Category: Blog

There’s no denying it, 2020 has been a rough year for pretty much everyone – and it’s not over yet. You may be thinking: ‘what’s the point in creating a 2021 businesses plan? All my plans for 2020 went out of the window’.

Over this past year, every business has had its strengths and weaknesses exposed, and we’re sure to see the impact of coronavirus continue into 2021. This year has taught us that adapting to change quickly is vital to business success.

Spending time planning for 2021 now will help you consider potential roadblocks and identify unknown factors. This plan will help you prepare for the year ahead.

Here’s our guide for creating a successful 2021 business plan.

 

Where to start?

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. So, while we can remain optimistic, make plans for some tough decisions.

Top of your list should be cashflow. Positive cash flow will give your business more flexibility to invest in new opportunities and grow.

It’s also worth considering starting a rainy day fund. While the government have been supportive (for many) in helping businesses remain active, we shouldn’t rely on continuous support. You may need access to cash quickly to seize a new opportunity or to tide you over for a little while.

Budgeting is essential to help keep your cash flow on track. For more advice on how to budget, take a look at our 7 easy steps to successful budgeting.

 

How to plan for business in 2021

The principals of planning for 2021 are no different from any other year. Perhaps the only contrast is there is more evidence to suggest things may get more challenging. And this is why planning is essential.

In 2021, consider the national tried system. How will your business continue to operate in another full lockdown, and then work from there? Consider how you will switch on and off services based on these restrictions. Agility in these circumstances will be the key to helping you survive and thrive.

 

What should your 2021 business plan include?

You don’t need to overcomplicate the process. If you have a business mentor, now is the time to get them involved. They can help steer you in the right direction and identify hidden factors.

When writing a business plan, it’s always helpful to use the SOSTAC model. Here are some guidelines to help you create a successful 2021 business plan:

The purpose of your business

It is always important to keep the ‘why’ you’re doing business at the heart of your business plan. This will help ensure the content within your plan supports your business purpose. It also provides context for anyone outside the company reading your plan.

To understand more about the importance of ‘why’, we recommend you check out ‘Start with Why’ by Simon Sinek – also available on Amazon.

Situation

Document where you are now so that you can measure progress. For example, how did you handle lockdown? What challenges did you overcome? How many products do you have, how many customers, how much did you spend against your 2020 budget, sales numbers etc.

Objectives

Where do you want to be: both for the business and personally? Set Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound (SMART) objectives for each of the steps required to achieve your goals.

Strategy

How are we going to get there? Broadly, how do you plan to achieve the objectives you’ve defined? For example, if one aim is to increase sales, the strategy might be to start selling in new markets.

Tactics

What are we going to do? With the strategies outlined, you’ll need to decide what tactical elements are required to achieve these. Looking back at the example above, let’s say one strategy is to penetrate new markets, one tactic to achieve this may be having an online store.

Action

What do we need to do, by when, and by whom? This is the list you’re probably used to making. It’s the task list for each of the tactics you outlined above. Sticking with the same theme of selling into new markets, and using a website to do that, your actions may include things like:

• Build an e-commerce website
• Research shipping fees
• Review pricing
• Review packaging options

With a list in place, add to it who will do what and by when. Day to day service delivery can often get in the way of delivering on an action plan, so be realistic when deciding on deadlines.

Control

How are we going to measure and monitor success?

Outlining precise, defined metrics or milestones will help you record and recognise success.

An easy mechanism to establish success against your goals is to attach accountability to the objectives, strategies, tactics and actions. Regular management team meetings, or if you’re a smaller business, scheduled meetings with your business coach will encourage you to stick to your plan.

It sounds logical, but you’d be surprised how many plans are written but not followed. There are so many distractions as a business owner; it’s easy to lose sight.

 

How ETC can help

If you need help creating a comprehensive business plan for 2021, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, governments are introducing new lockdown restrictions to keep everyone safe. The introduction of the new covid three-tiered lockdown system in England aims to avoid national lockdown by classifying areas based on the rate of infection. And in Wales, the short, sharp “firebreak” lockdown returns the country to nationwide lockdown for over two weeks.

Throughout the pandemic, there has always been a warning before a change in restrictions. However, this notice is usually days, and as a business owner, this poses the question: How prepared is your business for a change in lockdown restrictions?

