I remember hearing someone say once ‘Bernadette, the answer is always no, unless you ask’ and I have always remembered that.

Whether I am lost in the car and can’t get the directions right, I will stop and ask someone for help, whereas my husband would rather keep driving until he finds the right road – and dare I say, wastes time and gets frustrated in the meantime and it has nothing to do with women not being able to read road maps!

If I am seated at a restaurant that is near the door and it’s a wet and windy night, I will ask to move whereas a friend won’t want to be an inconvenienced, won’t ask and is prepared to be miserable all night.

If I feel that something is wrong in a conversation, I will ask what the matter is or call the elephant in the room, whereas another salesperson won’t want to put someone on the spot and so puts incorrect meanings onto comments and ends up with pipeline bloat.

Most of us feel uncomfortable when we ask someone for a favor or for help.

The story of Amanda Palmer, a living statue whose job was to sell her art and connect with people by standing on a milk crate, dressed as a bride, handing daisies to those passer-by’s who tipped money into her hat struck a chord with me.

Some of us may see these street artists and immediately jump to the conclusion that they are beggars, or bludgers or lazy (get a real job) as they stand in the popular tourist spots attracting passer- bys.

But whose story is that – theirs or yours? And if it is your perception, then how does that belief serve you when it is your turn to sell your product or service.

You see, their story is that they are allowing people to choose to buy their art. And we, as salespeople are also artists. We are not managers, we are not all entrepreneurs risking our capital for the cause, we are wanting people to buy what we believe will make a difference in their worlds.

And the street artist’s story is that they are selling connection with the people whose eyes they look into as they stand statue like still. They’re selling trust as they reach out and they are also selling themselves on vulnerability by placing themselves in a position of potential rejection.

And isn’t that the same as us? Are we not asking the question of our buyers that they tip money into our hat? That we are artists selling a product, a service or an idea that will make a difference in the world of our buyers? That our buyers also buy our connection, our trust and our vulnerability as we ask them to buy increased profitability, improved productivity and proximity?

I read an article by Jeb Blount, from Sales Gravy, this afternoon on ‘The ONLY Closing Technique that Really Works’ and I, too, can share this biggest secret with you on how the top salespeople ask for the order, even though I haven’t sworn on Jeffrey Gitomer’s Bible and I am in total agreement with Jeb.

The biggest secret to winning business is to ask for the business and the biggest choke-hold to asking, running in parallel, is fear.

Let me share a ‘close’ with you that will work EVERY SINGLE TIME and you won’t have to swear on anything for me to share it with you – ‘How can I help you?’

Simple. Straightforward. Sincere.

And it doesn’t just start and stop with a close for business. I had a coffee this morning with a corporate sales manager turned start up entrepreneur and we aligned a lack of collaboration and marketing ideas, products and services to fear, as well.

Before coffee, I was on a Google Hangout and the interviewer Jenny Munn from Business Marketing Association, Atlanta GA, who asked me why people don’t publish their content to position themselves as experts when the platforms are right there, free and convenient. My answer was, ‘the same as what prevents them asking for the next logical step in a sale – fear!’

‘The Art of the Ask’ is not about closing or trapping or conning your buyer

Asking for the business is about learning to say ‘no’ and learning to say ‘yes’ and knowing the magic lies somewhere in between, but only after you are ready to say ‘Bring It On’ to uncertainty when your buyer asks you to go a little deeper with your request.

So, it’s over to you now…

And so ask all of us!!

The post The Answer Is Always No, Unless You Ask. appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Online meetings are rapidly becoming the new de facto standard.

Savvy sellers have discovered that the ability to quickly move a phone conversation online yields a richer, deeper interaction with prospects. It enables them to discuss, demo or present using a variety of resources. As a result, prospect engagement goes up, new opportunities emerge, and deals close faster.

That’s a competitive edge worth paying attention to—especially since only 58% of salespeople met or exceeded their quota last year. But right now, most sellers are barely tapping into online meetings because they don’t know how or when to best use them.

Salespeople need to be nimble and ready to pivot. In conversations, they must be able to quickly spot and capitalise on emerging opportunities. It’s even better if they can create these moments on their own.

That’s exactly what savvy sellers do with online meetings. During a phone call, when they spot a need or when inspiration strikes, they immediately suggest:

“Do you have a few minutes? How about we jump onto a quick online meeting?”

That’s sales agility at its best. The key to success with these impromptu online meetings is strategic spontaneity. Savvy sellers are prepared. They know the best times to suggest this option and they know how to do it, seamlessly. They know what they’ll ask, point out, suggest or clarify.

In short, they nail it! These savvy sellers create an “aha” moment that crystallises value and drives differentiation. When the conversation is over, they’ve established credibility, deepened the relationship and moved closer to a signed contract.

1. FOCUS ON PURPOSE

What outcome do you want to achieve from jumping online with your prospect? Always start with this question, then craft a meeting plan that supports it. The best “purposes” are typically aligned with the various stages of a prospect’s buying cycle. These are the three main ones.

Pique Curiosity. If you’re prospecting, know that more than 90% of the people you contact are reasonably satisfied with their status quo— whatever that might be. When you connect, your objective is to get the prospect so interested that they want to learn more—either now or in very short order.

Drive a Commitment to Change. Once you’ve piqued your prospect’s curiosity, their next step is to determine if it makes sense to change. This is your opportunity to help them determine their business case. It’s also a chance to explore the factors they need to consider if they do go ahead.

Close the Deal. When your prospect has decided that changing is worth it, your purpose shifts to that of showcasing why working with your company makes the most sense, provides the best value and is the least risky.

For lead follow-up, try to gauge where the prospect might be in their buying process by reviewing what they’ve downloaded from your website and the pages they’ve visited.

When you know your purpose, it’s time to identify when a “quick” online meeting can help you achieve it.

2. PINPOINT THE OPPORTUNITIES

When does it make sense to have an impromptu online meeting? Start by mentally identifying when it could be beneficial to jump online. Often visual elements are involved and referencing them while you’re talking enriches the conversation.

You might want to consider an impromptu online meeting to:

Spark a new idea. If your offering enables prospects to do something they hadn’t conceived of, pull up a graphic to trigger their thinking. You could also highlight relevant research or data that supports a change from the status quo.

Expand on concepts. Once prospects are ready to change, they want to discuss factors such as configuring the right solution and implementation issues.

Do a demo. Give your prospect a quick tour of your solution. Whether it’s an actual demo, screen shots, or animated, you can gauge their reactions.

Review in real-time. Any time there are questions or concerns re: proposals, pricing, layouts, design and more, the quickest way to resolve them is to jump online. When people post a need or comment regarding an issue you can solve, invite them to a virtual meeting. Again, they’re already online. They just need to be online talking to you!

Research shows that people remember 80% of what they see and do. Online meetings, much more than phone conversations, make you and your message more memorable and engaging.

3. ZERO IN ON VALUE

How can you get prospects to invest the time and energy needed to change from the status quo? It’s your toughest sales challenge. According to SBI, over 60% of forecast deals do nothing. That means you lose to “no decision” more than all other competitors combined.

If this happens to you, it’s likely you’ve been doing too much pitching, trying to differentiate your product/service from competitors. Forrester Research reports that only 13% of executive buyers believe that a salesperson can clearly show they understand customer business issues and articulate a way to solve them.

During your online meetings, focus in on what matters most to your prospects. Be very specific. Increasing sales and decreasing costs is far too generic. Pepper your conversations with value propositions like these:

• Increased sales productivity, enabling 30% more calls/day.
• Reduced customer churn by 2.9% in just six months.
• Stabilised workflow, eliminating 47% of overtime pay.

This is what prospects care about. This is why they’d change from the status quo. Use your online meeting to tailor the value to your buyer’s position.

