5 typical sales mistakes in internet agencies

Selling digital projects is not difficult, because the demand is enormous. But winning the right and really good projects is more of a challenge. I learn a lot from talking to industry colleagues and customers. I am also asked for advice on specific sales issues. So it’s time to cover a few non-exhaustive points.

(Reading time: 5 minutes)

Time management

Using your time efficiently in sales is one of the most important things of all. Even if there are few outstanding inquiries, this does not mean that you have time. Because an important inquiry can come in from one moment to the next and you may have to start preparatory work immediately. So don’t plan out weeks. You will only lose out and become frustrated.

But much more important than flexible planning and attitude is to invest your time where you have the greatest leverage. Time and again, I find that vast amounts of time are invested in vague requests.

So it is fundamentally important to know your customer in order to be successful in sales. Which people are involved in the selection process? Who can decide what? Who has which alliances within the company? What is the budget?

The best way to get this information is to ask the customer. It’s best to start with the budget question. At AOE, we don’t ask for a specific figure, but tell the customer that we start projects in a range XY and ask them whether this is compatible with their budget expectations.

You might think that this approach is snubbing customers. The opposite is the case. Customers with a smaller budget are grateful that they don’t have to “drag” a provider through the selection process only to find out at the end that it doesn’t fit financially. The others usually don’t really notice this question, as they are talking about the same thing.

This first selection question saves me an incredible amount of time, because I only deal with requests that have real potential. This selection is only the first of several.

Stick to the rules

Many tenders contain certain mostly ridiculous specifications. For example, an offer has to be submitted exactly in a predefined structure. Or some price XLS has to be filled in or a questionnaire on a secondary topic is also requested. Even if it is tedious and annoying, do it exactly as requested. Because you are sending a signal: I also take care of details and I respect my customer.

Please no 80 pages of offers

The days of Word documents as quotations are over. No matter how sophisticated and extensive your quotation (template) may be. Anything over 10 pages will not be read. I have long since switched to writing proposals only in PowerPoint. Some parts are described in great detail, others are rather superficial. Maximum number of pages for really large projects: 50 pages.

The trick is not to write proposals that are as comprehensive as possible, but ones that get to the heart of the problem and solution outline and are as short as possible. I have received a lot of positive feedback from clients that my proposals are not that big and for this reason they have been read by everyone involved.

Don’t think that this would save time in sales. Quite the opposite: creating really good, concise proposals is completely manual work and usually takes at least twice as long as a large one.

Presentation

Giving a good presentation is the be-all and end-all. A good presentation is not a show, not a slide orgy, but a lively discussion about the future product/project. Your task is to tell a story. The story is: How can my company help the client company to generate value? Avoid phrases and general statements. Make a difference by also telling what you are not so good at, where you need to be careful. Be as authentic as possible. Because if you don’t “get away” with it now, it will come back to bite you later on in the project and be expensive for everyone. Don’t make any false promises.

A good presentation has 3 main components: Show the customer,

1. that you have understood the problem
2. how and by when they can solve the problem
3. what the next concrete steps are and where he has to sign

You can also introduce the company, etc. However, this part is usually overestimated, as the customer has already dealt extensively with your company by the time you have made it to the presentation.

Business value is more convincing than technology

It is a fact that C-level and marketing people usually make the decisions in the evaluation of digital projects today. Small technical agencies, in particular, often make the mistake of getting far too involved in the technology and saying too little about the resulting business value in proposals and presentations. The result is that decision-makers perceive the offer as vague and unclear. Simply because they don’t understand it. So focus on the business value that your solution creates and excel at technical questions that automatically come up when there are “technical” people in the group.

Solution Selling

I have been pursuing a solution-selling approach for a long time. It’s not about “selling” something to the customer, but about finding out together whether a collaboration makes sense for both partners. I usually communicate this in the same way. As a result, you become a partner at eye level, a consultant, very early on.

And so, as a rule, nothing better can happen to me than when the competition sends their oldschool sales superstar into the race to entertain the customer with glossy brochures, endless follow-ups and revolver presentations. It’s not uncommon for the customer to greet me at the meeting with the appropriate words: “Thank you for coming, now I can finally talk about our project in a sensible way again”.