In sales, preparation can make the difference between selling, and never having the opportunity to sell.
Full disclosure – I was never a Boy Scout. However, I do know the Boy Scout motto, and I bet you do, too. “Be Prepared.” I’ve always tried to live by that, in my personal and my business situations. It’s always stood me in good stead, and I’ll go into some of the specifics of how I do that in selling in a little bit. First, however, I want to tell you about a situation that just arose, and how being prepared helped.
Two weeks ago, I had lunch with an old friend from high school. We rediscovered each other – as many people do these days – on Facebook. It was really great to see her, and well worth the hour drive back to Topeka (my hometown) for the afternoon. As I was leaving the house, I nearly left my briefcase behind – this would, after all, be two old friends reconnecting – but I decided to take it along. I’m glad I did, because what happened after we finished our burgers demanded the briefcase.
We had a great conversation, catching up on the last 20 years or so. Toward the end of the conversation, we were talking about what I do for a living, when she got a funny look on her face. I asked her, “What is that look for?” She replied by saying, “It’s funny. I was having drinks with a friend yesterday, and my friend was saying that she’d just had to fire two of her salespeople. She was really upset about it and didn’t know how she would replace them.” Obviously, I had some ideas about how that could be effected.
To make a long story short, one cell phone call later, I was sitting in front of the owner (my friend’s friend) of a medium sized industrial supply company, and discussing how my recruiting and training programs could help her grow her business. By the end of the meeting, I was walking out with new business. This, from a day that I thought would be strictly a personal day. Had I not had my briefcase, been equipped to handle a business meeting, and had the tools to create an agreement and an invoice, it might not have happened. “Be Prepared.”
When it comes to being prepared, here are my philosophies:
Always be prepared to have a business meeting, even if none is scheduled. This was but one example of a personal day that turned into a business day. I’ve had business meetings while on vacation, while on unrelated business trips, and on weekends. Unless it’s completely impossible, I never go anywhere without business cards, basic brochures, and blank invoices. You never know when opportunity will arise.
Always be prepared to take a sales call to its ultimate conclusion. The “one call close” is the Holy Grail for some salespeople – but, to my amazement, other salespeople avoid it. Don’t be one of those salespeople. Take an inventory of what you need to make a sale. Do you need blank proposals, invoices, service agreements, etc? Then have them with you when you initiate a sales call – even if you believe whole heartedly that the call will not result in a sale or that it’s too early. You don’t have to pull out your invoice unless it’s needed, but many, many sales have been lost by the salesperson who said, “Well, I have to go out to my car and get….” The customer says, “Oh, don’t worry about it – it’s not that big a deal….” And then the opportunity is lost.
This, by the way, is also an excellent argument for carrying a briefcase. I know that some consultants say that you shouldn’t because it’s “too intimidating” or some such nonsense, but the truth is that customers respect a salesperson who is there to do business, because that means that the customer’s time will be used effectively.
Always be mentally prepared to get into selling mode. When opportunities arise, you may not have time to mentally rehearse a sales call, research, and prepare on your own time. You may just have to pull the trigger. That means that you have to own your sales personality. Know the questions you need to ask, and how to demonstrate results from purchasing from you. Here’s a hint: One of the things that I do in my recruiting process is to test the salesperson’s ability to do this via an unplanned phone call. Salespeople that can’t quickly get into selling mode don’t work for my clients.
If you’re not always prepared to sell, you WILL miss sales. Without my tools to sell, I might have lost the sale two weeks ago. Don’t be that guy (or gal).
