For the average salesperson, one of the most difficult parts of the job is scheduling meetings. Scheduling just one meeting can take hours of work and dozens of messages back and forth with prospects before the meeting becomes a reality. Unfortunately, many salespeople spend so much time trying to schedule meetings that they don’t actually prepare for the meetings. In fact, more than 70 percent of salespeople are not adequately prepared for their meetings. This leaves them scrambling at the last second to pull things together and potentially even throwing away that hard-earned sale.
Many salespeople have a “show up and throw up” mindset - resulting to just handing out brochures and reading off the talking points rather than preparing a detailed pitch. You can break this cycle in your company with a structured preparation process. Here’s how you can effectively prepare for sales meetings and increase your win rate.
Set Your Expectations
Before you start planning the nitty-gritty details of your sales meeting, you’ll want to set your expectations based on the information you have about the client. Take some time to learn a little bit about who you will be meeting with and what their role is in the company, if possible.
You’ll also want to consider what circumstances could have prompted the client to reach out to you. This can help you cater your message to the client’s needs. Finally, consider what your goals are during this meeting and what you ultimately want to accomplish. What outcomes do you need to keep the sale moving forward?
Prepare Your Questions
Every client is unique, so your sales message shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. In order to tailor your message to your prospect’s needs, you should spend the majority of the conversation asking questions. Once you’ve determine what your desired outcome is for the meeting, the next step is to determine what questions you’ll need to ask to make that outcome happen.
Identify open ended questions that will work towards your meeting outcome. Prepare three to four questions on the front end that you need to ask and understand what follow up questions you will ask based on the responses to those questions. This will make for a better conversation and lead to a more consultative selling approach.
Create A Meaningful Agenda
Having an agenda in place ahead of time is one of the best ways to keep your meeting on track. Not only will it make things less stressful for you, but your client will also appreciate having a plan in place before the meeting starts. Provide the agenda to your prospect in advance and ask for their feedback. This helps to ensure that both prospects get what they need out of the meeting.
Falling into the “show up and throw up” mindset for every meeting can hold you back from sales growth. Having a structured meeting preparation process can help you generate more revenue and avoid leaving sales on the table. Revenueify’s tactical sales coaching strategies can help your entire team prepare for meetings more effectively. Contact us today to learn more about our unique RMP process and how it can help your organization.