Come see how the world of sales is changing in the oil and gas industry.
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Hey, folks. Let’s learn something new about the oil and gas industry.
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All right. Today, we’re going to talk about the evolution of sales in oil and gas. Now, a lot of people have no problem understanding that marketing has changed, right? We have old traditional marketing, now, we have digital and social marketing, but what people don’t realize is sales has changed too for the same reasons. We’ve had advances in technologies, we’ve had advances in the business culture, so we’re going to talk about a couple of things that have changed from a sales point of view in oil and gas.
Number one, you used to hear this a lot, pain points. What are your clients’ pain points? Pain points are — is a philosophy of trying to get the reason that clients buy in down to three or four words, you know, like they need better operational efficiency or they can’t hire enough people or, you know, they’re trying to penetrate new market. That – that way of thinking about doesn’t apply in today’s world, it is no longer pain points, it would be more like a buying movie. And so, instead of three or four words you’re looking at books worth of information that a sales person needs to understand, understand why the client is looking for a solution to a problem they have.
Next one, ABC Always Be Closing. Alec Baldwin made that really famous and if you’re not a person that’s always trying to close, stop it, you’re aggravating. That doesn’t work in oil and gas anymore. You should not always be trying to have your clients buy something that you sell, right? What you need to be doing is helping your clients understand how you could help them address a problem that they’re struggling with. So, no more ABC stuff.
The next one, cold calling. So, do you answer the telephone when you see a number that you don’t recognize? Of course, you don’t. Cold calling as a method of engaging with new prospects still works and it works very well when it’s done right, but it’s no longer picking up the phone and calling the people you don’t know. It’s a mixed of e-mails, social, and then in-person type of interactions. So the concept still works, but quit calling people on telephone you don’t know, that’s a waste of time.
The next one, decision makers. In oil and gas, most of the time there’s not a single decision maker, it’s a whole buying team with some people having more authority than others, right? And so, you need to understand that client’s entire buy in process, quit trying to find the decision maker and to help your clients solve problems that they solve. And then of course, when you talk of decision makers, you talk of gatekeepers. In the old days that was usually the secretary, the person that answered the vice president’s telephone and decided whether should it be passed the call on through now. Well, because the social media, you can reach out and engage with anybody, it’s not going to a secretary anymore, so quit worrying about gatekeepers.
And then next, sales methodology. Now, I love this, this is a bunch of ones out there, I’ve learned several myself, there’s Challenger Sale, there’s Selling to VITO, there’s [Burden]. But if you think about it, once you write a book or a class and you have a sales methodology, that information is now static which means instantly in the sales world, it is now parts of that out of date. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still think every good salesperson in oil and gas should have a sales methodology, but trying to find the one just doesn’t work in today’s world anymore.
And then, value proposition. I hate that value proposition. A value proposition in the old days was the – something that you learn, it was what you told your customer why they should buy from you. Now, think about that, that’s you telling the client why they should buy from you, that isn’t working in today’s world anymore, right? You need to understand what the client is struggling with, don’t tell him why he should buy, you see if you can help him solve a problem. So, get rid of the whole value prop thing and understand your customer’s business.
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So, folks I hope this helped. We will see you next time.
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