You are tenaciously following up on a lead. You have pursued and stayed in touch for weeks or months – perhaps more than a year. You finally get the opportunity and eagerly present to your prospect. Before your meeting you have sold yourself in your mind that this prospect is yours – you even count your commission before the presentation takes place.
After you receive objection upon objection and the typical stalls like: “I need to think about it” or “This is more than I have budgeted” or “I am going to stick with my current provider” or “I need to run this by my spouse/partner”; discouragement and self pity take over and you begin searching the depleted want ads looking for a JOB figuring minimum wage is better than all the wasted time with no check on the back end.
Before you throw in the towel and blame the prospect for “wasting your time” or begin feeling sorry for yourself- let’s examine the scenario. First of all, when a sale fails- it is your fault – not your prospect’s fault. Second, tenacious follow up is admirable and a necessary component for sales success- but does not guarantee a sale. Third- we miss sales because we miss steps and usually have a marginal if any sales process to follow.
Before we can diagnose what caused the death of this sale and why the present failed we need to review the process. The key steps in the sales process are:
1- Building Instant Rapport: at the Initial Call in 10 seconds or less
2- Prequalifying: hard to sell easy- asking key questions about the
Individual/Company, Need/Pain, Interest/Desire, Motivation and Ability
3- Delivering a Dynamic 6 Step Presentation: with key mini bridge closing questions
that lead to the ultimate-“Yes”
4- Mastering Objections: getting to the bottom line objection
5- Closing and winning the Sale
Since you were able to set a presentation- my guess is you built enough rapport and value with your follow up to earn the right to take your prospects time. Unfortunately- sometimes that time is given just to get the chance to say “no” to you so you will go away. In this case – the sale began to fail at the prequel. Typically- we don’t ask enough
questions or the tough questions to determine if this person qualifies to take your time. (That’s right!- You need to talk to more people to say no to more people- this puts you in a position of abundance!) Asking key questions on ability- or interest in doing business with you- how deep their relationship is with their current provider could have determined whether taking the extra time to present would generate a sale. Or if those objections could be handled in the prequel – or better yet addressed in the presentation; either way you are increasing the likelihood of a conversion. It is imperative prior to presenting that you know your prospect has: problems you can solve, an interest in solving them, the motivation to solve them now, and the ability to invest in them self. Presenting to all key decision makers and getting an “up front contract” prior to the presentation increases the likelihood the sale is yours.
The other reason this sale failed at the present is you failed to deliver a 6 step dynamic presentation that led to the ultimate “Yes.” Here’s what I mean by a 6 step dynamic presentation:
1- INFORM
2- EDUCATE
3- INSPIRE
4- COMPARE
5- PERSUADE
6- MOTIVATE
Inserting the key mini- bridge closing questions between each step identifies all objections and allows you to handle them all prior to the sales ask. The goal of the 6 step dynamic presentation is:
·Deliver key content in the right order
·Build value
·Offset commodity consumer mindset
·Address all objections before the final ask
·Show you are the right company/rep
·Eliminate your competition
·Remove all risk to the prospect
·Lead to the ultimate “Yes”.
If you followed these steps, you either would have flushed out the objections/conditions at the pre-qual and didn’t set the present (saved time) or would have addressed and overcome by being better prepared and delivered appropriately. If all these steps are
taken and the sale still fails – you either missed a step or mis-managed the objections you encountered. I will talk about that on the next blog. If you want to learn more about the specifics within the 6 steps including the key mini bridge questions, simply click on the links below:
