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Submitted by ebn305 on
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Mike and Mark,

With your background in sales, i'd love for you to give us some insight into selling to internal customers. I'm midway through my six weeks of jump starting those internal relationships and have been amazed at the responses, but I'm also struck by how unprepared I've been to sell new ideas when pressed.

Thanks so much for all your work. It's very very much appreciated.

cheers
Eric

HMac's picture

Eric -
[i][b]"What's in it for me?"[/b][/i]

That's as good an organizing principle for selling internally as it is for selling externally. That is:

"What's this idea going to help us accomplish? And how do you measure that it's doing what was intended?"

"How does this help me achieve my organizational goals?" (which means you'll have to know their goals, just like a salesperson has to know what a customer is trying to accomplish...)

"Does this make anything faster, less expensive; does it improve quality?"

And here's a favorite:

"How will this idea affect our customers?"

If you can come up with one or two concrete outcomes that can be measured - (e.g., improve customer satisfaction by reducing hold time on the phone, reduce customer disatisfaction by making returning goods easier), you have a HUGE advantage: because the business only exists for its customers.
-Hugh

tlhausmann's picture
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[quote="ebn305"]Mike and Mark,

With your background in sales, i'd love for you to give us some insight into selling to internal customers. [/quote]

A good resource to get started on persuasion, influence, and selling ideas is the podcast:

[url]http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/11/how-to-prewire-a-meeting/[/url]