4 Rules to Help Salespeople Maximize Initial Prospect Meetings

How important is it that you or your sales team close more business, more quickly, at higher margins? If you’re struggling to make progress during initial prospect meetings, or you think you’re leaving dollars on the table, it’s time to take a closer look at your sales process.

There are two things I want you to recognize:

1. Your current sales process is perfectly designed for the results you (or your team) are getting today. If you are not closing as much as you believe you should, then something in your process has to change.

2. That change starts at the beginning – the phone call to set up the appointment.

The quality of the phone call will always determine the quality of the appointment. If your salespeople must have better initial calls, then they must improve the quality of the phone call that sets up initial prospect meetings.

4 Rules to Maximize Initial Prospect Meetings

Here are 4 rules to help salespeople maximize their initial prospect meetings:

1. How you say what you say is more important than what you actually say.
   You must ask questions and then really listen. If you tell stories, use metaphors and analogies. You need to have appropriate eye contact and body position, voice inflection, and a professional background, especially in today’s virtual world.

2. Nobody really wants to talk to you.
   This seems like a harsh rule, but knowing this going in will help you be better prepared to nurture the discussion and build rapport.

3. You have 10 seconds to make a GREAT first impression.
   If you show up late for the Zoom call or meeting, you’ve already lost. If you don’t have compelling and CEO-level questions that really engage your prospect, you are behind the 8-ball. If the prospect cannot connect with you in the first 10 seconds, everything is uphill from there.

4. Practice and record your opening dialog.
   Listen to it. If you were someone you’ve never met before, would you engage? Sales coaches should also listen and provide helpful feedback to their salespeople.

Salespeople must also have a strategy or plan for success going into the meeting. Not a plan developed in the car on the way to the appointment, but one that is thought out in a pre-call strategy session. Here are your two objectives:

• Primary objective:
  Have a go or no-go at the end of the meeting. That doesn’t mean buy or don’t buy, it just means move to the next step or don’t.

• Secondary objective:
  Discover as much as you can about your prospect’s motivation to meet and have the discussion. Normally this involves a pain they want to eliminate or an opportunity they want to leverage. Find out their compelling reason to take time out of their schedule.

One thing we know for sure: prospects don’t take time out of their schedules unless there is an underlying reason. As salespeople, our job is to find out what it is.

Author:

Tony Cole, Founder
Anthony Cole Training Group

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