How To Win New Business Without Sounding Salesy

Here sales improvement specialist Marcus Cauchi uncovers techniques that anyone selling their products and services can use to quickly bond and build rapport with prospects so that they are more open to a sales conversation.

•    Why prospects hate salespeople
•    Why being different works
•    How to differentiate your business through the way you sell

It’s Monday morning at Shiny Widget Co and the sales team are hitting the phones.

Salesman: “Hello Mr Jones we sell shiny widgets. We are in your area on Monday at 4pm and on Wed. When can I come in a show you what I’ve got? I‘m sure we can save you money or make your life easier.”

Bob Jones: “Erm, what’s this about?”

Salesman: “Let me tell you,”

15 minutes later yarn.

Bob Jones: “Can you send me something?”

Salesman: “Sure, our online brochure is on its way.”

Next day and the salesman is following up on what he thought were hot buying signals.

Dring dring.

Bob Jones’ voicemail: “This is Bob Jones’ voice mail, please leave me a message and I will get straight back to you.”

What it is really saying: “This is Bob Jones’ voice mail jail, please leave your message after the tone and I promise I won’t get back to you. Your PDF went straight into trash and if by accident I pick up the phone I promise to give you a stream of excuses and if I’m really weak, I’ll ask you to send it again.”

Who hasn’t had that special someone keep you from your busy day, waste your valuable time, read like a robot from their script and rush towards the close promising you savings or a happier, more efficient life?

So who wants to be one of them? The clown in a suit with the bone crusher handshake, wearing his comedy tie who thinks that by telling you all his reasons for you to buy from him that his unwelcome interruption will cut through the noise of your real life; the 139 decisions you’ve still got to make that morning, your child being bullied at school and you being behind on your numbers by 47% for the quarter.

If you want to sell more, stop selling. Salespeople suffer from a disease called PPS, Premature Presentation Syndrome, where they have to tell the prospect about themselves, their company, their solutions, differences, competitiveness, return on invest, etc. In 99% of cases they do this without ever having heard the prospect specifically ask them to do so.

You sell to go to the bank. To go to the bank you have to gather information not give it. The moment you give information you’ve wet your powder and the buyer no longer needs you. You become a tick in the box and they know just which shelf to get you off. An educated prospect is no prospect at all.  Let me repeat that because it’s important, an educated prospect is no prospect at all.

The moment you start discussing your features and benefits without having the context of the personal reasons they have explicited stated that are motivating them to buy what you have now, you run the risk of dragging them into a pricing conversation. If you are selling on price, you are taking orders.

A client of mine told me that their frustration with being sold to is that they feel like it is all about the seller. They are running their agenda only, which is to reach the close and to get them to buy something. The seller rattles through their questions like it’s a checklist and their answers don’t really matter because the seller is only looking for the answers that fits their script. So my client protects themselves by giving wishy washy answers, being non-committal and non-specific.

When my client buys they want to believe and feel that the seller has their agenda, their best interests and their welfare in mind. They want the seller to take them through a process that helps them to discover their reasons for buying, the causes of their problems and to feel that they are leading them through to the hope that their problems can be fixed.

For that certainty my client would be happy to pay a premium. For the elimination of doubt that this is the right decision; for the belief that the other person’s interests can only be served by serving their interests; for leadership and a safe pair of hands, they’ll pay a premium and if they are willing to pay a premium they will take you to the bank.

Whatever business you think you are in, first and foremost you are in the going to the bank business.

Happy Selling!

You Only Have to Be Brave 5 Seconds at a Time

Are You a Chicken Licken?
Do you remember Chicken Licken? “The is sky falling! The sky is falling!” I was reading my daughters the story of Chicken Licken last night and it struck me that this is reflects the mindset of more than 70% of the population. Those who are wage-slaves and filled with regrets are always afraid of the worst happening and they listen to others who are also paralysed by their fears.

My apologies in advance but I’m going to continue offending you! But you probably need this whack on the side of your head if you’re one of those people.