Don’t get sucked into a “tell me about your [product/service]” conversation. Knowing about your leading-edge capabilities, unique methodologies and unbeatable service will not make people change from the status quo.

Instead, cut to the chase; make it abundantly clear about the value you can deliver to their organisation. That’s what gets people to buy.

4. LEAD CONVERSATIONS

How can you create a meaningful dialogue in a quick online meeting? Huthwaite’s research on 10,000+ reps in 30,000 sales calls revealed that the kind and quality of questions asked during a meeting had more impact on sales success than any other behaviour.

Asking questions allows you to showcase expertise, demonstrate concern, establish trust and build stronger relationships. Additionally, questions enable you to gauge a prospect’s level of interest, expand the possibilities, determine your strategy and find the right solution.

To take advantage of your limited time together during an online sales meeting, consider these suggestions:

Plan questions ahead of time. Brain research shows that it’s impossible to do two things at once. That’s why it’s imperative to figure out the best questions to ask and the right sequence before you initiate contact. Keep them in front of you, but feel free to go with the flow too—if it makes sense.

After asking a question, be quiet – especially if your intention is to make people think. The average salesperson feels compelled to jump in after 2-3 seconds, totally high-jacking the opportunity to learn critical information.

Wrap your questions in your expertise. Lead into them with phrases such as, “In working with other VPs of Sales, we find that …. Is this something you’re struggling with too? Or “In talking to other manufacturers, their three biggest priorities are … How do those priorities compare to yours?”

It’s your responsibility to lead the conversation—and the best way to do it is with thoughtful, provocative questions.

5. CREATE ENGAGEMENT

How can you be more collaborative? Online meetings give you a chance to interact in real time. They can be just as effective as actually sitting in your client’s office, getting a deeper understanding of their needs, and discussing their business challenges.

Here are some ideas to make impromptu online meeting more engaging:

Rather than you doing a demo, try highlighting how easy it is and pass control to your prospects. Let them do it themselves. Sampling simplicity makes them more likely to change.

Use different content. Don’t just show a presentation; change the info you share. Jump from a presentation, to a report, to a website. This on-thefly access to a variety of resources increases interest and involvement.

Bring your recommendations up on the screen and get your prospects’ input. Find out what they like/don’t like. Ask if the solution meets their needs or not— then make appropriate changes. This increases buy-in and the commitment to move forward.

Revise critical documents together. Invariably prospects want to make changes to your proposals, SOWs or contracts. It’s much simpler to actually work on the “same page” as your prospects instead of trying to talk about it. With today’s online contracts, it’s pretty easy to move from conversation to proposal to contracting.

This real-time collaboration capability is also highly useful for internal usage—especially when multiple people from your company are involved in the sales process. It’ll help you get things right before you suggest your prospect jump online for that quick meeting.

6. PICK THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

What’s the right tool for you to use? Today, 30.3% of sales professionals believe that the online meeting tools they’re using get in the way of sales, rather than helping. That’s not good because it reflects on your competence. The solution you choose can be critical to moving the conversation forward or closing the sale.

To select the right technology, ask yourself these questions:

How easy is it to initiate an online meeting? This is crucial. You need it to be seamless. There’s nothing worse than having to stop the conversation, figure out how to launch a meeting, send an invite, wait while your prospect downloads some software—and then runs into problems. You lose momentum, and your prospect loses interest. Plus, you get frazzled and all your best thinking evaporates into thin air.

Does it have the capabilities you need? When you start out, screen sharing might be all you need. But as you get more proficient you’ll want video capabilities. This makes you more real” to prospects, increases engagement, deepens relationships and drives more sales.

Be sure to check how easy it is to switch between the key documents, demos, or presentations that you want prospects to remember. Also, advanced users may want to highlight certain areas, swap presenters, record meetings and create presentations “on the fly” via new online whiteboarding.

What’s most important is that you select the right online meeting tool for your needs—and that it’s a no-brainer for both you and your prospect.

7. GET REALLY GOOD AT IT

Whether scheduled or impromptu, running a flawless meeting is a skill that needs to be learned. While it may be simple to do, when you’re talking to an interested prospect on the phone it’s easy to flub things up. That’s the last thing you want to happen.

Instead, you want to come across as the true professional you are.

Here’s how you can prep for the maximum impact:

Set the stage. Sloppy desktops make you look disorganized, so get yours cleaned up. Shut down any pop-up messaging too. Or, if your tool allows, select the window-sharing option in addition to full screen sharing.

Know what’s in your virtual briefcase. Being able to quickly locate the exact document, image, PowerPoint slide or resource reflects on your professionalism.

For video meetings, it’s crucial to have appropriate surroundings, de-cluttered workspaces and good lighting. Make sure your webcam mic is clear enough; otherwise, get a headset. Put your computer at eye level so you’re looking directly at the camera. Maintaining eye contact is essential for relationship building.

Do mock meetings with your colleagues. Practice logging on, sending an invite, doing a demo, passing the presenter role and re-taking control. Once you’re proficient, have a colleague role-play someone who’s new to online meetings—like a potential customer. That way you’ll be prepared for that scenario too.

Remember, your prospects judge your competence in every interaction. This is one more opportunity to prove you’re an invaluable resource.

8. FINALISE NEXT STEPS

So now you have zeroed in on business value. You’ve asked great questions. Your prospect is highly engaged. In fact, they’re oohing and aahing about what you’ve covered. It feels like you’ve nailed it.

But have you? It’s easy to get seduced at this point—especially if prospects start asking you all sorts of detailed questions. Sometimes it’s good to put the brakes on to find out what’s really happening.

Try asking, “It sounds like you’re really interested in changing. Help me understand the business case from your perspective.”

If they can clearly articulate it, find out what the next steps are to move the decision forward. Who else needs to be involved? What criteria needs to be considered? How will it be implemented? Or, suggest what you see typically happening: “Based on my experience

working with other companies, the next step is …”

If your prospect can’t articulate the business value, you’ll need to spend more time here. Again, suggest a logical next step: “Usually, at this point, we need to (engage other individuals, do more research, etc.) to determine if it makes sense to move ahead. Let’s get that on the calendar.”

Don’t leave an online meeting without a clear action step. Know what you’re doing next and get commitment from your prospect regarding their responsibilities.

9. TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

How can you get even better leveraging impromptu online meetings? It’s great to be able to quickly jump online with a prospect, but it’s even better when you move from proficiency into mastery. Many service providers today offer the ability to record your meetings—and it’s definitely something you’ll want to take advantage of.

Initially, when you replay your meeting, you’ll find all sorts of personal flaws that will drive you nuts. You’ll hate your voice. You’ll notice every mistake. You’ll realize you weren’t looking at the camera. Note all these and work on getting better.

But then, go deeper. Ask yourself questions like:

• If you were a prospect, how would you feel?
• How was the overall flow? Did it make sense?
• Did you focus on value or get lost in the details?
• Were you able to advance the sales process? If not, what happened?
• Did you miss any important points?
• How else could you have created a better experience?

It’s a good idea to review the recording by yourself first. But that’s not sufficient if you want to really master this tool. If possible, get feedback from your colleagues or boss. Peer coaching is one of the best ways to make giant leaps in performance. Mastery is possible, especially when you get input from others.

THE KNACK OF NAILING IT

There’s great triumph in nailing an online meeting. Striking while the iron is hot enables you to quickly capitalise on an opportunity and moves you one step closer to closing the deal. It sets you apart from competitors, deepens credibility, crystallises value and builds relationships. It can even create new opportunities that didn’t exist before you said:

“Do you have a few minutes? How about we jump onto a quick online meeting?”

As we’ve shown, the key to successful impromptu online meetings is being planful and prepared— strategic spontaneity. That’s what sales agility is all about.

Start by picking just one scenario where an online meeting could add value to your sales process. Then, review the suggestions in this article, and get going. You’ll get better as you experiment with this tool. You’ll have richer interactions, greater connections and even more opportunities. Before long, you’ll be nailing it all the time too.

The post 9 Strategies To Improve Online Sales Meetings And Close More Deals appeared first on Head Of Sales.

So how can you ensure it’s a success? By studying and replicating what top sellers are doing. To start, top sellers spend lots of time preparing for this critical first meeting. They research their prospects in depth. Then, they scrutinise the research looking for ways that they can add value with their products or services.

Here are three critical reasons why most sellers don’t ever make it past the first meeting:
1. They don’t invest enough time preparing for the meeting.
2. They don’t understand the components of an effective initial sales meeting.
3. They focus on their own offering—not the prospective customer’s business needs.

For these reasons, prospective buyers will respond in the following ways:

“Thanks for your time; if we ever need one we’ll give you a call.”
“We’ll think about it and get back to you.”
“It’s not exactly what we were looking for.”

What steps are necessary to pass the first test with an important account and get invited back for a second meeting?

STEP 1 – CONDUCT PRE-MEETING RESEARCH

Prior to meeting with a prospect, it’s critical to invest time understanding their business. Start your information gathering and planning early enough to give you time to create an effective meeting plan.

Start by checking out their website. Look at the “about” section; that’s where companies list important announcements and post financial results. Read the company’s annual report to identify where they’re headed and what their future priorities are. Do an online search for recent articles about them in the press.

Then, go to LinkedIn to find out about the people you’re meeting with. What are they responsible for? Do you have any connections, interests or groups in common? Look for other people you can meet with too; you never want one person to be your sole lifeline for a sales opportunity.

If the person you’re meeting with contacted your company, check out what they’ve done on your website. Did they download any special reports, watch any videos, etc.? Use this context to plan your approach.

Here are seven things to look for while you’re doing research. They’ll help you understand your prospect’s business better.

Primary business: What industry are they in and how do they help their customers?

Business unit/division: How is the company divided? What is the role of each division? Where’s the best fit?

Market segment: Who is their target audience? What characteristics make up their ideal customer profile?

Financial position: Are they growing or shrinking? Borrowing money or cash rich?

Their customers: Who are some of their customers and what are their success stories?

Key strategic initiatives: What specific objectives are they trying to achieve?

Industry trends: What is the growth pattern in the industry? How are the buying patterns changing?

STEP 2 – DETERMINE YOUR POSITIONING

After completing your research, identify where you might have a positive impact on your targeted company. While it’s tempting to say that there’s no way to know until you have a conversation, that’s not the way it works anymore.

Today’s busy, savvy and well-educated buyers expect you to have some idea of the difference you can make prior to meeting with them. And, while you can’t know the specifics of how you can help them, by doing the research you’ll have some good ideas.

The key is to leverage what you know from working with similar companies to set the stage for your conversation and your questions. You need to bring fresh ideas, insights and information to the meeting. When you do, your prospects will be more than willing to do a needs assessment with you. But they need to know you’ve invested time learning about them before they open up to you.

Based on your research of your prospect’s organisation as well as similar companies, think about these questions:

• How are they handling things today without your product or service? What is their status quo?
• What kinds of problems or challenges might they be facing because of how they’re currently doing things?
• Because of their current status quo, what gaps might exist between where they are today versus where they want to be?
• Looking at the problems, challenges or gaps that may be present, what are the potential business implications? (This is important!)
• If this company used your products or services, what business value would they realize? (At this point, it’s a guess. But, if you’ve done your homework you should have some ideas.)
• What difference could your product or service make? (Net it out to the best of your ability, making sure you’re focused on key business drivers that your prospect is measured on.)

STEP 3 – PLAN YOUR QUESTIONS

Good questions are one of the best ways to demonstrate that you’re committed to helping your prospect achieve their goals. They show you care about them, which is important because most people think sellers only care about their commissions.

You’ll want to ask questions that:

• Uncover info about your prospect’s objectives as well as the status quo relevant to your product/services.
• Identify (or confirm) issues, problems, difficulties and obstacles they’re facing that would prevent them from achieving their goals.
• Determine the business ramifications of these challenges.
• Explore the business case for making a change

STEP 4 – DEFINE THE MEETING OUTCOME

As a result of this meeting, what is the logical next step? Research into sales success shows that if you’ve defined an appropriate desired outcome prior to the sales meeting, you’re much more likely to achieve it.

While you might want to walk away with a signed contract, the likelihood of this happening from just one meeting is slim to none. So don’t set yourself up for failure; plan on having multiple conversations from the beginning.

Think process. Today’s buyers don’t make snap purchase decisions. First they need to determine if it’s even worth the effort to change from what they’re currently doing. They’ll likely involve multiple people in this discussion. And, unless it makes good business sense, they’ll stay with the status quo.

Once people decide to change, they need to look at multiple options to ensure they make the right decision.

Use your typical buyer’s journey as a guideline for determining the appropriate and best outcome for your meeting. Here are some “next steps” that you could suggest:

• Meeting with another person involved in the buying process.
• Analysis of a specific situation or problem.
• Demonstration of your product or service.
• Proposal with your recommendations.

STEP 5 – PLAN THE MEETING AGENDA

Good meetings focus on your buyers and what’s most important to them—not your product, service or solution.

The following meeting agenda works well for both in-person or phone conversations. Thinking about what you’ll do ahead of time matters. It gets you clear on where you’re headed. It ensures that you stay on plan and on message, which is exactly what it takes to advance to the next step.

Strangely enough, it also enables you to be more flexible during the meeting. You can be curious about new information you learn, without losing track of where you’re ultimately headed.

Use this sample agenda as a guideline, not an absolute. The timeframes below assume a one-hour meeting.

(1) OPEN THE CONVERSATION (5-10 MINUTES)

Buyers don’t have a lot of time for meaningless chitchat and relationship building these days. Be cordial and friendly, but business-focused at all times.

Make the introductions

Take a few minutes to learn about the responsibilities of the people in the meeting. If others are present, make sure to introduce yourself and learn their names. Find out why they’re attending and what interests they have relative to the business issue.

Confirm times and agenda

Before you get started, double check to see if times have changed since you set up the meeting. If your prospect has to run into an urgent meeting in 30 minutes, you need to adjust your game plan or reschedule for a future time. Reconfirm the purpose of the meeting also to ensure there are no misunderstandings. You might say, “As I explained earlier, we work with high tech firms to increase brand awareness and drive sales. In our time together today, I’d like to give you a little background on how we address these issues, find out what your company is doing in these areas and see if we have grounds for further discussions. How does that sound?” Notice the professionalism and leadership in this overview. It shows that you have a clear plan for the meeting. Buyers feel better immediately; they know their precious time won’t be wasted.

(2) LEAD THE DISCUSSION (40-45 MINUTES)

You want to create a dialogue—not make a pitch. Lay the groundwork by sharing information of high interest to your prospects. Then invite them into a discussion by asking questions that make them think.

Set the stage (5 minutes)

Your prospects will need more grounding about what your company does than the brief one-sentence description given above. When you arranged the meeting, something you said was enticing to this person.

Now is the opportune time to give a brief overview of the business results a specific client achieved with your product, service or solution. Explain the challenge your customer faced, how you helped them, and the results they achieved. Also share your position statement—your insightful ideas on how you can make a positive impact on their business.

