In sales management, most sales managers focus on the “Close” part of the sales process because that is where problems/mistakes rear their ugly heads. A sure thing sale suddenly goes “silent.” The prospect decides to check out other vendors. Everybody panics… and that’s when the sale manager steps in to try to close the sale.
I have to wonder how much of a difference they can make because by that point the customer has already defined their needs and formulated a good idea of their solution.
The problem with this approach is that the seeds of these problems were sown much earlier in the sales process. Months before this last-minute panic, the sales manager should have been asking the salesperson:
What are this client’s two biggest problems?
What are the causes of these problems?
What are the future consequences to the client if nothing is done about them?
What kinds of fears will this prospect likely experience as it comes closer to signing the deal?
What is your plan for helping them dealing with that fear?
There are only three ways for your salespeople to increase sales: find more opportunities, increase their success rate of converting opportunities to sales, and increase the average dollar amount of each opportunity.
For the customer, the size of the purchase is determined early in the buying process, not at the end. If you provide more coaching early on, you will help your reps to make more sales and make larger sales.
