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Sales Mistakes: Virtually Waving Prospects Goodbye
With the web becoming the preferred medium for business and
social networking, many business owners and salespeople are
using email to replace traditional phone calls and referring
prospects to web sites instead dealing with queries directly.
Leading sales expert Andy Preston reveals that whilst the
technology revolution has enabled many businesses to become more
efficient in their day to day activities, it could also be
hampering their sales efforts and suggests that a ‘back to
basics’ approach is required to ensure potential business
opportunities are not lost in the haze of never ending emails
and SPAM.
“First and foremost is the need to distinguish between an
offline and an online business as this is fundamental to
identifying the most appropriate sales tactics” explains Andy
Preston, director of highly acclaimed training company
Outstanding Results.
By
definition, an ‘Online’ business has been specifically set up to
be run ‘online’ with discussions between the company and the
prospect/customer usually via email or with occasional phone
calls. The majority if not all of the sales activity is done
online (via marketing methods attracting people to the website)
and typically, the prices for "usual" work are visible on the
website, and after a discussion a quote is sent via email to the
prospect.
An Online business has little or no sales calls looking for
meetings and probably very few (if any) offline-networking
events are attended, as well as very few pro-active sales calls.
Most calls are incoming enquiries to the business, usually by
email/web enquiry, via networking channels such as Ecademy or
occasionally by phone call.
In comparison, an ‘Offline’ business is the sort of business
would be where there is someone tasked with the responsibility
of bringing in "offline" sales, so either a salesperson, or the
business owner that has to sell as part of their role. Their
sales activity would involve pro-active sales calls,
face-to-face meetings and probably attending "offline"
networking events.
As
technology continues to evolve and become the common means of
business communication, Andy emphasises that the challenge for
the "offline" business is not to merge online and offline
methods of selling to prospective customers.
“A Salesperson or Business Owner of an offline business
frequently confuses their selling style with that of the
"online" world and it is often necessary to analyse their
activities to highlight exactly which elements of their sales
approach are jeopardising their chances of success” explains
Andy, who indicates the following commonly made ‘mistakes’ when
selling for an offline business.
SALES MISTAKE NO.1: Replacing a follow up call with an email
A
hectic workload and multi-tasking in the workplace can cause
many professionals to send an email rather than speak to the
client directly over the telephone. Whilst the reasoning behind
this may valid – “I don’t want to disturb them if they are in
the middle of something” – this lack of direct contact could
seriously prevent any progression with the client through the
sales process.
“Considering how many emails the average person is likely to
receive in a day, unless it is essential that the client speaks
with the salesperson, the likelihood of getting a positive
response is remote. More than likely the response will be along
the lines of “we’ll be in touch when we want to go ahead” and in
reality, nothing has been achieved and the sales process is no
further along” explains Andy.
SALES MISTAKE NO.2: Sending details and pricing in an email
after meeting
During a productive meeting, the client may already be
interested and want to know more about the product or company.
They may be excited about the product and it is often the ideal
opportunity to close the business deal.
But commonly, many opt to send details and pricing to the
client in an email after the meeting when the client’s emotion
of "wanting to buy" had cooled off. More than likely, the client
will open the proposal and focus on the most important thing to
them at that time- the price. The probable response will be
"it's not something we want to proceed with at the moment" or
"I'll have to speak to xyz and come back to you" or "the price
was too high so we're not going ahead".
“In a face to face meeting a salesperson has the biggest
opportunity to use the client’s "emotion to buy", at the moment
when the client was most excited about what the salesperson had
to offer. This is often the best opportunity to close - when the
salesperson could have overcome a "price" objection and
re-closed for the deal” explains Andy.
SALES MISTAKE NO.3: Agree to send further details by email
It may seem a logical progression in a conversation with a
client but how often can the salesperson be sure what exactly
the client was interested in and that it wasn’t just a ‘fob-off’
designed to end the conversation as quickly as possible?
“Any time a sales opportunity presents itself the salesperson
must make the most of it and relying on email to do the job of
selling is often a sure-fast way to lose business” explains
Andy. “The best way to persuade and use sales skills is
face-to-face and the second best way is by phone. Resorting to
"selling by email" should be a very last resort”.
Having tackled through the maze of offline and online selling
styles, the challenge is now to present a structured, confident
and client-friendly approach to closing the deal and Andy
recommends the following three golden rules:
1.
Always call for follow-ups, there's hardly ever an excuse
for email follow-up unless the salesperson has tried numerous
times and they want to let the client know they’ve been trying
to get hold of them)
2.
Close for the business when the salesperson is in front
of the client - especially as it gives them the chance to handle
their objections.
3.
Salespeople must be aware of not falling for a "fob-off"
and open the conversation back up to discussing the offering and
how it will help them.
Andy Preston is director of highly acclaimed training company
Outstanding Results (www.outstanding-results.co.uk).
This article is provided for general consideration only and the
information contained herein is not to be acted upon without
professional independent advice.
You can
read more of Andy's articles here |
