Welcome to First Thursday! On the first Thursday of each month, Corporate Speech Solutions features an expert that has a skill or expertise that will enhance your professional skill set. Today, we’re joined by Casey Carpenter, CEO of The Sales Breakthrough Coach. Casey works with companies to improve their sales communication and sales leadership, and close more deals. Read on and learn how you can use communication to connect with your potential clients and improve your bottom line!
Uplevel Your Sales Communication and Close More Business
by Casey Carpenter
If you love sales or dread it, you can’t live your life without selling. Whether you’re a corporate employee, entrepreneur or business owner, every day you are presenting and influencing others. A great sales meeting involves a two-way dialogue between both parties with a clear agreement at the end as to what will happen next. If you’re pitching your product or service, the most anticipated result is that your buyer says “yes,” and you get hired.
If your last sales conversation didn’t result in closed business, and the resultant steps you and your client were to take weren’t clear, perhaps your sales language needs a tune-up. These three tips will help keep your sales interactions on track:
- Open your meeting with an agenda outlining the meeting’s intention
- State the items you plan to cover
- Verify the amount of time you have
- Ask if anything has changed in their situation since you last spoke
- Confirm what they want to discuss or accomplish in the current meeting
Missing this critical first step can cause you to make incorrect assumptions about where your client is in their buying process, or worse, fail to uncover changes that may have occurred since your last conversation. Your business also won’t be perceived as being nimble if you don’t respond quickly to their directional changes.
- Foster a dialogue
- Listen much more than you talk, and take notes
- Pay attention to what they want to discuss
- Be willing to change direction conversationally without being stuck rigidly in what you prepared to talk about
A really great sales conversation is a nice back-and-forth exchange of ideas between two parties.
- And finally, be clear about what will happen next
- Will you follow up with your client? When?
- If you closed business, what is the implementation process?
- How will the two of you work together over the agreed time period?
Your sales meeting is a snapshot of what it will be like to work with you. If you show up organized, professional, asking great questions, and willing to listen, you will stand out from your peers, and become a delightful, trusted advisor.
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