The Sales Café

Here's something simple: how to read your customer's mind. Can you read it with certainty? Of course not. But can you read it with some insight? Absolutely.

Think about this for a moment: many of us rely on good psychics and fortune tellers who are right often enough to make a better living than most ordinary people. They're called stock analysts and brokers. When they're really good, we can make a fortune, or at least quite a few bucks on their predictions. How do they do it? There's nothing like a couple of well placed questions coupled with very good observation skills to predict the future.

What does this have to do with selling? Everything, really. The art of successful selling - and it most definitely is an art when it's successful - relies heavily on the skills of questioning and observation. We know that these are two pillars of selling, but what about before the sale, or aside from actual customer conversations?

Today, I'm going to focus on the most difficult customer mind-reading skill. This is the skill of preparation: studying public information, recognizing patterns, and making intelligent deductions (guesses) that more often than not allow you to peer into the mind of your customer before you ever meet them.
First, how do you prepare for a sales call? Do you psyche yourself up with positive self-talk? Do you spend your time on LinkedIn figuring out who the person is you're meeting and who you might know in common? Do you read 10-Ks and 10-Qs, shareholder letters and websites, competitive analysis and news reports?

Let's hope you're doing all of this and not winging it out there with all the other amateurs. Seriously - you are meeting at the buyer's pleasure, hoping to discover their needs and interests, so that you can earn the right to talk about your solutions. You need to be in the zone. You need to be on-message. And you need to be prepared. This is especially true during the opening minutes of an interaction with a buyer.

Download your customer's 10-Ks, 10-Qs and annual reports. In the management discussions and shareholder letters you will find your customer's view of the road behind and the road ahead - recent and long-term results, and short- and long- term goals. Did you know that you can also find out what your customer gets paid to do? Download the proxy statement and read the compensation committee report.

Now for the mind-reading part. What do the top executives get paid to do? What executive team (plus the direct reports, and the folks who report to those direct reports) ever focuses on anything other than what they get paid to do? The first answer gives you a significant glimpse into the mind of your customer. The second helps you check your assumptions.

While you're psyching yourself up and trolling LinkedIn for your next call, spend the time to research the public reporting and answer those two questions. Use your answers to prepare how you will explore your customer's interests when you meet them.

I'm interested to know how this works for you on your next few sales calls. If it does anything less than focus you and your customer on what's important to them and doesn't cause a few of your competitors to melt into the woodwork, I'll be very surprised.

Ok, it’s true, sales meetings are expensive. However, sales meetings can also be the best, fastest, cheapest way to, in a matter of days:

* Develop/coach sales skills
* Perpetuate the company vision
* Implement new sales tools (training, tracking, prioritizing, and coaching)
* Increase market share (consistency of organizational presence, message and image)
* Boost sales revenue (any questions?)
* Launch new products
* Maximize sales time (prioritize)

The formula for a great sales meeting is simple.  The planning and logistics that can make or break a meeting require weeks of attention. The content has to be a bulls-eye hit every hour of the day and applied in the territory when the sales team returns to work.

The (good) Sales Meeting Process:

* Prepares the sales force to accept new challenges
* Sets the sales force up to succeed
* Has clear expectations for application in the territory

Every aspect of the meeting and its timing must reinforce the core messages, including the:

* Executives “stage” time (plan and practice for high impact)
* Sales training, tools or processes
* Keynotes that motivate and challenge
* Learning environment (location set up; meeting logistics, activities)

Sales Strategies, Process, Logistics and Follow Through

To execute a successful sales meeting, the first step is to design engaging and content-rich meeting time. Provide targeted sales training with messages to take to the marketplace. Create themes that reinforce the content. Plan a location and logistics that support the intent of the meeting (training, reward, etc.).

Working with sales leaders, early in the process, helps set meaningful objectives for the sales meetings, with measurable outcomes. Next, meet with facility managers to coordinate the logistics and carry the theme of the meeting throughout all aspects. In our sales meeting work, we coach executives and plan their role for best visibility and impact. ELA’s recommended three keys to success are:

• Creating and delivering content-centric meetings
• Managing the plans, logistics and budget
• And, most all, accomplishing the stated purpose.

Ready to meet?