The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

What came first, the chicken or the egg?
No doubt you have heard this question. No doubt the debate continues.

Here’s is the chicken-and-egg version as it relates to sales:
What leads to more cash, more appointments, or more assignments from set appointments?

IMAGINE THIS: After countless attempts to connect with a prospect, your persistence has paid off. You did it! You've got the meeting on the calendar, you are feeling great! Now, you have one chance to make a great first impression, and it needs to count. Luckily, you have a few days to prepare so you can ensure the meeting runs smoothly and the prospect views you as a trusted and valued partner.

While it’s important to prepare yourself for the meeting, you also want to prepare the prospect. This is one thing that salespeople often overlook prior to a meeting. Most prospects are going to expect you to come in and tell them why they need to buy your product or service. It’s up to you to go out of your way to be sure they know you are different and you are not going to do that. Don't just prepare yourself... also prepare your prospect.

Have you ever come back to your office after a solid Needs Analysis meeting and shared the exciting news with your manager? As you sit down to recap, your manager starts to ask you questions about the prospect, and you realize you can’t answer them. Critical information that you need was never even discussed. The assignment that you uncovered and thought was strong is actually vague, and you begin to understand clearly that you are missing key pieces of information. You start to deflate as you realize this meeting wasn’t as good as you thought after all.

No one likes to wait!

We don't like to wait in lines, on hold, or for Christmas morning. We want things now! As a society, we've become accustomed to instant downloads, on-demand programs, and same-day Amazon Prime deliveries.

Which is why sales organizations want to accelerate the sales process. For years, B2B sales were often seen as a long, complicated process where the salesperson could do very little to speed up the sale, but today you can speed up the process by simply slowing down!

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a list of ten surefire questions you could ask during a needs analysis meeting that would lead directly to cash? That would be sweet… show up, ask the questions, and leave with an order!

Too bad that list does not exist. There is a list of guidelines to follow that will elevate your questions and your method of questioning to a higher level… perhaps to Rembrandt level. Salespeople can reach this level by perfecting the art of asking questions! 

Over the last few weeks, I've been coaching a number of salespeople from markets across the country on tactical things they can do within their sales processes to help them connect with a decision maker or decision influencer sooner to grow their new business.

Many things can be done to accomplish this, but one that seems to be resonating with salespeople lately is identifying their target persona so they can clearly define WHO their target is and fine tune HOW they plan to approach a new business prospect. This is not a new strategy, just one that is often overlooked.

During the sales process, it’s important to have open and upfront conversations about how advertisers measures success. Clients will make their decisions to buy again based on the success, or failure, of the campaigns and solutions you sell them. 

Questions about success and client expectations should take place throughout the steps of the sales cycle, and your questions will differ based on where you are in the sales process.

Even when you are intentional about removing surprises and skilled at talking about price, you may still encounter objections during the sales process. Listening for objections along the way and handling each one as it comes up helps you avoid trying to address all the objections while you are presenting your proposal.

We're ignoring you. 

You know it's true. You've always thought it to be the case, but now you have confirmation. Prospects are ignoring you! And how I do know this? 

I'm a reformed client. 

Perhaps you got excited when you read the first part of the headline. I got excited too, wishing there was a list of “magical” questions that could be asked of any prospect with a great result. The problem is, such a list does not exist. Sorry to burst your bubble.