Are You Being Tempted To Sell Prematurely?

To increase your chances of progressing to a sales cycle, leave the selling for another day.

Isn’t It Time To Slow Down And Stop Selling?

Most salespeople try to achieve too much in their first meeting with a buyer. They go flat out selling while presenting product and company information, eliciting needs, presenting a solution and answering objections. All this in somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes.

Based on our experiences sales teams are selling too fast and too soon. They look to present a solution without a sufficient understanding of the buyer’s requirements. The salesperson must resist the temptation to propose solutions in the first meeting. In most cases doing so will hinder rather than advance the complex sale.

Are You Being Tempted To Sell Prematurely?

Sometimes the salesperson could be forgiven for assuming the buyer wants to be sold to. Often buyers can ask questions that will tempt the salesperson into sales mode far too early in the process. However, it is vital not to get lured into trying to sell too early. Overleaf are some questions buyers may ask in the first meeting and how you can avoid falling into the trap of delivering the wrong answer.

Question: ‘Why should we pick you?’

Old Answer: ‘Well, we are the industry leader. We have won several industry awards. Our technology is the most feature-rich. We have been in business for more than 10 years.’

New Answer: ‘Well, to be honest, I would like to learn more about your requirements in order to be able to answer that question properly. Having said that, companies like Acme 1 have picked us because of our specialized industry knowledge, while companies like Acme 2 have picked us because we can meet their unique support requirements. If we could chat a bit more about your requirements, I will be able to better understand if we are the best fit for your company at this time.’

So, which do you prefer?  Well, the old answer draws the salesperson into selling too soon, before the conversation has really begun. It also sounds like a stereotypical salesperson — something that we are equally anxious to avoid.

Here are another two examples:

Question: ‘So how much is this going to cost?’

Old Answer: ‘I can put together a quotation for you. It depends on your budget and requirements. What had you planned to spend?’

New Answer: ‘Well, I would need some more information to be able to give you specifics as regards price. However, I can talk about other projects, their scope and their cost. For example…’

Question: ‘I am sorry but I only have 30 minutes. Tell me a bit about your services?’

Old Approach: ‘Sure. We were established in 1999. There are 220 people in the company today. We have an office in London and in Dublin. There are three parts to our business…’

New Approach: ‘I’d be happy to John. We have helped several companies similar to yours address various problems, with each one having slightly different priorities. I have a number of references I can talk you through. As we only have 25 minutes is there any particular area that you would like me to focus in on?’

Posted by Ray Collis on 10:37 pm. Filed under 2. Slow Down, Stop Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry