RECAP: 2019 FOX Wealth Advisor Forum

Team-based Selling: How to Win More Business by Selling Together Effectively

 

 

Presenter:
Michael Dalis, Author, Sell Like a Team, Managing Partner, DRIVE Sales Consulting, LLC

Session Description: 

Gone are the days of meeting a client for lunch, chatting about the firm’s offering, and closing the sale over dessert. Clients today look different from those of the past. They make networked purchasing decisions by committee, with diverse roles, interests, and backgrounds. With access to more information and a greater ability to share it, they demand value, access, and alignment from their counterparts. Sales is now a team sport, and to win you must build and manage selling squads that work in complete alignment – not just during client meetings, but before and after, as well. In this session, author Michael Dalis shared the process of creating and managing selling squads that execute and win in every sales meeting or pitch. He offered a guide to create and organize selling squads that not only win, but win more frequently. 

"Swing is that moment when the team are perfectly in sync."
- Michael Dalis
Key Takeaways: 
  • The seller-buyer interaction has changed. The seller now has broader client needs, revenue pressure, distributed resources and the buyer has new and more players, are networked, and facing margin pressure. 
  • Dalis proposed a five-stage “Build Process”: Create > Organize > Practice > Execute > Regroup – to approach team-based selling and achieve success. 
  • In the Create stage, determine who from your firm should attend the meeting. Understand how many, what role they will play and, most importantly, what they bring to the discussion. Consider: interpersonal skills, complementary skills, client-specific expertise, and collective intelligence.  
  • Research shows that the team with the most women had the highest collective intelligence. Consider who the client is and what the team needs to bring to the table to best meet that client’s needs. 
  • The team should Organize the discussion, planning the interaction and considering the performance goal, roles, potential challenges, and accountabilities of the team. Consider potential conflicts and how to manage those as well as developing a plan to gather feedback. 
  • The Practice phase is often overlooked by a selling team, but it is important to budget time to prepare as a team for a meeting. The team needs to put together a “game-day” plan, walk through who will cover which topics and consider having someone stand-in for the client during these practice sessions.  
  • “Swing”, a concept drawn from rowing, is what happens when a team is aligned, and able to Execute their plan for a client meeting, anticipating questions, seamlessly adjusting in the moment in response to client questions or needs.  
  • Finally, it is important to Regroup to debrief the meeting and share observations, address follow-up actions, professional accountabilities, and potential development opportunities to improve. 
  • To enable the “Build Process” pay attention to Communication, Coaching, and Compensation.
     

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