Start Your Selling Process Right – Efficient Discovery

What answers do you need from your first meeting?

Whether its a scheduled phone conference, or a face to face meeting, the true professional makes efficient use of both the prospect’s and their own time.  Lets look at how to set the proper objectives for your first meeting so that you preserve your time and resources and present in a way that is respectful of your prospect’s time.

I break a first meeting down into four simple parts.  The first is the same as anytime you meet someone new.  A little rapport building and get-to-know-ya is an appropriate start.  Hopefully, you have already done some homework on the person or people with whom you are meeting.  You probably have found some common ground or interest.  Social media is a great way to learn a bit about people if they’ve put some information out there about themselves.  It’s important to share something about yourself as well.  You need to be trustworthy and worth the person’s time.  As I’ve said in previous posts, if you make no connection and offer no likeability factor, it is likely that people will be anxious about sharing the problems and shortcomings of their organization.

It is important to explain how you would like to conduct the meeting and gain agreement.  Let me give an example.  When talking to C-level bankers about software solutions, I would tell them that I had some questions about their systems and processes that would give me a good indication if our offerings could provide a high degree of streamlining and automation.  My goal was to develop a list of manual processes that I could improve, thus eliminating a problem or delivering an attractive ROI.  I also like to quickly explain my personal role of managing and directing technical resources to solve problems, and how my goal is to determine if there is a good reason for additional conversation beyond today’s meeting.  Now, before you move on to your inquisition, be sure to gain agreement that you have permission to dig into the inner workings of their operation.  Once you have explicit permission, you will avoid any “who the heck do you think you are” reaction.

Long before the meeting starts, I have developed a list of questions that identify problems, desire to remedy them and the capacity to implement solutions.  Put simply, I want to know if they have a problem, want to fix it, and have the money to do it.  My line of questioning is in exactly that order.  There are finer points to this, but this captures the entire discovery process in a nutshell.  Embedded in this process will be questions about the client’s decision-making process, key influences and ultimate authorities.  It will be important to know what the sales process will look like at this account and who will be making the ultimate decision.  The earlier you determine these things, the less likely you are to encounter surprises and obstacles.

Depending on the nature of your business, you may be able to quickly summarize the problems that you have uncovered and give a general sense of your company’s capacity to remedy them, or you may need to take that information back for evaluation and prepare a more detailed report of your findings.  Either way, you need to close with a call to action.  If you can offer assurances that time spent with you and your colleagues will be valuable in solving their problems, then map out a specific plan to bring in subject matter experts or to collect data or samples for testing.  Your best plan is the one with dates and times along with specific activities.  If you will be preparing a report of your findings, schedule a time to review the report and be sure to ask to include people that will be decision makers or key influencers if appropriate.

What if you haven’t uncovered enough problems, there is no priority on fixing what you have uncovered, or there is no budgetary capacity to implement a fix?  In that case, thank them for their time, indicate that you will keep them on your radar and determine a time frame for follow-up.  One of the main purposes of the discovery process is to preserve the precious resources of the company, so they are deployed where they are most needed.  As a business development professional, it is as important to disqualify prospects as to qualify them.

To review, your first meeting should include the following:

• Build rapport
• Gain permission to probe their situation
• Ask efficient questions that uncover problem areas
• Deliver a clear call to action and plan

Hopefully these ideas are helpful in developing your own discovery process for first calls.  I welcome your thoughts and comments.

by David Phillips

Connect to me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidlphillips