Sales & Sales Management Brew

Winning the lottery - good surprise

Tax audit - bad surprise

Finding that you and your spouse are expecting - good surprise

Finding out that you can expect triplets - well maybe not such a great surprise

Getting promoted - good surprise

Getting promoted to Fargo North Dakota - bad surprise

In selling, surprises shouldn't happen.  Surprises are not good in selling.  Surprises in selling mean that somewhere along the way the sales person failed to execute a critical part of their sales process.

According to Dave Kurlan in his book, Baseline Selling, there is a process that minimizes surprises, and when that process is executed, you improve, you eliminate surprises and you maximize your ability to succeed.

Eliminate sales surprises by doing the following:

• Make sure you meet with the decision maker early.
• Execute your steps for qualifying to a "T". Ask the required tough questions to get to the real motivation of the prospect.
• Uncover any and all issues regarding money. They are the investment of time, money and resources required to make problems go away.
• Discuss and agree on the decision making process and make it stick.
• Follow up your initial meetings with ‘as we agreed to letters' so that you and the prospect are on the same page prior to presenting a solution.
• Get an agreement for a decision prior to presenting your solution.
• Review your entire process prior to presenting, then present and get a decision.

The process is simple but not easy to execute because executing each and every one of these steps requires ‘sales courage'.  And that is another blog posting.