Put Yourself In Your Prospect’s Shoes
You’ve had a few good meetings with a prospect. You’ve successfully overcome their objections. Before you close the deal, you must ask yourself a very important question.
Should you do business with the prospect? Your answer should not be automatic. Before you move forward, you need to put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. Does it make sense for the prospect to do business with you?
When answering that question, you must be objective; something that’s not easy when your ego is on the line. You must also be totally honest; something that’s not so easy when commission is on the line. Will the prospect be better off choosing you over your competitors or just not taking action at all?
While it’s easy to get excited about closing a sale, closing the wrong prospect will damage your credibility. The wrong prospect may receive some value from your product or service, but that’s not enough. The wrong prospect becomes a bad client. A bad client, in turn, has more issues that will take the time of you or your colleagues to address.
There is an opportunity cost associated with dealing with problem clients. Every minute spent trying to satisfy them (in what may be a losing battle) is time not spent building stronger relationships with your best prospects and clients.
It’s really boils down to choosing to do business with those prospects that have the potential to be raving fans. They’ll become raving fans if your product or service meets and exceeds their expectations. By focusing on these types of clients and weeding out the bad ones, you’ll be in a position to exponentially grow your business through positive word-of-mouth and referrals. This won’t happen if you are willing to sacrifice the wrong prospect’s satisfaction for your immediate gratification.
Will Turner is the Founder and President of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, a sales training and consulting company. Will has over 20 years of sales and sales management experience and is the author of over 150 sales-related articles and programs as well as the co-author of the book, Six Secrets of Sales Magnets. Will can be reached at Will@dancingelephants.net.
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