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Selling is Everything Sales Newsletter | |||||
June 1, 2008 |
08 Number 6 | |||||
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Getting Referrals “During” The Sales CycleSales people are challenged in asking for a referral from clients and prospects (Buyer) during the sales cycle. We are under the impression that the Buyer will not refer them until the end of the successful sales cycle. This could not be further from reality than Ironman. In any sales cycle there are challenges, but for the most part when you use the D2B sales system you are working a sales cycle with the buyer’s participation to achieve specific goals or benchmarks. This participation is necessary to achieve milestones and validate that the product or service being sold will solve the identified problem. During this partnership in the Sales Cycle the buyer has the opportunity to work with you and your company with a critical eye. I call this the courting process, where we are all on our best behavior and any problem that may arise is always solved with communication and teamwork. At this point you have a better relationship with the buyer than at any other time in the business relationship. The reasons for this vary, but are basically due to the cooperation in finding their “what’s in it for me”. As one buyer once said to me. ”Working with you on this deal is like getting married, you are always around and we work all the details on schedule.” This is exactly the time I asked him for any and all referrals to his peers and colleagues that he could provide. This is also a good manner to judge how sold your buyer is on your solution. It worked beautifully as he supplied 12 names and numbers and he called or emailed 8 of them before I left his office that day (granted, I was there most of the afternoon). Enthusiasm that needs to be leveraged The key ingredient here is that during the Sales Cycle both parties are working together for a valid solution and in the process the buyer gains an insight and enthusiasm that needs to be leveraged with other buyers. This is best done prior to the close to the Sales Cycle assuming you have the right solution for this buyer. This Months Special Offer From Decision2Buy: 30 for 30
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The Four Steps are: RESEARCH: The ideal process is to identify the profile of your best customer. What size company, what industry, what size revenues, number of employees, and any other factors that make them the prefect prospect, based on your sales solution propositions. Understand their competitors and industries they sell into, these too may be great prospects. In the end you will have a data base of potential Suspects. From this point you will need to take the Suspects to Prospects, using a Prospect Profile and a Qualification Checklist to validate that they are in fact your best prospects to sell your solutions to. The better you profile and qualify your Prospects that faster you will get to the sales cycle and closing deals. Research is a very fundamental step like the foundation of a house, if build right it will sustain you for years to come. QUALIFICATION: In this step the prospect must be QUALIFIED as the best target for selling your solution. This means you will have a QUALIFICATION CHECKLIST to make sure you do a complete validation. Remember that the time you spend on QUALIFICATION at the front end of a sales cycle saves you about ten times that much time to find out later in the sales cycle. We only have so much selling time, so selling to the wrong person is a very expensive mistake. If you don’t have a QUALIFICATION PROFILE AND CHECK LIST…contact us and we can provide one. THE SALES CYCLE: Each Sales Cycle seems different for each deal, but they are not. The Sales Cycle must be attached to the buyer’s needs, their buying process and their Decision2buy process (how they or their company buy solutions like yours, there is always a process). In most cases these include: Validation of the need, a clear and activity-based Sales Cycle, Agreement on the steps and benchmarks for success or improvement, including contract review, implementation and improvement. This is just one sample of many that exist. Each industry has the need for different steps in the sales cycle, but in most cases the terminology and benchmarks are different. Remember, we all sell and buy the same way so think about how you do it. One key lesson is to mirror your buyer’s process as your sales cycle and you will differentiate yourself and win the majority of your deals. The Relationship: Always stay in touch with your buyers because they are referral engines and incredible references, which will accelerate any sales cycle. The fact is that your buyer will save you a lot of time (and work) and money by their referrals and using them as a reference. Like in our lives, if we are referred to someone they automatically have credibility and some level of trust. As we like to point out, if you spend so much time and energy getting a buyer to become a client (remember cold calling and marketing mailings and the struggle to get in the door, with the referrals you are already in the door!), you should leverage all of your outstanding work by leveraging the Relationship. If your company does not have any of these tools and processes, we can help. In fact why not schedule a FREE 30 Minute Telephone Sales Session on one of these topics now. We always promote the opportunity to become a better sales person, please share this with your team, other sales people, friends, and/or others you believe may benefit from this information. This information is the sole and private intellectual property of Decision2Buy Inc. © Decision2Buy Inc, 2008, all rights reserved.
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