Sales Intelligentsia

The Appointment: Ending The Meeting and Following Up

Try to be the one who ends the meeting. Say that you’ve got all the information you need and that you’ll either get back to them or that you can handle the work (if that’s the case). Quickly review what you’ve learned with the customer and ask them if you’ve covered everything. Arrange the next meeting, if necessary or a start date for delivering the proposal or starting the work and thank them for their time.
By taking control at the end you make life a lot easier for them. They don’t have to kick you out or cut you off. And it shows that both you and they have busy lives and that you respect that.

Review and Follow-up

After the appointment it is very important to schedule a review period with yourself. Think about what was accomplished or what was not and try to identify what worked and what didn’t. Make notes in your customer file and use them later. If you missed a question or need a little more information simply call them and ask for it. Say: ‘I was going over my notes and I realized that I still wasn’t clear on….’
Always follow-up with a personal note thanking them for their time. If you’re doing business together tell them you look forward to working together. If you’re not, tell them you hope to in the future. These follow up notes generate future business, turn negative meetings around and generate referrals. They are vital. And your competition probably never sends them.

The Appointment: Proposals/Estimates/Quotes

Often, after an initial meeting you’ll be asked to provide a proposal, quote or estimate to take the sales process to the next step. If this is the case you must determine exactly what the proposal or quote should contain. Many companies have standard formats they want vendors to use and you must follow them. A non-standard presentation may mean automatic rejection by various corporate bureaucrats.
Make sure you use the appointment to gather as much information as possible for the proposal you’ll be preparing so you can address the specific problems your customer is most concerned about. Again, by carefully going through the qualifying process you’ll be able to address every hot button issue in your proposal. This kind of specific problem-solving approach often helps you get past the lowball quotes and inexperienced but cheap competition.

Selling Without Being Face To Face

You won’t always sell at face to face meetings. Often you’ll work over the phone, via e-mail, a Webex-style online presentation or through intermediaries. These media have the advantage of being fast and the disadvantage of not allowing you to react to non-verbal signals as you encounter them face to face.
Selling on the phone involves the same process as any other selling although it may be compressed somewhat. You must Meet, Qualify and Present and you must ask for the sale or Close. You can use a script or notes spread out before you and take notes as you go to give you a good handle on how well you’re doing.
Selling through others is potentially dangerous as you cannot control how they represent you to the customer. If an intermediary sets you up to do business with someone, don’t assume its a done deal: Go into the first business step treating it as a part of the sales process in which your goal is to determine what your intermediary has promised or agreed to. You must clarify these issues yourself with the customer before you go further.
Selling in a store? The process may only take a few minutes but you should still go through it. You still need to know why they’re there, what problems they are seeking resolutions for and tell them how you can solve them. It may happen in a few sentences but it still is the same sales process.
I’ve sold projects via e-mail and it can be a great pre-sales medium. However you’ll still need personal contact of some sort and, again, the process is the same. Be sure to save your e-mail correspondence as you go through the process. It will be valuable if any disputes or confusion arises later.