A salesman’s task involves finding prospective customers and converting them to actual customers by effectively communicating to them how their product is best to satisfy customers’ needs. This is by no means an easy task as there are hundreds of competitors’ products available in the market. One of the best ways of handling a difficult task is having a good plan and staying organised regarding everything you need to do in every particular situation and clarity about every resource you have to work with. Read on to know more about steps that can help a salesman execute a meeting in a planned and organised way.
Table of Contents
Before Seeing The Customer
After you find a prospective customer and you are about to meet him, it is important for you to do certain things. These things involve acquiring enough knowledge relevant to the meeting, planning the entire meeting well in advance and being in a good mood in general. Let’s know about these steps in detail:
- Gather Information About Customer:
Before meeting a customer, gather enough information about him. A salesman should have a thorough understanding of the customer who he is about to meet. He can get such information through colleagues, other customers, salespeople of other manufacturers, superiors, and downstream or upstream customers of the customer. Try to get information about the customer’s needs, his preferences, the issues that he generally faces with products and so on. Such information will help you greatly in having an effective conversation with the customer and tracking the deal.
- Study The Product Concerned In Detail:
A salesman should always have a very detailed understanding of all the products that he sells. Before every meeting, it is a good time to revise various aspects of the product again particularly from the point of view of the customer you are about to meet. Know about all the advantages and disadvantages of the product and prepare accordingly for the meeting.
- Prepare A Plan:
Write out the purpose of the meeting, write out the content to be discussed, and conduct thinking and language organization. Plan and rehearse how you are going to present the benefits of the products and how you are going to tackle the issues raised by the customer. All this helps in being organized, coherent and effective throughout the meeting.
- Present Yourself Well:
Dress neatly and maintain good hygiene. Put on a decent attitude, be in a good mood and be energetic. Now you’re ready to go to the meeting!
During The Meeting
It is time for you to execute what you have planned. While free meeting research and planning will help me a lot during the meeting, it is also true that everything never goes as per plan and you will have to improvise based on your skills and experience.
- Introducing Yourself:
The first sentence of the self-introduction should not be too long otherwise the customer may feel uncomfortable when he hears it. Keep things short and limited to what is actually important for your purpose and the customer’s interest. Besides, the salesperson should establish a good first image when meeting customers, open the customer’s conversation space through the opening remarks, and then fully encourage him to talk about his needs.
- Time For Real Talk:
It’s now time for the salesman to talk to the customer in detail, proceed with your plan, observe and listen to the customer carefully, be calm if he misbehaves, keep a professional attitude, answer his doubts, and keep planning in your head about what to say next based on customers response. Some tips:
- Do not argue with customers about prices, but discuss value with customers.
- There is no best product but only the most suitable product. So never try to establish your product as best, but just try to establish it as most suitable for the present need of the customer.
- If a customer raises issues, listen to them calmly and try to understand as much as you can. Try to solve the issues.
- If a customer is wrong, there is no need to assert that to him. Say that you also used to think that way but then you learned the better way of doing things. Show him the better way.
- If a mistake has been made on part of you or your company, apologize gently and satisfy him by letting him know their feedback matters a lot and you and your company are working on improvements based on those feedbacks.
- Closing The Deal:
In the last stage, you receive the client’s approval to proceed. Depending on your industry, you might want to experiment with some effective closing tactics. If the customer looks positive about the product, you can directly ask him to buy the product without wasting any time. You can ask it like “Sir, how many pieces do you want?” or “Will you pay in cash or use your card?” In another case, if the customer looks a little confused about the product you can throw him an exciting offer to encourage him to hurry up.
Also read: Dealing With Customer’s Questions And Problems
After The Meeting
- Follow Up:
Your work does not end after the sale is completed. The follow-up step allows you to stay in touch with consumers after they’ve made a purchase, not just for possible repeat business but also for referrals. Maintaining connections is critical since retaining current clients is six to seven times less expensive than gaining new ones. Your task also includes taking the feedback from the customer about his experience from using the products and solving problems, if any, faced by him.
- Persistence:
The survey found that 48% of salespersons lost a source of customers after the first call, 25% gave up after the second call, 12% gave up after the third time, and 10% continued to call. That 10% who don’t give up are those with the most income. The survey also found that 80% of the successful salespersons have to call the same person for the fifth time to make a negotiation. It’s clear therefore that persistence is the key!
Remember:
- Failure is less because a product is bad and more because the salesman doesn’t know how to sell.
- A wise person gives as much importance to planning his steps and organising his resources as he gives to executing the task.
- Success is not because of luck but because of methods.
Gain more knowledge, improve your methods, plan your meetings well and success will be yours!