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Simple Steps to Better Sales Calls: Follow up Immediately

Brendan · February 25, 2021 ·

Follow up Immediately

Your sales call or meeting is now over. You’ve got things to do, and chances are your customer does as well.

Summarize them and send a follow up email. Something like this, perhaps:

Jim,

Good meeting. Lots of excellent discussion, and was fascinated to learn that the company is now expanding into Malta and Corsica. Just to summarize the conversation, here are my takeaway:

We owe you more detail on the implementation process for the JiffyWiz product suite.
Hans Ollo had questions about 24×7 support. Either Tom or Jerry will get back to him directly on that.
Jan is to get back to us about your Q2-Q3 production schedule.
We’ll schedule a follow-up meeting in the next 2-3 weeks. I can coordinate that though Hans.

Am I missing anything? I’ll add it to the list, and will check in with you early next week.

Quick. A few short sentences. People like bullets.

Write it in your style, of course. Terse is fine. Wordy if you must. But do it. Immediately. Include summary notes, decisions, action items, questions and open issues. If there are specific individual contributions that helped make the meeting a success, those may warrant mentioning. And thank you’s and next steps, of course.

If you want to put off sending it until the next day so you don’t seem overbearing, that’s fine. But capturing the details right away, getting them down and sorted out is key.

Details are a hassle. We all forget them. We get distracted. We procrastinate.

Maybe you’re like me. The longer I wait to do something, the less likely is that I’ll do it. And chances increase (exponentially?) that I won’t do it as well. Because it’s not fresh, vivid, immediate. The thing has been cluttered up by other thoughts and tasks.

I need a deadline. For sales call follow-up, it’s the end of the day at the latest. Not because I’m super-organized, but because I get thrown by the next thing in front of me. Tomorrow, my notes won’t be as helpful and the pile will get bigger. Follow up is a priority.

Besides, your customer will (or should) appreciate it. You’re taking the notes. Tasks and issues are documented. Your commitments are recognized and written down.

It’s another reminder that you’re on the job.

Simple Steps to Better Sales Calls: Don’t Rely On Your Demo

Brendan · February 18, 2021 ·

Don’t rely on your demo.

Let’s start by defining exactly what a ‘demo’ is. It is an orchestrated, practiced demonstration or walk-through of the product that is intended to solve the problem the customer is either facing or looking to avoid.

Boredom Ahead

With most ‘demo’ sessions, there is an established path or set of features that your customer will be guided through. It invariably starts with logging in, followed by a required stop on the home page or dashboard, followed by subsequent trips down each menu offering. Analytics and reporting typically wrap up this user experience, culminating in a cheerfully delivered “Any questions?”

It’s comfortable, predictable, and safe. And boring. And because everyone knows where they’re headed, they sit back and settle in for the ride.

Especially the person driving the show.

Now ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this demonstration?” Is it a product overview? It is a discovery session? Are you looking to impress them with features and functionality?

Chances are your generic product tour isn’t getting it done because most salespeople use the demo as a crutch. It’s just a step along the sales process, or another brochure.

Most demos are little more than “Look, we have all these great features. And the user interface is so cool and hip. And we integrate with all these third-party apps and tools. So buy from us.”

In reality, the demo should be another discovery tool, another way to generate good questions and better understand the problem and the customer’s perspective.

Use it that way.

Use The Demo Effectively

Rather than resort to a canned, practiced product ‘pitch’ (a word that I was taught early on as a dirty word in sales), put the demo to work for you. Use it to start conversations, uncover problems, and discuss implementation.

Leave the canned demo script and the boredom behind. Do this instead:

Start the ‘demo’ by explaining what you plan to cover. Talk through what you could show, and ask what their priorities are. What interests them? Focus on that.
You can suggest specific features or capabilities that you think they should see. Gauge their interest.
Skip the log-in process. Get to the point.
Remember that demos are time-consuming. The set-up, connecting to a ther customer’s WiFi, getting the video display working. These always take longer than you think.
Give serious thought to a static demo or screenshots, and use the conversation to understand and educate. You can have the live demo up and available in case there is a specific use case or client skepticism. (It happens less often than you think.)

A well-executed demo is just another tool in your sales toolkit. Use it first as a discovery tool, and then as a way to inform and educate.

Make It Easy For Your Customer

Brendan · January 28, 2021 ·

As a professional salesperson, a big part of your job is to make things easy.

Good sales execution is all about removing friction and difficulty and resistance. And there are plenty of all three when it involves making a purchasing decision.

But decisions can be hard. Decisions mean change, upheaval, risk. There is the exposure, the unknown, and various alternatives to consider and evaluate. Reputations need to be factored in.

