Selling in a Time of Corona – S1E2 – The Power of Incumbency

Creative intro

(Prince Charles):       Hello. It's Charles here. I'm perfectly fine. I'm self-isolating. And thank you for all your kind wishes. I'm very happy because I'm listening to the podcast of Elliot Epstein and I commend it to you. Cheerio.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             In Episode One, we discussed empathy as it underpins everything you do in managing client relationships. So right now, you'll most likely have a bunch of accounts you've had for a while. Some for 12 months, some for maybe five years or even 10 years. You've had a desk in their office, almost certainly had access to a car park. And you know that weird coffee they drink, you know, the regular half strength, cappuccino with organic almond milk and three sugars. But it's still business. And you have the power of incumbency. There are still a lot of people who put way too much store in their personal relationships and feel compelled to concede, especially in times of stress, like right now. However, whilst we should be considerate of the human client live on your computer screen, these are the same people who just weeks ago would have rushed to tender, or played low ball pricing games faster than a trafficker running away from a Wu Han wet market. So because it's still business, you have the option to both help the client empathically and yes, help yourselves with the power of incumbency. Remember, they'd been buying from you for a reason, your stuff works, and it's beneficial to them. A few glitches here in there, a few delivery issues hasn't stopped them from seeing your value. In many respects, the selling is done. So stop selling and start negotiating for the betterment of both parties. Here's a few ideas to leverage your knowledge of your clients. Firstly, talk to your own financial or accounting person. The good news is you'll now probably be on a video conference. So, there won't be any issues about bad breath or questionable body odour. Find out the real financial story on your A, B, C,D accounts.

That's where A's are really profitable ones and D's are the ones you probably should have got rid of a long time ago. Look at the contribution margin from these accounts and then move your eyes across the spreadsheet to your now unused travel and marketing events budgets. You should now have a picture of what kind of dollars may be in the kitty. As counterintuitive as it might sound given your current cash flow may be affected with the virus. Consider offering concession trades. A concession trade is when you only offer something when you receive something back in return. It is not bargaining or simply acquiescing.

Here are the examples.

We'll defer your fees for three months to help you out, if you're happy to just extend the current contract by 12 months. We'll actually credit back that 40k you just spent with us last month because clearly we're both in no shape to deliver it, if we can also agree that the price increase we've been talking about and deferring will take place in January, 2021.

We will ensure you're fully compliant and throw all our experts at you right now, free of charge in the middle of this crisis, if we can agree that the system upgrade we've been talking about forever and putting off can finally be implemented by June, 2021.

I'm sure you're thinking of your own concession trades right now. I call the idea; Give, Give, Take.

Give the client something of real value. Give it to them now when they need it. Take later. It's professional, empathic, and business-like. Your relationship can only be enhanced even if they can't agree. And if they can, you've played both the short game and a long game where everyone wins and equally importantly, you've cut the risk of a client going to tender or becoming unprofitable once

COVID-19 passes into the vaccine field pages of history. Let me share a final story of this from a, non-corporate entity, my gym. I say it's my gym, it's actually my wife's gym. Anyone who knows me understands that a gym is only something I see when I pick her up afterwards to get a coffee. I have done a fair bit of boxing though, I need to keep my skills up when facing the Brown cardigans of procurement. So back to the gym... I'm going to read you their heartfelt email, given as you know, gyms are now shut down. It has great storytelling and a concession trade. Here's the email.

Email:                          " I'm feeling stuck on where to start. I've always maintained collectively, we are the custodians of these baths. Since 1881, passing through two World Wars and the Great Depression, these baths were the only sea baths in Victoria, open all year round, hence the birthplace of winter swimming we have now evolved into Bayside's true home at fitness, lifestyle, wellbeing and community.

I often reflect on how many souls have walked the boards before us. Those who walked the boards and did not return from the war or those that did and used it as a place of respite and self-repair. The many stories laughs and tears that must have been shared over those 139 years. I believe many of the souls are still present and that is part of the magic we all find hard to describe to others. Ironically, we must now all come together again by staying apart. We will all get through this and hopefully be back to our home that the baths have given us soon enough.

Applying the foresight of hindsight, I also realized this experience will bring us closer together. My commitment to the 18 staff, including casuals, personal trainers and permanent class instructors is to continue paying our staff the highest possible percentage of their wage until this crisis is over. With the government top up, I don't want any staff to be out of pocket, regardless of the duration of the crisis. My commitment to the members is to continue to fund all ongoing bills to ensure the venue is protected.

And I'm able to reopen and operate at full capacity immediately when able to do so. To members, to get through this, we're asking members to pay half of their membership fees until the crisis is over. How that looks: Payments are debited once a month, instead of fortnightly starting this Thursday. In return, all existing members will be protected from any future price rises for three years. All existing members at the conclusion of the crisis, should you need to cancel for any reason in the future, the usual 30-day notice period will not apply. And all members will have a fully operational venue with all our staff on return. "

Elliot Epstein:             And then he concludes "Lovingly, [which was interesting] Matthew" Well done, Matthew. He's going to give himself every chance with a concession trade. And so can you.

I'll leave you with this thought. As you know, some people say the glass is half empty or half full. Some people are so paralyzed, they can't even see the glass. Still others complain it should have been a cup of orange juice in the first place. And some professional salespeople pick up the glass with whatever quantity of water is left and go in search of really, really thirsty people.

As Bob Harrington once said, "Nobody became a howling success by just howling".

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. I washed my hands before touching this microphone. Take care of yourselves , till next time .