Transition to questions (less than 1 minute)

As quickly as you can, shift the focus to your prospect—where it belongs. To do this, simply say, “That should give you a good overview about how we help our customers solve their problems (or achieve their objectives). The most important thing is to find out if this makes sense for your company. In preparing for today’s meeting, I noticed that (insert data re: company’s direction, trigger event, other info uncovered in research). I was wondering how …” Unless you plan your transition, it’s sometimes hard to stop talking—especially if your prospect is goading you on with questions about your product or service. Please realize that this most likely means they’re trying to rule you out. That’s why you need to lead the conversation and why effective transitions are so crucial.

Focus on business issues (35-40 minutes)

Prior to the meeting develop a minimum of ten insightful, powerful questions you can use to lead a business-focused discussion. Decision makers are always interested in talking about their business.

They wouldn’t be taking time to meet with you unless they truly wanted help solving their problems or achieving their goals.

Have the questions handy so you can refer to them. Your prospect will be impressed by how well you’ve prepared for the meeting. But don’t give them the list of questions or they’ll just rattle off the answers.

Ask your questions in a conversational manner—not like a schoolteacher giving an oral test. Questions build relationships, establish rapport, demonstrate your competence and show that you care.

Remember, this is a discussion—not a sales pitch. Listen to their answers. Be interested. Learn as much as you can. Take copious notes of everything that’s said —not just the parts you find interesting.

Always LEAN BACK. The moment you move forward, you’re pitching. The discussion is over and the push is on. Your prospect immediately puts up defensive barriers and raises objections. Getting the sale is going to be infinitely harder unless you immediately recover and get back into the discovery mode.

(3) ADVANCE THE PROCESS (5 – 10 MINUTES)

When you focus on questions, your one-hour meeting flies by. Even if your prospect seems oblivious to the time, it’s important not to overstay your welcome. Draw attention to the clock. See if you’re invited to stay longer. If not, it’s time to wrap up and advance to the logical next step.

Summarise your understanding

Since it usually takes multiple sales meetings to close a deal, don’t try to share everything you know, ask every question you want answered or hand out every piece of collateral in your briefcase at the initial meeting.

Instead, show your professional expertise by summarizing what you learned about their critical business issues and the value of resolving them.

Do not, under any circumstances, get into a discussion about your product or service. This will be the hardest thing in the whole world for you to do, but it’s essential. Remember, buyers don’t really care about your offering—only what it can do for them. They also realize that in a short one-hour meeting, you can’t possibly offer them a well thought out solution. They don’t expect one.

Suggest the logical next step

Then, without making a big deal of it, simply recommend a good option to move the process forward. This is the logical next step you were working toward from the onset.

You might say, “Usually when I work with companies on product introductions, the next step is to have a conversation with the product manager to get a better understanding of the launch plans already in place and where gaps might exist. Can we get a meeting set up with this person in the next couple weeks?”

If you’ve had a good discussion, it’s highly likely that your prospect will have already suggested a next step. If so, great! Get it on the calendar.

If your prospect missed an important step, offer it up as another idea: “Ms. Biggie, I’ll get going on your recommendation right away. Also, based on my experience, we need to talk with the IT department as well. Can we get that set up, too?”

Ending meetings like this advances the sales process to its next logical step. It’s honest and full of integrity. It’s just simply suggesting the next logical thing that you both need to do to determine if your offering is a good fit for their business.

The post 5 Steps To Master Sales Meetings appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Some salespeople when they feel they are not going to get the sale can get into the habit of offering discounts.

The client was sold. You gave a price. They asked for a discount. You gave it. No reason given.

Why? Why would we discount our solution?

It comes down to the value you hold – not your client – on your solution. And whether you think it should be cheaper.

The first time price and discounts come up is before you have even spoken with a client. That’s right, you have made the decision to discount or not discount based on your value of your offering.

You have made this decision in your office. It may have been impacted by:

• A colleague saying ‘This is a bit pricy, people often want it discounted’.(The price is too high, we need to bring it down to what it should be) .
• Your boss saying ‘Offer a discount, just get in the business’. (Discount is a word that’s important. Value of our offer isn’t).
• A client saying ‘I can buy it cheaper elsewhere.’ (You believe that, and don’t question whether the solution is apples for apples).
• Marketing/Brand saying ‘This is expensive but …’ (‘Expensive’ is never a word you want used in your business)
• Colleagues always discounting to get in the business. (This normalises discounts).

The reality is the subtle message you picked up is  ‘the value of what we have isn’t as high as the price we are charging’, or, simply ‘we are charging too much’.

And … you believe it.

You are not sold on that price. And next thing you know, you too are thinking the price is too high, you too have taken your eye from value and onto price.

You are driving the price down. If you sold it at full rate, you might occasionally feel guilty as you know you would have given a discount.

What can you do to counter this as a sales person and as a leader?

 Solution/product training on the value of your offer—what the client is getting, and what the value is to the client.

 Internal language—always about value, rather than about discounts.

 Success stories—share case studies about what the client gains through this solution.

 Reward success based on keeping the price at a premium not on getting the business in.

When you are sold on the value, you won’t be discounting. Instead you will be investigating the clients’ issues and educating them on the value of your solution.

As the trusted provider, when you have such certainty than they are sold on it too. They will trust you and believe your offer is worth the price.

The post Discounting Erodes Trust appeared first on Head Of Sales.

It’s the culmination of weeks or months of blood, sweat and tears and determines whether all that effort was really worthwhile or not.

For a seasoned sales professional, with a well-honed gut instinct and plenty of sales battle scars, the close phase of any deal is often the most tense and stressful period. Even for these battle-hardened sales veterans, things can and do go wrong at the 11th hour. For less-experienced sales reps, closing deals is often an achilles heel, where even the slightest misstep can turn a hot prospect to ice, faster than Jon Snow can say 

“Winter is Coming”.

Regardless of where you are on the sales experience spectrum, it’s likely you’re missing out on some proven strategies to increase your close rate, overcome objections confidently, and protect your most important asset – ‘time’. –

What’s the main cause of lost sales?

A lot of factors can contribute to lost sales, but what’s interesting is that the issues we often perceive as the root cause of our losses are often just symptoms of a bigger issue.

What if I told you the reason so many of your leads are going cold isn’t that your customers aren’t ready to buy what you are selling, but that they aren’t ready to buy you? This is a bold statement, but in the B2B sales world, make no mistake customers are buying you, as much, if not more, than what’s in your kitbag.

The B2B sales world has been turned on its head over the last few years, as technology and buying behaviours have shifted the balance of power from sellers firmly in favour of buyers. Prospects no longer take a back seat in sales conversations; they are extremely savvy, leveraging peer reviews and easy access to research material. They are also highly sensitive to unethical sales tactics and phony sale pitches.

At the first sign of dishonesty or high-pressure sales, most B2B customers will disengage with a vendor. To close more sales, you must become the sort of salesperson whom customers actually want to buy from.

Where do you start? Well, we’ve done some of the legwork for you.

At Trinity, we spend our days focusing on the intersection of your sales cycle and your customer’s buying cycle, that magical place where the deal actually gets done. By speaking directly to your customers at the conclusion of the sales process, through our Win/Loss Review services, we’re able to help B2B sales companies answer one simple but profoundly important question: “Why do we win and lose the deals we pitch for, and what can we do about it?”

After years of interviewing senior decision makers across a wide variety of industries, we’ve identified several factors which can turn a hot deal cold and have also identified a number of characteristics consistently displayed by successful salespeople.

Here are five of the best sales techniques we’ve observed for closing a deal and why they work.

5 sales closing techniques for success

Play the long game. The reason so many sales people fall short when closing sales is often related to being too aggressive or too eager to prove yourself. It can work against you and send the message that you’re not focused on building a relationship. Contrary to what you might think, closing the sale starts long before your customer agrees to sign on the dotted line. It begins in the discovery phase and continues to build as you get to know them throughout the sales cycle.

