There are too many Customer Relationship Management tools to count, and most are not used often with sellers mainly for the inconvenience of inputting the data.
Many tools are still not able to fully track the entire multidimensional, multiplatform lifecycles of the sale from start to finish.
The main reason is that every seller has a method to his madness, and all are different with their approach.
The obvious end goal however is the sale, but many do not fully track the sale from the first greeting to the signed contract.
The real fuzzy part of the deal is in the middle of the process, where the buyer should be engaged in understanding your product and how it will make it easier for them to do their job with your product.
We need to be accountable for fully tracking the progress of our deals, with each communication being accounted for in our CRM. If our CRM is not able to track it, then a customized shared Google document should do the trick.
The main elements of tracking include the Company, the Persons Name, the Persons Email, The Date of Contact, and How you Contacted Them (Phone, LinkedIn, Instagram, Email, and Event, where you can make it a Drop Down List).
There should be a record for each outreach and the outcome of that outreach.
Did the contact view your email? Did they respond? Did they book a meeting?
The main knowing that your outreach worked is when they book a meeting. This shows you that your email gave them incentive enough to join the call, and learn more about what you have to offer.
The first meeting should not be a presentation or a cold pitch.
No one wants to hear about you or how other companies use your product.
They want you to learn more about THEM.
Therefore questioning your prospects, and turning the script to them to get them to talk about their jobs and day to day will help you understand them and their difficulties.
We have been taught at an earlier stage in sales that it is all about your PITCH to the client. But its not the way people sell anymore.
The SELL is the conversation and the questions you ask the client that will give them a better idea of their pain points.
For example, if you have a digital product you are looking to sell. No need to promote your product. Ask them questions about whether they have the solutions your product provides.
If your digital product makes tracking payments more clearly transparent to the company, questions like how does your board know when payments are received? should open up the conversation.
From that question, you should have more questions that should arise from the previous question.
So if the answer was, we send out an email every month to the company of financial tracking, your follow up question should be, do folks in your office ask questions about the status of payment through out the month? Do they ask often for transparency?
If so, your product does offer this however you do not need to mention all the bells and whistles on the first call.
It is important to end the call with the expectations of your next anticipated communication. This could look like a follow up meeting next week to go over the necessary terms needed to close the deal. Whether that be cost structure, pain points of expectations, asking their needs, whatever it may be, the first meeting DOES NOT mean there will be a SALE.
The first meeting is there to peak their interest in YOUR PRODUCT.
So stop selling on calls. And start asking questions and doing your research on your customers ahead of time. You’re bound to get more sales!
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