How To Run A Sales Meeting With A Prospect: Keep It Simple!

With so many sales articles, sales books, and sales coaching
philosophies, it sometimes can be overwhelming and hard to know where
to start in terms of how to run your sales meeting effectively. Many
aspects of sales are over complicated. Keep it simple for you and for
the prospective client to start seeing better results.

Here are some ways to keep your next sales meeting simple:

Set a simple agenda. Prior to the meeting, email out a very brief
agenda, with 3-4 topics you will cover, such as current challenges,
discovery about those challenges, potential ways your company can
address those challenges, and set the next steps.

Be sure to ask if there is anything to add to the agenda before you
get the meeting started and get their buy-in that the agenda looks
good.
The agenda may read like this:

Agenda
1. Current Goals & Challenges
2. Questions & Discovery
3. Possible Solutions & How We Help
4. Next Steps

Ask simple questions, ask one question at a time and listen. Sometimes
the most powerful questions you ask are the shortest and most direct
ones. Questions that begin with “what” are generally a good place to
start. Take your time listening. Really put your focus on the
prospective client and #1 and #2 from the sample agenda above.

Be in the now and in the moment. Most people tend to sacrifice the now
because they are worrying about the past or the future all the time.
Are you truly listening to the person you are speaking with or are you
thinking about what you need to go and do, your emails, your voice
mails, or what you are going to say next? The more in the moment and
present you can be with your prospect, the more effective the meeting
will be. And by the way, they will feel like you listened to them and
understand their challenges.

Set simple next steps. Think about how to make things easier for the
prospective client by clearly setting out the next steps for
partnering together. Make sure the next meeting (phone or in-person)
is being set up before you leave the meeting and that you gain a
commitment on the next step.

The key here is to keep forcing yourself to look for ways to simplify
the meeting and the entire process for the prospect to partner with
your organization. If you are not clear, they will be confused and
this will only hurt your efforts. Keep looking for ways to make it
simple for all parties and you will start seeing better sales results
before you know it.

By Jeremy Ulmer

How to Boost Your Sales in a Down Market

As a professional sales trainer, I have the opportunity to talk with
salespeople, from a wide range of industries, representing a variety
of products and services. Based on their feedback, I find that while
most sales reps are challenged in this difficult economy, some are
doing quite well. In fact, it's not unusual to find evidence of both
success and failure even among sales reps working in the same office,
trained by the same manager, selling an identical product, in the
exact same market.
While there's no "magic bullet" for selling in a down market, there
are several key steps you take right now that will have an immediate
impact on your business. Here are four tips I would like to share with
you that I've gleaned from top producers who have learned to adopt new
strategies and prosper during tough economic times.
Don't "play office"… make appointments. Monitor your activities and
take a critical look at how you spend your day. Is your day filled
with client appointments and prospecting opportunities or are you
reading the newspaper, surfing the internet, playing solitaire,
filling out administrative paperwork and taking long lunches with
co-workers? In other words, respect your time and delegate all
administrative tasks that keep you from your two primary functions…
making appointments and closing sales.
Accomplish daily prospecting goals. Schedule time each morning to make
a minimum of 25 prospecting or customer service calls per day. Daily
prospecting activity is the single most important ingredient in
determining business success.
Enhance customer service. Make it a priority to meet with your
existing customers. Look for follow-on sales as well as cross-selling
and upselling opportunities. This is not only a sound business
decision, but it also allows you to promote client loyalty and
generate additional referrals.
Be prepared to address common objections. It will serve you to develop
a well thought out response to the three most common prospect
objections; "It costs too much", "I can get it cheaper elsewhere", and
the classic stall, "I want to think about it." It's important to take
the time to actually role-play your responses until you sound smooth
and natural. When it comes to building confidence, there is no
substitute for role-play.
Seasoned salespeople have learned to accept the fact that economic
market conditions will fluctuate up and down just as predictably as
winter follows fall. By incorporating these powerful Best Practices
into your daily activities, you'll not only improve your business now,
but also hone your business skills so that as the market recovers, and
it will, you will be in position for even greater income than
previously experienced.

by John Boe