THE KASH Approach IN Selling PDF

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Notes on selling for Professor Fabrize...

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THE KASH APPROACH IN SELLING Selling, like any other job, needs to be approached systematically and the best approach I have found for improving ability is the KASH approach. It is a means of taking any new ideas and turning them into practical skills. It is a way of identifying causes for poor performance and correcting them. It is an almost magic formula for achieving success that is particularly applicable to selling. Quite simply KASH stands for Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits - the four essential ingredients in doing any job effectively. Learn the right KNOWLEDGE, build the proper ATTITUDE, develop the correct SKILLS and ensure that those skills are applied over and over until they become HABITS. Those are the four steps that ensure success at anything you do. Let's look at each element of the formula in a little more detail. Knowledge To be successful in selling you need to learn about every aspect of the job. This includes knowledge of the market, your company. your products and your prospects. Most important is knowledge of how your products help your prospects. You also need to acquire knowledge of each particular sales skill, each marketing technique and the psychology of buying and selling. There is a basic knowledge essential for you to do the job effectively, and in many industries today this is determined by regulations as a statutory requirement. Fear of not knowing enough is probably one of the greatest stumbling blocks to salespeople's confidence in their ability to sell. The key to confidence is in acquiring the right knowledge. This means understanding the market, the products and their applications rather than becoming a technical wizard. Attitude Henry Ford once said, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right". If you think that making appointments on the telephone will be difficult then it will be. It is essential that you 1

build the right attitude in everything you do. You need a positive approach to problems, a friendly approach to your customers and an ethical approach to business. To be successful today you need to be positive and enthusiastic even when the rest of the world thinks gloom and doom. The quickest way to fail at selling is to believe that no one will buy from you. There are any number of reasons to confirm such a negative belief. Its the recession, its the boom, its summer, its winter, its Christmas, its not Christmas. You will fail if your attitude is negative or unenthusiastic. Skills Successful selling results from the application of a number of skills in sequence. As you will see shortly, I have split the sales process into five separate steps, each with clearly defined skills needed to be successful. Far too many salespeople think that all there is to selling is to go in and tell the prospect about the product. This approach results in pushy telephone techniques and high pressure selling . For each step we need to identify the particular skills needed to achieve the objective. Then we must develop the skills to a professional standard. But understanding selling is not enough. We also need to understand buying. By understanding the buying process, we are able to apply our skills more effectively. The study of human psychology is probably one of the most important developments to impact the sales professional in the past decade. We need to learn the skills of dealing with people more than any other skills. Habits An RAF fighter pilot trainer brought home to me the importance of good habits, when he pointed out, "When you are traveling one mile every five seconds and you make a mistake, you don't often get a second chance". In selling, all that happens if you get it wrong is that you lose the sale. However, if you lose the sale enough times. you will probably lose the job or you will leave the company. Selling is about numbers. If you do the right things enough times, you will be successful. Most salespeople fail because they do not make a habit of doing the right things enough times. . 2

If you have ever taken a young child for a walk you will know just how much training it needs just to learn how to cross the road safely. Over and over again we repeat the same drill. We instil fear into the child if they breach the rules with a sharp warning. This is one lesson that cannot really be learnt the hard way. It is really no different in selling, or in any other job, for that matter. Success in selling requires that the skills are practised, drilled and rehearsed, until they become an automatic process in our daily routine. Multiplying success The most important principle in of the KASH formula is that each of the four ingredients must exist for success to be achieved. Furthermore, the extent of success is arrived at by multiplying together the effectiveness of each ingredient. For example: assume for a moment that ability in each element in the KASH formula can be measured on a scale of 0 to 10 and that a salesperson has a rating of 1 for each element.

Applying the formula K x A x S x H = Success 1x1x1x1=1 This is clearly not going to be enough of a success factor for a long term career. Now suppose another salesperson decides that the key to success is knowledge, and therefore focuses all efforts on improving knowledge until it is increased by four units to a rating of 5. Applying the formula: K x A x S x H = Success 5x1x1x1=5 A five fold increase in success Another salesperson decides apply the same amount of effort, four units, but by spreading it evenly across each of the four areas i.e. an increase of 1 to 2. Applying the formula again: 3