Depending on your area’s circumstances, you may need to turn services on and off quickly to comply with social limitations.

Here are four simple steps to preparing your business for a sudden increase in COVID-19 restrictions.

 

1. Flexibility

Planning ahead and developing flexible operations could help keep your business running through new lockdown rules.

Office-based business
It’s likely travel restrictions will limit access to your premises. Ensure your business can run remotely. Focus on protecting staff (both physically and mentally) by implementing quality remote working solutions now. Poor internet connection, file accessibility or restricted access to vital systems can hinder productivity and damage employee morale. Streamlining procedures and investing in quality equipment and applications can connect remote workers and help you deliver excellent customer service. For example:

• Do you have a customer relationship manager like HubSpot to ensure notes on a client are logged
• Project management tool like Monday.com can help keep track of team tasks
• A virtual assistant like I’m your PA can help manage calls and your diary

Public-facing business (shops, bars and restaurants)

Footfall is likely to drop, or stop. Therefore, you’ll need to evaluate how best to deliver your services in the most efficient way possible.

• If your shop shuts, do you have an online store? Is this optimised for conversions and upsell?
• As a pub or bar, do you serve substantial meals? Could you operate a takeaway service? Have you considered an app to limit customer and staff interaction and speed up delivery?

Personal note: I heard a story about a client who went to a pub and waited over 40mins to receive their first drink. The pub was operating table service and the staff were run off their feet delivering menus, taking orders, serving both food and drink and taking payments. As winter approaches, having customers wait this long outside is not ideal. As a result, the client admitted they wouldn’t go back.

A simple, low-cost solution to this would be to provide quality WiFi and a QR code that links them to an online menu and order form. A better solution would be to offer an app to handle the whole order and payment process, allowing the bar staff to focus on delivery and customer service.

 

2. Promote COVID-secure

Regardless of your local restrictions, or what type of business you are, you should be promoting your business as COVID-secure. All your communications should enforce this message.

Let customers know you are safe to do business with.

As restrictions and local guides are different, there is usually some confusion about what your customers or employees should be doing. Therefore, ensure your message is clear and visible. Make it easy for people to follow the rules.

• Place signs up around your place of business for both visitors and staff
• Use your website to explain any changes your business is making to keep people safe
• Send email updates and evidence of any changes to your customer list
• Use social media to demonstrate how you’re safe
  • Why not use videos and pictures of people in PPE delivering services?
• Include information with posted packages to reassure customers you’ve taken extra precautions

 

3. Act COVID-secure

Working hand-in-hand with promoting that you are COVID-secure, is acting COVID-secure. This is absolutely vital to your business.

Keeping customers and staff safe is imperative and can help avoid a business shutdown. If a member of your staff tests positive, you will have to close your business. If they spread the virus to other members of the team, you might be closed for a long time. Not to mention the loss of faith or trust customers will have in your business.

If you say you’re going to keep customers and staff safe, make sure it’s obvious you’re doing so, any advice is simple to follow, and the rules are enforced. For example:

• Create large, simple to follow guides for any visitors
• If you operate a one-way system, use signs and tape on the floor and place do not enter signs for anyone approaching the other way
• Have hand-sanitising stations
• Use perspex dividers
• Encourage masks or appropriate PPE (whenever possible)

 

4. Focus on customer service

At this time, quick, efficient service delivery is what’s going to see you through any changes in lockdown restrictions. Systems, processes, and operational mechanisms should all focus on exceeding the customer’s expectations.

Customers are more open to change than ever before – so long as it keeps them safe and doesn’t put barriers in their way. 

A simple way to identify barriers is to talk to your staff and customers directly. Understand their ‘pain’ points and look to resolve them. Feedback should be welcomed and encouraged.

You can also use this feedback to convince others to use your product or service by turning them into online reviews through Facebook or Google My Business (an essential element of SEO). Even bad reviews, when addressed, can be a positive thing.

At a time of uncertainty, be the clear guide and focus. This will help to delight your customers.

 

How ETC can help

If you need help creating a comprehensive plan to help prepare your business for a change in lockdown restrictions, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

In business, there’s nothing more frustrating than a missed sales opportunity.

During the lockdown, many businesses either had to shut down or had to adapt to a new way of working. In many cases, this has resulted in a backlog of work and sales.

