Our focus this month, for the newsletter and blogs, is on our just-released book Closing is NOT Your Problem! With this book, for the first time in history, the problem of 20 percent of salespeople making 80 percent of the sales—commonly known as the “80/20 rule”—is fully solved.
Building On the Foundation
Our research revealed how sales training focused on closing since the beginning of time. But despite this focus, closing was still a significant issue. From this, it was clear that salespeople could become no better at closing by continuing to focus only on closing.
What was missing, we discovered, was a complete, reliable sales process. As noted in the last article, when sales process steps are omitted or skipped, the close will likely not happen.
Example of Needed Step
There is a step prior to making the initial contact, which is Research. A massive mistake salespeople make is not researching their prospects. A salesperson should really understand a prospect before meeting or speaking with them.
Today with social media, this step is much easier than it was years back. For example, you can discover you have a friend in common; call that friend and gain an introduction. Research also can and should be done throughout the entire sales process.
In this step, the salesperson finds out all about the prospect or the prospect company. The result is that the salesperson has cared enough to establish a foundation of information that will allow the next steps, Contact and Interview, to go more smoothly. This will enable the salesperson to develop trust much more efficiently.
Many salespeople omit this step or skimp on it, rendering this vital foundation very weak. All too often, they only focus on how fast they can get that money in. They don’t know a lot about the prospect—or, in the case of a B2B company, the prospect’s company.
How Important Is It?
Most salespeople totally hate cold calling. Yet, interestingly, they omit the research step. Guess what? It could actually be said that research is being done so the salesperson doesn’t have to cold call. There’s enough research available that it technically isn’t a cold call.
The more information you have on the person you’re calling before you make that call, the more tailored you can slant your conversation towards their likes and dislikes, their interests and values.
Making a cold call can be uncomfortable, but if you take the time to learn some information that will be known and possibly liked and admired by your prospect, you will have the advantage you need to get yourself in the door—and even keep the conversation going long enough to create a relationship you can use.
Today, given the amount of information available online, Research is not a difficult sales process step. It just needs to be done.
Step By Step
As detailed in our book, the sales process, with Research as a critical stage, is built step by completed step. Each builds upon the other as a foundation, and the close sits upon that foundation. The close will either happen or crumble based on how well that sales process is done.
Buy and read Closing is NOT Your Problem! by Nick and Lisa Terrenzi now!
