One of the biggest issues in b2b sales is the difficulty in finding the person responsible for making a buying decision. Especially in b2b sales that are done door 2 door you end up with stacks of cards and contact information that, if you don’t know how to process, leave you with little or no result. But that is not the only way you may be losing time while selling. Let’s see some other ways and their solutions too!
Trouble finding the decision maker. Many times you need to go through a lot of gatekeepers to reach the decision maker. Today, besides the phone that you must learn to use effectively, there are more ways of reaching the decision maker. Social media like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and others are awesome (and free) to use for getting the right kind of attention from decision makers. These are also great places to look for meaningful info that might speed up the process of contacting him in ways and with information that he has a need for there and then.
Unprepared meetings. How many times have you been in a meeting with a prospect which was, essentially, a big waste of time? How many times was it your fault? Meeting preparation saves time and promotes the right image to the prospect. Send the prospect the agenda of the meeting and highlight the things he must have with him in order to move the sale forward. If you waste my time you probably not going to get my business…
Bad communication. That is for the seller to blame. Poor communication skills are strangely common in inexperienced salespeople and then both he and the prospects lose time, do not connect through proper need analysis and questioning or never reach the point of closing the sale but not asking for the order.
No next action defined. If there is one thing that can bring me over the edge while training a salesperson, it is ending a meeting with a prospect without a clear advancement of the sale and/or a next action about the sale clearly defined and agreed upon. Things like “Great meeting! We will talk about it and call you!” by the prospect are really damaging for the salesperson cause it leaves him optimistically lost. He has the feeling that the meeting was a success but in reality, nothing came out of it!
Unnesecarry meetings. That happens when the salesperson does little or no research for his client prior contacting him. Even though I myself do a lot of cold meetings by walking in a person’s business and going on from there I always try to find more info first. But doing no research ever and keep seeing prospects that you can’t sell your product or service is a real time waster. Try to make it a habit to find out all that you can and form a proper image of the client before going in to see him. Beware though as not to let lack of information stop you from seeing people. Blank space in the calendar is hell….
The common point of all these ways salespeople lose time is not time management but taking responsibility for the sales, in all its stages and aspects. You need to train those skill sets and make them a habit.
Good luck everyone!
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