Getting to Yes - Part I

A few years ago I was working with a client who was doing very good marketing. She was generating a lot of interest through networking, publishing and speaking. Prospects were calling her to explore if she could help them.

And, with very few exceptions, she blew it every time! She made every mistake in the book when it came to the selling process and lost most of the prospects she talked to.

With a little coaching, and by making a few changes in her sales approach, she was able to convert most of her prospects into clients. She filled her practice completely in about three months.

In the past five issues of More Clients, I outlined the many steps in the marketing process. In the next three issues I'm going to be focusing on the steps in the selling process.

First, a quick review:

The job of marketing is to turn strangers into prospects who have a positive experience of you and your services. Your marketing is successful if you can get a prospect to "Second Base" where they want to explore working with you. (See the Marketing Ball Model in the InfoGuru Manual.)

That's where selling starts.

There are two more bases to touch before you have a new client. Third Base is where a prospect wants to work with you. They are ready to buy. Fourth, or Home Base is where you have agreed on details, price, proposal, etc. and have received your first payment (which has cleared the bank).

As with the marketing process, the selling process can go very quickly or very slowly, but you can't skip any steps.

Starting this week, I'll give you an overview of the steps in-between Second and Third Bases (continued next week), and also give you the Key Mistakes for each of these steps. In the third installment I'll explore getting from Third Base to Home.

The Steps between Second and Third (4 of 7)

Making a Connection
Selling, like marketing, is based on relationships. People buy from people they know, like and trust. If you've done a good job of marketing, you've paved the way for selling.

But you can't jump into trying to make a sale.

You need to connect with the prospect who is now ready to explore working with you. They are not just interested in buying your services; they want to know that you care and that you understand what they really need.

So, the foundation of any sales conversation is empathy and listening. You don't need to push, you need to be open. Your attitude could be summed up as: "I hope I can help you. Let me learn more about you and together let's see what's possible."

Key Mistakes
- Thinking the sales conversation is about you, not the prospect.
- Doing all the talking, with little active listening.
- Connecting only at a business level, not a personal level.

Getting Focused
You want to set the groundwork for the selling conversation by reiterating the key elements of Marketing Syntax: Who you work with, the challenges your clients face and the outcomes you produce for them.

I'm talking about a very, very brief introduction, followed by, "But before I know if my services are right for you, I need to learn more about your situation."

Even though someone is meeting with you and supposedly has absorbed your marketing message and materials beforehand, it's still important to get your prospects focused on what this sales conversation is about.

Key Mistakes
- Jumping into questions before getting focused.
- Assuming they already know about your business.
- Failing to take charge and lead the sales conversation.

Understanding the Situation
Once you've focused the meeting (and this could be on the phone or in-person), your next job is to find out about the client's current situation. To do this, you need to ask a LOT of questions. They need to feel you really know them and what's important to them.

I've often asked my clients what they had learned about their prospect's situation, and was surprised that most of them didn't know the basics: How the business got started, what the business sold, size of the business, number of people, revenues and key competitors.

In fact, if you're selling to a company, you'd better know all of that going in!

Key Mistakes
- Asking questions as a formality, to get to the "important part of the meeting" (your wonderful service).
- Not going into questions in sufficient depth.
- Not showing real interest in the answers.

Discovering the Challenges
The selling conversation then needs to morph seamlessly into the reasons your prospect is meeting with you in the first place. What are the challenges, problems, predicaments and pain they are experiencing?

You're looking for that nerve, that thing that is irritating them enough to seek the counsel of a professional. What's missing? What's not working as well as it could? What keeps them up at night? What is this challenge costing them?

Key Mistakes
- Failing to find the ONE key challenge your prospect faces.
- Assigning equal importance to all the challenges.
- Jumping into your solution too quickly.

When you've covered these four steps, you're just getting started. Next, you need to know where they want to go.

Next Week: Outcomes, Presentation and Closing. The week after: Pricing, Proposals and Negotiation.

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: Selling, like marketing, is a process. Make a misstep and you lose. Create a solid foundation for the sales process with the steps above, and you eliminate most of the struggle and effort.

