Every day attention span dwindles for the buyer. In just a split second, you can lose a viable lead. That’s the reason you need to bring on your “A” game once you get in the face of the prospect. I have seen many sales reps go generic and throw away amazing opportunities to sell, all because of some elementary errors. Here are a few of them:
1. “Is this a good time to talk?” This is a way many sales reps open conversations, and the intent is often to put the prospect at ease and sound courteous. But it doesn’t work. The thing is, this will give an easy exit to someone whom you had taken so much pain to see. What if he simply says, “No, it’s not”? Now, people may genuinely be busy and might not be able to attend to you or a call momentarily, but that is for them to say. You will do better if you simply say, “Thank you for giving me your time. I’d try to make this as brief as possible.” That’s courteous enough, isn’t it?
2. Knowing little about the customer’s business: If you get in the face of the customer without knowing enough about his business, the odds will be clearly against you. The intention at your first meeting is to get down to a very engaging conversation and demonstrate adequate knowledge of the customer’s business. Generally, if you know enough about the prospect, not only will they be impressed with your extra effort, but you will also be able to hold them to an interesting conversation. As a rule of thumb, before you cold call, find out three news events/activities going on in the business and three future plans about the organization. How will you get that? – Well, if you can’t, then your future is not in sales.
3. Forcing a sale: It doesn’t happen so often that the customer will pay on your first visit. In fact, it is extremely rare, especially for B2B. While you keep the required focus on your sales goals, please understand that any attempt to force a sale will lead to resentment and possibly avoidance. If a lead is sales-qualified and, after a very engaging session, you find that they are not ready to buy at that moment, you just must devise a way to befriend them and grow a relationship.
4. Wasting people’s time: Sales guys must respect other people’s time. You can’t walk up to people without a previous appointment or call them up unscheduled and take 30 minutes of their time. It doesn’t add up. One of the easiest ways to get to the point very quickly is to focus on the pain. This is about creating some need awareness for your product. Say something like “I ”
5. Leaving without closing: Every step, all the way up from prospecting to eventual sale, you must keep “closing.” Closing here does not necessarily mean selling. But don’t you ever leave the prospect without a precise and mutually agreed next action. If you do, you lose the prospect. As you move along on the buying journey, you must be specific about the next action step after each interaction.