Monday, October 15, 2012

Jump Start Your Sales With Business Partners

By Paul M Balzano


Are you facing any of these major stumbling-blocks with your customers where you have the possibility to sell your products or services?

- You are heavily committed to a sales campaign that's stalled and you don't know why

- You acquired a new account and you're not aware of their priorities and challenges

- There are no executive relationships to speak of

- Your company is considered an unknown entity

- Your product provides a partial solution to your customers problem

- Your customer has had a bad experience with your company

Without help, even the most experienced and successful sales executives will take a very long time trying to overcome these serious issues. One of the smartest sales techniques you can use to rapidly address these issues is to engage a partner that already works with your customer. The most strategic and lucrative sales I have personally closed, have been with partners that helped me in a variety of very valuable ways. For clarity, the term "partners" refers to other organizations that have an established and mutually beneficial relationship with your company, an understanding of the key products you sell, and where together you provide a stronger solution that's worth more for your customer than what can be provided individually.

Many sales executives are unwilling to work together with partners simply because they fear it may slow down and complicate their sales campaigns. There was a time where I believed that too and was also afraid to give up any control, especially to a person outside of my own company. However, what I discovered is that utilizing partners accelerates your sales campaigns and helps you to substantially maximize your sales. Here's how.

Many companies rely on others for help on critical projects where they lack in-house expertise. When one of your partners provides these crucial services, they can help you out in a big way. The very first thing you have to do is find out which partners work with your customers. Meet with them to determine the projects they are focusing on, the relationships they have, and how your products or services can help them be more successful while solving your customers particular problem. Since they already work with your customer on vital initiatives, there's a very good chance they've built executive relationships that would likely take you years to develop. They're likely to know the key players and decision makers, will be aware of the political climate, and can also be a very credible and unbiased resource to recommend and positively influence the sale to your customer. Once you and your partner determine how your combined solution can help out your customer, you can develop and execute a joint sales strategy.

As you have seen, working with partners that endorse your products is a superb way to overcome your major obstacles and enhance your overall sales performance. Once you leverage the relationships, credibility, and established success of your partners, you are going to provide better solutions to your customers while accelerating and maximizing your sales campaigns.




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