WINNING NEW CLIENTS - TIP OF THE WEEK No. 16

Can't get the deal closed, are you REALLY dealing with the decision maker?

As money gets tight, decision making authority gets moved higher. Past decision makers, the people who previously have given you orders, suddenly move from being decision makers to [albeit significant] decision influencers, the problem is they don't tell you - something stops them. So here is the acid test - are you dealing with the "budget holder" or the "budget caretaker", find out who REALLY owns the business problem, who REALLY holds the budget and THIS is your decision maker.

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. 4

ARE YOUR SALES VISITS CONVERSATIONS OR INTERROGATIONS?

How many sales visits do you make where YOU do all the talking? Especially on a first appointment, ask open questions - how, what, why, where, when, who - and then listen. Open questions make the customer talk, get descriptive answers and let you uncover their needs easily. Closed questions - will you, would you, do you, did you and have you - typically get "yes" or "no" answers and the sales visit quickly degenerates into an interrogation. The rapport breaks down, you make your pitch too early and before you really understand the customer's needs, you lose the order and the customer misses out on the benefits you could have delivered.