You are making a Sales pitch mistake. As such you are making your sales hard. This common selling mistake is costing you sales, revenue, income and the commissions you want to earn. In today’s competitive world it can be hard enough getting a sales appointment or time with a prospect. So, when you do, you do not want to blow your opportunity as it might be the only one you get.
Almost 55% of salespeople miss and do not hit their sales target. There are numerous factors to this and often the root cause can be drilled down into a few simple mistakes.
I know how it is. I have missed targets. You too may also be suffering from missed sales, the missed commissions, and you feel that unease that goes with it all. You know that you are only as good as your last sales month, especially in the eyes of your sales manager or superiors.
You have built your pipeline. You have pre-qualified and have prospects to pitch to. You want the commissions on offer from signing the clients, not just for your income requirements but to also get away from the scrutiny of your sales manager. However, you never seem to get past first base with your prospects in your presentation.
Why is that? Often the answer lies within the way you are asking your questions to your prospect.
Whilst you do not want to be robotic in every sales presentation, you do need to follow a key principle in your questions. What you need to do is to make sure that you do not give control of the conversation to the prospect.
When you do this your prospect can shut you down, steer the conversation (and thus your presentation) to suit them.
Check the type of questions you commonly ask.
You want to move away from open ended ones like
- What are your thoughts on…..Usually your product/offer
- Are you Ok to talk ….. Prospect will invariably say not really/busy etc
- Is now a good time to talk…. Not really
- Do you want to go ahead… Not really
Etc.
Analyse the last presentation for your product that did NOT result in you getting the sale. What was the format of the questions you asked? Are you asking the type of open question above?
You need to change that if you are. Instead you need to be directing your prospect to a successful conclusion for you both. You want the sale and your prospect needs your product or service.
Start swapping your open questions with assumptive statements that lead your prospect through the meeting and presentation.
You can use statements like
- I am going to show you what we can do for you now.. This will take…
- You can get started on….
- We can implement …. by
And many more that you can come up with.
However, there is one question that you should ask that will let you uncover where you are at with your prospect. That is asking for the business. But, you need to ask this in a way that will uncover any prospect concerns.
That question for you to ask is
“ If I have answered all your questions we can start you (use from above)”
By asking this you will uncover any concerns, further questions or uncertainty your prospect may have. You will then have the opportunity to handle the true objections.
You need to work at your sales craft to hit the success and earnings you require. Your sales is a numbers game and the more you work on these areas the more the numbers will fall on your side. And the more successful you will be.