{"id":310,"date":"2020-05-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/?p=310"},"modified":"2022-09-12T15:19:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T19:19:31","slug":"how-to-avoid-selling-too-soon-with-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/how-to-avoid-selling-too-soon-with-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Avoid Selling Too Soon with Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Are your salespeople\u2019s conversations focused on product and price? Or do they have a deeper <em>purpose<\/em>?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right now, these questions are especially critical for sales managers to ask. When salespeople feel pressure to sell in a tight economy or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/how-to-keep-selling-in-times-of-fear-and-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">times of fear and crisis<\/a>, they can sometimes go overboard trying to land deals quickly. This leads them to abandon anything they\u2019ve learned about consultative selling and instead go for the quick close.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at an example scenario \u2013 one I commonly see among the sales teams I work with.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Say you have an opportunity to meet with a prospective new customer who is keenly interested in your services. Based on the initial interest, this could be a huge opportunity and maybe help you recover from a sales slump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the sales manager, you\u2019ll be involved in the meeting, which includes three key decision makers from the potential buying team (a great sign).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ve already met with your sales rep to <a href=\"https:\/\/teneoresults.com\/blog\/why-the-purpose-consultative-selling-process\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prepare for the meeting<\/a>. Both of you have:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Researched the company<\/li><li>Researched the people on the buying team who are attending the meeting<\/li><li>Drafted a list of key questions to ask during the meeting<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019re feeling very confident in your consultative approach. You send the agenda with discussion items to the attendees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>The Meeting Misstep: Selling Too Soon<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The meeting starts off with great rapport. Your salesperson takes the lead, as you agreed. Everyone agrees to the agenda items and your salesperson begins to ask questions to better understand their requirements.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you begin to build trust with all three buyers, the one buyer opens up and tells you how disappointed the company is&nbsp; with its current vendor. The other buyer chimes in and provides additional insight into the lack of service levels. You\u2019re excited because you see how promising this opportunity is.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then your salesperson jumps in to mention how your organization can provide solutions in a much better way than the prospect\u2019s current vendor. Before you can say anything, your salesperson brings up your special promotion. Inwardly you cringe. You know your salesperson is selling too soon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>How to Stop Selling Too Soon during Critical Sales Meetings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As a seasoned sales manager, you know the right thing to do in such a situation is to let the prospect talk more so you can uncover more about the company\u2019s business needs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It would be better to say something like: \u201cWe believe we can help. Before we begin to talk about our solutions and service levels, there are several questions we would like to ask to gain a better understanding of your business, the future state of your operation, and what it would take to earn your business. Then we can schedule a meeting to come back and present a working proposal to meet and even exceed your expectations.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this tack, the meeting could continue for the scheduled 60 minutes and you\u2019d get another page of notes of exactly what this potential customer wants and doesn\u2019t want. They may also have shared potentially bigger opportunities (say, the option of expanding to three other plants if this test case goes well).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The point is, you can usually provide greater value by holding off pitching, bringing up promotions, or otherwise doing anything other than listening to the customer offer a full portrait of their business problems. However, too many salespeople try to sell too soon during meetings like this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Develop More Consultative Selling Habits&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To prevent your team from \u201cSelling Too Soon,\u201d our PURPOSE Consultative framework provides a step-by-step process to build trust, gather information, and simply have a better business conversation. It will guide you to move the conversation away from products and price.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To effectively gain trust and long-term partnerships with your clients, use this&nbsp; checklist to keep your team&nbsp; executing better PURPOSEful business conversations:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>P \u2013 Prepare better before the customer meetings<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>U \u2013 Understand the customer\u2019s personality style, generation, and decision making role to adapt their conversation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>R \u2013 Rapport building to kick off the meeting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>P \u2013 Purpose of the meeting: State&nbsp; the meeting objectives and\/or agenda items, including length of meeting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>O \u2013 Open-ended questions: Ask 5-10 questions focused on their business impact and ideal outcome&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>S \u2013 Summarize and solutions: Actively listen so you can ask more clarifying and expanding questions based on the customer response<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>E \u2013 Execute next steps by scheduling the next meeting or call to present the proposal&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vastly better sales conversations start with this framework. Although salespeople may find this difficult to put into practice, it yields much better and much more successful results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Download a complimentary copy of our <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/teneoresults.com\/sales-tools-templates\/\" target=\"_blank\">PURPOSEful Business Conversation Template<\/a> today to coach your salespeople and keep them from selling too soon on sales calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-rounded\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/LisaLeitch.png\" alt=\"Headshot of Lisa Leitch\" class=\"wp-image-312\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" title=\"Lisa_Leitch_Headshot\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lisa Leitch is a sales strategist, speaker, and coach of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/teneoresults.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Teneo Results<\/a>. Lisa is driven by the mantra \u201cBe strategic, be proactive, be brave, and have PURPOSEful business conversations with the ideal profitable buyers that drive results.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are your salespeople\u2019s conversations focused on product and price? Or do they have a deeper purpose?&nbsp; Right now, these questions are especially critical for sales managers to ask. When salespeople feel pressure to sell in a tight economy or times of fear and crisis, they can sometimes go overboard trying to land deals quickly. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}