Dream teams

Entrepreneur, Sept, 1997 by Danielle Kennedy

Some of the most passionate entrepreneurs rarely fly solo. Instead, these business owners employ their staff of marketers and engineers to help them make the sale.

Team selling and team buying are the norm today - where a group of knowledgeable individuals presents a product or service to a committee that makes a buying decision.

* UNITED WE STAND

David Steitz, president of Characters Inc., a multimillion-dollar computer typesetting business in Houston, uses the team sales and planning approach to win over clients during particularly tough presentations.

"[We once] had a large catalog to do for a customer, and we had never dealt with them before. So we developed a team of six people in our company from various disciplines," says Steitz. "The team included myself, the sales representative from my company, the customer service rep, the technical computer specialist, the trainer, and the software specialist meeting with our client."

The sales rep and Steitz were only there to facilitate the discussion and to introduce the other team members. During the sales presentation, which was conducted more like a planning session than a sales meeting, each team member gave a presentation explaining his or her role in the project as if they were already doing the job.

"I wish I could tell you that this was all done intentionally, but it just happened that way," Steitz says. "My other team members were not salespeople - they were just folks who do the work and do it well. This fact came across brilliantly, and we ended up going from what was supposed to be a typical sales presentation to a planning meeting to scheduling with the prospects when we could actually start the project. It was magical."

* MORE THAN MAGIC

It may have been magical, but there was a true sensitivity that existed among the members of Steitz's sales team. Knowing when one person needed to sit down and allow another knowledgeable member of the sales team to jump in to answer the customer's question was a critical factor in their success. In addition, Steitz's team never talked over the customer's head or imparted unnecessary information - a common failing of specialists, particularly in the technology and engineering fields.

The beauty of team performance, when it goes well, is there are enough experts from your company in the room explaining their roles in the project to handle bona fide objections by the client. By sending in a team, Steitz was able to address all the decision makers' questions.

To make sure the team-selling approach is a success, you must form a partnership with the contact person who will be facilitating the presentation on the team-buying end. Why? Because you won't be allowed to attend the decision-making meeting - and you'll need all the support you can get when that time comes.

* PARTNERS IN PROFITS

I recently found myself in a similar position with a meeting planner of a large cosmetics company who had attended one of my business theater speeches. She was very enthused to have me present it at her company's next convention.

My company provided her with a video presentation of the address. But she was worried that what she received did not do the program justice, and she wanted to go into that committee meeting armed with the best tools she could to sell my program. I would not have the advantage of being there to sell my program to the committee, so it was up to my new "partner" to get my message across effectively.

If I could accommodate her needs prior to her presentation with the committee of decision makers, her chances of delivering a winning presentation on my behalf would increase dramatically. And, of course, so would my chances of being hired.

Here's how I converted her from a prospect to a member of my sales team, enabling me to close the deal.

* Give your contact buddy permission to be honest with you to discover how the group thinks. When you are dealing with several personalities, you have to receive honest input from that one friend on the committee who you know is on your side to find out how the rest of them think.

I asked my meeting planner buddy to be honest with me after she previewed my speech video. "We have a [common goal]: We want to make your convention successful," I said. "So please don't worry about hurting my feelings. I can handle constructive criticism. It will motivate me to take action and make the necessary adjustments to make this program marketable to your company."

These comments were "partnering words." Her honest reaction was just what I hoped for. She told me she liked 75 percent of the video but felt it needed more excerpts of both my actual speech and the transition into the musical moments of the presentation. She also thought more multimedia samplings would be helpful.

She further explained to me that corporate America can be very conservative, and this tape smelled too much of hype and show business and not enough of how-to and real-world business experience. She had the advantage of having heard me lecture in person and had seen the program live, so she knew this impression from the tape was erroneous; however, her boss might make a false judgment based on what he saw.