A large percentage of your success selling additive manufacturing equipment will directly result from how well you collaborate with your technical resources.

When you are in the Connection Phase, your role is to fully engage in prospecting activities—relentlessly hunting for new leads. Once you uncover a prospect's timeline, budget, and needs, you have successfully connected with this prospect, and the opportunity advances to 25% in the CRM.

Once you enter the Consulting Phase, a significant amount of the heavy lifting will rest upon your AE's skills and expertise. However, it is still the sales professional's responsibility to manage and lead this process. Here are some essential guidelines you should adhere to during this critical step of the Phase Selling for Additive Manufacturing methodology:

1) Avoid utilizing your AEs to help determine a customer's timeline and budget. However, they can have a significantl impact when uncovering needs and applications that can improve a business case or ROI, so leverage them wisely!

2) Never ask an AE to engage in a verbal (or email) conversation with a prospect without your direct participation. Also, conduct a pre-sales checklist meeting with your AEs, bringing them up to speed on the particulars of the account before they engage with the potential buyer.

Note: Bringing a member of your sales support team into a conversation "blind" is inconsiderate of everyone's time, looks unprofessional to the client, and may jeopardize a deal. Remember, preparation produces purchase orders!

3) Invite AEs to participate in the discovery call. This takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete and is a requirement before moving to the validation process. Obtaining answers to these questions will strengthen your team's understanding of the customer's overall objectives and your win ratio.

4) The sales professional should always schedule and manage each meeting. This holds true even if you are expecting the meeting to be purely technical in content. I always ask my AEs to refrain from answering a question unless it is specifically directed toward them or unless I ask them to answer it. This prevents confusion while reconfirming to the customer that I am leading the sales process.

Guidelines: For sales-related questions, I answer. For technical-related questions, I ask my AE to reply. For hybrids, we answer it in two parts (sales and technical).

5) Lastly, there will be times when prospects will request that your team produce parts that are inappropriate for the opportunity provided. I cannot overemphasize the importance of protecting your AEs from customers expecting "multiple" printed samples for a "single-system" opportunity or an "insanity part" to test the boundaries of the technology. These requests can create costly bottlenecks that impact the entire sales ecosystem and must be avoided unless a solid justification accompanies them.

As the sales process leader, assume the " gatekeeper " role for your invaluable AEs—guarding them against unrealistic and low-value requests. As a result, the entire sales process, your quota attainment, and your team cohesion will benefit!

Written by Chris Harris

To succeed in selling additive manufacturing equipment, you must continually grow and mature your sales pipeline. This is accomplished by consistently feeding it high-quality opportunities and advancing them through the profitable end of the funnel. This is one of the most critical aspects of your job as a sales professional and must be given significant effort. There are no substitutions for having a healthy pipeline, and there are no shortcuts to building one. When something exits your funnel, closed/won or closed/lost, get into the habit of replacing it with two additional opportunities. Discipling yourself to do this will prove challenging but will pay high dividends if you adopt it as a best practice.

Don’t be a sales spider who patiently waits by their web, hoping for a prospect to make the first contact. If you want to join the ranks of the sales elite, you must transcend your need for inbound leads or random calls and emails. Don’t get me wrong, leads are important and should be appreciated, but you should never become dependent on them. Your success depends on your “work” ethic, not your “wait” ethic. Top performers assume full responsibility for generating their own leads and never blame marketing for a poor sales quarter. To achieve long-lasting success, you must treat your territory as if it were your own business—adopting a mindset of complete ownership. Up or down, thin or flush; your success is up to you! Here are ten activities for building a healthy pipeline:

1) Time Block for weekly prospecting 2) Track your prospecting results 3) Leverage your social network 4) Attend live & virtual industry events 5) Revisit stalled & lost opportunities 6) Ask satisfied customers for referrals 7) Improve your telephone skills 8) Replace lost opps with new ones 9) Prospect like a business owner 10) Transcend your need for leads

Equally as important as growing your pipeline is maturing the opportunities it contains. Consistently feeding your sales funnel is crucial to your success, but it’s not enough. Deals must continually advance through the sales process toward the finish line for quotas to be achieved. Phase Selling for Additive Manufacturing is not just a sales methodology; it is also a sales process. This means there are established rules for opportunity advancement, removing all guesswork and providing clearly defined targets for scoring them as they progress. Find the right balance of growing and maturing your sales pipeline simultaneously, and your sales career will soar!