There needs to be a shift in focus from conquering the sale to taking your time to listen and connect with your customer and earning the right to progress to the next stage of the sales cycle. This is a crucial step to developing sufficient trust, credibility, and authority to do business with a prospective customer.

At its simplest, B2B sales doesn’t actually require any selling, you simply earn the right to progress to the next stage of the process, until you run out of stages and the deal is done.

This may sound simplistic, but then again, sales can and should be a simple process.

Become a great storyteller.  One reason deals go cold so often is that we fail to establish a proper connection with the people we’re trying to sell to. The most successful salespeople understand that stories have the ability to create an emotional connection and fire up the limbic side of your customer’s brain, where feelings and memory reside.

These individuals are avid collectors of war stories, quotes, anecdotes, and case studies, anything in fact that can act as a hook and aid in articulating a compelling story. Being a great storyteller makes you more memorable, a more effective communicator, and establishes rapport with your prospects. By equipping yourself with an arsenal of interesting and relevant stories to pepper your conversations, you will cement your position as a leader in closing the sale. Listen to how Bernadette Jiwa explains the power of stories in her fascinating TedTalk – The Secret to Spreading Ideas

Scrap high-pressure sales. Remember when you last felt pressured into doing something you weren’t ready or comfortable doing? It might have been signing a petition, answering a survey, or listening to a pitch for a product or service you had no interest in.

Your response may have been one of anger, defiance, or simply quiet frustration. It’s human nature to resist high-pressure sales tactics, which is why so many countries have created ‘do not call’ registries for consumers who don’t wish to be called at home by telesales people. If a sales technique is being regulated against by the government, it’s probably time to find a new way to create traction with your customers.

Being too pushy gives the impression of desperation, which in turn leads to doubt and mistrust. If they feel pressured, prospective customers will start to look for an escape route, which in the world of B2B sales is invariably what happens when a deal goes quiet.

Customization is key. If you’ve been relying on canned sales methods, it’s time to trade in your outdated sales techniques for a more personalized approach. Customers are tired of canned sales presentations that aren’t pertinent to them. This method only repels interest in what you have to offer and can quickly make a deal go south.

Instead, the most successful salespeople seek out creative ways to add value to every customer engagement, and customize it to show you are addressing their specific needs. A simple strategy is to apply the “So What” test to all of your customer presentations. During your dry-run before a customer presentation, ask your colleagues to hold up a sign which reads ‘So What’ every time you say something which either a) isn’t relevant for your audience or b) may be relevant but where you have failed to create the connection for your customer.

This one simple strategy could serve to transform the impact of your sales presentations and ensure that win, lose, or draw, your customers will be very happy to invite you back in to present to them in the future.

Customer memory is king. What sets sales all-stars apart from the rest is their ability to recall details about their customers, and utilize these insights to form a clearer picture of their customers’ needs. Nowadays, with easy access to CRM systems and digital information, you are expected to be able to capture, retain, and apply personal information and insights that your customers share with you.

By capturing and leveraging these details, you should be able to establish a deeper and more personal connection with your customers and prospects. It also serves to help you close more sales and increases the likelihood of gaining warm referrals from their network.

If you really want to succeed in sales, then you need to reach the elevated heights of ‘trusted advisor status’ with your customers. Where they not only know, like, and trust you, but value your opinion, your network, and your commitment to helping them achieve a great outcome from your product or service.

To do this, you first need to solidify yourself as a credible source of valuable information, and eventually be seen as an extended member of their internal team. By putting these five best sales techniques into action, you can start closing more sales and building lasting relationships with customers based on rapport, trust, and credibility.

The post Why Do The Hottest Deals Go Cold? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

(1) What is your posture saying about you?

The way you feel will govern your posture and subsequently the energy you bring into a call. Once you’ve cultivated a positive mindset, and thanks to the pre-call preparation are feeling ready and confident, your posture will reflect the same, i.e. straightened, shoulders back, open hearted and positive.

So, take a moment to notice your posture. Is it upright, allowing you to breathe easily and fill your lungs, adding to your motivation and enthusiasm? If so, great – continue to the next point. If not, don’t try to force it. It won’t feel or sound natural, and your client will notice. Head back to the mindset and pre-call preparation sections to take a look at what’s impacting you and causing the slump.

Positive mindset = positive posture.

(2) Be your authentic self

Perhaps you have a colleague or mentor who’s ‘really good at sales’, and you feel you need to be more like them to succeed. Unfortunately, trying to ‘be like them’ will feel forced and uncomfortable – and your customer will pick that up. The same is true if you read from a script. Instead, aim to be your authentic self – your best, most professional genuine self – as you focus on understanding your client. If you’ve done the work on mindset from the first section and the preparations for each call from the second section, being authentic will come naturally and effortlessly.

Be the best version of yourself.

(3) Aim to help and rapport will follow

One of the biggest challenges of telephone sales skills is building rapport. Your ability to use body language and your physical surroundings to develop a relationship is temporarily out of reach.

Be fully present and engrossed in your calls. Turn off your emails, notifications and everything else on your computer and phone so you can focus. Start each call with a commitment to serve them, help them and be a solution provider. Rapport will then naturally happen, and the conversation will flow.

Rapport happens when you are genuinely focused on helping them.

(4) Know your intent for the call

Take another moment before you dial to get clear on what exactly is your purpose for the call:
• Are you trying to build a long-term relationship?
• Create credibility?
• Help the customer to buy from you today?
Whatever it is, make sure your intent is rooted in understanding them better and their needs, so you can help them. To do this, picture yourself next to them, on the same side as them. This visualisation helps set your motivation for the call to being one of integrity and genuine help. You’ll naturally emit that sincerity to your client through your words and tone of voice. They will see you as the trusted advisor and the solution provider.

Set clear intentions before every call.

(5) Take notes throughout the call

Jot down as much as you can of what your client tells you. Taking notes can help you stay focused on what they’re saying, and saves you having to keep information in a ‘holding pattern’ in your brain. You will be aware of their language and what they keep emphasising. It assists with confirming their pain points. Your notes form an essential guide for any follow-on email or proposal you send to the client after the call.

Stay focused by taking notes.

(6) Be aware of your voice

Don’t be over enthusiastic, you’ll just sound manic.

The untrained (unpracticed) voice speeds up and goes higher in pitch.
Being genuine is essential. Talk to your customer in a voice that’s authentically ‘you’ – the you who’s in your calmest, clearest, most reasonable and rational state. Convey your maturity, your trusted leadership status – someone your client can rely on to offer good advice and have their best interests at heart.

Find your most natural voice with the right mindset.

(7) Know your opening hooks

Hooks mean you are engaging the client with a tailored opening which is of interest to them. Pick something from your research and have it as your opener, ‘John, I see that you are using xyz for… just thought I would reach out as my company provides clients with this xyz solution meaning they can quickly get this … result’.
You have 10 seconds to make an impact. Hooks are essential for cold calling. Make it interesting and different if you can.

Hooks get the client intrigued and engaged.

(8) Connect authentically with gatekeepers

‘Gatekeepers’ and your client are one. We need to stop thinking of them as separate entities.
They have been charged with protecting the decision makers’ time, because many reps simply ‘spray and pray’ their features and benefits with no specific connection between what they have to sell and what the decision maker may need. You are different. So, everything you do, and every interaction you have, needs to demonstrate how different you are. That’s why connecting meaningfully with gatekeepers is an incredibly important skill. Don’t fall into the trap of ‘working around them’ or even thinking of them negatively, as that will reflect adversely in your interaction and on you.
Respect their job and consider pitching to them. They are determining who gets to talk to the decision maker, so you want to make sure you create and leave the right impression.
Believe that your client contact will want to engage with you because you know you can help them. Remember, you want to be seen as a calm, confident, trusted advisor.

