Problem: Ever go on a sales call where there seemed to be little structure, where both parties seemed to be on different pages, where expectations were not met, and little was accomplished? Even worse, you expected something positive to occur but simply got a luke-warm response such as, “I need to think it over. Call me in a few days.” Opportunities are squandered and the buyer seems to be in control.
Problem: Mitch’s company sold data storage solutions. A five-year veteran of selling, he called the other day for some coaching. He said that he had just completed a one-hour meeting with one of his top prospects, a large retailer who was a key prospect for his company. He explained that he had experienced difficulty getting the prospect into a discussion of pain and, when he finally did, he felt time pressure to hurry through the qualifying process. As a result, Mitch thought that he had done a poor job in the pain step. He said that this seemed typical of his meetings and that due to poor qualifying on his part, he was not closing some of the accounts that he thought he should.
Problem: “What am I doing here?” Robert said to himself. He was twenty minutes into the initial meeting with this prospect, and he was clearly fighting an uphill battle. All his attempts to develop rapport were met with apathetic, almost frigid responses. His questions, simple and innocuous though they were, received little more than one or two word responses. “What’s going on here?” he wondered. This guy won’t even crack a smile and yet he gave me the appointment. Is he just having a bad day, or do I have a hygiene problem? He just couldn’t figure it out, yet he kept at it, trying to pump some life into this dying appointment. He wanted to quit, but his ego wouldn’t let him; he felt he should be able to breathe some life into this situation.
Problem: Why is money so difficult to discuss? Salespeople frequently hear from prospects that budget is “no problem” at the beginning of the sales call. However, once things start to get close, the story often changes. We’re told that we “have to sharpen our pencil,” “get more competitive,” or offer “additional discounts.” Yet, once the sale is won, price seems to evaporate as an issue and pressure is put on the vendor to improve quality or service. Often we hear from salespeople that money is the number one issue in getting and keeping the business. “We need to have more competitive pricing, better discount structures or we just can’t compete.” Sound familiar?
Problem: Objections are probably the most misunderstood area of selling and typically salespeople are not very good at dealing with them.
Analysis: Experience tells us that objections are really not “buying signals” like the sales gurus of old have told us. In fact, objections could be deal breakers if we don’t handle them properly so most salespeople would rather not deal with them at all. Traditional methods of handling objections (memorizing ten ways to defeat the price objection, etc.) are not real world solutions for most salespeople. They can’t remember most of them under pressure anyway, so avoidance becomes the strategy.
Problem: In the parking lot on the way out of the sales meeting, Sid shook his head and said to his manager, “If I would have only asked about _______ the call would have taken a favorable turn. Why can’t I think of those things while I am in the middle of the meeting?” Asking yourself these questions after the sales call is just as effective as having a parachute that opens after the first bounce.