Connect with Benchmark Training on LinkedIn: ***Subscribe Now And Ask Your Sales Questions In The Comments Section***
You have to have a clear objective for every meeting you hold with a prospect, if not, as Yogi Berra once said, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.
In our previous session we discussed the four possible outcomes of a prospect meeting.
A NO from the buyer. Sometimes called closed—lost
A continuation
An advance
Or, everyone’s favorite, a YES from the buyer, sometimes referred to as closed—won
While none of us like hearing a prospect tell us no, it’s better to get a direct no instead of getting trapped in “continuation land”–
”– that’s because a no means we can move on and make room for a better prospect in our pipeline--while a continuation means we do all the work while the prospect is not investing any resources in us. NOT COOL!
While our ultimate goal is to get the client to say yes, there may still be a few important points to cover in this meeting or in future meetings before a YES is even feasible… that’s where advancing the sale comes into play.
So how do you advance a sale?
Let’s take a closer look at the three most common types of advances you can implement to move your meeting closer to a yes.
Data driven advances, Experiential driven advances, and Buyer Persona Driven advances…
Data Driven advances are used when your buyer needs some sort of custom proposal to make a decision and she has to provide you with specific data to in order for you to complete the proposal. These advances are centered around the prospect committing to take action and provide the data.
Ideally your goal is to get your hands on that information before or during the meeting, but worst case, you can take a leap of faith with your success and hope the prospect gets it to you after the meeting.
Either way, your next step is to schedule the next meeting for the two of you to review the proposal together—remember, you must get that next meeting scheduled BEFORE you leave this meeting then send the invite immediately following
Be sure to use the WIFM principal here. It might look something like this:
After the buyer has the either provided the information needed for a proposal, or promises to provide it, the sales professional ends the meeting as follows:
"Thanks so much for gathering all this information for us… I’ll get to work on the proposal ASAP and make sure to cover all the details we’ve discussed so far. Now, the information I’ll provide can be a little complex, so it’s best for us to schedule a time to review the information together. We’ll need about 3 days to get everything finalized, so how does your schedule look on Thursday or Friday next week? [after the prospect answers] Okay, so will morning or afternoon be less crazy for you that day? "
Here’s the best part, even if the prospect fails to provide the information, at least you have a schedule time on the calendar to regroup.
Experiential Driven advances are utilized when the best way to display your value proposition and/or unique selling proposition is by initiating a trial or firsthand view of your product such as a factory tour. Again, this could be a quick trial that takes place during your first meeting, or in more complex situations, you may have to schedule the trial for a future date. Either way, it does take some commitment from your prospect, so you have a solid plan for an advance. Again, be sure to schedule the next meeting before you leave this meeting.
In some cases, it’s best to work backwards from the goal start date you set with the buyer and include how long they will need for the trial and the evaluation.
Also, as the person responsible for your own success, you want to make sure you have scheduled meetings to connect with your prospect during the trial and you guessed it, you must schedule that next meeting before you end this one.
Unless of course you want to leave your success in the hands of chance… uh no.
The conversation may look something like this:
"Earlier you mentioned the goal start date to implement the new software is 90 days from now. So considering a 10 day trial and 5 day evaluation period, along with a 30 day deployment timeline, it looks like you’ll want to start the trial date no later than next Tuesday. To make sure you’ll get the most out of your trial period, it’s best to schedule a time for us to regroup around day 2-3. How does your schedule look on Thursday or Friday…"
and continue to narrow down the close from there.
0 Comments