How To Offer My Services To A Company

A sales pitch gets yous through the door of a client, only the way you nowadays your business organization and close sales is what determines your eventual success as an entrepreneur or freelancer. As with all elements of sales, at that place's a process you lot tin can use to present your business well and to shut more business than you lose, likewise.

All of your sales efforts are actually about the moment where you lot present your services to your clients. Here, you lot volition learn how to practice then whether you nowadays your entrepreneurial services over Skype, the phone or in person. The process for this is a little more circuitous than the residue of the sales process. A lot will depend on whether y'all accept been asked to pitch to a specific demand or whether yous are pitching in the hopes of creating a need with that client. All the same, some simple pointers exist to make this procedure easier than you might expect.

Information technology'south Non Nearly Yous – It's About the Customer

The biggest error rookie salespeople make is launching into a presentation about what they do and sell. Even if you are a rock star presenter, this approach is likely to lead to a house "no thank you" from the client.

The right way to start a client meeting over Skype, the telephone or in person, is to focus on the client. According to Neil Rackham, the world-famous researcher, sales trainer and the writer of SPIN Selling, you have iv types of questions to choose from:

Situation Questions – These questions help you flesh out an understanding of things you don't know. They range from "How many employees practice you lot accept?" to "Which provider practise you lot use for pattern services at the moment?" You ask situation questions to get a ameliorate experience for where the client may be facing issues, also as to go a handle on the basics of what a customer does.
Problem Questions – These questions help you lot identify where the client's pain points are (and thus where your services might be benign). They are easy to phrase – "What issues are yous having making sales via your website at the moment?", "What kind of problems are your customers having with your product?"
Implication Questions – Not every trouble needs solving. You lot need to dig a little deeper and ask, "What does that mean to your business—what'due south it costing yous?" Finding that the company is doing ten% fewer sales than a yr ago or taking 75% more than customer intendance calls than they tin can handle shows that the problem is meaningful and requires a solution.
Need Questions – Take the problem and its implications, and turn information technology into a sales need. "So, what yous're saying is that ten% fewer sales is costing you $50,000 a month?" or "So you're paying three full-time customer care agents at $50,000 each a twelvemonth?" followed by "So, you'll need to fix this trouble correct?"

Once you've reached a need… y'all can address it. That's the fourth dimension to present how your service will fix the client'south trouble.

Don't forget, when asking a client questions, continue your mouth close and listen to the answers. Clients will see whether yous're listening (and if you don't know how, y'all might want to observe out how to use "agile listening" to demonstrate this) and are much more likely to reply favourably to someone who is listening to them.

"Successful people ask a lot more than questions during sales calls than do their less successful colleagues. We establish that these less successful people tend to do about of the talking."
― Neil Rackham, Major Business relationship Sales Strategy, successful marketing and sales author, consultant and bookish

Author/Copyright holder: Jeremiah Owyang. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC ii.0

Don't forget that different concern structures will have different needs. Social businesses and not-for-turn a profit businesses may have very different needs from big cash-making corporations.

Nowadays Solutions to the Problem

How you nowadays is upwardly to you. In almost cases, if you're coming together with a client one-to-one, a PowerPoint and continuing presentation is overkill.

Do have supporting materials on hand to prove prospective clients how you've dealt with issues in the by and the results gained from those efforts.

Inquire the client for their input throughout the process. What do they think? Can they see how this would utilize in their situation? Exercise they accept any questions? Don't leave this correct up to the finish – it'south always better to keep your presentations clear throughout the process.

However, information technology may be appropriate—if you lot're presenting to a room full of managers/directors—to leave questions until the cease of the presentation. Confident facilitators and presenters don't notice questions from an audience difficult to handle while they stay on track, but if you're not used to this, and so for large audiences, hold the questions to the end.