Fear of Failure is the Biggest Cause of Failure
If you’re one of those people who fears failure and as a result fails to take risks, chances are you have no assets (a mortgage is not an asset, it means you are working for the bank, paying out every month, therefore it is probably your largest liability) or you have a few investments that fall into the “Safe” bracket. You are stuck in the rat race. How does that make you feel?

“Remember the Alamo!”
The rich hate failure but grow stronger because of it. They don’t have to like it, but when they do fail, they’re inspired by it, they learn from it; they act. Texans have turned their greatest defeat, the Alamo, into a rallying cry. Texans may be brash, but they don’t hide their failures. When they fail, they fail BIG. And yet, that attitude has meant they win big too. Precisely because they take risks.

Be Brave 5-Seconds at a Time
Most of us are paralysed in the sales process by fear, of not being liked, of hearing a “no”, of the competition, of the buyer’s power over us.

What if you believed you are in sales to go to the bank, not to get your emotional needs met? What if you thought and acted as if you were financially independent and didn’t need the business? What if you actively sought the prospect telling you “no”? What if you never begged for an appointment? What if you never gave anything away without asking for something of equal or greater value back in return? What if you got IOUs for every concession you ever made with a prospect? What if you were willing to walk away from a piece of business or a prospect who was screwing you down to the table and not ensuring your commercial interests were satisfied too? What if you didn’t agree to a deal where you weren’t clear about every aspect? What if both sides were seen as equals – not one the buyer and the other the (subservient) supplier?

How would that make you feel? How would things be different?

How do you do this? Simply, be brave 5-seconds at a time.

What Does That Mean?
It means that you don’t have to be brave all the time. But at the important moments in the sale, plant your feet. Stand your ground. Be willing to say “no”. Be willing to hear “no”. Don’t start from the premise that “I’ve been working on this deal for so long I must get the order” or “They’re the customer, the customer is King”. Think more like Cromwell! Pick your fights.

High Stakes Game
Whether you like him or not, Cromwell changed the playing field for monarchs across Europe. He had everything to lose including his life. But you can be brave and draw on his example. The customer needs you, your services because if he even knew what his problem was, he’d already have fixed it. Take a leaf out of Cromwell’s book and recognise the “King” can only stay in power so long as he has his cronies and courtiers, his armies to support him. Once the will of the people left him, he was human like the rest of us.

A customer does not rule you by Divine Right. You are his equal and he needs you. If you withdraw from a tender or bid because it is bad business or the customer isn’t playing the game fairly, he has to go through the hassle of finding another provider in time to make the tender process meaningful. Withdraw your support and isn’t he a king without subjects?

But What About The Competition & Customer Choice?
Certainly, customers generally have choices. And certainly they have systems designed to protect their interests …. at the expense of your interests. It doesn’t mean you have to accept them a gospel. Did Moses come down from Mount Sinai with the 11th Commandment “Thou shalt be your customers’ whipping boy”? Did Confucious say “The Customer is always right and you should do exactly what he wants you to do”? Did Socrates say “Spill your beans, answer all your customer’s questions and accept a think it over as possible future business”? Hell’s teeth. NO!

You Gain More Credibility From The Questions You Ask Than The Information You Give
Uncover your prospect’s real pains and you have already separated yourself from the majority of your competition. Ask those questions that separate you from the pack, that make you stand apart from the rest of your rivals. Wouldn’t you agree, that you gain more credibility from the questions you ask than form the information you give?

I have never sold high-end leasing on major capital investments that depend on the value of money over a 5 year period for them to be profitable. Nor have I sold high end investments where you minimum entry requirement is that you can afford to lose £250,000 in one hit. Still less have I sold the fulfilment of women’s fantasies (anyone who knows me, knows this is an oxymoron where I’m concerned!). Yet, these are among my broad range of clients.

Pain
What do they have in common? Their pain is that they needed to sell more, they were being frustrated by problems with filling their pipeline, closing business or getting customers to buy more, more often at premium prices.