K x A x S x H = Success 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 A sixteen fold increase in success, three times higher than the previous salesperson but for the same overall effort. Now let us see the effect of the formula on a salesperson who works hard at three of the elements in the formula, but does nothing about developing the right habits; K x A x S x H = Success 3x3x3x0=0 Total failure is the inevitable result of disregarding any one of the elements in the formula. The most effective way of achieving success is to consistently develop Knowledge, Attitude, Skills and Habits in every area of your business. Applying KASH Try to use this approach in all of your sales work. If as a result of reading this document you decide to improve one or more of your sales skills, look at the KASH balance. A little of each element has a much greater impact than a lot of effort in any single element. If you find that sales are not happening, it is a sure bet that one of the elements in the formula is at or near zero. Identifying which element it is and correcting it, will be much more effective than trying to build up any of the other three. As you can see, it is a very simple formula. But don't let that fool you into thinking that it is just playing with numbers. I have used numbers to illustrate the principle. But the principle works all of the time. The interacting elements of KASH do have a multiple effect. In the remainder of this part of the document I will look at the basic Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills and Habits needed to Sell Your Way To Success, whatever the economic climate. KASH should be used for each step in the sales process. In fact use it for every technique of selling. For example - if you want to improve your success in making cold telephone, calls follow the formula: 4

1. Knowledge Study the subject first; understand your the market, how to use phone for prospecting, how to develop a script and handle objections, define your targets and objectives. Acquire the basic knowledge about prospecting on the telephone. 2. Attitude Look at your attitude to cold calling and your fears. Turn your fear of rejection around and develop a positive fun attitude towards the task. 3 Skills Produce and learn your 'script' ,compile your telephone lists, prepare your appointment planner etc. Then practice, drill and rehearse the basics until you have mastered the skill, 4 Habits Now set out a plan of regular activity and make sure that for at least thirty days, you stick to the plan. Get into the habit of telephoning until the skills starts to become second nature; until, like crossing the road, they have become instinctive. KNOWLEDGE

When I buy any new computer software or hardware, I buy from companies who are able to provide me with sound advice about computers. But I also want to deal with a salesperson who understands my business, and can show me how the products I am interested in will solve my business problems. If I find myself dealing with salespeople who are bluffing, or trying to avoid answering my questions, or who don't even seem to know about their own company's' products, I don't feel they have sufficient knowledge to provide me with long term support. Therefore I will probably not buy from them.

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Now I doubt that my attitude is much different from yours. I am sure that you have walked out of shops because the salesperson was unable to answer what you felt were reasonable questions. Of course, if you and I feel this way, the chances are that most of our prospects have similar attitudes and beliefs. Knowledge is important and needs to be acquired on an ongoing basis. No matter how long your company has been in business, your markets, products and services will be constantly changing, as will the needs of your customers. You too, must adapt to change. Today you need up to the minute knowledge about your products, your company, your marketplace, your industry as well as the psychology of buying. Without any of these, you will find achieving success a very hard struggle? Product knowledge When you visit a prospect or customer you're expected to have complete knowledge of both your products and their applications. You need to be able to demonstrate how the customer can benefit from using your product. Let me repeat my warning about product knowledge. To most people who are new to selling or are introducing a new product, the greatest fear is looking foolish in front of a prospect through lack of knowledge. As a result they devote too much time to acquiring knowledge and too little time to the other important elements of successful selling. Except in very specialist markets, most prospects you meet will have very little knowledge about your product. They like you and I will have in their homes various items like washing machines, video recorders, hi-fi systems and probably a computer. How many of us understand the technical specifications of these standard household items? How many of us even want or need to understand them? Most of us are more interested in how they look and whether they will do the job. "Does the product fit our needs?" A week's intensive training in any one of those products would make us experts in the most people's eyes. But even if you have in-depth product knowledge, your prospects don't want to know how much you know about the product. They want you to provide them with enough 6

relevant information to enable them to make a sound buying decision. The knowledge that is required is at a practical, rather than technical level Admittedly, there will be prospects who not only understand your products and your business, but their knowledge will far exceed yours It may be that you sell a very technical product or service into a very specialist market, or that you have to deal with technically qualified buyers or evaluation teams. The more specialised your market is, the more likely you will be dealing with this kind of buyer. If you find you are selling to prospects who know more about the subject than yourself, it is even more essential that you do not try to bluff. You will have technical specialists whom you can call in when needed, to handle the technical questions that you cannot answer. What you must do is acquire enough knowledge to be able to communicate with your prospects and customers. Remember, they will expect you to have a good knowledge of the application of your products and services in practice. You need to study the market and know your strengths and weaknesses against your leading competitors. Most importantly you need to be able to demonstrate that you can provide answers, and that you can respond quickly. The role of the salesperson in technical sales often becomes one of 'project manager and coordinator. At the end of the process, you are the one who knows how to complete all the formalities and organize delivery of the product. In other words, someone has to close the sale. Market Knowledge I am sure you believe your products and services are the best on the market. You may believe that your approach is the best and that your competition don't have it right in one or two important areas. It is these areas in which you excel! If you do not believe this your chances of success are pretty low. We have to believe that we are the best. Otherwise, morally, we should be recommending the competition. If we think, even subconsciously, that the competition is better, we will communicate that belief to the prospect non-verbally. 7

