Sales Intelligentsia

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.

The Appointment: Preparation and Stage Fright

The only way to get right down to business and really make progress within a brief meeting is by being fully prepared. This preparation includes:
• Customer Research- Go out and find out as much as you can about their business. Ask business acquaintances, go to the Internet and look up articles about them and check with business associations. This is both a background check to warn you of potential problems and an information gathering process. It really helps when they think you’ve done your homework.
• Portfolio and Presentation Preparation- You must customize your presentation to the needs of each customer and you should do it ahead of time.
• Rehearsal- Go over your presentation either mentally or with a partner to make sure you cover all the points. Use notes if necessary. A rehearsal is a powerful tool for making your presentation sing.
• Call To Confirm- Always call that morning or the day before to confirm that you’re still on. This can be done with an assistant, secretary or other gatekeeper who has access to your prospect’s schedule. It saves time and serves as a reminder that you’re coming in.

Preparation also includes dealing with stage fright. Stage fright is a common affliction and, to a certain degree, is a healthy indication of getting yourself ‘up’ for the event. Carried too far, it can serve as an excuse to avoid selling. Stage fright recedes with experience and preparation. If you lack experience make up for it by preparing carefully and rehearsing. And remember what I was told the first time I got on stage at a crowded nightclub with my first band: Everybody gets it but once you get started it goes away. This is true if you have prepared well.

The Appointment: Scheduling

Do you remember the first time you sat down and talked to a potential customer? Perhaps it has yet to happen. Either way you know it is an exciting and nerve-wracking prospect. You want the business. You’re sure of yourself and unsure of yourself. You don’t know a lot about what they want or why they asked you to meet with them. These questions probably roll around in your head from the time you agree upon a meeting until you’re actually face to face with a time period specifically set aside to discuss your relationship. Let’s look at your mental preparation and why getting the ground rules right, before you meet, is vital, even if you’re the only player who knows them.

A Designated Time Slot

If you’re a good time manager you know the power of setting aside certain time periods for specific tasks. You mark an event in your calendar and when it arrives you focus your undivided attention on that event. This focus and attentiveness make it possible to get a lot more effective things accomplished because you can bring your full faculties to bear on them.
When you set up an appointment or meeting to start the sales process, try to have that time dedicated solely to the business at hand. Tell the prospect that you’re doing so. Say: ‘We’ll need 30 minutes to cover what we both need to know to decide whether to go further.’ or ‘Can we block out a half hour to go over how I can help you out?’ The important thing is to try to make clear that this time period is dedicated to your business together and nothing else.
The sales process is a fluid exchange of information and requires continuity and attention to keep flowing. Frequent interruptions, no matter how trivial, disrupt the process and break down the communications flow. For this reason you may want to schedule meetings at the beginning or end of the business day and/or away from the ebb and flow of the prospect’s daily work. If the prospect is coming to you at your office, shop or workplace, set aside an uninterrupted period of time for that meeting. Turn on the voice mail, don’t schedule any other meetings and give them the gift of your undivided attention.

Your Undivided Attention

This gift of undivided attention represents a measurable personal investment on your behalf and will often be rewarded. We all like to feel important and nothing helps the sales process more than to walk away from a sales meeting with the feeling that the other party is really interested in helping us resolve our problems. This investment on your part builds the esteem of your customer and there are few more valuable gifts you can offer them.