Was I afraid of failure? Was I afraid they’d say “no”? Well it was always a possibility, as was the chance they’d go to what was familiar, more mainstream. They could have gone to Huwthwaite International and studied SPIN (the best traditional selling system by far in my opinion) or Solution Selling, or a big name like Visual Arts (John Cleese’s renowned sales training company) or some other variant of the 4000+ sales training companies in my territory. But I was brave 5-seconds at a time.

“Let’s You and Him Fight”
I stood my ground. I even encourage them to speak to the competition….because I know the competition will take the bait; because I know the competition will prove my point; because I know the competition will do what I predict they will do. They will tell my prospects why they’re the best. They’ll tell my prospects what they should do. They’ll tell my prospects why they’re wrong to consider my services. And then they’ll have to defend and justify their position when my prospects give them objections and put them under pressure over money.

I equip my prospects with the questions that help my competition hand me the business on a plate. Because I’m brave 5-seconds at a time. I’m willing to take risks, I don’t “play it safe”. This is not a strategy for everyone; in fact you may hate it. But if you risk little, expect scant rewards.

Sandler Rules
• Never beg
• Never justify or defend
• Never close
• Never handle objections
• Always be negative
• Always go for the “No”

Didn’t I say you’d probably hate this article? What lesson do you take from Chicken Licken?

Chicken Licken’s Lesson
As Chicken-licken was going one day to the wood, whack! an acorn fell from a tree on to his head. “Gracious goodness me!” said Chicken-licken, “the sky must have fallen; I must go and tell the King.”
So Chicken-licken turned back, and met Hen-len. “Well, Hen-len, where are you going?” said he. “I’m going to the wood,” said she. “Oh, Hen-len, don’t go!” said he, “for as I was going the sky fell on to my head, and I’m going to tell the King.” So Hen-len turned back with Chicken-licken, and met Cock-lock. “I’m going to the wood,” said he. Then Hen-len said: “Oh, Cock-lock, don’t go, for I was going, and I met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood, and the sky had fallen on to his head, and we are going to tell the King.”

So Cock-lock turned back, and they met Duck-luck. “Well, Duck-luck, where are you going?”
And Duck-luck said: “I’m going to the wood.” Then Cock-lock said: “Oh! Duck-luck, don’t go, for I was going and I met Hen-len, and Hen-len met Chicken-liken, and Chicken-liken had been at the wood and the sky had fallen on his head, and we are going to tell the King.”
So Duck-luck turned back, and met Drake-lake.

“Well, Drake-lake, where are you going?” And Drake-lake said: “I’m going to the wood.”
Then Duck-luck said: “Oh! Drake-lake, don’t go, for I was going, and I met Cock-lock, and Cock-lock met Hen-len, and Hen-len met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood, and the sky had fallen on to his head, and we are going to tell the King.”
So Drake-lake turned back, and met Goose-loose.

“Well, Goose-loose, where are you going?” And Goose-loose said: “I’m going to the wood.”
Then Drake-lake said: “Oh, Goose-loose, don’t go, for I was going, and I met Duck-luck, and Duck-luck met Cock-lock, and Cock-lock met Hen-len, and Hen-len met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood, and the sky had fallen on to his head, and we are going to tell the King.” So Goose-loose turned back, and met Gander-lander.

“Well, Gander-lander, where are you going?” And Gander-lander said: “I’m going to the wood.” Then Goose-loose said: “Oh! Gander-lander, don’t go, for I was going, and I met Drake-lake, and Drake-lake met Duck-luck, and Duck-luck met Cock-lock and Cock-lock met Hen-len, and Hen-len met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood, and the sky had fallen on his head, and we are going to tell the King.” So Gander-lander turned back, and met Turkey-lurkey.

