Virtually all companies rely on selling to customers, whether they call it sales or business development or client acquisition. However, many people don’t know how to sell effectively and all fall into the same common pitfalls.
For example, we often see people take the ineffective route of giving the same pitch to every prospect. The purpose of your “pitch” is to exchange ideas on how you can help them meet their goals, overcome their challenges, or provide some other tangible benefit. However, not everyone has the same goals, challenges, wants, and needs. The key to getting people truly interested is using those crucial first moments to strike the right chord.
Here’s a recipe to train yourself how to strike the right chord with prospects:
- Pick your top 5 current prospects.
- Use the internet to read about their current activities.
- Put yourself in the shoes of these prospects and think about what your needs and challenges might be.
- Use this insight to strike up a conversation, and then ask more specific questions like, “What are your short-term goals for the next month, what are challenges you’ve seen in the past month?”
- Don’t sell. Get prospects to talk about themselves. Learn about them. This builds a relationship between them and you.
- Identify areas where your prospect needs help, and position yourself as the expert who can provide that help.
- Be sure to track this information so that it is readily available when you re-engage them.
End Result: You started a trusting relationship that is more likely to result in a sale, but will also ensure the opportunity for more business deals in the future. Your next conversation should be a work-session to put together a plan of action that will deliver real results.
For a way to easily record your research and important bits of information, enter profile notes in Chili Sales. Here’s how to do it (3-5 minutes):
