The first few days back from Christmas can be a bit of a challenge, the office is buzzing with “How was your Christmas?” or “Happy New Year” and people happily swapping stories of their festive celebrations. All quite lovely.
As lovely as this is, these conversations can also be prevalent when calling clients or meeting with clients, and I for one do tend to tire of the same conversations and from talking to clients so do they. It can get to a point where if I were to drink a shot of something for every time I hear one of those sentences I would be hammered very quickly.
Sales managers need to embrace to rapport building effects of these conversations, yet still have a focus on the business part of the call. If not then call rates whilst healthy, can be of little substance.
Remember all those clients who said that they will make a decision in the New Year? well it is time to get your business hat on and have some tools beyond rapport to help. At this time of year, it is good to have something to open a sales call with, and it is important to get to the business side of things too. With this in mind, having a structure to fall back on, an outcome for the call and a follow up actions helps to keep things on track. Let’s explore.
Structure
When calling or meeting with clients remember your sales structure, this time of year is a good time to revisit client goals and objectives, many clients are actually moving into their final quarter leading up to the new financial year in April so maintaining momentum will be important for them, so focus questions on this area. Use your key value proposition and benefits to help accelerate the client to a successful year-end. On the other hand, if the client has a new year starting in January then reestablish those immediate goals for the first quarter and cement your place as a collaborative business partner at this time. Whilst other sales people will be banging on about how much Baileys they have necked, you will come across far more meaningful.
Outcome
Thinking about what the client is looking to achieve, bring something to the sales call that will focus the client in your direction as a provider. Discuss what other people look to do, bring market insight and trend information to the call, so that when you make your recommendations and hopefully close the sale the client will feel that you were actually taking them somewhere and that your call had a relevance and purpose. We should always have the outcome in mind anyway; this time of year should be no different, whatever I have sold and when I sell training now, my mindset is always on the outcome for the client. “I am going to sell you some training today” as an example. If you do not have an outcome for your call then it is nothing more than a keeping in touch call, which of course is relevant, however it can create an extra step in the sales process and slow selling down.
Follow Up and Action points
When you are on the phone or meeting with clients, be sure to make a commitment to the client in terms of action points. Whether it be to book another meeting or presentation, is it to send a proposal to the client or even simply just to call back. Make sure this happens, that way you keep you presence alive in the client’s mind and they can look out for something or an action from you moving forward. You can also look to get some form of follow up or commitment from the client to, ask them what they well are doing in preparation for you next call or meeting.
In summary, keeping a tight leash on sales calls and meetings at this time of year will help to create more sales and better relationships if these three measurement criteria are used.
Start 2019 off the right way for your sales team and I wish you success. Thank for reading. If your team needs sales training then have a read of some of my testimonials and get in touch with me at Simon@serialtrainer7.com.
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