“Well, Turkey-lurkey, where are you going?” And Turkey-lurkey said: “I’m going to the wood.”
Then Gander-lander said: “Oh! Turkey-lurkey, don’t go, for I was going, and I met Goose-loose, and Goose-loose met Drake-lake, and Drake-lake met Duck-luck, and Duck-luck met Cock-lock, and Cock-lock met Hen-len, and Hen-len met Chicken-licken, and Chicken-licken had been at the wood and the sky had fallen on this head, and we are going to tell the King.”
So Turkey-lurkey turned back and walked with Gander-lander, Goose-loose, Drake-lake, Duck-luck, Cock-lock, Hen-len and Chicken-licken. And as they were going along, they met Fox-lox.

And Fox-lox said: “Where are you going?” And they said: “Chicken-licken went to the wood, and the sky fell on to his head, and we are going to tell the King.” And Fox-lox said: “Come along with me, and I will show you the way.” But Fox-lox took them into the fox’s hole and he and his young ones soon ate up poor Chicken-licken, Hen-len, Cock-lock, Duck-luck, Drake-lake, Goose-loose, Gander-lander, and Turkey-lurkey; and they never saw the King to tell him that the sky had fallen.

And realise that the rich get rich because they spot the opportunities others don’t. Be a fox not his dinner.

(c)Sandler Systems Inc. 2006

Happy selling!

W.A.I.T And See

I came across a very useful little acronym.

W.

A.

I.

T.

Why

Am

I

Talking

It works on 2 levels. Whether you’re infront of a prospect, a network contact or with family and friends, Stephen Covey’s 5th habit of highly effective people is “Seek first to understand then to be understood”. You’ve probably heard the cliche “You have 2 ears and one mouth, use them in that order”. Well if you ask yourself “why am I talking?”, you realise that either you may be talking drivvel or not listening to what your counterpart is actually saying. The other level it works on is that it helps you to find the time to actually consider what has been said by your prospect, and use that understanding to formulate your next question. It is a fatal flaw in many salespeople that they spend the time that should be listening, half listening and trying to work out what they’re going to ask or answer next. WAIT and you have time (at least 3-5 seconds) to demonstrate you’re taking in what was said by the other party and to formulate a better question. Does this make sense? Think about that for a moment. Playing the WAITing game also allows you to draw out so much more information from prospects by using listening noises, body language etc than you might otherwise gain. Remember …. YOUR JOB IN THE SALE IS TO GATHER INFORMATION NOT TO GIVE IT. Telling isn’t selling. So many of us in sales can’t wait to prove our worth, demonstrate our credibility by getting up and presenting. This is a big mistake and will cost you tens of thousands in personal income, year on year. And when you establish the cost in terms of lifetime customer value lost, modifying this one behaviour, the costs can run into the millions. What are you doing to make sure you or your people are WAITing for your prospects to tell you how to sell to them? How do you make sure you’re gathering the intelligence you need BEFORE you spill your candy and make your presentation. PRESENTING IS NOT SELLLING. Don’t you gain more credibility from the questions you ask NOT the information you give? (C) Marcus Cauchi & Sandler Systems Inc 2006

How to Eliminate Your Excuses For Failing in Sales

Thank you Mr Prospect for the thousands of times when I tried to cold call you and you carved out my liver for being too bland, too much like the competition, too weak and too stupid to recognise you were busy, you don’t care about my needs or my agenda, my company or my product, you taught me to understand you first, what matters to you, what keeps you up at night, what prevents you from getting the important things done that make a difference to you (apart from my calls of course). You taught me that I needed to break the pattern of the usual cold calls you receive, to get your permission to tell you what I do and to be mindful of how precious you feel your time is.

You taught me not to waste your time or mine if I couldn’t help you, but you also taught me to uncover the real reasons why you’ll buy from me without beating me to death on price. And thank you for the times you promised you’d be at the appointed place when we agreed to meet and you didn’t show up or you showed up without the necessary people so I had a wasted journey or wet my powder giving premature presentations to an incomplete decision making committee (probably after having worried about our meeting all weekend!!). You taught me to stand firm, plant my feet and not tolerate your unreasonable behaviour, to recognise rejection is a rejection of my offer and not me, and not to worry about things I can’t control.

