The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [116]
Create rapport. What professional goals did you note during the meeting? How can you help prospects achieve those goals? What personal tidbit, common interest, or funny story can you refer to later to remind them of your bond?
Qualify and establish need. Do you understand prospects’ needs and objectives? What are their most pressing problems and how can you help solve them?
Build value. What do they consider valuable? What benefits or addons would appeal to them and build the value around your product or ser vice?
Create desire. What are their hot buttons that can increase their desire? What is the pain point that you can use to remind them of why they bought and why they will want to keep buying from you? Remember that people naturally gravitate away from problems and toward solutions.
Overcome objections. What are their objections and how can you put them to rest?
Close. What closed them?
The more effective you were and the more information you gathered in steps 1 through 6, the more penetrating your follow-up will be.
When I owned an advertising agency, one of my clients was a magazine. In order to research for this client, we had the salespeople come in from competing magazines and do a pitch so we could see what our client was up against. Here’s what they did for their pitches:
Competitor I talked about their magazine.
Competitor II talked about their magazine.
Competitor III talked about their magazine.
Competitor IV talked about their magazine.
This was astonishing to me. I literally could not believe that not one of these magazines asked me any questions. This is weak selling at best.
When all you do is talk about the product or ser vice you’re selling, what is the only thing you can focus on in your follow-up? There’s not much else to say in your letter but “Thank you for the meeting and, by the way, did I tell you our product is great?” There’s no opportunity for quality follow-up because you didn’t find out anything about me or my problems or my buying criteria. The follow-up letter becomes no more interesting to the client than a direct mail piece from a total stranger. Needless to say, I trained and role-played and quizzed our sales staff to ask a lot of questions with the goal of learning the client’s entire decision-making criteria and quite a few professional and personal tid-bits about the client. By the time they were in the follow-up phase, my sales staff had plenty of information.
10 Steps to Great Follow-up
Follow-up Step 1: Send the First Follow-up Letter
If you sell business-to-business, get a letter off to your client within an hour or two of your meeting. When I went on sales calls, I would call from my car, dictate a letter to my assistant, and have it faxed off. Do you think it would impress the client to get a follow-up letter within an hour when she knew I wasn’t even back at the office yet? Here’s a good letter structure:
Start with something personal that you remember from the meeting.
Example: “That was a great story you told about your daughter. In our next meeting, I have a similar story to tell you.”
Include a compliment.
Example: “You certainly seem to have a great grasp on how to make your company succeed. They are lucky to have you.”
Push their hot buttons and stay focused on the benefits your product or ser vice offers to them.
Example: “With the challenge you face, it seems clear that six of our machines are exactly what you need. You will reduce costs, speed up productivity, and, most important, relieve a lot of stress for quite a few people. I’m checking on how fast we can move on this one.”
Use a personal close.
Example: “Once again, it was great meeting you. I have a few ideas about some other productivity issues that I know you will like.”
Here’s a bad follow-up letter:
Dear Joe,
Thank you for your time. I know how busy you are. Our machines are great. With our strength, we have become great. We’re great. I really want your business, and I’m willing