A substantial number of sales reps waste time trying to sell to people that are not empowered to purchase the goods and services they sell. Meeting with the most senior executives is one of the best ways to accelerate your time to success with your customers. Therefore, it's essential that each of these meetings are worthwhile for the executives you meet with.
If you demonstrate that you're able to help that individual in one way or another, you will have a much better possibility of quickly identifying and closing new sales opportunities. Conversely, if your meeting is a waste of time for that person, you will prolong and potentially destroy any sales opportunities that you had, and it will likely ruin your chances for a follow up meeting. Here are the top 10 steps you need to do before, during, and after your meetings to ensure they are both productive and valuable for your customers:
Know the executive(s) with whom you are meeting. With a little bit of research, you can typically find out a lot of important information about your customer and should understand where they've worked before, the areas of success they've enjoyed, special interests they may have, groups they belong to, and other common contacts they may have with you or others in your company.
Understand their role and responsibilities. The easiest way to get this information is to ask others you know within their department/division, or at a minimum, search the web site for executive profiles, presentations they may have done, or articles they've written. Knowing this can help you to build credibility by referencing it during your meeting, and ultimately enable you to figure out how your products would map to their interests and initiatives.
Schedule the right resources to join you and be sure they are briefed and prepared before hand. Make sure that anyone you bring is well aware of the above items as well as the agenda including their role and any of the topics they are to cover. Role play before the meeting to be sure everyone knows who, when, and how they are expected to participate.
Share your agenda with your customer beforehand and confirm who else will attend. When you do, you can be assured that the topics you want to cover are relevant while soliciting input for other areas or topics they might be considering. This straightforward step provides you with the chance to change course if your initial agenda missed the mark, and help you to reach out to any other executives you were not aware were asked to join.
Prepare an executive summary presentation or discussion document to follow during your meeting. Don't just wing it. Having a professional looking document or presentation to review will demonstrate that you have invested time preparing, will help guide your discussion to be sure all important points are covered, and will prove that you care and value your customer's time.
Complete proper introductions. Always make sure that everyone introduces themselves, and ask them to describe their role and responsibilities, and convey any particular areas they would like to cover and what they need to get out of the meeting. Be sure you also briefly describe what if any relationship exists, and how and where both organizations have worked together previously. This is usually a easy way to break the ice and build instant credibility for you and also your company. Don't assume the folks in the room have an understanding of any prior relationships or successes.
Review the agenda items in the beginning and confirm how much time you've got for the meeting. Ask your customer to prioritize your topics and figure out any others that should be covered before jumping in. This ensures you review the most important items first, and less important ones last or not at all if you run out of time.
Ask open ended, relevant questions, and listen carefully and take notes. Make sure your valuable time is not wasted with you or your team doing all of the talking. The best way to identify new sales opportunities is to understand your customers challenges and how your products and solutions can help them. Don't make the mistake of jumping into a hard core sales pitch before you have had the opportunity to clearly identify the value add you can provide. Periodically pause during the meeting and ask your customer if the content being reviewed is important and is resonating with them. If not, switch onto another more important subject.
Before the meeting ends, recap all the items covered and figure out next steps. Spend time to briefly review and prioritize everything you covered along with any action items that were agreed to. You ought to get concurrence for subsequent meetings, and determine the focus areas including any other individuals that should participate. Solicit feedback from all of the attendees to determine on the spot if they received the benefit they expected and covered the topics they had been most interested in. Ask for guidance on how you could improve the next time.
Deliver what you promised. Subsequent to the meeting, it's critical that you follow through on what you said you'd do. Send a thank you note to all that attended and document the action items and deliver any information you promised. The additional value you can add begins once the meeting ends. You should also call each of the customers that attended to receive their feedback. Very often in an open forum, individuals will not chime in during the meeting and might have valuable information to mention in a private setting.
