WINNING NEW CLIENTS - TIP OF THE WEEK No. 12

WHY AM I MAKING THIS SALES CALL..................

Someone once told me "in the absence of clearly defined goals we resort to activity". Because in many markets and especially in a business development role, you can't always get the order "on this visit" its easy not to have a solid objective for every visit or telephone sales call you make. As a result neither the seller nor the prospect get real value from the interaction. So how do you avoid sales activity for the sake of it, how do you get something from every visit or telephone sales you make? Set an objective for every customer prospect engagement and make sure it is a SMART objective - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Based. In fact SMART is a great way to sanity check anything you are doing in your sales process - it makes you ask yourself "why am I making this call, am I really progressing the sale or I am confusing activity for results?"

WINNING NEW CLIENTS - TIP OF THE WEEK No. 11

WIN MORE ORDERS AND ASSIGNMENTS BY OFFERING YOUR PROSPECT A CHOICE

Too often we submit proposals that unintentionally offer the prospect, client or customer a simple choice - go ahead or don't. Whenever you are uncovering your prospect's needs and presenting your solution always look for two options they could go for - don't invent something and make sure you have raised the options in the discussions. For example you could offer pricing options, product configuration options, delivery and installation options. Then when you present the proposal you are asking "do you want to go ahead with Option A or would you prefer Option B?". The prospect is then deciding which option to take rather than deciding on the choice we usually give which is "do you want it or not".