stories and numbers and not conversations. Tell a story,
use numbers and paint pictures in your clients head and they will remember your added value if
your story has a point. Making conversation and stand alone statements will not be remembered
and ultimately have no point.
The customer will remember this added value sales pitch as it demonstrates our features
and benefits in a story with a point while being memorable by painting a picture and
using numbers.
Picture a 200 foot tall vessel 30 feet in diameter glowing red at 1150 degrees. I remember in
1984 a vessel cracked and the whole refinery was shut down. We got the call and mobilized 12
of our best people to site for a 6 inch crack. NDT determined the whole vessel had been
embrittled with hydrogen. Our engineering group developed a procedure to anneal the whole
vessel the same day. Our mechanical services opened up all of the man ways and made the
vessel ready for heat treating.
Our combustion personnel scrambled to site positioned the burners and got it glowing cherry
red within specifications by the next shift. The following shift the weld repair was completed and
we stressed relieved it again with combustion. Our combined services supported by our
engineering group had the Refinery was up and running 5 days after the vessel cracked.
Our depth of resources saved the client millions of dollars in down time; more that than they
spent for our combined services in 5 years. That is why although our price is higher per man
hour than our competition we are the most successful supplier worldwide because the total cost
of using Our Company is less. Factor in the added value of our depth of resources relative to
the industry and multiple services... We perform thousands of jobs like this each year.
Customer Paradigms: Sell to change them
Imagine yourself as an Account Manager selling the features, benefits and value of the
products identified below to the famous people quoted below who did not see value.
Did you know the Swiss Watchmakers invented the Quartz movement and put it on display at
the world fair as a curiosity without a patent it as it was not a real “watch” to them as it had no
gears and jewels. Seiko and Texas Instruments took the non patented technology and the rest
is history.
“This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value too us.”- Western Union internal memo 1876
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."– Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM,
1943
"But what... is it good for?" – Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,
commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."– Ken Olson, president, chairman
and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

6. • 640K ought to be enough for anybody."– Bill Gates circa 1981
• "Anybody who thinks a little 9,000-line program that's distributed free and can be cloned by anyone
is going to affect anything we do at Microsoft has his head screwed on wrong." – Bill Gates to George
Gilder, responding to Java
• “I don’t have time to talk to some salesman. I have a battle to fight!” – Caption to a cartoon showing
a king, in full armor, riding his horse off to battle after refusing to see a salesman selling a Gatling
gun.
Need I say more?
Requests for Quotations
Many large companies will go out for tender with defined specifications and this will appear to
be a greed based decision. It is up to you to highlight our features and explain our benefits
clearly as in fact most of these bids are not decided on price alone, a 5% price differential can
be sold on value.
Be a 6 Time Winner
If you want to really learn what your customers value and get their business you must visit them
6 times minimum. Many customers hate sales people in general and too often hear "Hi I'm your
new sales rep. and I'll be looking after your account" never to be heard of until the next Account
Manager is hired.
Your first visit is strictly an introduction.
Your second visit shows you want his work.
Your third visit proves you want his work.
Visits after this prove you value him and his business.
People like to feel wanted and valued and will start to respond on the third visit much better than
the first two.
Cold Calls
How to make cold calls easy. Set your sights at what is realistic. If your goal for the first cold
call is to understand the customer’s needs, perform a full products and services presentation, do
the features, benefits, value thing, and then close the sale, you are being unrealistic and will
hate cold calls.
Your realistic goal for the first meeting should be to introduce yourself, meet the client and
exchange business cards. You have achieved your goal of the first meeting when you have
done this. You can then ask, "What does your company do?”, so that I can understand if what
our company offers will be of benefit to them". This is a professional courtesy as your new
contact will be more comfortable talking about what he knows best and you will learn what he
values.

