Do you find yourself having to remind your prospects to take action -- with a series of follow-up emails or phone calls -- long after your initial pitch? Does it take weeks or months to finally close a deal? You’re not alone. This is an issue many B2B salespeople today deal with, and one I’m constantly helping others remediate as a sales trainer.
If you’re struggling to get your prospects to take immediate action once your pitch is over then you may have a deficiency somewhere in your strategy or approach. Luckily, you can learn from your mistakes; however, you need to examine your strategy to figure out what those mistakes are.
Failing to Control The Process
Selling the process is just as important as selling your product or service. To do this, you must provide your prospects with next steps during or immediately after your initial meeting. Failing to do so will force you to suggest a follow-up action over the phone or email, which hardly ever works.
If your prospect doesn’t want to buy now (which is almost always the case when selling B2B solutions) then their next step should be to schedule another meeting. This could entail a demo, a slide deck, or a series of success stories. Regardless, a follow-up meeting should provide new insights as opposed to being a regurgitation of the initial meeting.
Poor Discovery Techniques
Traditional discovery assumes the prospect already knows why they want to make a significant change and has an idea of what they need to make it happen. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for every prospect you’ll encounter.
As a precaution, you should assume your prospects don’t have a clue when it comes to why they should stray from the status quo. With this approach, you can allow prospects to feel as if they are discovering on their own by asking meticulous questions. For example, “How much time does your company currently spend on X?” or “With a more efficient solution in place, how much money and time could your company save?”
This makes the discovery process seem more organic and gets your prospects itching to take immediate action in order to solve a problem they may not have known existed before speaking with you.
Lacking The Right Implications
In addition to helping a prospect discover why they need to change, it’s critical to remind them what could happen if they don’t immediately take action. These implications can differ depending on the prospect, their industry, or what solution they’re currently looking for. With that said, the implications you make should be meticulously explained to get the message across clearly and compel your prospect to make a change as quickly as possible. After all, the goal is to get prospects to think of your product or service as a need rather than a want.
Getting prospects to take action quickly is a skill that many, unfortunately, lack. If you still need guidance or want to receive consistent insights into becoming a better B2B salesperson, then check out my podcast The Brutal Truth About Sales & Selling!