The Pedestal Group

I’m trying really hard not to let this be a rant and to turn a bad experience into something positive. As you’ve guessed, I met with another sales rep today. I can tell you how long he’s lived in his house, his attitude on big box stores vs. “local” businesses (which is a whole other discussion and can be really interesting but I digress), he has a dog with a big tail, he needs glasses because his are broken, etc. If he knows how to pronounce my last name I’d be shocked. Let alone anything else. Give me a break!

So what can we learn from him? Give yourself an agenda for any sales meeting you have with a prospect. What do you need to know about the person before you walk out of the meeting? At a minimum, know how to pronounce their name. Write it down on your notes phonetically. That way in the future you will use it properly.

After that, give yourself a list of 4-9 things you want to know about them before they leave. If you have 30 minutes for the meeting, plan on getting the answer to one about every 3-6 minutes. That means the person gets time to talk about their answer. Think about that. If you want to know the goals for our marketing plan, that is going to be a longer answer than 30 seconds. YOU WILL NEED TO SHUT UP FOR THE WHOLE TIME. (sorry – rant sneaking in) So let’s say that answer is 2.5 minutes. You get 30 seconds to ask your question. We’ve already used up 2 minute doing the name thing. You have now used 5 minutes of 30. If you know your presentation on your tool / service / widget will take 10 minutes (and you should know because you should PRACTICE and have information AT HAND to provide), then you know you have a total of 20 for fact finding. You’ve used five. You are a quarter of the way through your fact finding time and you have two pieces of information. See why you need a plan?

So set yourself an agenda to help keep yourself on track. At the end of a meeting you have to have answers to those questions you gave yourself so if you are getting toward the 10-minute-left mark, you know to STOP TALKING. You can’t get answers unless you stop talking.

A little bit more rant – don’t look at the person’s business card and ask a question about something on it in a negative. If I have my twitter address on my business card, I bet there’s a reason. Asking “do you like that twitter?” almost sounds like “is your baby that ugly?”. Obviously I like it or I wouldn’t put in on my BUSINESS CARD. Sheesh.

Recently, President Obama was in Seattle and met with three small business owners to talk about their situation.  Now, this is not a political post and I refuse to discuss the politics of anything here.  But the point is, when you read the comments from this meeting, the business owners felt like it was real and that he really cared and listened.  Here’s one of the most intimidating meetings those business owners could have had and yet they came away thinking he cared. How did he do that?

First, he wore a dress shirt and tie but had his sleeves rolled up.  He didn’t come dressed to the teeth – he came dressed in a professional but accessible way.  Next, he asked good questions.  We have all been told to ask our clients, “what keeps you up at night?” and that’s one he asked.  But then he listened and paid attention to the answer. He took notes, obviously while the people were talking, and then at the end, gave a summary of the meeting where he was able to reference specific things each person said.  So he started the meeting stating he wanted to hear their issues, he listened and took notes, and at the end was able to explain to others what they said.  How  do you think those business owners felt at the end of that meeting?

Wouldn’t this be much easier to do with your clients? After all, you don’t have to line up secret service or shut down blocks of traffic to have a meeting.  Sitting down with your clients in a casual atmosphere, asking good, pointed  questions about their business and then being able to discuss those concerns after the meeting go a long way in showing how much you value their business.  If you can’t be there in person, schedule a phone conversation and really ask those questions that they want to answer – “what keeps you up at night?”; “what are your biggest challenges in the next 6 months?”; “what one thing could have a large positive impact on your business?”; etc.  And then, do what you can to follow up.  If the one thing that could positively impact their business is finding a specific type of customer or breaking into a specific company, see what you can do to help.  If the thing keeping them up at night is cash flow, think of ways you can help or bring in a speaker to talk about smart money management strategies. Find ways to show you were listening and you won’t need a press conference to announce you had the meeting.  You’ll need one to announce how much you’ve grown your business!

I love taking sales calls from people. It is just fun.  The other day I got a call from a woman who was very nice.  She called, launched into her 4.5 minute spiel on who she is, what she does, why she as calling, what research she had done on my company, etc. etc. Finally taking a breath, she asked about me.  I told her a little about me and then asked her how she’s handling getting new clients in this tight economy.  She explained and we talked about some other possibilities. I then explained why I was at the trade show where she got my name (networking for clients of course) and why her services sounded interesting but would be something I could refer to others – not really something I could use. I then asked her more questions about her business, what’s she’s doing with social media, and what her sales plan looks like. By the end of the call, I had a new prospect and she had a potential referral source but probably not as her sweet-spot customer isn’t someone I run into very often.

The morale of this story? At the end of a sales call, do you know more about them or do they know more about you? Which do you think brings in more business?