Thank you Mr Prospect for all the times you messed me around and changed your mind, you taught me to take nothing for granted. Thank you Mr Prospect for every time you lied to me, misled me and deceived me though you always said it was salespeople who were untrustworthy, self-interested and deceitful, you taught me to qualify hard and recognise you aren’t the king, you’re my equal; nothing more, nothing less. Thank you Mr Prospect for every time you manipulated, bullied and pressured me into abdicating my rights and for teaching me only I could give away my self respect and dignity.

Thank you Mr Prospect for everytime you gave me false hope so that you could get me to give you free consulting and confidential procing so you could you use my skills, knowledge and expertise to get more from your other suppliers, shop my proposals around town or ddevelop a solution for yourself using all I’d told you as the foundation for that solution. that you for helping me to realise the syntax of qualify, present, close, follow up was wrong. Just because that’s the way you’ve taught other salespeople to behave doesn’t mean I have to do it that way. Moses didn’t come down and the lost 11th commandment was “thou shalt do proposals” nor is it “thou shalt sell the way everyone else has sold in your industry”. I’ve learned that if the competition is doing, I should probably find a different way to do things. I’ve also learned that wirting proposals unless I know I’m going to win them in 90%+ of instances is a hiding to nothing and will probably hurt my credibility and success in the sale later on, let alone leave myself vulnerable to yoru using objections against me.

Thank you Mr Prospect for every time you asked me the one question I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. You taught me to prepare better and practice more, but above all, you taught me not to hide my weaknesses or my fears, and to confront them early, even making myself vulnerable by disclosing them to you up front. You taught me how to build and maintain lasting trust by being direct and honest. And you taught me through your tough and unrelenting questions, objections and stalls that I wasn’t the one qualified to handle your objections, you are.

Thank you Mr Prospect for all the dragonesque gatekeepers you regularly put in my way to block me from speaking to you and other key decision makers in your oganisation , some were sweet, others were sour and a fair number were just as scared and frustrated as me. I learned how to use the psycholological blocks I created around cold calling and asking for referrals into a potent referral and new business habit.

Thank you Mr Prospect for pitting me against my competition in bid after bid, tender after tender, preferred supplier review after preferred supplier review. You taught me to value my time more highly, relish the time I spend with my family and never do anythign unless I know why I’m doing it. You also taught me to call you to account when I sense that something is wrong, your intentions behind certain behaviour is that of someone trying to gain the upper hand not your “equal partner”. Thank you.

Thank you Mr Prospect for the times when you promised me the order and then came back and tried to renegotiate on price, service, resources and timescales. Thank you for being hard-nosed, brutish, rude and abrasive, because you taught me who I am is not what I do and how to spearate the two. You also taught me to contract for every step of the sale and to give nothing away without getting something you valued giving, back in return. You taught me to question why you were asking me to do things instead of blindly syaing “yes” and if they didn’t work for me to say so. And above all else, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me the insight to realise I can say “no”, even after we’re doing business.Thank you for teaching me it’s OK to fire a bad customer (or refer them on to a competitor) or one we’ve outgrown.

Thanks also for teaching me the hard way that I can never lose what I never had; I’m sorry for blaming you for my inadequacies, my terrible selling skills, my awful qualification, my clumsy techniques that you’d seen and heard a thousand times before from other incompetent and needy salespeople. I apologise for the times I cursed you and all your kin, for the times I had wicked and malevalent thoughts about you, for the times I wanted to do you physical harm because I was too weak as a salesperson, too stupid as a human being and too desparate for your business for you to trust me. Lord above, if I were in your shoes, I’d have kicked me out sooner, not been nearly as polite or tolerant as you were.

Thank you making me stronger, more effective and the professional salesman I’ve become. Without your prevarication, inconstancy, selfishness and bullying I’d be as green as I was when I started selling over 20 years ago. Thank you for the personal and spiritual growth I’ve enjoyed (sometime kicking and screaming but enjoyed nonetheless) and thank you for helping me to understand people.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you want to accelerate your results in selling, I don’t suppose you’d write a letter to your prospects and identify the things they did to you that hurt you, the lessons they taught you and recognise that you have only yourself to blame for all your suffering and failure. I warn you, it will be a scary catharsis.

