Everyone knows that the sales landscape has changed radically over the last few years. The technology that reps use, the customer expectations that reps do more than take orders, the research that buyers do—the sales cycle looks very different compared to five years ago, let alone twenty.
You might think that one part of the cycle would be relatively immune from this: the in-person sales interaction. After all, when we talk about technology changing how we interact with each other, it’s generally about how we spend less time with other people, not necessarily the nature of those interactions. But as anyone who has been out to dinner with a smartphone on the table can attest, things are different now.
Swapping out your PowerPoint deck for interactive guided selling isn’t the end of sales transformation. Here are a few best practices to help go beyond technology in your face-to-face sales meetings.
Tech Savvy, Not Tech Distracted
There’s a measurable reduction in the quality of our conversations because of the technology glued to our hands. Though, “No phones at the dinner table” doesn’t exactly work when you’re meeting with a customer. If you’re a modern B2B salesperson, you’re probably presenting from your tablet, and if you’re not presenting from your tablet, chances are you’re presenting your phone. It’s a fine line you have to walk, so follow these guidelines:
- Use your device to support the conversation. That’s it! Don’t check emails, texts and definitely don’t update their contact record—that should happen automatically. Don’t throw on a timed PowerPoint or a video. Face-to-face conversations need to add value beyond generic content.
- Don’t juggle multiple devices. If you’re using your iPad to present, keep your iPhone in your pocket. If you’re using your Samsung Galaxy, keep your Surface Pro in your bag. You’re going to want to take notes, so make sure you can do that from within your presentation.
- Don’t use your device as a crutch. Quick access to PowerPoints, videos and PDFs doesn’t mean you should hand over your tablet to your prospect and you’re set. Face-to-face conversations need to add value beyond generic content.
Listen up!
Being a good listener is a life skill that everyone should have. Saying all the right things only works if you hear what the right things should be. When a rep comes into a sales meeting, listening is more crucial today than it ever has been.
Imagine someone who found your website on Google. Because of how long the B2B sales cycle is, they could engage with your content and do research on your product for months before they’re ready to talk to someone. Five or ten years ago, there wasn’t anywhere near the level of case studies, white papers and customer reviews that there are now. So when you’re meeting face-to-face, it’s not about you or your competitors anymore. It’s about the customer and their needs. The conversation has to be in-depth and it has to be about uncovering their needs, and that can only happen if you listen and react.
Because you now have explanations geared towards all of their needs and rebuttals for all of their concerns at your fingertips, you have the opportunity to do a deep dive that couldn’t happen in an initial meeting in the past. But to make it happen, you need to really hone in on those needs and concerns. You might have gotten an idea of their individual needs from the content they consumed and your prior phone and email conversations—but face-to-face is when the cards come out on the table, and you need to be ready to pick them up.
Start with a Recap, Close with a Recap
If you walk into your meeting and jump headfirst into the details, you’re liable to lose your prospect real fast. Imagine how much of your content they’ve consumed before meeting with you. Got a number in mind? Now triple that number, and that’s how much third-party content they’ve consumed about you. Got that? Now, add in five competitors to the mix. Plus, you don’t know if the person you’re meeting with has seen any of that content or had a surrogate do research for them.
It’s best to start with some icebreakers, maybe some small talk, and then to walk them back a step. Go through your previous phone conversations and emails and summarize. As you’re giving a brief overview of your product or solution, weave in that summary. If you’ve sent some sales content or know what they’ve looked at from your marketing automation tool, highlight some of the key points to jog their memory.
The idea isn’t to go through everything over again. The idea is to capitalize on their attention and differentiate yourself from the other products they might be considering. You’ll contextualize the meeting not just for the prospect, but for you—so you know what questions to ask and what supportive content to have at the ready.
You would be well served to have one more recap at the end of the meeting, summarizing the pain points you’ve uncovered and how you’ll address those as next steps. If you’re running short on time, you can save this for an email (or do both). Because all the content you shared has been recorded, you can send annotated excerpts via (trackable) links to your prospects.
End with a Call-To-Action
This is one piece of advice you can pack away for almost any occasion or situation. Both marketing and sales know the value of a good CTA. People are wired for anticipation, so after you’ve crafted a story for why you and the prospect are a good match, they expect climax. This is especially true given that they’ve consumed so much B2B marketing content, which nearly always ends in a call-to-action. And that’s necessary because if there’s no action to take, they’ll just move onto someone else’s content who will give them a CTA and use it to nurture them as a lead.
For salespeople, that call-to-action can take several forms:
- Discuss next steps with their team
- Begin a software pilot or use a few sample products
- Review additional content to learn about things you couldn’t cover in the meeting
That last one is great to couple with other CTAs because how they engage with collateral is something you can track and add to your sales content KPIs [link to metrics blog]. It doesn’t matter if it’s something small because the meeting was shorter than you expected or didn’t cover as much as you planned—your goal is to always keep things moving.
The tools have changed, and yes, the sales meetings themselves have changed, but those changes offer massive opportunities for modern sales reps and sales leaders. The only question is whether they’ll get left behind or take hold of those opportunities.
Image credit: How to Earn Customer Loyalty By Focusing on Customer Experience by Joe The Goat Farmer | Creative Commons
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