Handling Sales Meetings

The blogger and author Geoffrey James  recently posted this  article  about sales meetings:

-  6 Ways to Really Irritate a Customer

which I thought I would share with you because it has some great lessons on sales training for any business to business salesperson.

Sales Meetings Tips

My personal favourites are:

1) Don’t do an information dump and

2)  Don’t show up and throw up.

For me these two tend to work hand in hand. If anyone ever came to me and opened up the laptop and uttered that phrase:

“I’m just going to tell you all about us”

The meeting would have an abrupt ending.

When I run sales training courses, I work with the delegates to put a meeting structure in place that always focuses on the client first by asking questions. Only after understanding their needs are any possible solutions fed back – if appropriate.

Top Sales Meetings Tips

My two top sales meetings tips would be:

1. Always ask how much time the other person has – even if you agreed a time before hand it is very likely that things have changed.
2. Always ask if it is possible to achieve your desired outcome at every beginning of sales meetings. This way you can work the meeting according to the response. For instance you might say “Gill, at the end of the meeting we should know enough to make a decision on rolling out the pilot project. Is that OK?”. Gill might say OK but she might also say “Sorry. No can do. I need My Vice Presidents rubber stamp on this. I had expected him to be here today but he was called away”. That’s not a problem for you now because now you can set the goal as rescheduling a meeting with the VP for next week. It’s better to agree this at the beginning of the meeting rather getting to the end and asking for something that was never on the cards

Read Geoffreys article(s) on sales meetings, you will like it and it will increase your effectiveness and ability to handle sales meetings.

The 60 second coaching tool that the video shows you is by far one of the most powerful sales coaching tools available to motivate and inspire sales staff.

60 Second Sales Coaching For Sales Managers, Sales Directors and Team Leaders

How To Motivate, Inspire and Propel Your Sales Staff To Maximum Efficiency

1) Opening Statement

I want to Talk to you about———-The Area Of Performance

2) Observation

I have noticed that ————–Describe The Performance or Behaviour

3) Impact

The Impact is ——-Describe The Impact on the Job being done.

4) Request

From Now On I would Like You To——–Describe How To Improve Performance Or Behaviour

Example:

1 . I have received your last weeks call statistics and would like to talk to you about your call numbers.

2. I have noticed that after 3 months with us most telesales staff are making 80 calls per day and You are currently making 50

3. The impact to the telesales teams sales targets is quite significant as 30 calls per day usually brings us 2 sales of around £500 each, so we are losing around £1,000 per day as a result.

4. What I would like you to do is work with me to develop a personal plan of training and coaching we can commit to that will get you to your 80 calls per day.

Did You see it?

I very often encounter this phonomenom when providing sales training and sales consultancy. Very often sales people are blind to what is happening around them.

Why is this?

Very often it is because they have a preset expectation of an outcome and all of their sales questions and what they are listening to is designed to confirm and arrive at the answers they need. This ‘focus’ on an outcome makes you unaware of what is happening in the sales call and the sales opportunities around you.

Worst of all it can alienate the prospective client as their needs are very often skimmed over whilst trying manouver the meeting to ‘your succesful outcome’.

Don’t do it! Concentrate on the person you are meeting with.

Have your top three outcomes of the meeting planned and be prepared to focus on the prospective client and what they need. The best sales training available can help ylou here!

Next time you are in a sales meeting and see something out of the corner of your eye – make sure you havn’t just missed a moonwalking bear!

Amongst the many things that really stood out for me last night night was the sales meeting of the female team and the hotel manager. I have seen some bad meetings in my time (and have to admit to running some of them), but this was a great example of how not to do it.

The challenge entailed setting up an overnight laundry and winning and completing as much business as possible in less than one day. ‘SrrrrAlan’ had arranged for the team to meet with two potential clients; firstly a hotel and secondly a fish mongers.

The female team made a complete hash of their meetings as I have disected below:

• Lack Of Research — Both teams had little or no prior knowledge of the Industry. Whilst the male team did some research and rang around some existing providers on the way to the meeting, the female team picked a price from thin air without doing any research. This lack of preparation showed when they quoted a figure of £4900 to do the job. The Hotel manager was obviously taken aback as his existing contractor charges around £200. I know this is an extreme example but the moral of the story is – do your research and understand the market pricing and the value you offer. The female team clearly did not understand this. I am forever encouraging my clients to increase their prices based on the value they bring but I don’t think I could have trained anyone to sell at over 20 times the market rate in a highly competetive, commodatised marketplace – without adding any value!

• Sell on Value to the potential Client — Having lost all credibility from the outset the female team then tryed to substantiate their offering with their added value services. “We will provide you with 2 Account Managers, and you will have our direct dial mobile numbers”. Perhaps if you were setting up a business bank account this would be something of value (although i would argue not as service should be a standard – not an option!). However when dealing with washing and ironing hotel sheets with a turn around of a few hours this had no value whatsover. How many sales meetings do you hold where you are offering your prospect something that has no value to him whatsoever? Unless you understand and professionally question the prospect, never assume that you know what will be of value to them.

• Inability to Say “We were wrong” — With so much at stake for the teams the hotel client was critical. The female team selling at the meeting had no fall back options, nothing to negotiate with and not enough courage to say “We are sorry, we made a mistake. Lets start again”. Everyone in the room knew it was a set up meeting for the Apprentice so they could easily have been allowed this slip if they had the courage to own up and start again. In reality they had very little to bargain with but at least they could have made the decision as to wether they wanted the business on the terms of the hotelier

• Over Reacting to the Outcome — Having made a mess of one meeting they failed to stop, asess where they had gone wrong and learn their lessons. They went to the next meeting without doing any research and ended up quoting around 20% of the usual price the job was done at. The client was obviously stunned and had to ask about 5 times to make sure he had heard correctly. Even then the team stuck to their guns and kept to the price. Silly mistake.

These lessons are easy to learn and will ensure your sales meetings don’t go the way of the female team who lost profitable work and gained akward, unprofitable work.

In coming sales training blog posts I will be having a look at how you can build value and demonstrate that at face to face meetings.

Speak with you soon

Peter