Research shows that 58% of executives are disappointed in their first meetings with salespeople – and only 7% agree to a follow up meeting.
In two recent conversations with the heads of sales and sales enablement of two sales forces with 150+ salespeople, they confessed that 80% of their first meetings with mid to senior-level potential customers did not result in a follow up meeting.
If you’re like me, you will find these stats staggering.
Whether these meetings have been self-generated by salespeople or sourced through marketing, it doesn’t matter.
The sheer level of inefficiency in either of the above statistics makes me sad…and angry in equal measure.
Sales, even when it is going well, is a challenging profession that demands energy, commitment, follow-through, determination and more…you know, the stuff that most people don’t want to do.
The fact that these failure rates are tolerated (high growth papers over these cracks) effectively consigns salespeople to a life of frantic activity to do enough volume to make their numbers. This is the time they could be spending with loved ones or doing more of what they love. That makes me sad.
It makes me angry that their leaders put up with these levels of inefficiency and have not done anything to resolve them earlier (to be fair they were talking with me because they realized this issue would have to be addressed sooner or later as growth flattened). This is using other human beings’ energy, creativity and will without regard for their wellbeing, intentionally or not.
First to second meeting conversion doesn’t seem to be a metric that sales leaders track closely enough in my opinion.
And, in my experience of going through most major sales training programs, scant regard is placed on ‘how to’ effectively begin or open a conversation with a new (and probably skeptical) potential customer, whether they are a mid-ranking influencer or senior decision-maker.
Because of this, many salespeople don’t know what to do, say or how to structure their opening statements and questions and then get trapped into pitching, “spilling their candy in the lobby” or “showing up and throwing up” as soon as the buyer unwittingly asks a variant on these:
“So, what is it that you do?”
“Tell me about your product/service/solution.”
“What do you want to talk about today?”
“How can I help?”
“What’s your best price for…?”
Without intentionally building and practicing opening statements, questions and getting absolute clarity on what are the ‘lead or quality indicators’ that need to be covered to qualify for your internal benchmark of what constitutes a good call (that will lead to a high probability opportunity) – you’re leaving the call to chance as you or your salespeople don’t have a solid platform on which to base ALL your opening conversations from. You will simply be at the mercy of variability and what comes out of your/your salesperson's mouth on the day (and everybody has good and bad days, don’t they?).
So, an assumption was made in the statement above…that your company has an internal benchmark of what a good first call sounds and looks like (what are the lead/quality indicators that need to be covered and how are they delivered)?
If you’re a salesperson reading this, has your sales leader coached you on what elements you need to hit, cover off or bring up in your first call?
If you’re a leader, have you spent time identifying what are the lead/quality indicators of that first call?
I’m not a betting man…and I think I would probably make some money betting on “no” for both of the above…
Get Clear on Lead Indicators
It’s not enough to have steps under the “Discovery Call” tab in your sales process that look like these:
What is the customer using/doing today?
What is the customer's challenges/pain?
Why change now?
What budget do they have?
Etc, etc.
This doesn’t help salespeople if they don’t know “how” to ask the questions in a way that makes the customer want to answer them, nor does it make explicit what are the lead indicators or quality markers that must be touched on to make it a quality call/conversation.
Here are 3 lead indicators that my clients focus on executing in their first calls to ensure they end up having another. The 4th is optional on the 1st call.
They share their 'end in mind' at the beginning of the call. Sharing 'end in mind' provides direction and control of the conversation and pre-conditions the buyer that there will be a decision to be made at the end of the conversation.
They share their intent. This releases the pressure valve that the buyer will have from being in a conversation with a “salesperson.” Sharing intent makes it safe for the potential customer to share information with the salesperson, the information needed to provide the right solution, service, product or recommendation to the customer. Intent can be shared during the conversation as well, particularly when asking a difficult or challenging question.
They guide the customer to share their beliefs on what the ‘case for change’ is, with a $ amount attached. Most proposals that I see when I coach don’t have a business case. They have high-level abstractions that speak to "revenue improvement, cost reduction, time to…,” with no specifics, or have a hypothesis based on results other customers have achieved. Let me ask you, whose numbers are going to be more believable to the potential customer: yours/your salesperson's or your customer’s own? If that’s the case, why not get your customer to provide the numbers – the $ value that they believe will be achieved when they achieve the outcomes and results they want? Not many sales forces know how or do this. It separates the very best from the rest. And, it’s actually pretty straight forward to learn.
They ask the customer what their personal win is (optional on the 1st call). When your salesperson gets to a place of trust where they can ask the customer for their personal win, they will have struck gold. When a customer shares that they will “get their bonus, the promotion, be able to retire knowing that their team is in a good place/successful, work one week on and one-off, buy the boat” etc, your salesperson will have gotten to a place that 99% of salespeople never get to. This is where there is a dynamic change. Your salesperson changes in the eyes of the potential customer from vendor, expert and relationship builder to a trusted business advisor. And this may not happen on the first or second call. It could be on the 3rd or more. It is the lead indicator that I recommend all my clients to strive for as I have never lost a deal where I knew my customers' personal wins.
I hope that you find these thought-provoking and helpful.
Here’s my Christmas gift for you.
If you’re a sales leader or executive and you’ve identified that your salespeople don’t have an effective first call structure and don’t know the statements and questions they need to ask or how to ask them, then email me and I will send you a 1st Call Guide that is designed specifically to make first calls productive - the type of first conversation that leads to another.
If you’ve been struggling with this issue or other sales performance issues for more than 30 days and want to get a head start on 2020, it’s time to get outside help. Give me a call.