And of course, there is cost.

Look for Friction

Ask yourself what you can do to address each of these issues for your customer? How are you removing the pain and difficulty, and replacing it with pleasure and ease?

There are innumerable ways to accomplish this. For example:

You can have supporting documents and other resources immediately available in convenient, easily digestible formats.
You can anticipate the questions your customer will ask, and even pose and then answer them.
You can explain the requirements, roles, process, and even (especially) the pitfalls to implementation. And then walk through the steps necessary to achieve success.
Your emails can be clear, concise, and easy to process and act on.
You can work through the administrative assistant (if there is one), and handle scheduling, conf call details, directions, etc.

And that’s just a start.

Be on the lookout for difficulty, friction and resistance throughout the customer’s sales experience. Then work to remove it. Become the trusted advisor and the no-cost problem solver they can depend on.

It’s a Win-Win

Yes, it may be impossible to completely eliminate every complication or challenge in the sales process, but there are often ways to minimize them. Often, by removing or minimizing the complications and difficulties for the customer, you’ll discover that these efforts benefits your future sales process. You job often gets easier as the friction is removed or lessened.

And where you can’t, you’re at least able to warn your customer beforehand. For example, “I’m sorry about this but, our contract process is torture. I’ll do everything I can, but it just runs on a different, slower gear” tells your customer what to expect. That knowledge makes it a little easier on them. Of course, this doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility of making the experience less torturous, so don’t give up.

Because that’s your job.

Ultimately, the role of a salesperson is to help your customers make decisions. And making decisions isn’t always easy. But if you can make them easier, everyone wins.

Sales Tip: Have Reasons to Reconnect

Brendan · September 4, 2020 ·

To keep the sales process moving forward, you need to keep the conversation going. To do that, you need to be proactive. And one solid way to do that is to create reasons to reconnect with your customer.

This isn’t complicated, but it requires some preparation. And execution. To create opportunities to reconnect, consider the following:

Explain at the end of the meeting that you’ll need to follow up on ‘item’ and try to schedule that next call. Or simply set the expectation that you’ll be reaching out, and when.
Close the meeting by reviewing next steps, and make sure that the customer is responsible for something on the list, however inconsequential. It’s another chance to follow up.
Have a follow up document/action item in mind that you can use to elicit feedback.
Simply explain in the call that you’ll check in on ‘date’ to see how things are moving.
Send them meaningful content…with an explanation of how it applies to them.

At some point, if you get complete radio silence after an extended period of time(which will vary on the deal, where you are in the sales cycle, who you’re dealing with, etc.) you can then ask if there’s still interest, is the deal dead, what is going on over there…

But until then, keep pushing and keep finding reasons to reconnect… albeit as deftly as possible.

Sales Fundamentals – Have Patience

Brendan · August 31, 2020 ·

When selling to big, brand-named B2B accounts, it helps to have patience. One of the more frustrating aspects of sales for early stage start-ups is the decision-making process and the slow pace of progress that’s inherent with enterprise accounts. A juicy, high-profile deal with one can be a game-changer for any small company, but making that happen can be arduous and time-consuming.

Certainly, the primary objective is to move along the sales process as quickly as practical. But it’s important to understand that most companies simply can’t move at the same speed as a start-up. And big companies can be absolutely glacial. Understand this. (As is often said, acceptance is the first step…)

There are innumerable reasons for the long process, and a wide range of obstacles and issues that come into play, including:

committees and meetings
a budget approval process
the need to build internal consensus
having to deal with internal politics
waiting on legal review
other projects, deals and distractions
vacations and travel
potentially competing or conflicting initiatives
etc., etc., etc.

Simply put, large enterprises are big, slow-moving, inefficient behemoths. And they’re behemoths due to the multitude of complicated internal structures, personalities, and operations.

So when it comes to the progress on your deal, delays and silence don’t (necessarily) mean a lack of interest. But they do require you to have a strategy and a set of tactics to keep things moving.

So have patience. But be prepared.

Be Proactive to Keep Momentum Going

From the outset of your sales effort, you should be thinking about how you can:

Create reasons to reconnect *
Develop multiple customer contacts, and stay in touch
Have phone conversations
Keep prospecting (and include their competitors)
Visit the company
Anticipate delays (and manage internal expectations)

There is an almost direct correlation with company size and the pace of decision-making. Selling big brand-name B2B deals can be worth the effort, but go into it with a clear eye, patience and stamina.
Remember, enterprise clients are essentially buying your ability to be quick, nimble and innovative.

So don’t expect it from them. Have patience.