Are you singing the song which your prospect likes?
If you're a salesperson and you're wary of meeting a new prospect to try to sell them, this is for you! Every prospect you meet is different as an individual and they have their own ways of going after a purchase decision. Some of it is dependent on their personal nature & the way they communicate inter-personally and some of it may also be biased by the success & failure of their past decisions.
We've compiled here some helpful tips on how you can know which kind of prospect you are meeting in the first few minutes of your conversation, what could be their most important decision filters & their decision-making process, and how to best tackle their questions & objections.
The 'Trustful' Prospects
Let's start with the prospects who are easiest to deal with and will definitely give you the most positive vibes in the entire conversation. Very trustful & believing in the idea of making things work in the best possible way, you will find that these prospects will hardly be nervous and will start getting involved in the conversation and in the possibility of your product or service making sense to their business needs in the first few minutes of your conversation with them.
Once you have figured out that the prospect you are meeting falls in this category, make sure you go all the way to tell them how much value your product or service can bring to them & their business needs. These folks are no trouble at all, they will not ask too many questions but they're looking for answers. So you can switch your agenda of this conversation is to point them in the right direction, show them the part of your pitch deck which talks about successful case studies of your product or service, and then move them to the execution plan and how quickly you can get to next steps and get the ball rolling. Make sure you end the conversation with them on the steps to sign the deal as soon as possible.
The 'Sceptical' Prospects
Let's move to some harder conversations where you meet a skeptical prospect. These folks would be starting non-believers on any new product for service you are trying to pitch to them. They would seem to be not interested, maybe looking around instead of eye contact with you, and may not get involved or even respond much to your initial questions to them.
But you should not be too worried about this start, because if they are on the table, they are definitely looking for your product or service. The best way to approach and be involved in the conversation is to make them believe you and what your product can do, show them all the proofs, supporting data, success case studies, and also share your customer references upfront with them.
As you proceed in your sales pitch, be prepared to handle some tricky questions from these kinds of prospects. They will try to find the hole in your logic or the hidden catch and can throw you off with continuous questioning. This is where you would need to hold yourself and be patient with answering those in a way you can satisfy their concerns with more facts & data points. Be careful not to over repeat your claims with the same reasoning, if you are not left with answers, it is better to tell them you would come back to them on certain things. Another masterful way of handling some of these objections which you might have already known and prepared yourself would be to build your argument around these objections from the beginning, this will help you to resolve objections and help you definitely get the sale.
The 'Value for Money Hunting' Prospects
These are the easiest prospects to meet as they are always looking to hear almost everyone in the product or service they are buying, but they are the least fun to get going in a conversation! They are extremely price-conscious and can turn off the minute they see your price point. You would find some of these prospects hurrying you in your pitch and always looking for value for money in their questions, they may also at a very initial stage in the conversation ask you for your pricing.
Your selling skills need to be at best here, you can't answer them and disclose your pricing the moment they ask for it. The challenge for you would be to keep them involved in the conversation, you need to try to divert their pricing questions and show them more & more the value your product or service can generate for their business needs. Involve them in talking more about their problem statement and have a solution-ing discussion with them which will help them understand & attribute more value to your product or service.
Having said this, you can't get on their good side without offering a great deal on your product. So make sure that at the right time, you show them the pricing & offers which appeal to them, or if it still doesn't attract them, make sure you try to figure a price point that they are looking for. You can use some of these observations in sending your quotation to them later. However, these prospects do tend to have less confidence in their decision-making skills, so don't expect a quick decision. But your focus on both 'Value' & 'Money' will get you a deal with them sooner or later.
Conclusion
Every prospect can be quite different from the other. Some are emotionally invested in the decision while others only want the facts and figures. While we covered three types of prospects you can meet in this blog today, we are continuously researching and will bring you the next part of this blog where we will bring you more insights into other kinds of prospects you may meet and how to make your selling personalized to them. Ultimately, if you sing the song they like, they will make sure you are in their playlist forever!
Originally published at https://zipteams.com.