Written by Chris Harris

My quota seemed grossly unrealistic when I began my 3D printer sales career. At first, I was convinced it was an unattainable target for a rookie like myself. As a result, I allowed negative thoughts to live rent-free in my mind, which produced a self-defeating attitude. This mindset only worsened when I faced rejection from prospects.

It didn’t take me long to learn that to conquer my quota, I had first to decide that it was an achievable goal. Second, I had to believe that I was more than capable of getting the job done, regardless of any mitigating circumstances. Hoping I would “hit the mark” was not enough. After all, as an old saying goes, hope is not a strategy. I finally determined if I was going to advance my career and run with the top performers, I had to modify my thinking. I began with the simple belief that the number presented to me was fair, reasonable, and most certainly possible. I chose a perspective informed by the fact that others before me had found a way to achieve great success; therefore, so would I.

Selling additive manufacturing equipment gave me countless opportunities to overcome obstacles, push through adversity, and improve myself. Looking back, I can see that I was able to grow in my role as an individual contributor, a teammate, and a manager, by taking ownership of the hard stuff. If your objectives are aggressive and your compensation is fair, I advise you to own and accept your quota and do everything you can to achieve it. This attitude will make you more valuable to your employer and establish the foundation to advance your professional sales career. Align yourself with your company’s goals and the targets they have placed before you, and remember, nothing grows in the comfort zone!

Written by Chris Harris

There's a fundamental truth when selling additive manufacturing technology: "Customers don't acquire 3D printers; they buy the parts they can produce." Since the benchmark is vital to your success, how you present this validation portion of the process to the buyer is crucial. As you may know, many benchmark parts print as expected on the first try. Occasionally, however, they do not. This holds true mainly when introducing a new geometry to a system for the first time. As a result, it is not uncommon for a new project to require more than one attempt to "dial in" the most optimal build strategy before satisfying customer expectations. The good news is that once the optimal part orientation and build parameters are established, this success can be repeated for future builds.

To avoid frustrating your prospect and creating costly bottlenecks for your applications team, you must set expectations with the potential buyer from the beginning. To accomplish this, you must first communicate with your AE before making any commitments to the customer. With metal printing, it is not uncommon for the benchmarking queue to be 30-60 days or longer, especially during the last month of a sales quarter. This "limited capacity" messaging should be leveraged as an effective tool to accurately prioritize the most substantial opportunities and protect your AE's time. Here is how I communicate this to the prospect:

"Dear Mr. Prospect,

Now that we have completed the Time & Cost Study, we can move to the proof-of-concept segment of our validation process. Please remember that our applications team is currently backlogged with several months of benchmarks primarily representing potential buyers like yourself. However, if you are interested and capable of purchasing within the next 60-days, I will request that you be advanced in the queue. If your timeline is further out, we have a sample part that can provide a fair representation of your project and can be loaned to your company for internal evaluation. We are confident that this part can adequately demonstrate the essential features, tolerances, and properties to your team. With that being said, how would you like to proceed?"

Written by Chris Harris

Recently I was teaching the Phase Selling for Additive Manufacturing training course to a reputable and well-established reseller and was asked, “When is the best time to share our selling terms with a prospect?” More specifically, the question was aimed at sharing payment and shipping terms, as well as down payment requirements. Anyone who has been selling additive manufacturing equipment for a while understands the frustration of finally receiving the long-awaited purchase order from the buyer, only to discover that it does not match the formal price quote they were provided. This error, or oversight, will typically result in a rejected contract when it gets to order management. Of course, none of us want to make this uncomfortable or embarrassing phone call to a new or existing customer. So, what steps can be taken to help mitigate this all-too-common issue that creates last-minute bottlenecks and potentially kills a deal?

As a sales professional, referring to your company’s terms and conditions too early can be just as unforgiving as describing them too late. According to the Phase Selling process, the connection phase is completed only after the prospect has provided you with their timeline, budget, and needs. Once you obtain this information, you should discuss your Ts & Cs openly, but not a moment sooner! Make it a best practice to follow this critical conversation with an email describing the pertinent details discussed. If there are questions later in the sales cycle, this email can be helpful to represent what each party has agreed to previously. During the confirmation phase, your selling terms will be revisited when you review the formal price quotation. In short, follow the Phase Selling methodology in its entirety by communicating early and often.

Written by Chris Harris