Sales

Some negotiations are easy to overcome.

When a client objects that your price is too high, doesn’t understand the price breakdown, or claims you made a mistake, you can deal with the objection simply. You simply diffuse it and move on. It’s barely a blip on your radar.

But there’s a more difficult type of objection that poses the threat of bringing the entire negotiation to a stop. When these come up, there’s a real likelihood that all the work, proposals, and your many attempts to really understand the client may have been for nothing.

These are second-level objections.

Reaching a deal with a new client is challenging enough.

But getting a new client to actually sign the contract they’ve already agreed to can be even more difficult.

We’ve all been there: We complete the proposal and send it over for approval. They respond, “It looks great!” We ask them to sign it and send it back, and then…

We don’t hear back from them. For some reason, they drag their feet.

How do we move from verbal agreement to written confirmation? Once we understand why they’re not signing, we can implement a process that makes it simple.

Customers don’t like change.

No salesperson will dispute this claim. It comes up nearly every time we talk about raising prices, increasing profit margins, changing crew routes, or even offering different technology.

When these topics surface, inevitably someone says, “We can’t do that. Our customers won’t let us! They don’t like change!”

While this idea tends to creep into nearly every sales meeting, customers’ resistance to change doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the changes necessary for our business to succeed — even when that means raising prices.

Are you a widget salesperson? Are products an important part of what you sell?

For anyone in the AV industry, widgets are a part of your life. Whether you specialize in permanent installation or live events, you use widgets all the time. Your customers may even call you specifically asking for a widget.

But widgets aren’t what sells.

Service sells.

Have you ever thought about why you give your clients valuable products and services for free?

Maybe you’re trying to strengthen the relationship with the client. Or, maybe you’re just trying to ensure you’ll win the project or make the sale.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with providing some extra value to a client, but we often give away the wrong add-ons in our proposals .

You will encounter gatekeepers.

Even people with top-notch marketing and business development strategies designed to target their ideal clients occasionally find themselves stuck in a gatekeeper cycle.

It happens to the best of us… and it’s not always your fault.

You’ve been asked dumb questions. The answers are so obvious, you’re annoyed you have to waste your breath answering.

You’ve also been asked questions that don’t fit the context of your conversation. You wonder, “Where did that come from?”

And yet, you’ve also been asked some great questions. You stop and think, “Wow! Thanks for asking that!” You know the person is really listening and they value your response.

We’ve all been in each of these situations — both on the asking and answering side of the conversation. As you meet with buyers, you want your conversation to set you apart. That means you need to ask really great questions — not the ones that leave them confused or annoyed.

Where do these kinds of questions come from?

Have you ever suspected some of your salespeople are just winging it?

If so, how would you know?

Maybe you’d look at the consistency of their sales numbers. Maybe you’d talk to clients that have worked with them. But how do can you tell if their success (or lack thereof) comes from a real understanding of your company’s value to customers and how much of their success is just smooth talking?

You don’t need a great salesperson to move your business to the next level. In fact, a salesperson may actually weaken your business model.

When you rely on a great salesperson to grow your business, you’re selling based on a single relationship — not based on the full business. And relationship selling is no way to grow your business. Here’s why: