As children, we were often told the story of the tortoise and the hare. It is probably one of Aesop’s more famous fables, being made into a cartoon by Walt Disney. You recall how the story goes. The hare is beaten by the much slower tortoise simply because it keeps going while the hare stops to rest. The same can be said when doing a sales call or series of sales calls. This was one of the biggest takeaways I had from the Sales Skills Bootcamp by David Weinhaus.
You may be asking yourself how can the famous fable be related to my previous sales process. The short answer is, before taking the class I would always rush to “make the sale.” I have since learned its better to go slower and really learn the prospect’s real and true goals, not just the commoditized goal.
A few other big takeaways included:
Using the Three Sale Sale:
- Why Change
- What solution
- How, including when
Find the gap
- Understand the current situation
- Understand the goals and timing
- Understand the plans and challenges
Use a playbook
I was always hesitant to use a playbook as I felt like it would stifle me as I pride myself in my use of examples and metaphors. Now I plan to use it much like presenter notes or cue cards to simply jog my memory so I can then go and adlib my examples and metaphors.
It also helps you keep and develop an agenda for the call to maximize yours and your prospect’s time.
Do the math
To be perfectly honest, most clients we deal with have no budget in mind, or they’re minimal compared to what they need to do. They typically can’t answer the question, such as what is the lifetime value of a client or what is the dollar amount tied to a typical job or project. While I understand that every job or project is different, there is a sweet spot that they like working in or a specific clientele they like working with. By doing the math with a client to help them determine who and what those are, we can work to establish a realistic budget number that they can be comfortable with.
Planning and Solution Call
In the past, I would often go from the first call straight into a proposal call. I would have skipped truly finding the budget and went straight into a proposal. By using a Discovery then Exploratory, then Planning and Solution Call method, you really set yourself up better for success.
With the Planning and Solution Call, you can throw out the hard numbers and go over a customized plan you have for the prospect.
Closing the business and handling objections
No one wants to get down to the end and realize you lost. David did a great job of teaching us how to handle the final calls and overcome objections.
Some of my key takeaways from this session were use and inoffensive close to help you close the business. Do this by summarizing with goals and challenges. Talk about discussed action goals and challenges.
For objection handling you need to:
- Settle your emotions
- Diffuse tensions between you and the prospect
- Give your self the best chance at success
- Call the prospect, don’t just fire off an email asking why!
- Be sure to restate the prospect’s goals and then ask where you fell short
- If they are reluctant to take a call, be authoritative, and force a call. It’s like dating; After four dates, they at least owe you a call and not a text or email breakup.
- Try to determine what changed
Moving forward, I plan to take the time to go slower in my calls so that I can ultimately go faster.
