From a Customer perspective their is always a degree of risk with any purchase but it varies significantly. The Table below displays a Risk Matrix I developed to give some examples of Business risk. There are many others:
Low
Risk
|
High
Risk
|
Little Financial Commitment
|
Significant Financial Commitment
|
No additional Resources are required
|
Additional Resources are required
|
Little Change in Business Process
|
Significant Change in Business Process
|
Little visibility of change
|
Very visible change
|
Short implementation cycle
|
Long implementation cycle
|
Decision is not political
|
Decision is very political
|
People will not get fired
|
Career impacting decision
|
Just because a salesperson is successful at selling low-risk product does not mean they can be successful selling to customers who are buying a high-risk product.
I have noticed that
salespeople who sell a product with low-risk share different traits than those
who sell high-risk product. Spin Selling
by Neil Rackham, does a great job of explaining why this occurs.
Successful sales
people who sell low risk products and services are very transactional and exhibit
these characteristics:
1.
Always available
2.
High energy
3.
Very transaction oriented
4.
Has all the information in their head
5.
Is able to create a sense of urgency
6.
Able to quickly close business
As risk increases,
successful salespeople exhibit different characteristics and sometimes those
characteristics are just the opposite of salespeople who sell low-risk products
and services. Some of their characteristics include:
1.
Ask more questions to gain insight into the business
2.
Multiple meetings and follow-up to explore different
options
3.
Relationship-oriented verse transaction oriented.
4.
Manage and coordinate people and process
5.
Instill trust that they will get the job done
Spin Selling even suggests that salespeople who sell
higher-risk solutions will actually be less effective if it is perceived they
have some of the traits of a transactional salesperson. Mostly, don’t try and
close to quickly.
Typically,
salespeople who sell products and services with greater risks earn more;
however, transactional salespeople are needed within the organization to sell
transactional items. Inside salespeople come to mind. I think for organizations
to be successful, they need to align the proper resource to support customers.
