Face-to-face selling tips for manufacturers by Koch Group

Effective tips for face-to-face selling

Pre sales call preparation

There is no substitute for being prepared for a selling opportunity. Prior to your sales call, obtain and review readily available information about the target company including:

Ownership,

Corporate affiliations,

Key markets served,

SIC codes under which they operate,

Company size (number of employees, annual sales, number of locations),

Past products sold and quoted (if an existing account),

Recent acquisitions,

Financial condition, and

Other pertinent information.

Sales call activity

When meeting with the individuals to whom you are trying to sell, speak slowly and at a steady pace. Speak in plain, common, terms. Don't use fancy terms, technical acronyms, or buzz words. Speak so the other party understands you to eliminate potential misunderstandings.

Maintain eye contact. Don't look around the room, at a desk, or anywhere other than the contact's eyes. If multiple people are in the room, maintain eye contact with each person, rotating your eye contact from person to person.

Ask direct, open-ended if possible, questions about their specific needs and probe for more information. Listen for specific needs such as requirements for:

packaging,
delivery,
inventory,
product development,
engineering assistance,
promotional assistance,
end-user customer service,
how vendors can improve performance, and
other critical information.

It is very important to listen carefully and to not interrupt when others are speaking.

Ask if it is okay to take notes on the identified needs. Then, mentally prioritize the stated and implied needs and then number the priority of the needs on your notes. It is likely there may only be several needs identified.

Review the needs and the priority you have assigned with the potential buyer and discuss your logic for order of ranking of their stated needs. Use the finalized prioritized ranking of needs to begin to outline a possible scope of work.

Lay out, in general terms, the scope of work envisioned, the anticipated timing, and the outputs each scope of work activity would provide. (Do not discuss cost or ask for the order. It is too early in the selling process to attempt to close.)

At this point in the selling process, you are "selling" that you understand their needs and are capable of addressing them. Cost should not enter into the equation - yet.

Next, discuss the anticipated benefits and the results, which will be obtained from the anticipated scope of work activities and the value to their company. (Do not promise anything you cannot deliver.)

Examples of the results that may be delivered might include:

new products,
new packaging,
redesigned products,
better delivery,
improved efficiencies, and
higher profitability.

At this point you are selling the value of working with you, as measured by the results they are anticipating.

Avoid using direct negative comparisons to sell against competitors' products or services. Sell your product or service on its features and benefits to the end-user. The potential buyer is mentally doing the negative comparisons for you if you are doing your job right!

You have come to a critical point in the selling process. It is time to test for a close. Ask if the results discussed are the results your potential buyer is looking for. (This the hook!)

If the potential buyer answers "Yes", then "float the close." A close must be a confirming action statement. Examples of potential closings might be:

Should we put a price to this right now?
Do you want to cut a P.O. today?
When can we meet to review the confirming proposal?
When would you like us to start?
When would you like delivery?

If the answer was "No", go back and start over at the beginning. This may sound radical and time wasting but either you do not clearly understand the potential buyers' needs or you are being dismissed out of hand.

State that you must have misunderstood something and begin by again revisiting their needs and then going through the process again.

Most successful sales are the result of many sales calls and follow up activities. Never be discouraged!

Related industrial marketing tips

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