Kensei Partners

There are plenty of great things about our products and services we can all talk about but which ones do our customers actually care about?  Unfortunately many of us show up to sales meetings unprepared, with no goals or actual agenda, we ask a few basic questions and then take a hard shift into a canned pitch about our company background and entire suite of services.  The customer politely nods there head, asks for a proposal and thanks us for coming in to meet with them.  We then follow up and send them our template proposal (via e-mail) without getting them to commit to a specific time and date for a decision and we never hear from them again.    Oh, sorry, I forgot to add the ten times we “touch base” and “check in” after we send the proposal.  Good stuff.

There are plenty of things to address in that scenario (which happens far too often) but I want to talk about the important one – what the client cares about.  Let me be very clear – THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT US!  At least at first, all the client cares (and should care) about is themselves.  We need to stop going through the motions and actually listen to what they’re saying and asking for and then sell to THAT.  THAT is their priorities.  Most people have a set of priorities they need to address when making a decision and those priorities are different for almost everyone.  Is price the #1 priority, Experience #2 and Quality #3 or is Quality #1?  We need to figure this out so we know where to focus our sales efforts.

Selling to priorities is not the only thing that will get you the deal but it will definitely help you stand out.  Sit down and try to come up with a list of ten things that people tend to consider when making a decision for your product/service/solution (i.e. Hourly rate, monthly investment, quality, ease of use, industry experience, flexibility, scalability, location, etc.).  Once you have this list ask your prospective clients to prioritize them 1-10 with 1 being the highest priority.  Then tailor your presentation, proposal and follow up to focus on the top 3.  Don’t ignore the others but make sure the important ones stick out.  Go sell something!