Quiz Time: What contributes most to your ability to win the sale? (Photo by quacktaculous)
It’s quiz time.
Get your pencil, get a sheet of paper, and put your thinking cap on.
Now, answer this question:
Which factor contributes
the most to your ability
to ultimately win a
sale?
- Your marketing
- The proposal
- Your sales conversation
- Price
- Experience in your prospects’ industry
If you chose your marketing…
… you’re wrong. While marketing can greatly influence your ability generate leads and conversations, it’s how you handle those conversations, make a connection, demonstrate your expertise and the value you bring to the table, and move prospects through the buying process that ultimately leads to your ability to win the sale.
Yet when it comes to leading sales conversations, professionals in services firms often don’t know where to begin. After all, you were trained to be an accountant, lawyer, engineer, or consultant; you weren’t trained to sell. You don’t know how to structure a conversation in a way that builds the strongest relationship, gets the prospect talking about their pains and desires, and convinces them that you are the trusted advisor they should turn to.
To help you better lead sales conversations that result in new clients, we’ve identified seven critical factors that will contribute to your success:
1. Build real rapport: It’s been said that people buy with their hearts and justify with their heads. You must win over the hearts of your buyers and build a real connection if you want to become the trusted advisor they turn to. Rapport building goes beyond looking up someone’s LinkedIn profile, seeing that they went to the same college as your husband, and mentioning that in your conversation. Rapport building requires that you listen to your prospects, show interest in them and their business, and provide value in each and every interaction you have.
2. Uncover aspirations and afflictions: We all know that to be successful in bringing in new business, you have to uncover needs. What keeps your prospects awake at night? While it is essential to uncover the pain, it is also your job to uncover your clients’ and prospects’ aspirations. What are their goals? Successful sellers focus on both afflictions and aspirations in their sales conversations.
3. Make the impact clear: What value do you provide to your prospects and clients? How will your buyers be better off with your services? In your conversations you must make the impact of engaging your services clear. After you uncover aspirations and afflictions, ask buyers what they can expect as a result of alleviating their pain or attaining their goal. Ask them what won’t happen if they don’t do this. Get your prospects to answer those questions and you’ll know just how important it is for them to move forward.
4. Paint a picture of the new reality: When selling professional services, prospects often have a hard time knowing exactly what they are buying and the value they get in return. In your conversations paint a picture as clearly as you can of what your prospects’ worlds will look like after engaging your service. We call this the new reality.
5. Balance advocacy and inquiry: One of the best things you can do in your sales conversations is stop talking and start listening. A good sales conversation is a give and take where you as the seller ask questions to understand the prospect’s situation (inquiry) while at the same time giving advice (advocacy). Think of your sales conversations like your client conversations: to craft the best possible solution for your client, you must understand exactly what’s going on in their world. This process begins in the sales conversation.
6. Build on the foundation of trust: You’re never going to uncover the full set of your prospects’ needs unless they fully trust you. Trust begins with the initial rapport you’re able to generate with them. By asking insightful questions in your conversations, providing advice, and becoming a reliable source of information, you are able to build the trust necessary for prospects to let you into their world.
7. Plan to succeed: The worst thing you can do in your sales conversations is to “wing it.” Before every conversation know what you want to get out of it. Be prepared with specific questions you want answered. Have a specific next step in mind. Yes, there is always going to be some improvisation in every conversation depending on how it is going, but prepare ahead of time and you’ll have much more control over the conversation and its success.
To learn more about how you can apply these seven factors to your own sales conversations, download our free ebook: 7 Critical Factors to Successful Sales Conversations.
