Welcome into the sales meeting this week, where our topic will be the third step in the sales process. You did your homework and uncovered a solid prospect. Then you did what you needed to do in order to get a face-to-face appointment with the decision maker. Now, it is time to go get all your answers in the client needs analysis.
The client needs analysis is the most important part of winning the business in my opinion. If you do a great job and ask the right questions, follow up properly and come away with the information that you need, unless the client is really not interested in bettering their business or really doesn’t have any money to invest, you should have a much greater chance of winning the business.
Ultimately, your job is to uncover the issue or issues that your products can help solve. And you get there by asking great questions, doing more listening than talking and letting the answers come to you from the client.
There are hundreds of good questions, and most people have the ones they like to go to. I know if you check out the RAB website, you can pull a ton of suggested questions, however, what you don’t want to do is just ask the same questions over and over again or worse, ask questions and then not listen intently to the answer.
Side story here…when I was in my late 20’s and doing sports talk radio in St. Louis as a host, I had no idea how to interview anyone. What I would consistently do is pay no attention to the guest while they were talking, because all I could think about was what my next question was going to be. So, no matter what the guest said to the previous question I or my partner had asked, it didn’t matter, I knew what I was asking next.
Later on, I started listening to more Howard Stern interviews and it somehow hit me that the conversations were much better when it was…well, a conversation. The only problem was I had already moved on to the business side of media. But my point for you is that it all go much better if you listen to the answers and then take the conversation where you want it to go, but it may never be the same route.
You have to talk to people the way they talk to you. There is an art in the client needs analysis. You have to play the role the way the client wants you to play the role. Get your mind out of the gutters, what I mean by that is if it is a client that is laid back and wants to talk like a couple of buddies at the bar, then you should follow their lead. If it’s all business, be prepared for that type of discussion.
Listening is something I am not great at. When someone says something and I want to make a point about it, I am more likely to jump out of my seat and start talking louder than the other person than I am to listen, be patient and respond accordingly when it is my turn. I’m also that guy that likes to be just as cool, if not cooler than you. So, if you tell me a story about that time you got to meet someone famous and hang out with them, I am going to tell you about the time I partied with Tone Loc (true story).
Neither of those is a great quality for a salesperson and I have had to work so hard to overcome those things. But like with anything else, the first step was realizing that I was doing those things and then I worked to correct it.
Listen and learn.
Not sure how you were taught, but when I am talking to someone about buying something, I want it to be their idea. So, I take all of the information I learn from the questions I’ve asked and when I come back, the solutions I am going to propose will relate directly to one of those problems the decision maker told me about. And I am not leaving that first meeting until I either feel like there are problems I can solve or that the person has it all solved themselves and doesn’t need my services (basically someone who wasted my time and has no money).
The other thing I am going to do before I leave that meeting is to repeat the problems back to the decision maker and get a verbal agreement from them that yes, those are the main issues they are working to solve and that if I can come up with a way to turn that problem around, there is a deal here to be done.
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Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
