We are in the middle of our Maximizing Customer Meetings Sales Team Meeting Agenda series. To enhance the series, we’ve called on some top selling experts to share their strategies for maximizing customer meetings. This post is brought to us by Mary Donato, President at Applied Principles, a sales and marketing professional services firm that helps Fortune 1000 companies achieve sales and marketing excellence.
The Win-Win Sales Call by Mary Donato
How to get centered on your client so you both succeed.
As the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, I have had the opportunity to interact with many outstanding marketing and sales organizations. Recently, I observed one member’s top sales consultant prepare for an important initial call with a prospective customer. It was like listening to a well-orchestrated play: He knew what questions he wanted to ask at the beginning of the call and set an objective to get a complete list of the client’s issues before having any discussion about a solution to their problem. He even anticipated objections and how he would respond. By mentally going through the conversations in advance, the consultant was thoroughly prepared for the call before stepping into the client’s office. The goal of these efforts was to insure that he could find a solution that would meet the customer’s specific needs. I asked him what he would do if the solution wasn’t a good fit, and he replied that he would advise the prospect, stop the sales cycle, and move on to the next opportunity. Why am I highlighting this story? Far too many salespeople don’t attempt—or don’t know how—to truly understand client needs and what would be an effective solution for them. In the end, time, energy, and money are wasted, both on the seller’s and buyer’s part. So, what makes a great sales call? A good start is having a philosophy of caring deeply for what it takes to make the customer successful. The Sales Performance Group (SPG) at FranklinCovey, based in Salt Lake City, has a sales training and coaching curriculum called “Helping Clients Succeed,” which provides a practical framework and process for understanding the client’s exact needs and issues. The founder of SPG, Mahan Khalsa, author of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play, offers several key principles for becoming “maniacally” client-focused:
SALES ISN’T ABOUT SELLING It’s about helping clients succeed. The job of a salesperson is to provide expanded awareness of possibilities and superior choices to facilitate a process for clients to make decisions in their own best interests.
INTENT COUNTS MORE THAN TECHNIQUE Get crystal clear about your intent before you pick up the phone or walk through the door, because it’s going to affect everything else that follows. Make sure it’s an intent that’s focused on the client’s best interests.
SOLUTIONS HAVE NO INHERENT VALUE Solutions derive value only from the problems they solve and the results they produce. To truly understand client needs, you need to move off the solution (a counterintuitive move, especially for salespeople).You must, instead, objectively explore issues, problems, and desired results, as well as what criteria the client will use to make a decision.
NO GUESSING Too often, a question you want to ask the client may come to mind, but for whatever reason you don’t ask it. For example, “From what you have described, you seem to be happy with your current solution.Why would you consider changing?” or “How much funding have you allocated for this project?”or “What criteria will you be using to make your decision?”To help clients succeed, you need to learn how to ask these hard questions in a soft way. If you don’t ask these questions, it leaves you to guess the answers. If there’s a fit, work together, make money, and have fun. If there is no fit, find out quickly, shake hands, and part friends. And if your solution doesn’t fit, or they have more pressing needs, maybe you can recommend where they can find another answer. By doing this, you could become a trusted advisor to the client.
Tags: cusotmer meeting success, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea, sales teams
