Getting that Second Date

If your company is selling complex products, high-ticket items, consulting services or any number of other products or services, you know you will never sell anything on your first meeting with a client. Complex sales cycles can last many months and involve many meetings and approval stages; however, none of these discussion stages is more critical than the first sales meeting.
The purpose of an initial sales meeting is twofold. First, you need to determine whether there is a deal to be had. Assuming that there is, you need to get invited back for a second meeting. Here’s how to do it.

KNOW YOUR PROSPECTIVE CLIENT

According to Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese general, battles are won or lost before the first shot is ever fired. The same is true of business meetings: Preparation is everything. Before your first meeting with a prospective client, be sure to gather as much relevant information as possible. Develop an understanding of the company, its business challenges and pains, the industry trends and the persons with whom you will be meeting as well as their role within the organization.

The best way to immediately earn your prospective clients’ respect is to show them that you have done your research and that you truly understand their business challenges. I start each meeting by explaining what made me contact them to begin with. I bring up one or two relevant industry trends and a few company specific business challenges that I have been able to identify. For example, during my recent meeting with the CEO of a $1 billion lighting fixtures manufacturer, I started the discussion by mentioning the company’s susceptibility to increasing raw materials prices and the industry-wide price erosion that has been squeezing margins in recent years. The reaction is typically immediate and dramatic — within minutes you will be transformed from a tolerated salesperson into a respected professional.

If your prospective client is a public company, you can find most of the information you need in the company’s 10K, letters to shareholders, analyst reports or investor presentations. Similarly, if your prospective client competes with publicly traded companies, much of the information can be derived by looking at their competition. Another valuable source of intelligence about your potential client is meetings you may have had with other companies. For this reason, I typically target multiple companies in the same industry simultaneously. This provides better return on my research investment and allows me to perfect my pitch over time.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

Recently I saw a television commercial for Computer Associates featuring a cardboard cutout of a salesperson that gives the same canned response regardless of what the client is saying. Knowing many salespeople who could easily be substituted for this cardboard cutout, I find this commercial hilarious.
The good news is that cardboard cutout salespeople make it easy for the rest of us to stand out from the crowd and close more deals. Most customers can tell a canned pitch from one that is customized to their specific needs. They will reward you by inviting you to a second meeting if you speak to their specific needs and will shut you out if you babble about topics that are of no interest.
DON’T PRESENT, DISCUSS

As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself speaking for more than one third of the time during an initial meeting with a prospective client, you are not doing a very good job. The more your prospective client speaks, the better shape you are in and the more likely you are to be invited to a second meeting.

One of the toughest challenges you are likely to face in an initial business meeting is an unresponsive client who expects you to do all the talking while providing very little feedback in return. In such cases, the temptation is to give up on the bilateral discussion and resort to a one-sided presentation. The downside is that a client who remains unresponsive is not providing you with the information you need to qualify the account and address the client’s business challenges. Moreover, an indifferent client is unlikely to invite you back.

To succeed, you must get the client to engage. The most effective way to achieve this is to ask a lot of open ended questions. Questions must always be customized to the specific client and demonstrate that you have a good grasp of the main issues the customer is facing. For example, if you’re talking to a manufacturer that sells its products through big box retailers, you may choose to ask, How much of your business is done through big box retailers? How does the retailers’ increasing market power impact your company’s business strategy? Make sure you only ask questions that advance your business cause. Such dialogue is a prerequisite for success.

REMEMBER, YOU ARE ONLY SELLING A SECOND MEETING

At this stage of the game you have only one goal (in addition to the important task of qualifying the account), and that is to get a second meeting. With this in mind, you must realize that you are not selling a product, product features or even product benefits. You are selling only one thing: a successful second appointment. Everything else is secondary to achieving this one goal.