Benchmark Business Group

Too Much Too Soon

November 19, 2019

A common sales mistake is asking for too much, too soon. Especially in financial services, your sales process has many steps where a prospect needs to make a decision to continue. For instance, a new lead has to make the decision to say yes to talk to you. Then ideally, they will say yes to a quote and a meeting to discuss options. And finally, they would say yes to doing business with you.

These are the high-level, hard-yeses. There are also more tactical, soft-yeses that you will collect throughout the sales process to get your prospect nodding in agreement. For instance, to get prospects to continue talking, the yes you’re looking for may be the agreement that they have a need that isn’t covered. It might be that there’s something you know that they don’t know that yes, they want to know. These tactical yeses, exist to get their heads nodding in agreement and expose needs or desires that you can help them solve.

The yeses are a series of steps that sales people need to clearly define and understand. If you don’t guide your prospect through agreeing to the softer, tactical yeses, the high-level yeses become more difficult to achieve. Many in sales make the mistake of asking for a high-level yes, such as an appointment, without clearly getting a tactical yes that they have a need or interest.

The problem, is that without that tactical yes, the prospect doesn’t always connect to the need or desire. And if they can’t relate to the need or desire, they don’t see how you can help them solve it. Because there’s nothing to solve. It is too much too soon.

To ensure that your sales team isn’t asking too much too soon try these two insights:

  • Quiz Your Sales Team - In a sales meeting, ask the team to identify the yeses that need to be collected at each part of the sales process in order to get the high-level yeses; such as: Setting the Appointment, The Fact Finding Meeting, The Closing Appointment, etc.

Listen to see if they mention and discuss the tactical yeses. Do they talk about the yeses that get the prospects nodding their heads in agreement or do they jump straight to the high-level yeses? Create a discussion around all the yeses needed for your style of selling.

  • Talk about Emotions - People make decisions to buy off emotions more than logic. When you’re talking about exposing needs and desires, it’s important to make sure you understand the emotion that will get a client to say yes. Is it fear? Is it excitement for the future? Is it peace of mind and security? Design the way you approach getting the yes so that it amplifies the emotional response in your prospect and connects them to the value of your product and services.

For instance many will sell on price, but rarely does price motivate someone to buy. We wouldn’t have brands if price was the biggest motivator. If you want to use price in your pitch then make sure it’s emotional.

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