7. Fulfilled Promises Build Relationships
To build a valued relationship with a person make a promise and keep it. I do not give
customers brochures during a visit. I make a promise to send one and fulfill it along with a
professional thank you letter.
Unfulfilled promises destroy relationships.
Customers That Value Your Competition
After exhausting your sales efforts on an unsuccessful customer you still have options, maybe
your personalities clash, ask someone else to try with the customer, DON'T GIVE UP.
Keep pressure on your competition by continued contact with his client and hope that he screws
up and they will call you. Take the customer out to lunch, it will drive your competition crazy and
install fear, which will keep his rates lower if he thinks you have a chance.
Buying the job should be the last resort and does not qualify as selling. If I gave a $20.00 bill to
a salesman and asked him to sell it for $18.00 it would not take any salesmanship, but if it were
sold for $21.10 a value would have to be added to it by the Account Manager. That added
value is called Profit.
Profit is Not a Dirty Word
Profit is the reason for every company’s existence and your job; it's a sacred word. Your
customers understand that you must make a profit to be there for their needs.
Market Value
You must sell the market value not price or you will not succeed. The market will decide who's
successful by spending their money where they perceive who supplies the best value.
"Value Added Selling" allows you to influence the market from price decisions by showing your
customers the value, through differentiation, of your companies features, by explaining the
benefits and placing a value on the benefit.
Success Breeds Success
Winners like to deal with winners, so never say or admit to anything derogatory about either
company with a customer’s representative. It does not work ever.
Never Say Your Competitions Name
It is free advertising for them, when referring to a competitor say "Brand X" in a respectful tone.
Focus on your features and explain their benefits to your customer, never knock your
competition as this invariably backfires. If you knock your competition you have demonstrated
that your fear their value in your clients eyes.

8. New Customers
If you secure a client from your competitor you can ask "what did they do that was wrong so that
we do not make the same mistake". Customers usually respond extremely well to this question
and you will learn exactly what not to do in great detail!
Competition
Competition is not a dirty word, especially from your customer’s perspective. Do not worry
about competition. Focus on your customers needs, and understand that perceived value,
driven by fear, determines where they will buy.
You can take your competitions strengths and differentiate yourself by selling a feature of Our
Company, which counters your competitor’s strategy. Knowing your competitors strengths will
allow you to tailor your sales discussion and make statements that can cause doubts in your
customers mind. As the old rental car battle.
Tilden “We’re No. 1”
Hertz countered that by: We’re No. 2 "we try harder"
Sell the positive aspects of Our Company to demonstrate to your customer what our competition
does not have. Do not say your competition does not have in house engineering. Say instead
that our in house engineering is invaluable “let me tell you this story”. The customer will
understand what you mean because he will not have heard about the value of engineering from
your competitor.
Be Professional
Be gracious, if you lose a sale, as it does happen. Thank the customer for the opportunity to
quote and ask that they consider Our Company on all future bids requests. Don't get defensive
and grill your customer, as they do not like to tell someone they lost. Every customer that
values your competition will tell you your price was too high. If they based their decision on
price then you did not differentiate your company properly.
Never give a price off the top of your head by guessing.
Always send a formal quote with terms and conditions as good paperwork makes good friends.
Do not rely on friendship to make a sale but be professional at all times with customers.
Don't see customers when you are down, if you have a disastrous sales meeting with a
customer don't go see another right away. Go have a coffee and get in an up mood, otherwise
you will not project the proper body language.
Total Cost
If your price is higher, show the customer that the total cost of using your company is less. Fear
is the key here. If you are selling your features such as QC, training and your competition is
not, you should convince your client that only you know all of his needs, and therefore only you
can fulfill them…you provide value. Brand X may be cheaper but we have convinced you that
we understand your needs and will get the job done as promised.

9. Honesty and Integrity
If you don't know the answer, say so! Do not pretend you know something you don’t! Say, "It's
not my area of expertise, but I'll find out the answer and get back to you," then follow through.
Considerations
Long-term relationships are built on honesty and integrity. An overpriced sale or misleading
information will hurt you down the road.
80% of our business comes from 20% of our customers and losing 1% of your customers cost
us 4% of our business and vice versa, honesty and integrity keep customers.
Our company is the largest, best-organized, and most competitive company. What the market
demands in "value” we will secure the work at, otherwise we will lose market share.
Too often we have purchased competitors that we thought were lower priced and found the
opposite. Your clients will tell you that your price was high when you lost the work, when in
fact; they perceived a better value from your competition.
Your competition may have bid the work better through utilizing a different approach. Maybe
they made an error in their bid? Selling is like sports, if you learn from your mistakes, play by
the rules, try your best, you will keep winning.
I expect to hear from each of you that our price is high, that is a given and your job is to sell the
value that we offer. I am comfortable in being able to identify the features, benefits and value
differentiators for each product and service that we offer. Please feel free to bring any
situations to my attention where you are not comfortable with the value issues.
There will be customers that we will use price to get their business, but that must be for a small
percentage, and the rational clearly understood and approved by myself.
I challenge you to give me an example of one significant purchase you have
personally made based solely on price and disregarded value.
Quote
“The bitter taste of poor quality remains much longer than the sweet taste of a
low price.”
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
For want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For want of a rider, the battle was lost,
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.