I don't know if you have ever been in the scenario where you are about to walk into a meeting, you know that this guy you are meeting has the potential to give you an order that will take you to the next level.
Your hands are a bit sweaty, you really have prepared long and hard for this, and it just HAS to work out. What's even better; though this is the first time you have met them, they have come to you on the back of a recommendation, because you took the time to put a referral system in place along with great testimonials.
You know you have what they need, you have even swotted up on your sales training and you have the line of questions that every great sales person would start off by.
After he shakes your hand, you do the rapport building small talk, and then he asks that question… The one you were dreading……
What is the question and how you should answer it to supercharge your sales calls?
That question is “Great tell me what you can do for me”
All the preparation, all the great questions just seem to evaporate from your mind and you resort to that age old trap that all sales people and business owners seem to fall into;
The Pitch!
Yes, the good old sales pitch, the 2 minute elevator speech, the presentation – all of which have you conducting a monologue, telling the guy at the receiving end everything that you already know.
And were you aware that they will take in less than 7% of what you tell them, and only that much is you happen to guess correctly exactly what is relevant to them – A highly unlikely prospect.
What's wrong with that, I mean you might even have taken the hugely positive step of preparing your value proposition and created a set of power questions that you can use and so you know the pitch has to be good.
Yes to a point – Once you have nailed your value proposition, so that you know exactly who your prospects are, what they want and how they can get great value from it, you are now ready for the next step.
The next step is to get them to understand how THEY can get value from your offering.
And yes, you are indeed right when you guessed that people like you and your prospects hate to be told things – you all probably like to figure it out for your self.
Because when you figure it out for yourself, you are far more likely to start owning the idea.
So do you know how to respond to THAT question, the one that can throw all your plans into disarray yet?
You respond by telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, with complete sincerity – you say;
I would love to tell you all about how XYZ got ABC benefit from using our service, but I really don't know if that is relevant to you, until I know a bit more about your own needs and desires and what currently might be causing you pain – is it OK if I just ask you a couple of clarification questions.
And then when they allow you, you get back on track with your power questions, that will clarify whether or not the guy sitting opposite you will actually understand how they feel they can benefit from your offering.
You may not even be aware of how powerful the language you use everyday is and as you start to use some of the techniques that my executive coaching clients or my sales coaching clients have learnt, you could continue to SuperCharge your client meetings, with more positive results than even you thought possible.
This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales and Marketing - www.3r.ie. For previous articles like this, visit 3R's Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.
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