Is This The Missing Piece To Your Sales Jigsaw?
Is This The Missing Piece To Your Sales Jigsaw?
I’ve always been surprised by an interesting observation, when speaking over the past couple of years to countless SME’s about their approach to selling.
The majority of them don’t make the effort at the end of an unsuccessful sales campaign to ask the prospect why they weren’t successful. How can they expect to learn from these experiences if they don’t understand where they need to improve their approach?
But the really surprising thing is the number that didn’t bother to make the effort at the end of a successful campaign to find out what won it for them!
I was working with a client not long ago who had lost out on a large deal and they told me why they thought they lost the deal. I suggested I used my formatted approach to ask the prospect a few questions to validate the view they had formed. They agreed and I made the call to the prospect. The results were very different to the ones expected by my client. So much so that they subsequently changed their approach to future sales campaigns as a result. It took 20 minutes to uncover some key learning points of real value to them!
Having spent the time and effort that can be consumed by a sales campaign of any significance, isn’t it worth the 20 minutes at the end of the process to gather some of the most important lessons you can ever gather – and not leave it to chance or a perceived reason? Whether you win or lose the bid. I certainly think so.
But the really surprising thing is the number that didn’t bother to make the effort at the end of a successful campaign to find out what won it for them!
I was working with a client not long ago who had lost out on a large deal and they told me why they thought they lost the deal. I suggested I used my formatted approach to ask the prospect a few questions to validate the view they had formed. They agreed and I made the call to the prospect. The results were very different to the ones expected by my client. So much so that they subsequently changed their approach to future sales campaigns as a result. It took 20 minutes to uncover some key learning points of real value to them!
Having spent the time and effort that can be consumed by a sales campaign of any significance, isn’t it worth the 20 minutes at the end of the process to gather some of the most important lessons you can ever gather – and not leave it to chance or a perceived reason? Whether you win or lose the bid. I certainly think so.