There’s no such thing as a bad prospect, only bad salespeople.

You have a chance to take control of your performance in the sale by recognising the problems and admitting them. Then you can do something about finding their causes and taking responsibility for fixing them. If you want to email me your thank you letter my email is ThankYouLetter@SALTeurope.com.

Marcus Cauchi
Sandler Sales Institute
London, UK

Top 5 Reasons Your Cold Calling Doesn’t Work & What To Do About It

Some people say cold calling is dead. I disagree. It can and should be part of many people’s mix of business development activity. And it is a skill that can be learned. I will agree however, that there is never a queue to cold call.

1. Lack of the Right Type of Preparation: Certainly you can prepare by researching your prospect, but do you prepare yourself mentally, physically, emotionally? Do you treat every call as if it’s your first? Do you stand up when you call? Do you recognise how your physiology, posture, breathing etc affect your call and how you sound? Do you prepare yourself and actively go for the “no”?

2. Sounding Like Every Other Person Selling Something: Are you just another salesperson on the phone? Do you sound like you’re selling something? Do you break the pattern so they can’t get you off the phone in the first 10 seconds by making them curious, by engaging them in your call?

3. Defending When Under Attack: When you’re under attack do you defend or fall back? Who handles their objections – you or the prospect?

4. Begging for a Meeting: Do you get invitied in or do you have to beg for a meeting? Do you use obvious deception and clumsy tactics? Do you qualify “easy” just to get in front of someone or do you qualify “hard” to make good use of your time in the field? Do you think “I’ve got a hot one” or do your alarm bells ring when you hear “Why don’t you come in and show me what you’ve got? We’re always interested in learning what’s new in our market.”

5. No Upfront Contract: What do you do in the first 30 seconds of a cold call by phone to get your prospect to commit to give you a decision at the end of your call? Do you steal your prospects time or do you tell them why you’re calling, how long the call will take, give them the power to say “no” and agree that if there is a fit you will either talk further or agree some next steps to advance your dialogue? Do you agree what your role will be and what their role will be?

There are hundreds more mistakes. You may even have thoughts on these you want to share. Now, post your thoughts. I’d welcome your comments and personal experience.

A blatant sales pitch

When is a sales pitch not a sales pitch?

When it’s an interview.

Experience in sales has taught me that you’re infront of a prospect to gather information not to give it. How can you possibly prescribe before you’ve taken the time to diagnose?

How often have you seen a sales presentation that begins with the salesperson whipping out his laptop, powering up the machine and rattling off all the features and benefits of their product and service. The prospect sits there patiently, asks questions, shows interest, parhaps throws out the odd objection and calmly asks for a proposal – all good old fashioned buying signals. You leave after an hour or so satisfied you’ve done a good job. Then you never hear from them again or when you try to call them they’re in hiding and you’re in voicemail jail.

I’ve written many times before on the importance of a strong upfront commitment, and of closing at the beginning, and of passing objections back to the prospect but as I train more and more people I discover just how ingrained the culture of telling not selling is.

Selling has been defined as matching their needs with the benefits you can offer. Why do you think this definition may be deficient? Why do you think that type of belief is potentially lethal in the sale?

How can you better sell under the radar? How can your selling prevent the buyer from building up defence walls?

What behaviours you exhibit and beliefs that you hold today sabotage your success and hurt your earnings?

W.A.I.T. and See

I came across a very useful little acronym.

W.
A.
I.
T.

Why
Am
I
Talking

It works on 2 levels. Whether you’re infront of a prospect, a network contact or with family and friends, Stephen Covey’s 5th habit of highly effective people is “Seek first to understand then to be understood”. You’ve probably heard the cliche “You have 2 ears and one mouth, use them in that order”. Well if you ask yourself “why am I talking?”, you realise that either you may be talking drivvel or not listening to what your counterpart is actually saying.

