Excerpt from the top sales org in the world

This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading by the guy who defined how salesforce.com sells its product. They pretty much are THE sales organization on the planet. This is *real* sales fellas. None of that door-to-door bullshit, we're talking high-stakes enterprise accounts (Billion dollar +).... and yet.... it should sound eerily familiar to any POOAH worth his salt ; )

"The Layers of the Onion idea is all about how to lead a prospect through to becoming a customer. You have to realize that customers want to get to know you in small steps. And they want to feel like they are in control of that process. Think of them as a squirrel. Your job is to lay out tempting morsels one after the other to get them to take another step forward. You can also think of that as being like peeling  back the layers of an onion.The high level concept here is that people need to take multiple steps to get to know you.  Sales people need to relax, and stop trying to go for the close so fast. There is not enough patience in the world.  This is all about patience and baby steps.

The Internet has drastically shifted power from sellers to buyers...Instead of resisting this trend and staying attached to how potential customers used to, or “should” get to know your company, go with it and give the prospects the control over how they want to get to know you. Present them with a couple of logical next steps and let them decide how and when to move forward (of course, with some helpful reminders now and then if they’ve stalled). Setting up progressive layers of the onion is key to “receiving sales” or “pulling sales” (much easier than pushing sales). Let the prospects do the work for you!

Give up trying to control how long someone takes to move forward. You’ll have to accept that most prospects that initially sign up for a blog, trial or demo just won’t be ready to do anything. That’s ok – don’t try to force them. But consider if there’s another onion layer you can create to offer to make it easier for them to take another step. If you see prospects getting stuck somewhere in your “layers”, consider redesigning your next-step offers. What is the next “juicy morsel” they would want if you showed it to them, that would help them take another step forward? What new layers, content or products can you create that are compelling and relevant to who the prospect is and where they are in their evaluation & buying cycle?

Let go of trying to control prospects, and trust that if it’s a good mutual fit, and you keep nurturing them and your “layers” are relevant & useful, they will become a customer someday!"