Craft the Work To Be the Solution

You meet a potential client and you have your first meeting with them. It could be by phone, in-person, on Zoom - it doesn't matter how you connect, what matters is how you listen. 

Listen and ask questions. Ask a lot of them.

Why are they seeking your services? What problems are they trying to fix? What have they tried that hasn’t worked in the past? What are their short-term and long-term goals? Find out about their company culture, their values, their mission, their team and the way they like to work.  

In sales you are listening more than you are speaking and you are not only listening with your ears, you are listening with your eyes, your gut and your heart. Body language, personality, creative alignment. It all comes into play in a big way. Pay attention and be present. 

Identify the problems of your potential client and determine how the work you will do with them is their solution. Then you can craft a proposal with a scope of work that fits that clients’ exact needs. I’ve done many presentations and ran programs where I taught on the concept of sales conversations and always referred to them as solution conversations. 

Going in with a basic overview of what you can do for someone is great, but you cannot close a sale without the specifics, the attention and the follow-up. The little details make all the difference. If that client is interviewing many potential people to hire, they need to see why you are the one. 

Do not send a proposal. Schedule a conversation to walk through the proposal together and give them an opportunity to not just read it, but hear it from you and reflect back to the issues occurring in their business and how this specific proposal will support them. You now have an opportunity to hear their response, guide them through the work, the process and the expectations. Yes, this is listening again on all levels, ears, eyes, heart and gut. Then you can create the plan to move forward when the fit is right. It is important to know you are working with the decision maker or group of decision makers. 

It’s now their turn to ask the questions.

Follow-up is the final piece to the sales puzzle and the one toughest to navigate. How often do you follow-up? What type of follow-up methods do you use? There are no right or wrong answers here. It’s personal and specific to that potential client and to your business.

The only thing I can say for sure is if you don’t follow up, you will lose the sale. Period. 

Remember, it’s not always a no. It’s not yet, not ready, not now. And that can change in a day, weeks, a month or maybe years. If you are the right choice, the sale will close. Trust it.