Archives for July 2018

Salespeople need to go deeper on sales calls. Prospects make problem statements or give information describing how bad a situation is. Salespeople accept those statements and move the conversation forward often without uncovering how serious the problem is or how valid. It is important for salespeople to dig deeper to get to the real pain and they struggle with how to that without sounding like they are prying or being pushy. A simple way to simultaneously get to a deeper level and validate that the problem is worthy of addressing while at the same time appearing merely conversational and not pushy is to ask a simple question. When they make a statement of what purports to be fact just ask “how do you know”. Or you can ask “what do you base that on”. Sometimes you find that there is no basis for the statement, it is only opinion and sometimes the question leads to further discussion about the origin of the problem and hence it’s severity. When asked with the proper tonality (honest curiosity, humility), it will never get you in trouble and it will enrich the conversation.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Some salespeople are so eager to tell their story that they don’t wait to hear the real problem before they leap in with some statement about how wonderful their product is or a solution to what they assume the problem is based on sketchy initial statements. This behavior on sales calls will cause you to lose control of the sales call or even worse make you look pushy and cost you lots of money in lost sales. A better approach is to relax, listen, ask questions and dig a little deeper to verify that the prospect has the problem you initially assume they have. In addition to the problem, you need to understand the consequence the prospect is experiencing due to the problem and how he or she is reacting to the consequences of the problem. Only then can you begin to think about the solution to the problem. And remember the problem may have consequences you never thought of or it may be more or less important to the prospect than you initially thought.

When you bring people on a sales call there must only be one person who is the principle salesperson. One person should “run” the call. There should be a plan for the call and there should be a role for everyone on the call. If you don’t do this, chaos most likely will ensue. The reason is that people think they have to contribute to the conversation to justify their existence. As an example, the technical person may interject extraneous, though highly interesting, information that derails the salesperson’s line of questioning which was leading to pain.

At the beginning of the meeting it is best to define the roles of the attendees on your side so there is no confusion. Then one person should orchestrate the call. Who does most of the talking and leads the conversation depends on the goal of the call and the stage of the pursuit. For example, if the goal of the call is to engage in a technical discussion with the prospects technical people to determine if our solution will work, then the salesperson might introduce everyone, state the purpose of the call and hand the “baton” to the technical person to carry the conversation. Then, at the end of the technical discussion, the salesperson could wrap things up and close for the next step. However, if the goal of the call is to qualify the prospect, the technical person might just be there in case a technical question comes up. In that case the tech would not have a speaking role if no technical questions arose. Those are two extremes but the major point is that on every call, roles should be defined in advance, made clear to the prospect and there should only be one salesperson on the call.

Have you uncovered a compelling reason to buy in your prospect?
* If the opportunity languishes in your pipeline without moving as it should, maybe what you have uncovered is a “nice to have” rather than a compelling reason to buy it.
* If prospect continually puts you off, maybe what you found out on your last sales call was the prospect was interested in your product but did not have a compelling reason to buy it.
* If the prospect is overly price sensitive, then maybe what you uncovered was a prospect who could find a use for your product but does not have a compelling reason to buy it.
* If your prospect has gone “radio silent” for two months maybe the compelling reason you thought you uncovered was not so compelling after all.
I could go on but you get the point. The lesson here is to make sure that your prospect has a compelling reason to buy your product or service rather than just a need or an interest in the product or service. Make sure that the prospect actually has pain and there are problems with serious consequences that need to be urgently addressed before you label the opportunity as qualified.