Sales Life: Alan Willis, Solutions for Sales

Our new feature ‘Sales Life’ invites senior salespeople to give their views on key sales issues.

In our first interview we talk to Alan Willis, Managing Director of Solutions for Sales.

What is your job title and what do you do?

Managing Director of Solutions for Sales. I help our clients win more business.

How long have you been in your present role?

I launched Solutions for Sales in 2000. Prior to that I had been growing sales for various IT and telecoms companies across Europe and I thought it was a good time to apply the techniques I had developed more widely.

What is the top sales challenge you and your team are currently facing?

With Sales Enablement we are creating a new segment. Companies budget for product development, they budget for collateral and they budget for training, but they are not yet budgeting for sales enablement. Because our approach cuts across these functional “stove-pipes” we can deliver better results, but there is no ready-established budget.

What is the best piece of sales advice you’ve ever been given?

When I was a rooky salesman an experienced Sales Director taught me that good salespeople do not just seek out opportunities, they create them. The advice was delivered as follows:

Describe a memorable deal

One of my most satisfying sales experiences was the successful execution of a negative close. It was an early client of Solutions for Sales, during our first year of operations. The clients Sales Director wanted to use our services, but the Marketing Director had the budget and I had to close the sale with him. He went through the whole gamut of objections – too expensive, could do it in-house, don’t have the budget and so on. I answered every point, but he just went back to the first one and started again. I realised that he was not listening so I packed my papers away and made to leave. He actually called me back with the words “I am sure we can work something out” – suddenly he was generating answers to his own objections, and we closed the deal. He was testing to see if any discount was available. To this day I wonder if I would have had the courage to execute this negative close if I had not owned the company that I was selling for. It was a very liberating experience. I realised that every salesperson has a right to choose the personal terms on which they sell. I made my terms clear, and demonstrated that I was going to stick to them. It works!

Which do you think is most important when winning new business; technical expertise or sales skills?

In my experience there is rarely a shortage of people with technical expertise to support a sale, so I would say sales skills, with an emphasis on the ability to show customers how their offering will deliver real business value.

What is the most important thing to learn about your industry?

It’s all about results.

To take part in Sales Life or to nominate a colleague or friend please email or call +44(0)1702 586742.