“My prospects are happy as they are”

When clients tell me that they need to grow their business, I find the best place to start is with the diagram on the right.

Whatever’s blocking growth can always be cleared by focusing on just one of these 3 sections at a time.

So, if you hear your sales team say things like;

“Booking meetings with prospects is easy, but not enough of them are buying”

then their problem sits in the AGREEMENTS section.

I meet many business owners and sales directors who send their salespeople out to pre-booked, pre-qualified meetings – but then have to sit through sales meeting after sales meeting, while the sales team tell them that…

“The leads you’re giving me – they just don’t want to buy what we’ve got – for the prices that we’re charging”.

Actually – to be fair – some of those prospects genuinely might not be your customers.

However, I’d bet good money that there was a larger number of those prospects that didn’t buy because the sales presentation didn’t resonate with them – it wasn’t clear how you could solve their actual, day-to-day problems – and an equally large number who were genuinely considering becoming paying customers, but were put off by the way the sales person dealt with them.

So, if your sales team are making statements that point you towards the AGREEMENTS section of that diagram, then they need to work on improving their actual SALES SKILLS and gaining a deeper understanding of the four-steps found in every single business transaction;

Earn the Right; Ask the Appropriate Questions; Solve the Problem; Execute the Solution.

Your team need to understand how your prospects are actually making their buying decisions, while mastering the art of consultative questioning, then they need to put together a strategy to overcome all regularly occurring objections and recognise when and how to best close a sale.

Action Points for Your Next Team Meeting

Create some exercises that will help your team to;

Understand how 21st century buyers make their decisions
Set Best and Tolerable outcome targets for each call
Build a series of exceptional consultative questions to uncover real needs and pain points
Use real life examples and case studies to sell concepts and solutions
Effectively overcome all regularly occurring objections
Understand the process and importance of closing a sale

And then ensure they leave with a thorough understanding of how your business helps its existing customers – and a deep set belief that there are others out there who would benefit from exactly the same solution’