Sales skills, your key strategy: In the important opening moments as you begin the face-to-face sales meeting, echo the hot-button that worked on the phone. Why? In your earlier phone contact with the prospect or Decision Maker, you had only a few seconds to trigger interest, and convince her to invest time in meeting with you.
But you can't take for granted that this interest will carry over from that phone conversation until today's meeting. In the days since then, she may have fielded hundreds of other calls, and now may have only a vague memory of who you are, and why it seemed a good idea to invest time in meeting with you. Pressed now with other concerns, she may be looking for a reason to end it quickly and get on to what seem to be more important matters. For that reason, it's a good idea to spend a few moments at the start recapturing her previous interest, and setting the stage for a successful call. Here's how:
Sales skills, opening tip #1: Review the interest-generating statement you used during the phone conversation.
What you say now should not be a word-for-word repeat of your phone message, but rather should echo the essence of that conversation as a brief reminder of the hot buttons that captured interest earlier. But be brief. This should normally not take more than a couple of sentences:
"As I mentioned in our phone conversation last week..."
Sales skills, opening tip #2: Be prepared to cite a BRIEF success story to heighten interest.
Here's a model you can adapt to fit your situation:
"We have recently been able to help a number of other engineering firms in this area. For example, we saved Brown and Hennessey nearly a thousand dollars per month in clerical costs. Stone and Feeney were about to hire an additional secretary, but the productivity gains we developed made that unnecessary -- again, a very large savings in direct salary, benefits, and even office space.
"That's why I believe we can be equally helpful to you, so I'd like to begin by asking a few questions to determine where we might best be able to help your organization."
Sales skills, opening tip #3: Be prepared for possible last-minute hesitations and objections.
Sometimes, around the start of the call, the prospect may raise objections like these:
- "You'd be wasting your time."
- "I've decided I'm not interested."
- "My job is to practice law, and I leave decisions about systems to my office manager."
- "We already investigated this idea, and decided it's not right for us."
- "We don't have the money."
Keep in mind that these are NOT call-killers, they are simply objections, or even alternate ways of asking questions. Respond to last-minute hesitations like these as you do other objections. Most importantly, don't assume that you understand just what that objection means. Does "We don't have the money" really mean the firm is broke, or doe sit mean they don't want to spend on something they're not yet excited about? Never take an objection for granted.
Sales skills, opening tip #4: Generally avoid "Ice-Breakers"
The approach recommended here is direct and down-to-business: First, introduce yourself. Second, refresh the Decision Maker's recollection of why she agreed to see you. Third, if appropriate, briefly cite a relevant success story. But you should be aware that there is another school of thought on sales skills training on opening the sales call. That is, some sales managers and trainers prefer to open with "ice-breakers," hoping to build rapport before getting down to business. Thus they might first spend some time chatting about the weather or traffic, or about the golf or fishing trophies they see on the wall.
But if you project yourself into the mind of the prospect, I think you'll understand why I'm convinced that ice-breakers are not a good idea. The prospect invited you for a business purpose, not a social call. Given today's pace of work, few have time to kill on small-talk with strangers. Besides, if you open the call by talking about golf or trivia, you come across as someone who's not very serious about business. Even worse, you may be perceived as manipulative. The prospect knows why you are there, and will appreciate your getting on with things, and not wasting valuable business time.
Still, there are some circumstances, and some parts of the country, where ice-breakers are appropriate. For example, if you already know the prospect from another context - perhaps from a church, civic, or professional organization, or from passing on the golf course - a few words may be in order.
Similarly, in some locales, (especially smaller towns where the pace is slower and people tend to be more interested in others), a little socializing may be appropriate at the start of the call. If you do choose to open with ice-breakers, be alert to signals that the prospect is now ready to move on and get to business. These signals are often non-verbal, by movements, and facial expressions.
Often a shift in the chair from a relaxed to an upright position indicates the prospect's shift in interest. Another signal: a change in expression as the welcoming smile segues into a more formal expression.
Michael McGaulley. http://www.SellingFacetoFace.com. Books include How to Sell Face-to-Face Survival Guide; Sales Training Tutorials; Sales Presentations and Demonstrations; and Selling 101. This article has been reproduced in its entirety with the permission of the author. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_McGaulley |
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