Be respectful and genuine with gatekeepers.

(9) Know what not to say

As well as knowing what to say we also need to be aware of what not to say. Watch your language.

• “I know you are busy” (why remind them, this sounds like you have no value in what you sell)

• “Doesn’t sound like now is a good time” (why project your opinion of when is a good time onto the client)

• “It’s tough out there” (sure way to remind them to close their pocket and be risk adverse)

• “I’ll call back when you’re not so busy” (get them to tell you this, don’t you tell them that)

• “I’m finding it hard; the kids are driving me mad, how about you” (our personal life is now ‘tripping’ over into professional life, call up a friend and have that whine – rather let the professional you impress a client)

• “Sorry to bother you” (devaluing yourself)

• “Yes, you probably should be cautious and only get six of those”

• “If you’re not sure what’s coming up, why not only get a few now and we can always top you up later”

Be aware of what you are projecting onto the client.

(10) Less talking, more listening

To truly understand your customer, you need THEM to be doing the talking.
This starkly contrasts with what most salespeople do: they land up doing all the talking! They talk ‘at’ a client, ‘telling’ them what they need without actually knowing if it is indeed what the client needs.

Master being curious, investigative and intrigued. To provide the right solution and really get to grips with their situation, you have to pose the right questions. Ideally you need to have crafted and comfortably practiced a minimum of 100+ questions. Why? Because you never know where the conversation may go. If you’ve only prepared a few questions you will push your clients down your own question path missing out on valuable information.

A great sales call is when the salesperson is asking relevant questions and the client is doing around 90% of the talking. The salesperson will be listening, understanding the situation to now know / propose the right solution.
Your mantra is ‘Seek to understand’.

That way you will know how you can help and give the compelling reason(s) to buy your solution, aligning what they need with what you have.
Open questions are best at getting them discussing their situation, they will give you insightful answers that can help you understand them better.
You need to always go with what question feels natural and right at the time. It needs to be relevant and meaningful. Throughout the conversation it’s imperative you be mentally present.

Watch what you are asking (I.e. not overstepping the mark in your relationship with intense questions about their business if you don’t know them well enough or they don’t yet see you as the trusted advisor e.g. how much money that will make you). Basically, if it feels right to ask – it probably is, if it feels wrong – it probably is. If they are an introvert, then make it easy for them to chat, ‘walk me through’ is more appealing than ‘talk me through’.

Example open questions:
• Walk me through…
• What did you find was working well on [blah de blah]?
• Where does this fit [blah de blah], into the future?
• How would you describe your experience with … [blah de blah]?
• How does [blah de blah] work?
• When this situation happens, [blah de blah], what happens?
• What would be most helpful for you to know about [blah de blah] right now?
• How will your team manage this situation over the next 6 months?
• How will they handle this challenge?
• What are your main concerns or questions about [product/service]?
• What persuaded you to call us today/use someone else’s solution?
• If this [blah de blah] happened, how would that roll out?
• And why was that /why is that/why? (I’m assuming your tone and intent is honourable and as the trusted advisor here – not interrogational).

If your call is to a new client, then the first questions you ask will be ones to get them talking, so choose intriguing yet easy questions for them to comfortably talk with and open up to you.

A ‘hard’ opening question will put them off and they will divert and say they are busy. I.e. saying ‘how does the next 6 months look?’, would be suitable for a client who knows you, but unlikely to land well as one of your opening questions if cold calling, coming across as too hard and too personal.

Your mantra is ‘seek to understand’.

(11) Are you really listening?

A lot of the time we are too busy focusing on what we want to say, instead on what the client is saying. Really listen to what they are saying. You need to be 100% present. Clients will know if you are in a bubble with them or just thinking of your next thing to say.

You need to be aware if you come into a call with judgement and a predetermined outcome. We assume. This needs to be acknowledged and released, for you to be truly present.

Drop the assumptions and really listen.

(12) Observe and adapt

No two customers are the same, so you shouldn’t be saying the same thing to each of them. They have different needs, wants, motivations and beliefs. Pay attention to how each one responds to your questions, and then constantly adapt so that the conversation makes sense to them. It should always be relevant and meaningful.

Your questions, pitch and compelling message should be adapted for each call.

(13) The biggest hurdle on the call

Processing styles, recognising and adapting to them, is the biggest call hurdle we face. For example, some clients will process their thoughts outwardly and ‘talk them through’, while others will silently process things internally. When we are with someone, we can literally see this process take place. If you tend to process your thoughts outwardly you may be inclined to fill those conversational silences on the other end of the phone, by jumping in and repeating or giving multiple choice answers. Be aware of your style and then ensure you master patience. The call should naturally have pauses, ebbs, flows and gaps. These permit moments of mutual reflection and contemplation. The calmer you are, the calmer the call will be and allow the client space and time to think.

Ensure you allow space in the conversation, giving your clients time to process their thoughts.

14. Educate your customer

While your customer knows more than anyone else about themselves and their problems, it is YOU who knows more about what your offering can do for them. So educate them. Educating your client over the phone comes down to how well you craft your sentences. Now, what you say and how you say it, has to both sell your product or solution to the person you’re speaking with, as well as enable them to similarly relay and sell it on correctly to others in their organisation, their own clients or the end user. Building mini stories starting with phrases such as ‘others have found that…’ give your clients the exact phrase to easily sell it on.

Make it easy for your client to educate others.

(15) Excite your customer so they block out distractions

As you speak to your client, notice any obvious distractions that come up – either in the conversation, or in their background. Are they working in a space that’s completely different to their pre-crisis norm?

Those distractions may affect their ability to be present with you – however, there is no need for you to become distracted! Once you have a great hook with intrigue and master quickly showing your call value to them, they will be immersed in the conversation with you and ignore any distractions.

Keep your client engaged.

(16) Over empathising can be costing you business

Some of us are quick to empathise. We have been taught it’s a good thing.

If your mindset is negative, you’ll miss out on the positive signals and inadvertently reduce your clients spend. This over-empathising with them may seem a way to build relationships but agreeing with anyone’s negative state closes them down to hearing your solution. It sends them into a cautious, let’s batten down the hatches, risk adverse place. Don’t join them in the ditch!

Instead, you should listen until they’ve emptied everything out and then focus on a positive or promising aspect of what they’ve said (unless of course, they’re tearful… in which case, you’re better off just listening for now).

Be optimistic and your client will be too.

(17) Agree on a specific next action

On some sales calls, the ‘next action’ might be overtly asking for the sale – clearly, directly, and with certainty that the client wants to go ahead. On other calls, you might need to arrange a follow-up conversation with them. It may be that they need a proposal pinpointing how your solution solves their pain points.

By the time you’re at this stage of the call, you’ll have understood their situation, offered the perfect solution (delivered in a way that makes sense to them) and it’s a flow from prospect to client. The next action you’re seeking isn’t an answer to the question of ‘do you want to go ahead?’ Rather, it’s a movement sentence continuing the relationship. This conversation at the end of the call should be a logical and natural step.

For some salespeople they find that sentence tricky, so here are a few examples.
By the way, it’s ideal if the client has already been answering ‘yes’ to your questions just before, as then they are on a ‘roll’ of saying yes.

Movement sentences like these below can be particularly useful.
• ‘OK, we can get that happening by Friday. You ready to give it the go-ahead?’
• ‘Sounds like we’re ready to make it happen. Let’s get started’
• ‘Janet would like to get the backend of this lined up today. You ok with that?

Use movement sentences to glide from prospect to client.

(18) Trying to upsell?

Watch what you are thinking. Upselling can imply ‘pushing’ a product onto someone, whereas when your intent is to ‘seek to understand’ and ‘help’, you’ll naturally ask more relevant questions and find out more. It then becomes an obvious obligation for you to explain the most suitable solution(s) which will serve them best.

