Success Stories
A Sales Team Improves Their Meetings to Build More Profitable Relationships with Prospects
The sales team of a global financial company has a knack for building relationships with their prospective clients. When many other sales people go into meetings with scripted sales pitches, this team is known for its friendly attitude towards meetings with prospects. Not surprisingly, they sell more than their competitors, mostly because of the long-lasting, personal relationships they build with their clients.
The group has always been very successful in landing meetings with potential clients. But they weren't always as successful in landing the actual business. Their VP came to us with this concern after reviewing reports on the number of meetings the team scheduled versus actual sales results.
Our consultants started videotaping individual mock sales presentations with each member of the team. We found that the majority of them were going into meetings with their "sales book" and walking prospects through page by page. The meetings usually lasted under a half an hour and were mostly very serious business talk. In a nutshell, they were so bland and boring that the potential client usually left the room too quickly.
We recommended a new approach to these meetings that would end up being revolutionary to the team. We showed the sales team how to create an agenda before the meeting. But the agenda had little to do with actual selling. It was to be based on what the client or prospect would want to talk about that day. The team member had to find out in advance what their concerns were, what their goals were, and what they expected to achieve in the meeting. They were to use their "sales books" only to explain something in detail and only if the client asked.
This pre-meeting work transformed the way the team conducted their meetings. Clients were far more engaged in the meetings because the sales and client service people were catering to their interests. Clients weren't running from the room anymore, and they were graciously and honestly thanking the team member for giving them useful information and potentially helping them with a problem.
Approaching the meetings differently enhanced the sales teams' credibility with potential clients. They stood apart from competitors; not surprisingly, they doubled their sales within two years. Almost more importantly, they retained existing clients much more effectively by developing stronger relationships with them.
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