5.7 Key Takeaways & Terms

• Preapproach research includes information on:
  • company demographics, company news, and financial performance to help you discover sales opportunities and go deeper in your qualifying process.
  • company’s customers, the current buying situation, and your contact person at the company to help you tailor your sales approach.
  • existing customers to find opportunities for expanding the relationship and creating more sales.
• Good salespeople don’t sell products; they sell solutions to their customers’ problems or challenges.
• The goals for your sales call should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound: SMART.
• Once you have identified your customers’ problems and goals, brainstorm solutions and opportunities that will meet their needs.:

Agenda approach: a straightforward approach that gets right down to business. It appeals to highly organized people because it involves outlining the meeting agenda at the start of the sales call.

Business attire: formal dresswear which for men means a suit (matching pants and jacket), a necktie, a long-sleeved shirt, and lace-up shoes and for women, a suit (skirt or pants and matching jacket), shoes with moderate heels in a basic pump style (closed-toe), a blouse, and pantyhose.

Business casual: dressing professionally, but slightly dressed down from business attire standards.

Combination approach: shifting from one type of sales approach to another based on the feedback you get from the customer during your interaction.

Customer benefit approach: requires research beforehand so that you can open your call by mentioning an important, customer-specific benefit of your products or services.

Gatekeepers are people like buying assistants and personal assistants who decide if and when you get access to members of the buying centre.

Preapproach: a critical step that helps you earn your customer’s trust and sell adaptively; this is true whether you are meeting with a new customer—a target account—or an existing customer—one of your key accounts.

Precall planning worksheet- a record of the objectives of your sales call, along with basic company information.

Premium approach: one in which the salesperson offers product samples or giveaway items to attract a prospect and establish goodwill.

Product approach: when the salesperson opens the call with a product demonstration or display.

Question approach: involves leading off with questions to learn about your prospect and engage him in dialogue.

Referral approach: an effective way to quickly establish trust with a prospect because it involves starting the call off by mentioning a mutual connection who has referred you to the prospect and who is willing to vouch for you.

SMART: an acronym to identify the elements of a successful sales goal: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Survey approach: Sales that involve very specific solutions to customer problems sometimes begin with.