The one thing that 98% of salespeople don’t do (and why you should be doing it)

If there’s one thing that drives salespeople up the wall, it’s if you’re having a wonderful dialogue with your prospect, they are all set to buy, and everything is in place, they just need to get that one final approval and then you’re good to go.

But that final approval never happens – and it never happens, because someone above them (the one with the true decision making ability) said no.

If the client is (wo)man enough to tell you to your face, then you can get it over with and move on, but what happens more often than not, is that you try and try and try to call the client, but nothing ever happens, and you waste your time chasing ghosts.

The reason it drives salespeople (and their managers) up the wall is because they know it’s horseshit, and they know that if they’d done better from the beginning they wouldn’t have been in this situation.

What separates the top 2% of advisors know (or have learnt through bitter experience) is that it’s not when you try and close the sale that you lose it.

It is in everything leading up to it.

And in everything leading up to it, we mean back to how you structure your solution, given how well you’ve mapped the clients needs, how you’ve set the scene as you entered the meeting, all the way back to how you booked the meeting, and who you booked it with.

You see losing a sale (or not being able to get to the point where you have a chance to make the sale to begin with) is all about the type of clients you call on.

And here’s the rub – most people in sales continuously and predictably call on the wrong clients.

They call on clients that are too far down in the system, and thus not able to make a decision on their own – e.g. HR. Or they call on clients who need to ask permission before they are allowed to spend money – regardless of the amount.

So the one thing that only 2% of salespeople do (and that you should be doing too) is only call on high-value targets.

This means only calling on people who have the potential to be decision makers – people in senior leadership positions and with P&L (Profit & Loss) responsibility. When you call on other types of clients (heads of marketing, COO, CHRO or the like) then you might get the meeting on the books, but you’re also most likely going to waste your time, because you’ll find that when it comes time to make a decision, they won’t have the pedigree to do so. And one lesson you might as well learn sooner rather than later, is that if someone else is going to have to approve a buying decision, there is every chance that they won’t.

Conversely, when you call on decision makers, you’ll find that you need to be on you A-game from the start. Decision makers only take meetings with people if they mean business, and you can count on the fact that if you do your job well, they’re going to be way more focused on the value than the price – and in order to make sure they understand the value you bring to the table, you need a specific approach, which you can read more about here

The reason most salespeople don’t call on these types of clients however, is down to self-esteem issues. Get over it. It’s another human being on the end of the line, and if you have something that’s important or relevant to them, they’re going to want to listen to you. So make sure you have something to say, say it, and get the meeting in the calendar.

That’s how you do what 98% can’t, won’t and don’t do – and that’s how you put yourself head and shoulders above your competition.