The other level it works on is that it helps you to find the time to actually consider what has been said by your prospect, and use that understanding to formulate your next question.

It is a fatal flaw in many salespeople that they spend the time that should be listening, half listening and trying to work out what they’re going to ask or answer next.

WAIT and you have time (at least 3-5 seconds) to demonstrate you’re taking in what was said by the other party and to formulate a better question.

Does this make sense? Think about that for a moment.

Playing the WAITing game also allows you to draw out so much more information from prospects by using listening noises, body language etc than you might otherwise gain.

Remember …. YOUR JOB IN THE SALE IS TO GATHER INFORMATION NOT TO GIVE IT. Telling isn’t selling.

So many of us in sales can’t wait to prove our worth, demonstrate our credibility by getting up and presenting. This is a big mistake and will cost you tens of thousands in personal income, year on year. And when you establish the cost in terms of lifetime customer value lost, modifying this one behaviour, the costs can run into the millions. What are you doing to make sure you or your people are WAITing for your prospects to tell you how to sell to them? How do you make sure you’re gathering the intelligence you need BEFORE you spill your candy and make your presentation.

PRESENTING IS NOT SELLLING. Don’t you gain more credibility from the questions you ask NOT the information you give?

Funding bliss, how to get past the heavy petting and find good investment bedfellows

Here we go again. Another bubble bursts and billions in investment goes down the Suwannee. Don’t be fooled by what you read, we’re in this one for the long haul.

It is inevitable that getting investment in the next 5 years is going to be tough. Banks aren’t lending. Governments have to cut spending but are printing money fuelling the risk of inflation. Investors are cautious and withholding. Building a better mousetrap isn’t going to be enough. Unless you are meeting your commercial targets and giving your investors a ‘Ready Brek Glow’ that they will exit, you probably won’t get funding. You are more likely to get a date with Cheryl Cole. If you are an entrepreneur looking for investment, you better know how to get out into the market, sell and bring home the bacon.

Experience tells me inventors and innovators simply don’t see themselves as salespeople; they’re technical experts, engineers, technologists and professionals. The problem with these entrepreneurs, as VC and storyteller, Dr Gerry Lemberg once said, “They create elegant solutions for problems that don’t exist”. Herein lies the cause of the problems. Their goal is to produce a ground-breaking product or high quality service, not to be commercially strong. Many would prefer to be thought of as an expert than go to the bank.

Then, like any victim, they blame investors for asking for too much, lacking in imagination and muscling in on their masterpiece. Now of course they’re right. But most entrepreneurs are in a distress-purchase situation and they are showing they’re afraid. How? They offer too little for too much, for the wrong reasons because the numbers are based on guess work, not systematic research and testing. When you sup with the devil make sure you eat with a long spoon and know your numbers.

History is littered with the corpses of companies slow tortured to death by technical experts and amateur business people. Embittered investors view inventors as machines that turn cash into toilet paper. The market is littered with their great ideas that never took off; Dasani (Coca Cola’s water), Sony mini discs and the Sinclair C5 amongst the more famous. This is why entrepreneurs seeking funding almost without exception look unattractive to investors. It should come as no surprise then that only 0.2% of applications achieves funding.

No clearly defined target market, many entrepreneurs produce a product and then try and find a customer. They have never asked anyone to put their hand in their pocket to pay for it, to see if it is economically viable. They research, they develop, they brainstorm, they educate and burn through money as if it is someone else’s…oh wait a minute, it is.

Don’t think that investors are without blame. There are not. According to the Chairman of the BVCA average annual return pre-crash was a very disappointing 8%. Many are the architects of their own losses. They compensate entrepreneurs for making bad decisions with their money. They incentivise the wrong behaviour. They get emotionally involved in the progress being made on the technology and R&D. They parachute in talent that failed in the last 3, 4, 5 ventures and the team that failed along with them. Then they fire the CEO for failing after having fired the sales director and the salespeople, the commercial and marketing people. Investors beware, in all your dissatisfying investments the one constant is you.