By completing these 10 steps, you will substantially increase your chances of having successful executive sales meetings, and prove to your customers that you are a valuable resource for them.
If you demonstrate that you're able to help that individual in one way or another, you will have a much better possibility of quickly identifying and closing new sales opportunities. Conversely, if your meeting is a waste of time for that person, you will prolong and potentially destroy any sales opportunities that you had, and it will likely ruin your chances for a follow up meeting. Here are the top 10 steps you need to do before, during, and after your meetings to ensure they are both productive and valuable for your customers:
Know the executive(s) with whom you are meeting. With a little bit of research, you can typically find out a lot of important information about your customer and should understand where they've worked before, the areas of success they've enjoyed, special interests they may have, groups they belong to, and other common contacts they may have with you or others in your company.
Understand their role and responsibilities. The easiest way to get this information is to ask others you know within their department/division, or at a minimum, search the web site for executive profiles, presentations they may have done, or articles they've written. Knowing this can help you to build credibility by referencing it during your meeting, and ultimately enable you to figure out how your products would map to their interests and initiatives.
Schedule the right resources to join you and be sure they are briefed and prepared before hand. Make sure that anyone you bring is well aware of the above items as well as the agenda including their role and any of the topics they are to cover. Role play before the meeting to be sure everyone knows who, when, and how they are expected to participate.
Share your agenda with your customer beforehand and confirm who else will attend. When you do, you can be assured that the topics you want to cover are relevant while soliciting input for other areas or topics they might be considering. This straightforward step provides you with the chance to change course if your initial agenda missed the mark, and help you to reach out to any other executives you were not aware were asked to join.
Prepare an executive summary presentation or discussion document to follow during your meeting. Don't just wing it. Having a professional looking document or presentation to review will demonstrate that you have invested time preparing, will help guide your discussion to be sure all important points are covered, and will prove that you care and value your customer's time.
Complete proper introductions. Always make sure that everyone introduces themselves, and ask them to describe their role and responsibilities, and convey any particular areas they would like to cover and what they need to get out of the meeting. Be sure you also briefly describe what if any relationship exists, and how and where both organizations have worked together previously. This is usually a easy way to break the ice and build instant credibility for you and also your company. Don't assume the folks in the room have an understanding of any prior relationships or successes.
Review the agenda items in the beginning and confirm how much time you've got for the meeting. Ask your customer to prioritize your topics and figure out any others that should be covered before jumping in. This ensures you review the most important items first, and less important ones last or not at all if you run out of time.
Ask open ended, relevant questions, and listen carefully and take notes. Make sure your valuable time is not wasted with you or your team doing all of the talking. The best way to identify new sales opportunities is to understand your customers challenges and how your products and solutions can help them. Don't make the mistake of jumping into a hard core sales pitch before you have had the opportunity to clearly identify the value add you can provide. Periodically pause during the meeting and ask your customer if the content being reviewed is important and is resonating with them. If not, switch onto another more important subject.
Before the meeting ends, recap all the items covered and figure out next steps. Spend time to briefly review and prioritize everything you covered along with any action items that were agreed to. You ought to get concurrence for subsequent meetings, and determine the focus areas including any other individuals that should participate. Solicit feedback from all of the attendees to determine on the spot if they received the benefit they expected and covered the topics they had been most interested in. Ask for guidance on how you could improve the next time.
Deliver what you promised. Subsequent to the meeting, it's critical that you follow through on what you said you'd do. Send a thank you note to all that attended and document the action items and deliver any information you promised. The additional value you can add begins once the meeting ends. You should also call each of the customers that attended to receive their feedback. Very often in an open forum, individuals will not chime in during the meeting and might have valuable information to mention in a private setting.
By completing these 10 steps, you will substantially increase your chances of having successful executive sales meetings, and prove to your customers that you are a valuable resource for them.
About the Author:
Look here for more free and valuable information about Highly Effective Sales Strategies. By Paul M. Balzano
