“Never leave a meeting without confirming the next steps.” – Bri Galarza in today’s Tip 912
How do you manage and confirm the next steps?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Bri Galarza. Bri began her career when she was 18 for a direct sales company in Los Angeles as a 1099 employee. She ran a business for 6 years where she recruited, trained, and got the opportunity to coach over 1,000 revenue producers. Here she is:
Bri Galarza: Never leave a meeting without confirming the next steps. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen deals in a CRM just tabled because the salesperson is waiting for the prospect to get back to them. And control is key in moving any deal forward, meaning the second that you leave the power in their hands, you’ve lost pretty much the sale.
So how do you manage and how do you confirm the next steps?
Step one is, while you’re still finishing up that meeting already at the end of that current meeting that you’re in, agree on next steps and send the invites immediately. A deal is not closed if they’re wanting to follow up with you at a later time, if they’re reviewing prices with or without you and showing the agreement to other decision-makers who haven’t been a part of the last few meetings, there is no way they’ll understand the value behind the proposal.
So always try to set a meeting ahead before sending over any proposals. So how does one do this? Well, step one is be very direct. I’ve made the rookie mistake of wanting to look overly available to give them more than enough options to pick from because I was desperate for the meeting. For example, I remember opening my calendar and saying, “All right, I’ve got an opening for Monday at 2, 4, 6, and 8. I’ve got an opening Tuesday morning at 8, 10, and 12 and just looks wide open for the prospect.” But when someone looks wildly available, the prospect might start to wonder, consciously or subconsciously, why is no one scheduling with her? Is her schedule this available? Is there service really that good and as good as they’re making it out to be? Not to mention if they’re in the busy ones when they look at their schedule, they might feel a little overwhelmed by their calendar. So they might want to rush off the call because they don’t want to go through the hassle of seeing what is available.
So way to try to maneuver around this is keeping it simple. I always teach, always offer a choice of two options at a time. Think about this. Remember a time when you went to a restaurant, let’s say Cheesecake Factory, that has about six or seven different ages to their menu. And when you’re starving, everything looks good. So it could be slightly overwhelming walking into a restaurant that has way too many options versus when you go to, let’s say, Chipotle and it’s always a quick decision between two different options. Do you want white or brown rice, black or pinto beans, chicken or steak? The choice of two options can allow your brain to decide a lot faster and you’re in and out within a few minutes.
So I’d recommend following a strategic funnel process to help wind down and control the conversation moving forward. For example, let’s say I’m in a meeting with a prospect. I would say “Cool, let’s go ahead and check out our calendars. What is midweek or even later next week look like for you? Awesome.” So once they pick, they might say “Midweek looks a little bit better.” “OK, perfect. So how about Wednesday or does Thursday look more available to you? OK, Thursday looks more available. Awesome. How about this. What is your morning or afternoon kind of look like? OK, so morning looks a little bit more available. Great. All right. It looks like I’m pretty booked up for most of the day, but I do have an available time slot for 9 a.m., or would 11 work better for you? 9:00 a.m. Great. I’ll go ahead and send that calendar invite over to you.” And so you’re guiding and controlling the prospect and the conversation. You’re not overly controlling and telling them, cool, I need you to be here this day and this time and coming off pushy. You’re still giving them the option to pick what works best for them. But when we leave the decision on their plate, we lose complete control of what’s going to happen next.
Scott Ingram: To learn more about Bri and the House of Revenue, where she’s their Sales Empowerment Manager. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/912
Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!