One of my clients was working way too hard at bringing new clients to her consulting business. She had dozens of prospects, but when she quoted her fees, too many prospects opted not to sign up. So, I pretended to be a prospect and asked her to describe the things she does for her clients and the benefits of her services. Instead of answering the question directly, she gave me a lot of colorful descriptive information about the success she has created for her clients which immediately made me want to be another one of her successful customers. But, when I asked her how much of this information her prospects knew, “Very little,” she said. Yikes!
I find that most business owners and marketers make the same mistake. They have a great product or service and they know all the ins-and-outs of all the features and functionalities, but they neglect to go those last inches and help their prospects fully understand the value of how this product/service will make the prospects life easier, better, faster, sexier, whatever.
The problem with most sales training is that it starts from the vantage point that your company does NOT have an effective marketing plan. Which is true…most companies DON’T have a systematic, sure-fire way to draw highly-qualified prospects to their doors like moths to flame. Instead, most companies fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to marketing and either don’t do ANYTHING to attract highly-qualified, interested prospects to their business… so, they simply lean on their salespeople to “get out there and make calls”.
Or, if companies do any advertising, they use the “brand-building” or “image” advertising to attempt get prospects to call… and it simply doesn’t work. People don’t get an emotional attachment to things that they don’t realize could solve problems or improve their lives. So, these executives end up saying things like “marketing and advertising doesn’t work”… and force their salesteams to go back to the archaic, cold-call grunt work.
Ask yourself… what would you rather do? Spend your time teaching your people all the latest “closes” and churn through dud after dud trying to occasionally find highly-qualified prospects…or would you rather just have the good ones come to you?
The solution is simple. You have to structure sales conversations to ask the right questions to get prospects talking about their goals and needs. This conversation then sets the stage so that when you explain the product/service you provide, it’s clear that this item is the perfect solution to your prospects’ problems.
Results: Instead of lowering prices to get more business, companies can increase their fees. Even in a strange economic environment, you can still position yourself for competitive advantage and make more money. Wouldn’t you like to have prospects eager to pay the prices you charge?
When your prospects fully understand of how much better off they’ll be or how much more successful they’ll be with your products and services, more people will want to work with you and buy from you and they’ll happily pay more to do so.
About Wendi McGowan