How well prepared is your sales team when they meet with a new or existing buyer?
We brought together a panel of buyers for our webinar called Cracking The Buyers’ Code: Having Purposeful Business Conversations With Buyers to discover what it takes to earn their business, build strategies, and ultimately, earn their respect and trust.
When it comes to gaining more of a buyer’s business, preparation is an important piece to the puzzle and the first step your sales team needs to take for success.
As the leader of your sales team, it is your responsibility to coach them to do their research and strategize so they have more purposeful business conversations when meeting a buyer.
After hearing from our panelists, we put together a three-step strategy so you can prep your sales team for their meetings and maximize the chances of reaching their objectives!
1. Do your research!
A lack of research can mean a missed opportunity.
Our buyers told us some of the most important information a salesperson needs to know before they get to the meeting is:
• Learn about the buyer, their business and their industry.
• Know the size of their business, demographic, current product offerings, current competition, how it fits into the marketplace and its challenges.
Action Step: Coach your team member to do their research preparation by googling any information on the company, including their products, website, and the buyer’s LinkedIn profile. Use the information to ask better questions that uncover better business opportunities.
2. 8-Step Consultative Opportunity Form
Hold your team accountable to applying the 8-step Consultative Conversation with their buyer. What can they do in advance to prepare and consistently follow the 8-steps in the consultative conversation?
- What is the personality style of the buyer and how will they adapt their strategy to meet with this buyer?
- What is the decision making role of this buyer? Are they meeting with the final authority or just their favourite person? How can they include the final authority in this meeting?
- What great questions will they ask to learn more about their business, challenges and goals?
- Will they be able to present solutions in this meeting or schedule a second meeting to present your three-option proposal?
- What will they do to secure the next steps with a specific date & time?
Action Step: Have your sales team download the 8-Step Consultative Opportunity form at www.teneoresults.com/resources.
3. Go beyond the basics to show the buyer why you are the answer to their problems, with ROI.
Salespeople today need to provide solutions to a buyer’s challenges and show how they can help buyers hit their targets and KPIs by showcasing their expertise.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]At first glance, it may seem counterproductive to spend a lot of time on research for business you have not yet secured, but that is the point! Share on X
Our panelists expressed that not enough time is spent on where the salesperson can help deliver KPIs and ROI. Here is the salesperson’s chance to hit the ball out of the park!
ROI/KPI to consider:
- How will this make them more money/margins?
- How will they sell more units/growth?
- How will this improve/reduce inventory turnover?
- How will this improve customer satisfaction/NPS scores?
- How will this increase market share in their industry?
Action Step: Strategize with your rep on how they demonstrate the ROI. By understanding the buyer’s total KPIs, they have potential opportunities to find a place where the product fits into the buyer’s market which may be lost if the conversation does not go beyond sales and profit.
At first glance, it may seem counterproductive to spend a lot of time on research for business you have not yet secured, but that is the point!
According to a recent study by CSO Insights, just under 32% of salespeople exceed a buyer’s expectations. That leaves a lot of room for a salesperson to prove how they can be valuable to the buyer!
Coming up with a winning strategy for every buyer meeting by doing the research, developing great questions, adapting to different personality styles and understanding what is most important to the buyer and their business will put you in position to stand out above the rest.
Teneo’s challenge: Have a 15-minute coaching conversation with a salesperson on your team using the strategy above.
If you want to dive deeper into how you can coach your sales team effectively, contact us and we will show you how to teach your team to have more purposeful business conversations that get measurable results.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.