Your prospects are the same. They see things only through their own biased 'rose colored glasses'. This means that sometimes they do not see weaknesses in their own business. But you will, because you see their market objectively. If you are trading with two of three companies who are competitors, will you see one as the best, or will you simply see them as different? If you deal with a number of companies who compete with each other, you are able to see things as a consultant and this provides you with an important level of market knowledge of which your customers will be more than happy to avail themselves. I used to sell large mainframe computer software packages to insurance companies. I did not have any real technical knowledge of the system. I am not a programmer, a systems designer, or a consultant, yet most of the buyers were. We did however have plenty of specialists in the company whom I could consult when I needed expertise. I understood the business applications of the system and could speak and write with authority on these subjects within a few months of joining the company. I brought to the job some knowledge that was far more important than technical knowledge. With many years of sales and marketing experience in financial service, I understood the marketplace extremely well. I was known and respected in the market and understand the problems facing prospects in their attempts to become more successful. By adding to my understanding of the market, a little knowledge of computing, I became an expert. If I needed technical backup, I called in a technical expert to help. In fact, most of the time, I let our experts talk computer technology to their experts, while I continued to talk business issues to their managers and decision makers. Of course, you may be just another supplier to your prospects, so you need to be aware of your weaknesses in their eyes, and be able to turn those weaknesses around. To do this, you must either emphasize your strengths or eliminate your weaknesses by making them appear unimportant. While you can provide your prospects with valuable comment on the marketplace in which they compete, they can provide you with equally valuable information about your position in your market and 8

enable you to enhance your knowledge. Most importantly, by increasing your knowledge of the marketplace you become more aware of sales opportunities as they arise. Only by being actively involved in the market and studying it in depth can you appreciate the full impact upon it of technological, political and regulatory changes. Probably, one of the greatest skills you can develop is the ability to foresee the likely impact of changes on your market and adapt your selling skills to respond, in advance. Company knowledge One of the worst sins salespeople can commit is to demonstrate that they do not know what is going on within their own company. If the company does not communicate internally, then what hope do we have, as customers, of trying to get help and information. If salespeople do not know what is happening inside of their own companies, how can we trust them to help make ours more efficient? You must make sure that you are right up to date with everything that is happening in your company. Get yourself on the circulation list for press cuttings about your company. Make sure that you attend all the staff review meetings. If you read or hear about something your company is doing for other customers, make sure you get all the details. News and press coverage about your company is always helpful as a sales support aid and can help to open up opportunities. I have also always made a point of creating good communication lines with other staff in the production and support departments, or in fact with anyone who may be able to assist me in securing sales and better customer relationships. It is an important internal public relations task for any salesperson. You need to know if there are delivery problems, or other difficulties that might put sales and customer relationships at risk. You need to know about sales to high profile customers which could influence other prospects to buy from you. You also need to have good contacts inside your company to help get the odd favor done to either impress a customer or even save a customer. Being able to occasionally demonstrate that I could make things happen and pull a few strings has helped me secure 9

substantial long term deals in the past. Often it was simply that I knew the right person to talk to, and that can often be a junior member of staff. Treat junior staff as important people and they will respond because most people tend to ignore them. Industry Knowledge The first question you need to ask yourself before looking at the industry knowledge you need to acquire is "Which industry?" The industry you are selling into or the one you work in? When I first started selling computers I was not working in the computer industry, I was working in the financial services industry because they were my customers. I needed to be much more aware of the needs, problems and opportunities facing insurance companies in their marketplace than the needs of my competitors and other companies in the computer industry. I did need to keep abreast of what was happening generally within the computer industry so that I could demonstrate to my prospects that I was up to date with the latest developments. However, they were much more concerned with the day to day problems facing the financial services industry; and my ability to discuss how technology could help them cope with the latest set of regulatory changes in their industry was of much more interest than the latest computer hardware developments. It is, of course, also essential that you are aware of what your competitors and the suppliers of alternative solutions are doing. Focusing only on your products and services and not being aware of the latest developments from the competition, puts you at a serious disadvantage. I have often found that when prospects mention competitors' products it is because they have been impressed by some aspect of the products and feel this to be an important ingredient in any potential solution to their problems. The more you become aware of what is happening in the industry, the better prepared you are to respond to changes. You demonstrate that you are a professional, you can be relied upon for comment and information. Through your knowledge you demonstrate that you care,

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and that you are committed to the industry and to supporting your customers. Not just now but also in the future.

Knowledge of the psychology of buying The next part of this document is devoted to the study of buyer behavior, the psychology of how and why we make buying decisions. By understanding buyer behavior we can modify the sales process to be more effective in selling. There has been a great deal of study conducted over the past 20 years on the subject. Many books have been written devoted entirely to buyer behavior, mostly from a pure marketing outlook. Little seems to have been written about buyer behavior from the perspective ...