sales tips & articles

It’s all about planning and preparation

It’s amazing how many sales people and business owners I talk to who under-estimate the value and importance of planning and preparing for a first appointment.

In the early days of my sales career making this change had the single biggest impact to my sales success. Besides, there is nothing worse than leaving an appointment without having the information you require simply because you forgot to ask the question.

The objective of the first sales meeting is to build rapport with the buyer and understand not only their needs but the priority of these needs.

Planning your appointments and taking a strategic approach helps to:

• Reduce the chance of surprises in the appointment
• Create a more professional impression
• Increase the likelihood of achieving objectives, and
• Reduces stress

Take a couple of minutes prior to every appointment and think about:

What value are you offering your prospect by having this meeting? What’s in it for them?

What would you like to achieve in this meeting (keeping in mind it is often difficult to close the sale in the first meeting)

What situations or events are occurring in their business or industry that could create an opportunity for you?

What ‘high-level’ questions will you need to ask to uncover their needs, current problems or areas they would like to improve? For example

“What has prevented you from addressing the problem before and what has changed now?”
“What would be the consequences of not dealing with the problem at this time?”

Are there likely to be any objections or reasons that the prospect may not be interested in pursuing any further? If so, what can you say to overcome these objections and move it to the next stage?

Having a list of pre-prepared questions written down in front of you keeps your appointments effective and efficient, for both parties. Many of you may think this makes you look unprofessional, however, in my opinion the opposite is true. It makes you stand out from the crowd and shows the prospect how serious you are and how important this appointment is to you.

Explain at the beginning of the appointment, the reasoning behind it; that you don’t want any pertinent information to be missed or forgotten.

Having these questions written down will also help to:

• Improve your listening skills. You give the prospect your undivided attention because you don’t have to worry what to ask next.
• Keeps the appointment flowing in the direction you want and keeps everyone on track. Particularly if the conversation or prospect goes off on a tangent.
• Obtain all the key information you need to move to the next step.
• Keep you focused and stop you from “selling” too early in the appointment

As they are talking, make notes and highlight any ‘hot buttons’ or ‘key points’ separately that you will need to go back to. Do not interrupt and start ‘selling’ until you have finished asking all your questions, even when you hear something you know you can fix or when pressed by the prospect.

Interrupting stops the train of thought, stops them from sharing further information and stops you from getting a complete understanding of their needs and their priority of these needs.

When you have finished asking questions, go back and clarify anything that you need further information on to ensure your complete understanding. In addition, paraphrase the buyer's concerns to indicate your understanding, and clarify the problem that needs to be resolved. For example;

"So what you would like to do is improve the conversion rates of your sales team so all members are consistently meeting their budgets, is that correct?”

Once you have a complete understanding, you are ready to move to the next stage.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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I’m sure most of you would agree that selling to someone who has been referred to you is much easier and more enjoyable than those generated through traditional sales efforts such as direct mail and cold calling. The success rate is higher because they are in the market for your services and are also much less price sensitive because the referring party has told them the value and benefits that you can deliver.

Anyone who works in the Financial Services such as Accountants, Financial Planners and Trades and Services realizes the potential of well managed relationships. Many have built very successful businesses simply by managing a handful of alliances and have little need or desire to do any other form of marketing. Yet there are also a lot of people out there who try the same thing but it just never seems to work.

So why do they work for some people but not for others?

Successful alliances grow from good relationships with people who have a similar mindset, similar values and similar ethics. They are based on mutual trust which is built up and managed over time; having one meeting and following up with a phone call a month later just won’t work. Would you refer your clients to someone you hardly know?

It is also about your expectations of the alliance and how you position the relationship. It should never be about how many referrals you can get but rather how you can add value each others business and clients.

Here are some tips to help you maximize your alliance relationships:

1. Don’t attempt to set up an alliance with someone just because they are in a complimentary business. Do they have similar values, ethics and mindset as you?
2. Discuss your client base, do you have the type of clients they are looking for and vice versa?
3. Discuss the expectations of the alliance, how you would like to see the relationship work and why you think there is potential for both parties.
4. Give you alliances time to mature and develop and be willing to put the effort in, it can take 6-12 months before you really understand each others business.
5. Develop a system on how you will maintain contact and communicate. In the first 6 months aim to meet face to face at least every 2 months and have phone or email contact in between.
6. Don’t expect any referrals in the short-term, expect only to be informed and educated on their business, their clients, what is a good referral, how to find them and what to say when you do.
7. Develop ‘cheat sheets’ for their staff that outlines what to ‘look out’ for or ‘listen to’. Take it one step further and write a script on what they can say to introduce you. For example, “Mary why don’t I get John from XYZ to call you, he has helped a lot of our clients who have had similar problems...” It might seem obvious but it’s about making the process as easy as possible. There are many people who feel that introducing a third party is being pushy or rude.
8. Ensure everyone has a pile of your business cards to hand out. It helps the client to remember who you are when you call.
9. If you have been given a referral, communicate the progress to your alliance so they are aware of whether it was a good referral. Explain why it was such a good referral or why it wasn’t. Remember it’s about ongoing education until you get it right.
10. Once the relationship is established meet regularly to inform them of changes to your business such as new products or services and for you to learn of changes to their business, particularly staff changes.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here