Investors fail to invest. They throw money at ideas claiming it’s about management management management, then behave like its like exit exit exit. They don’t set the business up to be successful. They are focused on the wrong end of the problem. They chase revenues rather than putting in the systems for sustainable behaviours for success. Then they focus on the numbers rather than building a business that has a purpose, empowers its people and sells. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Daily investors hear the cries of biz owners and executives complaining abut their cash flow problem. They haven’t got a cash flow problem. They have got a not selling enough problem. I challenge investors to look at their portfolios. How many times have they made an investment in a company that has hit its Rand D and marketing targets but has failed to hit their commercial targets?

Why is this? History tells me the reasons are nearly always the same. Their emotions got the better of them because they didn’t want to lose what they had already sunk. They went to the counting house when they should have gone to the abattoir. They gave second round funding when they should have had mercy on the poor dead beast and pulled the trigger themselves. But why did the horse go lame in the first place?

Some entrepreneurs don’t have systems for anything other than for what they are good at. They can put clinical pathways in place. They can put manufacturing process together. But they don’t have processes that tell them why they are doing what they are doing; the ‘Reality Check’.

They don’t have a selling system or a marketing system. They don’t have a recruiting system or a system that identifies whether their behaviour and that of their staff is helping or hurting their business. In short, they are not commercially strong. Entrepreneurs need to build a business as if they mean to sell it from day one. That means that they have to have the right systems, strategy, structure and skills.

If you don’t already know who is going to buy your product or service, go and ask the people you think might. If you can’t get enough people interested, stop. The product or service needs to be something that people want to buy. In my experience, unless what you have can take away the pain of an identified group of customers, the likelihood is that it won’t make much money or survive for long. Do not seek gratuitous advice from people who are not in your target market; your professional network, your friends, etc. This is another common mistake. The only people whose advice matters are those that will pay you.

Recruitment systems need to predict whether a new hire will work out before they come on your payroll. The average cost of a bad hire in sales is at least £300,000 and that’s before you take into account the relationships that they may have butchered over the next 1, 3, 5 or 10 years.

The forecasting system must be accurate and tell you when the good times are going to roll and also, months ahead, when the train wreck is going to hit. It doesn’t just show the red light after the event. You need a marketing system that attracts genuine prospects and disqualifies tyre kickers, time bandits and time wasters.

You need selling and management systems that hold the top team and staff accountable for delivering the behaviours that lead to the commercial results. You need to track and measure where you are in the plan you should have written and the behaviours you should be encouraging. Not ride bareback on wild spreadsheets and flatulent financial forecasts. Planning should translate into day-to-day activities that generate profit. Having a product that people will buy is one thing, but it is more important to have a system and to do it well.

The benefits of having these systems when it comes to negotiating with investors are worth it. If you know the size of your target market; not in terms of those that might buy, but in terms of those that will, think of the conviction that you will communicate to investors. Investors respect people with conviction. If you don’t have confidence in the future success of your business, nobody else will. You will also be able to ask for all of the money you need, having to only negotiate on equity once, rather than having to repeatedly go cap in hand to investors to ask for more.

Attracting investors is about projecting your conviction that you can make your interests deliver the investors interests. That requires building your business on strong commercial foundations. Attracting the right talent who attract the right customers and behaving like you intend to build a business not a practice to fund a lifestyle. No investor wants to pay your salary. No investor wants to buy your risk. Make your prospectus speak to the investors interests not about paying your mortgage.

Yes this is the boring bit of business. It is the sickening detail that many entrepreneurs being big picture idealists do not want to get bogged down in. But as always, the devil is in the detail. With detail comes confidence and with confidence the power to deal with investors on your terms and at your price.

10 strangely simple solutions to funding bliss: How to get past the heavy petting and find good investment bedfellows:

1.Good management team
2.Good existing systems
3.Commercial focus
4.Measuring and tracking what matters
5.Take advice and direction
6.Get commitment to a common purpose
7.Honest communication
8.Ability to learn from failure
9.Knowing when to let go
10.Recognising you may be the problem