Stop showing up and throwing up!
OK, I hate that phrase – throwing up – but that’s exactly what happens during most initial sales calls. And everyone who’s been selling for more than a few months has been down this road…
After weeks of swapping emails and LinkedIn messages, a potential client finally agrees to their first ‘sales meeting’ with you. And you couldn’t be more excited! The sales prospect is a high-profile target for your firm, representing a significant amount of revenue opportunity.
You get the initial call scheduled (likely in Zoom or Teams), you prepare properly, and you’re ready to go. The call starts, you say “hello” to each other, then the buyer says to you, “So, tell me about your firm.” And you can’t wait to tell him about all the things you do… and your great team… and how awesome you are!
But here’s the thing… DON’T DO IT! You cannot respond to that request. If you do, then the conversation becomes about you. Clearly not what you want. You have to stop that conversation and flip the script 180°.
Something like this… “Mike, I’d love to tell you all about ABC Research, but first let me ask you about your company and the challenges* you’re having with your insights team and your internal clients.” And they will respond every time.
*If you have some sense of other problems they might be having, start there.
And as they answer, write down their responses and keep asking more questions. Keep drilling down. Your goal – during this exploratory call – is to get a sense of what their top business issues really are and the cause of them.
Then, when it’s your turn to talk, what you say about your firm will be in direct response to helping them solve the problems they just shared with you. Not some generic monologue that may or may not be relevant to them. Likely not.
If your initial call is scheduled for say, 30 minutes, you really only need to talk for the last five. The first 25 minutes should be you asking questions and learning all you can about the buyer.
Don’t worry… as the conversation expands over the coming days and weeks, you’ll have plenty of time to talk about what you do. But don’t be in too big a rush – they already know what you do. They’ve been to your website. What they really want to know is “Can you help me solve my problem?” And the question-first strategy outline above will help you answer that critical question and get the buy-sell conversation headed in the right direction.
To steal a quote from a former research buyer at Bayer, “It frequently astonished me that a prospective supplier would get a meeting with me and not ask questions. Instead, they just talked about what their company did. Aren’t we in the business of asking questions?” Words to the wise.
Good luck and good selling.
Looking for more strategies and tools to be a better seller-doer? Check out the Seller-Doer Workshop™ coming this summer: www.SellerDoerWorkshop.com Join the more than 150 MR professionals who have already graduated from this program.