How to take control of the sales process from the first conversation

How open are you with prospects about the steps in your sales process and, in particular, the purpose of each stage?

When you break it down, a sales process is simply a series of conversations. Your goal is to determine whether a prospect is a good fit for your agency. Likewise, the prospective client is seeking to understand if you are the right fit for them.

So why not both be honest about this from the outset?

An example…

You receive an enquiry via your website. You do a bit of research and decide to arrange a call. After the niceties, you might say something like…

“We tend to work best with clients who…(DESCRIBE IN A FEW WORDS YOUR TYPICAL CLIENT, THEIR SITUATION AND THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE).

The purpose of this first conversation is therefore to establish if we are likely to be a good fit for you and vice versa. I’ve got a few questions I’d like to throw your way and I’m sure you’ll have a few questions for me.

If we get to the end of the call and agree, in principle, that there’s a good fit here, I suggest we arrange a second meeting where we can explore your requirements in more detail and how we’d work together. We can also bring in some of the subject matter experts from our side and anybody from your end that needs to be involved.

How does that sound?

Great, before we get into it, tell me…what would you like to get out of this first call? Is there anything you’d like to know about us to determine if we’d be a good fit for you?”

Teeing up the conversation like this serves a number of purposes:

1) It shows you’re not desperate; you don’t just work with anyone. You know what the right client looks like for your agency, and you are confident enough to put it on the table early.

2) It provides a clear scope of what will be covered and, perhaps more importantly, what won’t be covered on this first call. For example, you’re unlikely to gather enough information to put forward a solution at this stage. However, you might want to provide an idea of what a typical client spends with you to test their ability (and willingness) to invest.

3) In line with the above, it lets the prospect know you aren’t going to be rushed into writing a proposal. There are a series of steps – and information that needs to be gathered – before you get to that point. Remember, your proposal should be confirmation of what you have already agreed verbally (which means you need to converse regularly during the process).

4) It highlights you have a tried and tested process, which is not only for your benefit but also theirs. It also subtly highlights to the prospect that you won’t just fall into line with their process (assuming they have one).

5) It outlines your role by highlighting you are not necessarily able to answer discipline-specific questions. This is particularly relevant if you are in a dedicated BD or sales role. You know enough to hold a conversation about SEO or PPC, for example, but the discipline team are the experts.

6) In line with point 5), you are protecting the time of your team by only bringing them into the process when necessary.

7) It lays the foundation for involving their other stakeholders in the process sooner rather than later. This is essential if you are going to build consensus amongst a group of buyers – all with their own interests, concerns and questions.

8) It means you only share information about the agency that the prospect is actually interested in based on their response to the question: ‘Is there anything you’d like to know about us…’. Or you could get your creds deck and regurgitate a whole load of meaningless guff that the prospect can read for themselves on your website.😉

If you’ve never been this upfront before, I can understand it might fill you with a sense of dread. It’s far easier to skirt around the edges, right? But I’m pretty confident your unwillingness to be open about your process and the purpose of each stage means you are wasting time (and money) on ‘opportunities’ you stand little chance of winning.

As a slightly cheeky aside, take a look at your website. I’m going to hazard a guess that somewhere it says how ‘honest’ and ‘transparent’ you are. If that’s the case, it might be time to think about how you apply those values to aspects of your sales process, starting with the very first conversation.