Sales & Sales Management Brew

Maximize the initial appointment:  The phone call to set up the initial appointment is the key to any successful sales call.  It isn't the presentation and close meeting.  John Savage used to say:  "you want to close more sales, work on your openings."

The keys to maximizing the initial call are:

Have  a great phone call to set up the appointment (See qualifying for severe mental anguish post)

1. Begin the meeting with a question:
1. Why am I here?
2. When we finish this meeting, what do we have to accomplish in order for you to say this was a great meeting?
3. Typically, Presidents of companies are quite busy.  They always have the option to say ‘no' to meetings with sales people, so ask them; "Aside from wanting to learn more about me and my company, why are you taking time out of your busy schedule to meet me?"
2. Know and execute the ‘drill down' technique:
1. Tell me more about that.
2. Why is that a problem?
3. How long has this been a problem?
4. What happens if you don't fix the problem?
5. Do you want to fix it?  But not today?

Understand that the prospect thinks everything is all right and will not be willing to admit to problems or concerns.  This means that you have to work at finding out what is going on.  Why is it a problem?  What is the long-term impact on corporate objectives?  You have to be patient, you have to listen and you have to nurture your questions so that the meeting doesn't turn into an interrogation. 

More times then not, sales people may start the meeting by asking a question or a series of questions but then there is a shift in the meeting.  That shift takes place typically when the prospect asks a question that sounds something like:  "How would you fix that?"

When this happens, our sales process and execution of said process go out the window because our ‘record collection' kicks in.  Dave Kurlan  author of Baseline Selling defines the record collection as:  When a candidate has a self-limiting Record Collection it means that too many of the records, or beliefs in his/her collection will sabotage rather than support a successful selling outcome.  The particular record kicking in that causes the sales person to spill the beans is "I must educate my prospects before they will buy."  Not only does this keep you from getting sales, but also puts money in your competitors' pocket.  Think about it.  If you were your prospect, once you learned a solution to a problem, wouldn't you take it to your current provider?  Certainly you would, and your current provider is going to say, ‘sure I can do that."  Boom, there goes your sale.

Allowing your records to take over and failing to go through the process we've identified is the first step in failing to close more deals, more quickly at higher margins.