A great way to improve your credibility with a new business prospect is to engage them in conversations about the things they deal with as the owner (or executive) of a business. To do this you must think like an owner!
If you are going to think like an owner, you need to have basic business acumen. Here are three key areas we recommend as a starting point:
Focus some of your preparation on understanding more about the industry and business you are targeting. And be prepared to discuss your findings and learn more during your meeting. Approach each new prospect as a way to increase your business acumen. Your research and conversations with business owners and business managers are opportunities to learn something new and start to think like an owner.
Clients and prospects judge you by the questions you ask. Additionally, asking great questions will enhance your credibility and separate you from the pack of sales slugs! Different types of questions lead to different conversations. Ask your questions in a way that will uncover the prospect or client’s desired business results. You want to keep asking questions in a way that will zero in on the most important assignment. Here’s a lit of things to consider when developing and asking questions:
Here’s a template to use to create better proposals that close more often for the dollars you desire:
One page (or one PPT slide) per bullet point is all you need. Excluding any of these elements will negatively impact your closing ratio and often delay the sale.
It’s important to have open and upfront conversations about how the advertiser measures success early and often during the sales process. Your questions should differ based on where you are in the sales process.
Don’t settle for just one measure: It’s a mistake to get just one measure. Go deeper until you have at least 2 to 4 ways that you both agree to use to measure success. Having one form of measurement can be as bad as having none.
You will create a better solution if you have more than one way to measure success, and you will also increase the chances of receiving credit for success. For example, if a Ford dealer told you they needed to sell 20 more F-150s a month, you could probe further and add additional measurements like:
Here’s a good rule of thumb related campaign recaps: only create and deliver a recap to customers you want to keep!
As you create your campaign recap, look for ways to translate the data into plain English especially when selling integrated solutions that include digital. You need to provide the play-by-play portion (all the numbers), but you also need to add the color commentary, so they understand why the numbers are important. Providing a data dump of information is not sufficient.
Note: you don’t have to wait for a campaign to conclude before sending a recap—it is often a good idea to send a recap during a campaign to make sure things are on course or to get things back on track. Here’s a format that works well:
If your company already has a format in place for recaps, it’s a good idea to confirm that you are addressing these areas and tweak the existing recap format.
If you or a salesperson on your team had a disappointing 2018, the ball is in your court. Last year is in the rearview mirror, and the time to make some changes is here. If you are not a person who is into resolutions, that’s not a problem. There are plenty of great resources available to help improve your sales performance. Make a resolution or blaze a new trail, call it what you want — just do something different and make things happen!