I get hired because people and companies want to improve their sales and generate more revenue. Inevitably most conversations include the term – “We want to close more business or close more deals/sales etc” in some form or another.
Generally, people are looking for the “silver bullet” – the “mega sales secret” or “hens tooth” closing technique that’s going to guarantee that they hit these sales deals and close more business.
As I meet with client’s however, I am becoming more convinced by the words of my friend Venetia Buttler…
..” you don’t have a closing problem ….!!” – “you have an opening problem!!”
The people I meet are bright, intelligent, they know their products well and for the most part they wear the company tie with tremendous pride – they genuinely want to be there and they genuinely want to do well…and yet they’re not closing enough business. The number of sales “professionals” that are not hitting targets is w…a…y higher than you’d think. ( 60% according to SPOTIO!!) An accounting firm that only got 60% of it’s client’s books correct would go out of business. A team that won 60% of the time would never win the league!!
It seems somehow inconceivable that someone with a brain, some passion and a great product would battle to close…unless Venetia is right!! People are trying to close in situations that were never properly (or even at all) open!!
In order to further explain what I mean let’s start by looking at what challenges we face in sales when the “opening” has NOT been done well!!
- We don’t have enough prospects on our list.
- The more qualified prospects on my list – the more time I can devote to proper “opening”.
- The fewer prospects we have to work with the more desperate we become and the more focussed we become on “closing”. (As Jeff Gitomer so accurately pointed out “Customers love to buy – but they hate being sold (Closed on))
- We don’t have enough sales meetings booked in our schedule (our schedules should be filled with sales meetings a MINIMUM of 2 weeks in advance at all times!)
- Our prospects have not been properly qualified.
- Do they need our product?
- Can they afford our product?
- Are they a client we want on our books? (having a problem client will erode any profit the sales would have generated – some clients are better being someone else’s client!!)
- Is the prospect we are talking to the decision maker?
- There is no greater waste of salespeople’s time than presenting or talking to non-decision makers or at least decision influencers.
- Do we have, and do we follow a professional and structured process in our meetings to correctly asses the client’s needs or does the meeting involve 45 minutes of banter about the weather or the Seahawks followed by a 5 minute “Pitch and Pray”?
- We are dealing with a high number of objections.
- Many objections are a CLEAR indicator that we have not opened well!!
- Your negotiations are reduced to a price or discount discussion.
- You don’t get referrals.
- Despite arguments to the contrary, I maintain that there is no greater business than referral business.
- We are relying on marketing collateral to get the message across…??
- We find it impossible to give an accurate assessment of our sales activity at the end of the week or month!!
- If we have not opened well, any attempt at measurement thereafter is “pie in the sky”. Our sales activity reports are pure fiction and a waste of ours, our manager’s and our colleague’s time.
When we have opened well….-
- We can cherry-pick the best prospects on our list.
- Hardly any call will be a cold call.
- We gain confidence from the fact that our diaries are booked at least 2 weeks in advance with high quality, high potential yield meetings not just “keep-my-manager-off-my-back” hook-ups.
- We are seeing prospects that are well qualified.
- There’s a need
- There’s affordability
- We want them on our books
- They clearly know why we are coming to see them
- They can definitely have a significant impact on the buying decision.
- We go into our meeting with a plan.
- We have rehearsed our plan and role played any possible deviances or surprises.
- We are trying to discover the client’s needs from THEIR perspective – which reduces the number of objections.
- Pitch and Pray is NOT on our song sheet!!
- We have a goal and a plan to get referrals.
- We are in a position to more accurately determine what our weekly/monthly activity report will look like – making forecasting way more scientific.
Agreed, there are no 100% fool proof sales systems, we are dealing with people with hearts and minds of their own. However….
A good doctor would never attempt surgery without a plan.
A good lawyer would never defend a case without a plan.
Football teams always go onto the field with a game plan.
Salespeople prefer to “wing it!” ….. hmmmm could that be why only 60% achieve target??
Do you need to learn how to OPEN more successfully !!! Check out
www.bradthomsoncoaching.com/catalogue
and my 4 Pillars of Sales program – where opening, closing, sales philosophies and very practical sales tools are taught.
What’s holding your team back from getting in front of more qualified prospects?
Go for it!
