Episode #199: Success Techniques For Presenting To Buyers

Finding clients is an art and so is building trust and credibility that you can actually help them solve their business problems. We might be very charming when we first meet the client, sending out a competency vibe that the client relates to. They are open to our inquiries into the current state of their business, where the gaps are located and the urgency of filling those gaps. So far so good.

We are now working off a trust base sufficiently large enough to allow the client to pull back the velvet curtain and reveal all the difficulties and problem nuances they are currently facing, as opposed to that pristine image their marketing department has been publicly propagating.

Presumably you are skilled and have refrained from suggesting any possible solutions, until you have done a proper job of digging deeply into the real issues facing the client. You have not leapt in with your off the shelf product or service, the one size fits all, cure all snake oil. No you are a pro. You have been asking well designed questions, which have been helping the client come to their own conclusion that what you have is the solution to their needs.

We need to have our capability statement ready to go. In this statement we clearly explain that we have exactly what the client needs and we have the capacity to deliver it. Now if we don’t, then we should state that plainly, drink our green tea and get out of there pronto. Trying to slam the square peg into the round hole simply because you have invested all this time with this client and you need an outcome to meet your quota is stupid.

If they are in fact a match, we unveil our capability statement to communicate we can in fact help them. We show we canmatch our spec with what they need and we do go through the key features. But we don’t just stop there, like the vast majority of amateur salespeople. We take each of those key features and we illustrate how these features bring benefits to the client. We don’t just stop there either, we keep going, we keep climbing higher up the value chain. We take that benefit and then we explain how that benefit when applied in their business will help them to succeed. Now clients are always doubtful about what they hear from salespeople, so there is always going to be some residual scepticism. They have been burnt in the past by idiots in sales, so we have to deal with that negative legacy. After extolling the virtues of the application of the benefits of the features of our solution, we bring forth evidence of where this has worked elsewhere.

This is the package we need to be delivering at solution presentation time. Then to test the waters, to see if we have left anything out, not explained everything fully, we ask a trial close question. This might be something as gentle as “how does that sound so far?”

When we put all of this together, the client’s “yes” decision is made that much easier for them. That must be our object and we use our sale’s skills to ensure we create the best possible outcome for the client. This is not about getting a single sale, this effort is totally aimed at getting the re-orders. The pro understands the difference and wants to build a lifetime partnership with the buyer. This is what we must be thinking when we get to the solution presentation stage.