You’ve got a meeting with a potentially high value prospect. It’s happening in a few days.
What you do now to position yourself in your prospect’s eyes will make all the difference to your results.
Let me explain.
Most sales meetings go like this.
You do most of the talking. About yourself and what you do. You ask questions hoping to delve deeper into your prospect’s issues.
They nod and look interested. You shake hands (pre Covid19) and say either: “Let’s keep in touch” or “I’ll follow up”. Maybe they ask for a proposal which you eagerly send. (Another mistake BTW, but we’ll get into that another time.)
Then nothing! Radio silence.
The big mistake here is you’re the supplicant. Badly positioned. So don’t put yourself in that position.
So here’s what I strongly recommend you do instead. Before your first meeting!
The more time a potential client spends on what you want them to consume – related to their challenges and outcomes prior to your first meeting, the higher the likelihood of making the sale.
Your material educates them. Explains their issues in ways they may not have thought of, which gives them confidence you truly understand them.
You cover what they should be looking for in a solution which effectively sets the buying criteria.
Include case studies of people like them. Show results that are both tangible and emotive.
Create a package and send it to them. Physically if possible. Why physically? Your prospect will open your package and even if they don’t consume everything, you’ll have positioned yourself in their eyes as someone of importance and credibility.
So when you meet, what’s the first thing they’re likely to say? “Thanks for the package. Came as a nice surprise. Found the material really useful.”
And as you’re now positioned correctly, they won’t ask about your background and credentials and will more often than not go straight into how to move the engagement forward.
All of which means you don’t have to “sell”. They want to buy.
While this is the ideal scenario when meeting someone cold – even if off the back of a referral or recommendation, what if you can’t send a package for any reason.
All this material should be available on your website in the form of white papers, videos, client interviews, case studies etc.
So when a prospect is looking and find you, they can get a sense of who you are and delve into what you do.
Your material positions you as the authority in your space, separating your from your competition, so when a prospect does call, they’re predisposed to buying from you.
Correctly positioning yourself gives you an unfair advantage and gives you leverage.
If this makes sense to you and you want to improve your positioning in your market, give me a call.