If your client is after ‘A & B’, yet with your questioning it’s clear that the right solution for them is actually ‘A, B and C, then your intent, language and demeanor are aligned. You are coming from a place of integrity and being the trusted advisor.

The same lesson applies if your intent is to ‘close’ then your client will pick up on that – meaning you are no longer looking out for their best interests but your own. Closing means ending. We would rather help clients and form long lasting relationships. What you think, becomes your reality.

Be aware of your language.

Did you miss part 1 or Part 2?

Telephone Sales Techniques For Success (Part 1): Mindset

Telephone Sales Techniques For Success (Part 2): Pre-call Preparation

The post Telephone Sales Techniques For Success (Part 3): 18 ‘On-The-Call’ Actions appeared first on Head Of Sales.

The average client spent $175,000 annually. Some spent more in some years and less in others, but the number was relatively stable over time. I soon found, however, that our lowest-billing client averaged so little that there was no reason to call them a client. A reasonably-priced hotel would charge more for a two-night stay. At the other extreme, our number one company spent just over $1,000,000 in a typical year, making it the most exciting and vital client in our portfolio—and we definitely wanted a killer portfolio.

With those figures, there was no way I could meet my goals by simply doubling the number of clients we won in a year. Instead of winning more deals, I decided we would pursue much larger contracts, something that would produce greater revenue even if we won fewer opportunities in a year. To execute this strategy, we would have to forego spending time with small potential clients, many of which took as much time and energy as the larger clients that could actually help us reach our revenue goals. Instead, we had to target clients that spent many times our average per-client revenue.

Since we had a million-dollar client, I set the target at a million dollars, calling these clients “anchor accounts” because they could sustain an operation. In our first year pursuing companies that needed to spend more, our average billing climbed from $175,000 to $475,000. The next year, it reached $775,000.

The Leader’s First Mistake

One of the first mistakes a sales leader might make is not setting the parameters for which clients they want and why they are essential. If you don’t build territory, establish account plans, and target the clients you want in your portfolio, your salespeople are on their own to decide whom they pursue. This laissez-faire approach can waste time on insignificant deals that distract an entire sales force from pursuing meaningful clients. As a result, many clients end up in the pipeline only because they were willing to engage with the salesperson.

When your job is to create opportunities, you need prospects. But not all opportunities are equal, and many are not worth your time or effort. Once you determine what kind of clients will help you meet your goals, you must ensure your team focuses their time and effort on acquiring them.

Cold Should Be Hot

This approach can be challenging, as I document in Eat Their Lunch. To start with, large clients already have a partner, likely one of many years’ standing. Their partners, your competitors, have built deep relationships with the contacts, and even though they may have some weaknesses, they are difficult to displace. These targets are the very opposite of a warm lead: they are as cold as ice at the start unless you get very lucky with timing. Larger clients also tend to be more complex, so they require salespeople who have the chops (sales effectiveness) to create a higher level of value than their competition.

It takes time to develop relationships and become known as someone with real insights and a provocative perspective. It also takes time for your dream client to suffer some setback that prompts them to consider buying from you. The fact that it takes time to develop these prospective clients should not dissuade you from pursuing them; instead, it should motivate you to start now. The sooner you begin to use a prospecting and nurture sequence to develop the relationship, the faster you’ll have an opportunity. The sooner you start Year 0—the year you become known to your contacts as someone who can help them produce better results—the sooner you will have an opportunity.

In my experience, for any set of prospective clients, some are compelled to change, others are immune to any attempt to talk about changing partners, and some might be persuaded. Sometimes it takes years pursuing a large client before you create an opportunity and win their business, and sometimes you happen upon them at the right time, winning their business in short order.

You Can’t Quadruple Your Activity

As you pursue your targeted clients, you will naturally find singles, doubles, and triples. Acquiring and serving a small client might cost more than you can make from their business. If that is true, you might avoid calling on them at all. Doubles and triples often grow up to be large clients, so you can pick them up along the way.

Much of the time, companies assume that their sales force can always do more—creating and winning more deals—even when they didn’t hit their prior year’s goals. Increasing your average deal size is one meaningful way to increase your revenue, and it prevents you from needing to triple or quadruple the number of deals you need to reach your goals.

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The following list of mistakes includes the root cause, providing you with the beliefs that encourage the error. Here are nine enormous mistakes salespeople make and their root causes.

Leading with Your Company: There are two reasons we teach salespeople to open a sales call by talking about their company. The first, and perhaps the original purpose, is that people think it establishes credibility. If the salesperson isn’t credible, the company’s credibility should be a strong enough substitute to convince the prospect to buy. The second reason is that marketers believe the company story is compelling and that prospects care. While these approaches may have worked in the past, you must establish your credibility by demonstrating your subject matter expertise, your business acumen, and your situational knowledge.

Allowing Your Client to Determine the Process: When your client has total control of the process, the result is a Request for Proposal, a process that isn’t likely to serve you well. It may also prevent your prospective client from making the right decision, often based on a one-hour presentation. Because you sell what you sell, you should have a better understanding of the conversations and commitments your dream clients need to make a good decision. In many cases (maybe most), you increase your chances of winning and your client’s making the right decision when you sell the process before selling your solution.

Speaking Poorly of Your Competition: Some people believe you should never mention your competition. More, however, wait to address their competition only when their contact tells them that their price is higher than the competition. At this point, the salesperson tries to differentiate themselves by describing all the ways their competitor is terrible. The result of this conversation inverts the outcome, causing the client to believe the salesperson throwing their competitor under the bus is terrible, as evidenced by their defensiveness. When you don’t know how to defend the investment you are asking your client to make, you might believe it is easier to tear down your competitor, in which case, you are wrong. There is nothing inherently wrong with speaking about your competitors, as long as you say nice things about them as a way to differentiate yourself early in the sales conversation.

Going Faster Than Your Client: You don’t want to take longer than you have to win a deal, and you don’t want your client to have to wait longer than is necessary to produce better results and reap the benefits of your solution. However, going faster than your dream client can cause you to become disconnected, with you far ahead of them in the process. You may know all you need to know to provide them with the right solution, but your prospective client may need more conversations to move forward. When this is true, you bring the process to a halt. The desire to go fast cause things to go slow. If you want to go fast, you go slow enough that your prospect can keep up with you.

Choosing a Poor Prospecting Medium: All the mediums available to you have value, even if that value is contextual. Meaningful conversations are best held in person. Email works for following up meetings. For all the wonders of the information age and the ubiquity of computers, we have borrowed ideas from computers that don’t translate well to human interactions. Ideas like multi-tasking pretend human attention works like a chip. It doesn’t. The notion that efficiency is more important than effectiveness is to believe that the ease of effort outweighs the outcome. If there is no outcome, you are inefficient. The reason some salespeople use email for prospecting is that they believe it is efficient, while others believe it allows them to avoid conflict. The best medium for prospecting is still the phone, even if you use all the others as part of a campaign.

Emailing Pricing and Proposals: Your client asked you to send them a proposal and pricing, something you believe to be a keen interest in buying what you sell. So you submitted it to them weeks ago, and now, radio silence. Because you didn’t believe it was worth the time or effort to meet with the client to review your proposal and resolve their concerns, they flipped the pricing component, and decide to hold off. You disconnected the value of the solution from the investment by not presenting the outcomes. You know your prospect didn’t read your proposal, and you allowed them to say no without having to speak to you. Because you wanted to make it easy for you and your client, you ended up losing the deal—or causing a stall. The right answer is not to take yourself out of the deal.

