Purpose

• To position yourself as an expert not a lackey
• Get the prospect to call you.
• Determine whether the prospect has a problem you can solve and whether it’d be a good fit, e.g. whether they’d be an ideal client.
• Avoid sounding like a salesperson. 
• Don’t let the prospect turn you into a salesperson. 
• Use questions to frame the conversation and position yourself as the expert
• Talk 20% and listen 80%. (The less you talk and the more you listen to qualify the prospect, the more sales you’ll close.)
• Ask better questions and then use active listening to help the prospect clarify their thinking. 

10 Steps To More Sales

1. Start With The Positive

Begin with the good news about both the prospect and you. Ask:

• What’s the best thing that’s happened to you this week?
• Use Pre-suasion to position yourself as the expert from the start. Ask:
  What’s the best thing you’ve heard about (name of your firm)? If they don’t have a positive response, just say something like, Here’s what most of our clients say…. And include a concise benefit based statement.

2. Build Strong Relationships

The strength and number of relationships  you have with prospects, clients and marketing partners is your biggest competitive advantage.  The first step on any call  is to establish rapport and build trust.  Prospects buy from those they know, like, and trust

Find out what makes your prospect tick. Ask:

• What do you like about (the town they live in)?
• What do you do for fun? (discover their personal passions)
• What are they passionate about in their business?
• Why’d you decide to start a ______ business instead of becoming a chicken farmer or concert pianist?
• Why do they want to make more money / what would they spend it on? 
• More family ski trips
• Paying off their mortgage
• Donations to charity 
• Or… ?

3. Position Yourself as the Expert

Demonstrate your knowledge, experience, and the value you can provide by the questions you ask and the case studies you share. Ask questions to get the prospect to ask you to explain your why. 

Ask: Do you know why I choose (your profession) instead of being an astronaut or a professional basketball player?

Answer: tell them what you love about your work…

4. Understand  Motivation and Goals

Find out why they called you to start with, what’s the urgency and why they want to make a change now and what’s the ultimate goal. Help the prospect clarify their goals: Use active listening throughout to summarize and confirm. Ask:

• Why are we talking today? 
• Get them to say they need help.

• Where are you now and where do you want to be?
• What does success look like to you?
• What’s your biggest challenge?
• If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change about your practice?
• What’s your biggest fear?

5. Clarify Your Prospect’s Pain

The perceived value of your services is determined by the pain the prospect perceives relative to your service. The more you can get the prospect to clarify their personal and business pain the greater their need for your service. Ask:

• What have you tried so far?
• What’s working?
• How is that working for you so far?
• What’s not?
• Get the details 
• Can you be more specific? Give me an example.
• How long has that been a problem?
• What have you tried to do about that? And did it work?
• How much do you think that cost you?
• How do you feel about that?

6.  Qualify the Prospect

The goal of any sales call is to qualify the prospect within the first 10 minutes of the call so you can get a no as quickly as possible and end the call, and give yourself more time to talk to potential yes clients. Ask them questions about their  budget, authority, need, and timeline to qualify prospects.

7. Eliminate Objections

When you review each of the common objections prospects bring up, before they do, you sound like an expert. If you wait for the prospect to bring them up and then respond you sound like  you’re making excuses. Ask them:

• Have you worked with a (your profession) before? What problems, if any, did you have?
• What are the key things you are looking for from a (your profession)?
• Is  your biggest concern price or value?
• Have you ever felt like you wasted money using a (your profession)?
• E.g. bring up all the common objections you can think of and address them and take them off the table.

8. Provide A Compelling Offer

Remember to avoid getting into features and functions, you’re selling the dream. Instead focus on the primary tangible benefit. If you sell  marketing services, don’t talk about clicks and impressions. Talk about leads, cost per lead and annual revenue and buying that new home they want.

• Focus on the
• Why (prospect’s problems)
• What (prospect’s tangible benefit.  
• Not the How (features and function of your product or services)
  
  
• Get the prospect to sell themselves on the value of your services
• For example: Get them to tell you why they think a  comprehensive strategy / 12 month plan is the best way  to grow their lead flow and reduce their cost per lead
  
  
• Explain what's involved, the key steps you’ll be walking them through as part of delivering your services.

9. Use a Two Step Close 

Value

Get them to tell you again what their goals are and if you can help them how much more they could be making a year and get the prospect to sell themselves on:

• The specific outcome your offer will deliver
• The certainty you can achieve the outcome
• The speed with which you can deliver results
• The ease of getting results for the prospect
• The scarcity (only take on 2 new clients a month or …)
• Your  guarantee
• Value stacking to highlight value

Then Close On  Price

Ask them what they think it’d be reasonable to invest to achieve their goal, which should be much more than $1k. Then explain your pricing and next steps to get started (e.g. complete the buy now link you have ready to send them.

10, Followup with Unsold Prospects

Unless a prospect has said they never want to work with you, every prospect is just unsold for one of two reasons 

• Lack of perceived pain (you didn’t dig deep enough on the call)
• Lack of trust (they don’t see you as the expert - share case studies)
• Timing (they have cold or their kids do, or they just bought a house etc)

The key is consistency of followup via weekly emails and newsletters or other social media.

Use these 10 steps to close more sales.