YDAS

Face-To-Face – The Meeting

Written by Clive Price, sales trainer and customer service expert.

The Myths

The MD is the final decision maker.
Closing is the most critical step in selling.
My personality and gift of the gab will convince the prospect.
I should be passionate about my item or service.

Qualifying

Finding the heart of the organisation or the person(s) responsible for making the final choice is  paramount when handling Commercial Lines insurance goods. Personal Lines, too, could require involving far more of the family. Studies overseas have shown that the days of the man of the house making all the critical decisions are long, long gone. Even with usually masculine purchases, like getting a new car, the prospective customer’s wife has some influence in the buy choice 74% of the time – even if the vehicle is purchased by means of a business auto allowance scheme. Dealing with Commercial Lines clients can be a main headache as organisations turn into bigger and choice-making vests more and much more inf committees.

We assume nonetheless that you read through last month’s prospecting hints and suggestions and your basic study has been carried out and all fingers point to the person(s) you’re about to see. On the phone, making the appointment you may well have asked, “Besides yourself, Johan, who else do you feel should join us?”. Sometimes the more jugular approach of “Are you the person responsible for authoring insurance / medical aid purchases?”

One more (somewhat guerilla style) tactic is to purposefully dial an incorrect extension and then ask some pertinent probing questions about the organisation.

Arrival

Get there early. Work on Vince Lombard’s dictate ‘Be there 15 minutes before the appointment time’. An early arrival gives you time to scout for further clues on the organisation and an chance to chat to the receptionist ( a potent influencer, he/she knows everything about who’s who in the zoo ). For goodness sake, do not underestimate the advocacy power of these men and women. We know the can shut the gate in your face or open it and warmly welcome you inside.

Very first Impressions

Psychologists know that initial impressions are base on our spontaneous assessment of status, clothes, speech and facial expression  and this takes only 10 seconds.

Lord Chesterfield advised, “Dress is a quite foolish factor and yet it is a quite foolish factor not to be well dressed”. As initial impressions stick, it’s sad we don’t take them more seriously as these are elements directly within our control?

Greet Them Properly

It is like a cocktail party. The hardest thing is the 1st words. If you have not discovered an ice-breaker, by no means say, “Thank you for seeing me”, “It is very good of you to spare the time”, etc. Practice diverse greetings: a formal, respectful greeting a friendly greeting and a happy-go-lucky greeting. Study every person for an instant and then select the variations.

Get a Grip

The importance of a great handshake is often overlooked, It can support solidify a new relationship or detract from an otherwise very good impression. 


The Importance of a Smile

Some folks have forgotten how to smile since they don’t do it a lot. A smile radiates warmth and costs nothing. Regardless of whether you feel like it or not, the capacity to smile pleasantly and sincerely is a vital sales skill.

Look In Their Eyes

A lot of sales people destroy all chances of making the sale by avoiding eye contact when meeting  someone new. How do you feel when you look at a person wearing dark reflective sunglasses.

Craft Your Talk

Don’t keep telling your self, “I have to make this individual like me or I won’t sell”. Every single time you tell yourself, “I have got to make a sale”, you make your self anxious, maybe even desperate. You are an essential person. You are an expert in your field and, as a result, you are much  more than a professional salesperson. You are a problem-solver, an educator and a true organization partner.

Identifying the Prospect’s Requirements

The professional intermediary’s job goes way beyond establishing wants. If it was that effortless, our prospect would be satisfied with getting direct.

We want to discover and even produce new requirements for the prospect as long as that person will honestly benefit from our services.

This rare skill known as the art of persuasion, is what differentiates the pro from the order taker. To comprehend it we ought to master the rare skill of Questioning Techniques.

Lawyers train themselves vociferously in this skill and sales pros should do the exact same.

80% of any sale depends on astute questioning abilities so it’s worth the time to dwell on them. Our guiding principle is we are selling with integrity not manipulation. It amazes me how rapidly sales people launch into telling prospects all about their marvelous items and services. – the Tell Tell Tell Syndrome – in the hope of convincing the prospect and it often achieves the opposite. Believe about your last sales experience as a prospect – did the salesperson ask what you were looking for and how they could assist? Did they put you and your requirements initial? And how did that make you feel?

So why do we tell?

Perhaps it’s because we know what our services can do, we are so immersed in item knowledge (and so we need to be), that this becomes our ‘comfort zone’ and, therefore, extremely tempting to talk about. Branding doesn’t assist us stay away from this trap, as sales individuals are consistently pounded to be passionate about their company’s goods. But the danger is that sales people  turn out to be their goods or services. How on earth can you conduct a dispassionate and objective analysis of a prospect’s enterprise or personal requirements, when you are married to your portfolio of services?

Keep in mind company partnering only begins when you put the prospect’s enterprise very first.