Episode #265: Our Pre-Approach in Sales

What is your pre-approach regimen before you meet the buyer? We cannot do everything and our time is finite. We should be trying to save our valuable time for meetings with the most qualified clients who can buy. This might be new clients or existing clients who have more capacity to buy from us. It is always disheartening when you analyse the existing buyer activity and realise we are only selling a small amount, compared to what we could be selling. It is even worse when you discover, they are buying something you do, but they are now getting it from your competitor.

We can research the company, looking at their recent business activity. Are they expanding, are they doing well financially, have they bought any other companies or have they been bought by someone else? We can check the company annual report and see what the President has to say about the future direction of the company. Annual reports are a gold mine really, because they have the direction the company is taking plus a breakdown of the financials. Unlisted companies are more difficult of course, because we cannot get access to this type of information.

We can look for champions within the company. Perhaps we know someone who has moved to this company recently who can supply us with some insights. We can check their press releases and see what journalists have to say about the company. We can use social media to check out buyers within the company. Maybe we have some things in common. Maybe we went to the same university or studied the same subject or have lived in the same location. It is amazing what we can do today with a few mouse clicks.

The person we are selling to has something going on inside their head. Can we anticipate what the conversation is which is going on in the mind of the prospect? We may have talked with other companies in the same industry and the chances are high that this company will also share some of the same challenges. When we are thinking about those possible challenges, what solutions do we have to meet them? What do we have in our line-up of products and services which be of most interest to this buyer? What would be some massive interest hooks we could snag the attention of the buyer with?

One great source of information is an existing client. We can ask them some key questions which may help us to better position our meeting with the prospect client.

For example:

Why did our existing customer buy from us?
What do they like about our solutions?
How have they used them and what have been the results?
Can they identify the ROI from using our solutions?
If we could do more for them, what would that look like?

Where does our buyer sit? Are they the CEO, who is worried about the future and concentrating on strategic issues? Are they the CFO, who is worried about cash flow and investing in the business? Are they the Technical Buyer, who is worried about the spec? Are they the User Buyer, who is worried about ease of use, after sales service, warranties, etc.?

Depending on who we are talking to, the area of deepest interest will vary. We need to anticipate their interest and come prepared to cast our solution in terms which will resonate the most strongly with them. For example, it is no good talking about the spec to the President. They are big picture focused and want to know how your widget will help deliver their strategy. How can we show the CFO that the profits from our solution will build additional income they can stack away as a fund for emergencies. How can we show the technical buyer that our spec and what they want are a match made in heaven and we have everything they need. The user buyer has to be assured they won’t be on their own after purchase. For example, I own an iMac computer and I really appreciate the online help I get when things go wrong. There is just no way I could ever work out the solutions by myself.

There is no point turning up to present the solution, if you don’t know what is uppermost in the mind of the person you are speaking with. If it is a buying group, then you have to cover off all of the different interests of the people in the room. They all need assurance you have the thing of most importance to them. The preparation phase is the mark of the professional. The days of winging it as a salesperson are well and truly gone. That will not work in modern business. You are winging it and your competitor has thoroughly researched the company and prepared in detail for who they are going to present to. They will get the business and you will get nothing. Frankly you deserve to get nothing too. So let’s be professional and work on our anticipatory skills and WOW the buyer when we get in front of them.