PROFESSIONAL SELLING IN THE 21 ST CENTURY
Being Prepared for My Sales Calls
Steve Kehoe, president of Kehoe Financial Services in Cincinnati, Ohio, knows the importance of planning and organizing each of his sale calls.
My clients are very knowledgeable, they want answers to questions and I must be prepared to answer them. It may sound simple but my clients want to know what I am selling and why do they need it. If they have high schoolers, it’s my job to explain the college savings plan and how it works. I represent many different companies so my clients want to know what company I am recommending and why. It is not unusual to be asked if I have other satisfied clients using the product. I have to be prepared to talk about my satisfied clients and how I helped them, Yes, price always comes up and my clients want to know if my prices are truly competitive. We’re not always the lowest, but we better be close. Many of my clients are not confident in their decision making. I must be prepared to explain why they need to act now and not wait. I cannot go into my sales calls having not thought about these questions, As a professional salesperson, I must plan for them before the fact and be ready to answer them.
The trust-based relational selling presentation often referred to as the need-satisfaction/ consultative model, is a popular form of an organized presentation. It is different from the canned presentation as it is designed as a flexible interactive dialog with the customer. The first stage of the process, the need development stage, is devoted to a discussion of the buyer’s needs. As seen in Figure 6.2, during this phase the buyer should be talk 60 to 70 percent of the time. The salesperson accomplishes this by using the first four questioning techniques of the ADAPT process. The second stage of the process (need awareness) is to verify what the buyer thinks his or her needs are and to make the buyer aware of potential needs to offer more low-fat and low-carbohydrate menu items until their sales volume suffered. Others, such as Subway, gained a competitive advantage by working with their suppliers to formulate a significant number of menu alternatives for the health-conscious consumer. The need-awareness stage is a good time to restate the prospect’s needs and to clarify exactly what the prospect’s needs are. During the last stage of the presentations, (the need-fulfillment stage), the salesperson must show how his or her product and its benefits will meet the needs of the buyer. As seen in Figure 6.2, the salesperson during the need-fulfillment stage will do more of the talking by indicating what specific product will meet the buyer’s needs. The salesperson, by being a good listener early in the process, will now have a better chance to gain the buyer’s interest and trust by talking about specific benefits the buyer has confirmed as being important.
Overall, however, most agree that the organized presentation is ideal for most sales situations. Its flexibility allows a full exploration of customer needs and appropriate adaptive behavior by the salesperson.
The Trust-Based Selling Process: FIGURE 6.2
A Need-Satisfaction Consultative Model
Written Sales Proposals
The third basic type of sales presentation is the written sales proposal. The proposal is a complete self-contained sales presentation, but it is often accompanied by other verbal sales presentations before or after the proposal is delivered. With widespread usage of word processing, computer graphics, and desktop publishing, the written sales proposal is being used in a growing number of situations. These technologies have minimized the traditional disadvantage of the written proposal-the time it takes to prepare it.
In some cases, the customer may receive a proposal and then request that the salesperson make a sales call to further explain the proposal and provide answers to questions. Alternatively, preliminary sales presentations may lead to a sales proposal. In any event, the sales proposal should be prepared after the salesperson has made a thorough assessment of the buyer’s situation as it relates to the seller’s offering.
The sales proposal has long been associated with important, high-dollar-volume sales transactions. It is frequently used in competitive bidding situations and in situations involving the selection of a new supplier by the prospect. One advantage of the proposal is that the written word is usually viewed as being more credible than the spoken word. Written proposals are subject to careful scrutiny with few time constraints, and specialists in the buying firm often analyze various sections of the proposal.
Sales proposal content is similar to other sales presentation, focusing on customer needs and related benefits offered by the seller. In addition, technical information, pricing data, and perhaps a timetable are included. Most proposals provide a triggering mechanism such as a proposed contract to confirm the sale, and some specify follow-up action to be taken if the proposal is satisfactory.
Whit multimedia sales presentations becoming more routine, it is natural to think that written sales proposals would be declining in importance. Actually, the opposite is true. With the widespread use of multimedia, the standards for all sales communication continue to rise. Buyers expect clear informative sales messages, and they are less tolerant of sloppy communication. Because everyone knows that word processing programs have subroutines to check spelling and grammar, for example, mistakes are less acceptable than ever.
Because written communication provides a permanent record of claims and intentions, salespeople should be careful not to over promise, while still maintaining a positive and supportive tone. No buyer wants to read a proposal full of legal disclaimers and warnings, yet such information may be a necessary ingredient in certain written communication. As with all communication, salespeople should try to give buyers the information they need to make informed decisions.