*

What are some of the biggest mistakes you've made in the selling process? Please share on the Blog.

Comments

[biren shah]

i faced a different problem. and i thought i would share it here for people to really see the key of what happens when we miss a step.
robert, thanks for bringing this clarity to me. it was like... zen!
i am a very good listener. probably because i am curious about people, their thinking, feeling and acting/reacting processes. and also, in a small measure... i really want to support people in their quests.
(realising this, i may have developed a conceit ... that just my listening will convey, and make, people ready to listen to what i had to say, and take up my services. i mean, when one listens completely, solutions are never hard to see - it is never rocket science.)
what i used to do was - ask questions... open ended, leading towards the roots. and then i would listen - silently and attentively - to words and everything surrounding those words.
this gave me a fair idea of who the client was and where the root of the problem may be lying (more than WHERE that problem was showing up). once that was done, i would start on a series of 'situational-analysis' questions.
usually i found that the client who had become very open during the 'sharing' phase, would act wierd when i started this line of questioning. he would either glaze, answer vaguely or evasively... and somtimes, as an extreme case, show irritation and avoidance - in some cases even though he had already hired me.
yes, the person who was already paying for my services, would try putting off talking to me.
there are atleast 3-4 reasons i have found, which could be the cause of this... one of them is what robert says: missing the step.
and that step, i have found, is: focussing the client on what we have got together for (pre or post sales).
what i wanted to bring out here is - it is not the depth of our expertise that counts... atleast not when we miss out on the important steps in the process.
thank you robert. most of what i have shared here has been illuminated because of your focus beam. :-)
love
biren.
(sorry. i found that i missed that step of focussing here too. what i didnot share is, i present myself as an advertising, and marketing communication developer and designer. but my process (and actual offering too) is more like a consultant-coach. and this realisation also came because i saw the step i was missing.

[Dave Geraghty]

Selling is exciting because we have an opportunity to display our expertise and create value for the customer. However, I must admit that having expertise is not the end game in sales.

Although, having knowledge is essential, understanding the customer is vital. As an insurance consultant working with employers and their benefit plans I must understand their frustration and help them articulate the problem definition before they are willing to make progress.

Too often, I had worked hard to give prospects and clients answers before they were able to comprehend the complexity and cause of their frustration. It took only a few short but costly lessons for me to learn that I must listen to the customer describe their pain.

Most importantly, if they are unable to describe their pain or comprehend it this will only add to their frustration. Jumping the gun by providing answers prior to allowing them the opportunity to inform me about what they know about their problem kills the sale and intesifies their emotions.

Listen, Listen and Listen some more until they are ready to ask for help or allow us to work on a problem definition worthwhile. Without a problem definition there will be no progress.

Most executives are critical thinkers and very uneasy when problems cause emotions to dominate their thinking. When emotions are peaked, it is most likely that they are struggling to comprehend the situation.

They demand answers, but give them rationale and assistance to see the situation from cause to resolution and emotions find equilibrium and activity follows. I began to notice this truth in action by observation of their confidence.

If an executive is not confident there is not much I can do execept work on the factors that they feel are critical to their needs, even if they are unsure about how to obtain a solution.

So, my recommendation is to help customers comprehend and articulate their problem definition to the point that they are willing to pay for the best resolution or outcome that meet their need. In fact their problem definition is my key success factor to making the sale, because this is how I develop the need pay-off which best describes their expectations.

Thank you for the great ideas that keep me on track with progress.

[Peter Schnell]

The least I can do as I enjoy your newsletters is add a comment.

Sales, many years ago I'll admit, I learned a lesson.

During an in home appointment, I introduced myself, he introduced himself and then her by her first name.
As I was winding up, I referred to her as Mrs Smith, to which he promptly said "This is not Mrs Smith. This is a friend while she is away on holidays".

Don't Assume - Ass or U & Me.

Peter

[Lyle Lachmuth - The Unsticking Coach]

Premature closure!

Being in too much of a rush to get the buyer to decide -- my need vs. their need.

Lyle