Imagine walking into a sales presentation and right as you finish shaking hands with your prospect, they turn to you and say, “you know what? Forget the slides. I’m ready to sign”. Are you prepared to respond? How many of us aren’t ready for that moment? The answer might surprise you. We’ve been told “no” so often in the sales world that it almost becomes expected. That mindset is what we will focus on today. I’m going to go over how to Plan for Success and how this strategy can directly increase your closing ratio. After reading this – you’ll not only be prepared for the “yes”; you’ll anticipate it..
Here’s the agenda
- Effective pre-call planning
- Discussing “our” future
- Defining a win
- Leveling up by following up
Effective pre-call planning
Plan to win. It’s been extremely disheartening being inside a pre-call planning meeting where most of the conversation about the phone calls stays focused on what rebuttal we will be plunging headfirst into this week. These moments feel less like a pep talk and more like being assigned a crummy position in battle. Recently, I’ve challenged my clients to give me a clear and concise answer to how they would handle their client rushing for a close.
Are you ready to ask your qualifying questions? Are you prepared to immediately close?
One of the reasons I love this experiment is that it puts winning at the forefront of your mind. It is a terrible feeling having a successful interaction and finding out that you were the person that wasn’t prepared for this to go well. You don’t want to give a person a reason to think, “if they normally don’t get a positive response, what did I miss?”.
Discussing “our” future
During the meeting, the strategy I like using best is planning for a successful partnership with the prospect. This is your chance to start discussing what a successful 30/60/90 day will like together. Here is where you start discussing the immediate plan of attack and which heartburn to alleviate first. I love this because it works in interviews as well. Most hiring managers have a pain point and that is what they’re looking to cure by adding someone new to their staff. This is your moment to imprint the idea that you are that solution. Your job is to create a shared vision that has you in it.
Defining a win
A win isn’t always just a signature on a contract. Success is determined by the decisions being made. A clearly defined win comes from the prospect either moving forward or giving you an objection. Similar to cold calling, the best answer you can receive is “yes” or “no”. If you’re asked for more information by the end of your presentation, unfortunately, it looks like the table wasn’t set for a sales meeting. At some point, they thought this meeting was an information session and you just presented them with a live webinar.
Leveling up by following up
Lastly, the follow-up. This is the thing that you should be the most excited about. Consider this part the “feel-good” piece. This is where regardless of the decision, but, especially in the cases of rejection, you can reach out to that person and specifically ask for feedback on what the deciding factor was behind their decision. Ask if there was anything that you could have done differently. I’m telling you, don’t just ask these questions, really dig in. Especially in a lost prospect – what do you have to lose? This is a person who’s already decided not to move forward with a relationship with you, so what do you have to lose? This is a fresh moment where you can only win because you gain more insight into how you came across in this specific situation. Half of what makes for a great selling strategy is experience and what’s the point of great experience if you haven’t learned from your mistakes?
Planning for Success is all about expecting the win and completely removing the opportunity to fail from your mind.
Is there anything I missed? Is there a topic you’d like me to cover? Feel free to shoot me a message by using any of the links included in the footer!
Thanks for reading!