Approaching Prospects - How To Gain Respect Right From The Start!
65Approaching Prospects
It may sound simple, but it bears repeating: always address new clients by Mr. or Ms. [insert last name here] when first meeting. If they want you to call them by their first name, they will tell you so. Err on the side of being conservative and don’t assume anything. Be formal and people will appreciate it.
First Impressions –
Another thing that should be a given when meeting your prospective client is a firm handshake. This helps make the “all important first impression” that much greater and lets your client know you care about meeting them. Look them in the eyes, be there in the moment, and don’t be off somewhere already giving your presentation. The client will know if you are sincere or not.
Professional selling is a people business. As a salesperson, you sell products and services, but you serve people. You must always keep the person in mind as you make your presentation, as you go about selling yourself and your products or services.
Confidence and competence are measured in a salesperson’s ability to master several areas, one of which is the people side of selling. Most sales training dollars are spent on the technical aspect and product knowledge of the products and services. However, most of the steps to selling are tied to emotions and people skills.
Do some research ahead of time regarding everything you can find on the client. This way you should have a set of questions to ask regarding their business, what they do, why they do things a certain way, you will also be showing you care about their business enough to have done your homework. This is also a good way to get to know who you are dealing with in terms of the companies purchasing department. Most companies today have websites and they list the people who you deal with for purchasing, sales, even the receptionist’s name. There is no excuse for not being prepared when you enter a potential client’s office.
Dig deeper than what they are saying on the surface when they tell you what they need and want. Have them explain or expand on the needs and wants of the company. There maybe a better way to meet those needs and you would be saving them money or time and that would be appreciated by their accounting department up to the CEO.
Always Reinforce The Positive –
If someone says something good about your product, service or presentation, repeat it back to them in a different way so your prospect can hear it themselves! I.e. if they say, “Hey, that’s a great design!” re-enforce the statement by saying something like, “You’re right, everyone comments on the design of this product! It really stands alone in quality, doesn’t it? It’s made by one of our best designers.” Depending on what the customer says, it won’t sound exactly like this, but what’s most important is that you confirm his or her statement and end this part of the conversation in agreement.
Avoid the Negative –
This sounds obvious and it is. Simply stay away from anything negative about yourself, your product, your prospect, and your competition. Nothing turns off a prospect faster than negativity, especially about your competition. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything! If something negative comes up, try to get away from it as soon as possible. There are tactful ways to turn negative comments into positive comments using language. Say the prospect tells you they heard your product was recalled because of something defective. You would simply say that was true because your company cares about the people it services and the quality control was on top of their game that day!
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“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.” Oprah Winfrey