Avoiding Difficult Conversations: Interminable. The difficult conversations you may have to engage in as you pursue and serve your dream clients are as many as there are stars in the sky. Asking your clients to change can be an awkward conversation, just as telling them the problem they have requires them to make internal changes can be, meaning it’s not you or their past partners. Discussions about the investment also offer a potential place for conflict or a complicated dialogue. You avoid these conversations when you believe they will cause you to lose a deal, but what makes you a trusted advisor is your willingness to engage in the challenging, messy, and complicated conversations necessary to better results.

Single-Threaded: Maybe you work on deals where there is only a single contact. If this is true, it is unlikely you work in business-to-business sales, and it is certain you are not engaged in a complex sale. In larger, complex deals, there is almost no chance that you are going to win without consensus. When you are working with a single stakeholder, you may believe you shouldn’t ask to bring other people on their team, especially an executive sponsor, assuming you will offend them and lose the deal. How you lose is by not gaining consensus.

Treating a Complex Deal as Transactional: If what you sell is transactional in nature, you should transact. What makes a sale complex is that it requires a decision your client doesn’t often have to make while also being significant or strategic in nature. When you treat the client’s decision as if it should be easy or avoid addressing the significance, your approach doesn’t match your prospective client’s needs. The approach makes it impossibly difficult for your client to move forward when they need information, insight, and help to ensure the decision is sound. Because the solution makes sense to you and you know it will work doesn’t mean these things are true for your client.

Avoid these mistakes by understanding the root causes. You are always better addressing things that are difficult and giving your chance to win than avoiding them and losing.

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A message I constantly repeat is the reminder that in most businesses with margins of 20% or more, a 10% improvement in conversion generally increases profit by 40% or more. And the thing is that a 10% improvement in conversion is VERY achievable if you commit to driving more efficiency into your first meeting and proposal process.

Notice I didn’t say “Getting better at closing and objection handling.”

These are important skills. But this is generally not the real problem.

Let me take you through a few considerations for improving efficiency in this area.

1. Confirm the need

The first thing to consider is how effective you are at creating or confirming an emotional need BEFORE you agree to provide detailed proposals and pricing.

Until there is a problem to solve what you’re selling is NOT a solution. Ask yourself “How could I consistently share and create discussion around the problems that I or we are MOST effective at solving for our ideal target customer?” Could you visualise those problems to make them easier to discuss? Is there a diagnostic you could have people do prior to or during your early meetings? Is there a third party report you could send prospective customers that highlights problems you solve with your services or products. The better you get at highlighting and educating your ideal target customers on the problems you solve the better your conversion rates will be.

2. Confirm commitment level

Next, consider whether you need to introduce a customer commitment level that’s required before you spend more than 30 minutes on a written proposal or pricing. What would you want the prospective customer to do, say or share BEFORE you agreed to commit time and effort to writing proposals and providing detailed pricing? The big point I’m making here is that for most salespeople, too much time is wasted writing proposals and providing detailed pricing for people that are either not ready to buy or not ready to buy from you. Writing proposals makes us feel like we’re making progress and a fat pipeline makes us feel safe as salespeople. But none of us get paid to write proposals and provide pricing. So, we need to make sure the time and effort we put in is correlated to the amount of genuine commitment the prospective customer has given us. If you’re not sure how to quantify whether a prospective customer is ready to buy, search my other posts on the IDEA model and other strategies for quantifying prospect commitment.

3. Simplify the process

Next, consider whether you can simplify the process of creating proposals and pricing you write. Consider which part of proposal writing is taking the MOST time and effort and find 3 ideas for reducing this.

Once again, too much time is wasted doing up detailed solutions when an email confirming high level discussions and offering more detail if they would like to proceed is much more effective. Often creating a generic capabilities or solutions document with case studies, testimonials and other supporting information enables salespeople to deliver lots of content without re-inventing the wheel every time they have to write a proposal. These don’t even need to go into a document as a lot of this information can exist in a capability document you attach to proposals or even a web pages you provide links to.  I’m not saying you can’t do major tailoring for important proposals BUT only spend time doing this for prospective customers that have absolutely committed to doing business with you, your way and at your price.

4. Develop closing and objection handling processes

One last thing you should consider is whether you do have highly developed closing and objection handling skills and processes. The goal must always be to help prospective customer’s buy your solution but that doesn’t mean people won’t need your help’ guidance and enthusiasm to make decisions.

Some questions to consider are “Have we written down all of the common objections we face in both engaging prospects and selling our solution?” Remember a problem identified is a problem that can be solved.

Once you know what the objections are the next question is “Have we developed strategies we can deploy throughout the sales process to educate the customer on why common objections should not be a concern or reason to not proceed?” Avoiding objections is significantly more powerful than handling objections and a much more pleasant experience for the customer.

And finally, “Are we practicing our solution presentations, closing and objection handling skills in a manner that genuinely improves our skills and conversion rates?” One of the most powerful strategies in this area is to role play live opportunities the day before a proposed solution is presented to the prospective customer. This is also a great place to role play pricing objections and responding to customer negotiation strategies. If you do this in a team setting and get other salespeople to role pay the customer everybody learns, and everybody improves in this area. And even better – you don’t need to pay an expensive consultant like me because it is all in-house.

Let’s wrap this up by reminding you that the goal is NOT to provide lots of people with pricing and written solution plans. The goal is to win business and do it with the least amount of time, effort and energy. The question to consider at your Kick Off and throughout the year is “What are the most efficient and effective ways to convert interest into confirmed need and genuine opportunity into new customers?”

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Do you know why they make recruits in the ARMY crawl under barbed wire on obstacle courses?

I was in the ARMY, and I loved it, tank driver & assault trooper (M113), it was enormous fun. The reason they do the barbed wire trick is, so you learn to stay low when moving around the battlefield. BECAUSE if you stay low, you’re much less likely to get shot. The number one thing a soldier needs to do is …. stay alive….. if you get shot, you can’t do much else. Therefore, a critical skill you need to master is moving around the battlefield without being killed. – Make sense? Stay low and go, go, go.

The way they trained us in this skill has some merit in today’s business world. The ARMY leaders (SGTs, CPLs) made us do this repeatedly and slowly increased the level of difficulty of the skill.

And as a result, we got better and better at this critical skill.

My point is. If you need to be good at something, to do your job well, practise it.

Objections are a pretty good example of where this works well.

Objection training (Basic drill).

Step 1 – Figure out what the top 4 objections are you, and the rest of the team are getting every week.

Step 2 – Find who, in your team, is doing the best job right now at handling these objections and get them to tell everyone else what they are saying or doing to get past these objections.

Step 3 – Practise it, then increase the difficulty to secure the learning.

If your objection response strategy is sound and you’ve practised it. Then you and your team should be able to handle ‘standard’ objections with ease in your everyday selling situations whenever they come up.

Most sellers say they’re handling objections correctly, but I’d argue they’re not really. My observations indicate most are easily ‘baulked’ by the very simplest of objections. No time, No need, No budget, We use someone else. Stammer, stammer, stutter, pause… crickets. Ask a team member today what their objection strategy is for “we’ve already got one”?

Does this all sound too hard? Well, chances are you’ve already done it.

Remember the McDonalds, 2 All Beef patties competition from the late ’80s? – I do. They said if you could say the entire ingredients of a Big Mac in 4 seconds or less, you ‘won’ a free coke. This was an example of marketing genius. To this very day, I can easily rattle off the recipe for a Big Mac in well under the 4secs. Just as most of us could back then.’

I’d argue if you can force yourself to remember, practise and regurgitate a burger recipe for the equivalent reward of about .90cents of Coke. Do you think you should practise your objection response strategies so you can sell more, make more commission and have a better week/ day/ life? So why haven’t you?

I don’t know why you haven’t either, but you really should.

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