How to Handle Objections

"It's more dangerous to ignore signals of client business concern than it is to explore potential concerns and go them out into the open."
― Neil Rackham, Major Account Sales Strategy, successful marketing and sales author, consultant and academic

2 schools of thought exist on objections offered by clients during sales presentations:

They are a good matter. It shows the client is engaging with you, and if you tin handle them, you're closer to the sale.
They are a bad matter. Clients with objections are less likely to buy from you.

The truth is – it depends on the client. Some clients love to run into how you lot handle objections and savour a little back-and-forth over an idea; it gives them confidence in the process and the person in front of them. Others are less inclined to engage in fence, and their objections are deeply rooted in serious concerns; however well you handle them, they're less likely to buy from you.

Writer/Copyright holder: grant horwood. Copyright terms and licence: CC By-SA 3.0

Objections arise in any grade of negotiation – they're a natural event of discussion; learning how to handle them tin boost your sales.

The best strategy for handling objections is to try to forestall them from arising. You do this past agreement what your clients are likely to object to and addressing these concerns as part of the presentation. This comes with practice. The more than presentations you lot evangelize, the more objections you volition hear—and the easier information technology volition exist to build in countermeasures to these objections in your sales presentations.

Until you reach that point, the method for handling objections is simple:

Check you've understood the consequence properly. Repeat it back to the client as a grade of question: "Then, if I understand yous right, yous're worried most the use of Flash in a design because of the bug with browsers and Apple?"
In one case you've gained understanding, explain what you lot volition practise to ensure this isn't a problem. "I completely empathize your concerns. While this demonstration uses Flash, we've moved to using HTML 5.0 for delivering this style of design now. That's completely uniform with all browsers and with Apple devices, as well."
Then ask if this addresses the client'due south concern. If not, elaborate further. If and so, move on.

How to Terminate the Meeting and Close the Sale – Summarize

Before you become forward to ask for the auction—summarize. Summarize the customer's needs first, and get their agreement to this need. E.g., "Yous said at the outset of this meeting that you lot needed to find a solution to increment sales via your website. At the moment you experience it is under-performing effectually 10% month on month, and that's costing y'all $150,000 a twelvemonth in revenue. Is that correct?"

Then summarize your solution. "I propose to do XYZ for you lot. This should result in a xv% uplift in sales based on previous experiences with similar clients. This will issue in $220,000 more in revenue each twelvemonth and will only cost $10,000."

Once you've completed the summary—you tin can go on to endmost the sale. The client should be clear at this point about the trouble you are solving for them, why it needs solving, and the value that you bring to the process.

Author/Copyright holder: Arpit Gupta. Copyright terms and licence: CC Past 2.0

Scott Adams makes a smashing point in this Dilbert cartoon. A summary is merely constructive if it's brief and to the point.

The Have Away

Sales presentations vary dramatically from service to service. Yet, the best all have a common theme – they focus on the client, identify meaningful bug and offer valuable solutions. If you can learn to do this via questioning before you offer your services—you'll detect it'southward not that difficult to close business organization sales in the long run.

If you lot're unsure as to how to persuade your customers, you might want to remember what Zig Ziglar, the marketing guru, had to say; "Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no coin, no hurry, no desire and no trust." If you lot can navigate these obstacles, you're prepare to ask for the club.

References & Where to Acquire More

Hero Image: Writer/Copyright holder: Cheryl. Copyright terms and licence: CC By-SA 2.0

Neil Rackham, SPIN Selling, 1996

Neil Rackham, Major Account Sales Strategy, 1989

Zig Ziglar, Secrets of Closing the Auction, 2004

Jeffrey Gitomer, Trivial Red Volume of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness, 2004

Daniel H. Pinkish, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, 2013

Frank Bettger, How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling, 1992

Art Sobczak, Smart Calling: Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Common cold Calling, 2010

Brian Tracy, The Psychology of Selling, 2006

Jeffrey Gitomer, The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, 2014

Oren Klaff, Pitch Annihilation: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal, 2011

Tom Hopkins, How to Principal the Art of Selling, 2005