Make it relevant
I’m a big fan of Kevin Sasser’s The Sales Wars blog. He must be really busy in his day job because he’s not posted in almost 2 months. Well, my wait is over and as usual, I learned something and laughed at the same time.
Definitely read the full blog post. After the funny analogy, Kevin writes about a colleague who is putting together an agenda for marketing to update the sales team. The standard agenda is suggested:
- Our company overview
- What we see happening in the industry
- Our “vision”
- Our unique approach
To which Kevin figuratively sticks his fingers in his mouth at the thought of listening to all that. What struck me is that the sales team is probably doing the same thing to the prospect! You are polite while marketing pitches you but you’re secretly daydreaming or reading your BlackBerry under the table. Wanna bet your prospect is doing the same as you pitch? Kevin suggested the following agenda for marketing. I suggest you follow the same agenda when selling to prospects:
- Why you are in my office taking up my time
- My problem that you can solve for me
- How you will solve the problem in clear, concise, concrete terms
- The benefit that you will deliver to me that your competitor can’t
As I get reminded at home, it’s not about me, it’s about what’s important to them!
All About Referral Selling 
Great post and perfect timing.
I was working on an agenda for my biggest customer when this email came thru. I tossed out my original agenda and started over with “Why am I in your office?” This post encouraged me to be very clear and concise about why I was taking up his time and what benefit I would bring to him that the others in the waiting room couldn’t.
Not only did he hear what I wanted him to hear, he asked if he could have a second copy to give to his Sr. VP to review.
Maybe your next post can be about how to take this response and make sure they do something with it before the next guy gets into the office.
Thanks for the great insight and hopefully adding to his and my bottom line!