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Lately I have been working with businesses who want to reduce the time it takes to close the sale. They are each selling different things to different people but one thing they have in common is that they are getting a lot of interest at the sales meeting and then, too often the sale stalls and ends up going nowhere. A common factor in each case was a weak sales proposal.
The proposals looked good in terms of presentation style but if you had not been involved in the sales discussions then it was actually very weak.
If you find yourself regularly losing sales even though you thought you had it in the bag then it might be worth making sure that your sales proposals are not letting you down. Here are 5 common mistakes I find when reviewing sales proposals for clients:
Mistake #1 - Not enough detail
Soft selling does not mean giving in to price objections - far from it! Handling price objections is an area of sales that many accidental sales people struggle with. What do you say when people question your prices?
Here are 3 soft selling strategies which make it a loss less scary.
Anticipation
By Kate Warren
Would you like to be more persuasive with your clients? Want to know some simple, easy ways to make a great impression, especially around ‘tricky’ areas like pricing? Here are 3 simple tips about how you can use specific language to influence the results you get with people.
Tip # 1
I was chatting to one of my Soft Selling clients recently. Sally was asking for advice on how to convince someone with no money to invest in her services. Sally’s prospect desperately needed her services but ‘could not afford it’. She was considering dropping her rates to something she felt her prospect could afford.
‘This keeps on happening to me’ said Sally ‘I know the other person needs my services but I just don’t have the heart to turn my prospect away or to exploit the pain’
Imagine you went to your doctor. You were in pain and expecting some help. The doctor had just been seeing someone else immediately before you. Instead of asking you the normal questions, the doctor just starts telling you, very enthusiastically, how similar your pain is to the previous patient, what is wrong with you and what medicine you need to take.
Why are so many sales proposals unsuccessful? You spend all time and effort on putting them together, only to see your hopes for a successful sale turn to dust.
I have worked with a number of clients lately who were really struggling in competitive terms. Their weaknesses were getting in the way and they were struggling to counter the objections they were getting from their prospects. No combination of clever words were helping them to overcome their real weaknesses when compared with their competition.
You have generated the lead, done your fact find and submitted a sales proposal. There is one last hurdle to get over and that is negotiating the final deal. Whilst most negotiations happen on an informal basis it helps to develop your negotiating skill. If selling to larger businesses with professional buyers, negotiation skills are essential.
This is an edited recording of the teleseminar done by Andy Preston where he debunked some of the myths associated with closing the sale and presented a simple approach to closing which will prevent you from having to put any pressure at the end of the sales process.
Andy is a top sales trainer and works with some of the best sales teams around. He is well placed to share with us what sales professionals do to make closing the sale easier.
