Developing Your Sales Pipeline: The Gifted Approach
Last Tuesday Tech Tip we reviewed the Sales Process from Wikipedia listed as:
- Prospecting / initial contact
- Preapproach - planning the sale
- Approach
- Need assessment
- Presentation
- Meeting objections
- Gaining commitment
- Follow-up
We discussed some of the software that can handle prospecting and the preapproach. Today is a great topic, the approach. Whomever you select from your company to make use of the prospecting and preapproach information your company has worked hard to develop, that person makes the approach as a trustworthy representative of your company. The gift of building trust is based on sincerity and a keen sense of variances in personality. The approach is the true first impression, the relationship building portion of the process. Once you are actually speaking with the potential client, you can employ the system that describes personality types in four-letter acronyms, such as ESTJ or INFP.
- Extroversion/Introversion – Look at how the person reacts as they speak: do they project themselves into the world, or do they keep their own thoughts as they converse with you?
- Sensing/Intuition – Look at how the person receives all information from the world: Do they rely on facts they can touch, see, feel, or do they see the big picture and intuit the next steps?
- Thinking/Feeling – Look at the way they make judgments as they form trust: Is this person rolling over facts and digesting logic, or are they probing your character and sensing your objectives?
- Judging/Perceiving – How do they approach the act of judging: Does that person give you a sense of organization and order, or do they seem adaptable and flexible?
Once you have a sense of the type of person you are and the type of person you are speaking with, you can decide how to actually approach the person on the terms they are most comfortable and receptive to. Each sales person must develop approaches that are true to themselves because sincerity reigns supreme. If your intentions are false, if you are not there to help the client, you will not get passed the first five minutes of the relationship.
It is essential to remember all people buy based on emotion, then justified with logic.
Type of Approaches:
- The Friend – Warm and friendly, this is a sincere approach that shows interest in the prospect by asking questions that connect each other.
- The Guru – This is the expert, the problem solver. This person is studied and can answer technical questions, committing time to study and keeping up with the changes within their industry.
- The Consultant – A combination of the Friend and the Guru, this person is an expert with the person’s best interest in mind. This requires all of the study of the guru and the practiced ability of building relationships.
- The Networker – This is the added power house to all of the above. This person is actively attending functions and building the company’s presence through word of mouth. They focus on setting up a web of people, generating warm leads (people who are already familiar with the company services) and cultivating the next sale.
These are steps to developing a gifted approach moving towards a networking powerhouse of a consultant. Each person within the company is capable of one form or another of these approaches, and it is intrinsic to the sustained growth of your company to see when to apply these concepts.
Check out how to judge your client’s personality and that of your sales by learning more here:
DISC
Jung Testing
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