A backlog of sales can be a positive thing, as it shows a high level of customer demand as well as future financial stability. However, if you can’t work through the backlog in a reasonable time, then you’ll start missing out on opportunities and potentially tarnish your company’s reputation.

 

How to effectively work through your sales backlog

 

1) Update your sales pipeline

Before you start anything – is your pipeline and work priority list up-to-date?

It doesn’t matter if it’s on a project management software like HubSpot, an excel spreadsheet, a whiteboard or a scrap of paper, take the time to outline everything. Without this, you won’t be able to assign priorities.

In the long-term, this information should be put into a more robust system so it can become a process. However, on a short-term basis, the important thing is to understand the scope of the task at hand.

If you don’t have a process-driven sales pipeline, read our The importance of a sales pipeline article to learn more about the tremendous impact having one will have on your business.

Top tip: Don’t be tempted to tackle any project until the list is complete- even if, as part of the process you write something down you just remembered you should have done, keep going until the list is done.

 

2) Manage workload

Once you’ve updated your sales pipeline, your objective is to prioritise.

An increase in backlog orders doesn’t mean you should focus all your energy on them and forget the day-to-day work or new sales opportunities. New leads are essential, they’re warm and, depending on the age of your backlog list, may need less ‘effort’ to convert.

Remember, a sales backlog isn’t always a bad thing. By regularly communicating with clients, you’ll be able to manage expectations, giving you time to work through both new and old leads methodically – more on this to follow.

Set out a plan to manage your workload effectively and assign priorities to both new and old projects. An alternative is to spend a proportion of your day exclusively working through your backlog.

 

3) Manage expectations

Continually communicating with clients and prospects is one of the essential keys to business success.

If you’re working through a backlog of orders, let your prospects know. Using your priority list, let them know when you’ll meet their need – and make sure you do. In having the conversation you may discover they’re no longer interested, they were after something more, or they’re happy to wait longer because they’re going on holiday.

Likewise, if it’s a new prospect and you can’t meet with them straight away, let them know and set their expectations.

This stage is vitally important. Yet, it cannot be achieved without a plan. If you can’t deliver on your word, your company reputation may suffer. However, managing expectations effectively can help to increase loyalty and boost your company’s reputation.

 

If you need help managing your sales backlog, or in creating a sales pipeline, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

NOW is the time to ramp up your marketing and PR to get your business bouncing back from lockdown.

It’s difficult to avoid the ‘doom and gloom’ when reading the news. On the 12th August, the government announced that the UK is officially in a recession, we’re also continually being reminded of increasing redundancies, and that travelling abroad could result in a two-week quarantine – but it’s not all bad news.

The UK lockdown is continuing to ease. Theatres, indoor skating rinks, casinos, soft play areas and bowling alleys are all now open. Also, the new Eat out to help out scheme has helped the hospitality sector begin to recover – there were a staggering 10.5 million claims in the first week.

While the weather is good, people are more willing to get out and spend. This is the time to inject some rocket fuel into your marketing to get your business bouncing back.

Invest in marketing and PR

Marketing is an essential element of bouncing back. Marking and PR should be your primary focus over the next few months. 

Face-to-face business conferencing is still set to resume on the 1st October, so while you prepare for this, online marketing remains the primary way to connect with people.

Whether you have a big or a small budget, there are plenty of options for marketing and promoting your business. For larger budgets, we recommend you invest in content creation and advertising. This can include:

• Google Ads
• Remarketing (Retargeting) – Getting people back to your website
• Targeted Facebook and LinkedIn advertising

In addition, and for those with smaller budgets, we recommend you focus on Social Media and Guerrilla Marketing. This can include:

• Social meida marketing
• Competitions
• Email marketing (think about email automation)
• Content marketing

Your primary objective is to re-establish connections with your audience – PR. Remember, your audience is also seeing the same doom and gloom stuff on the news too. Remind them that you’re still here, you’re still offering great products and services, and you’re safe to do business with.

For more advice on using marketing and PR to get your business out of lockdown, read our The key to ending your business lockdown article.

Planning ahead – events

Face-to-face business conferencing is still set to resume on the 1st October. However, is it going to be the same as before? We suspect not. 

Before lockdown, we saw a glimpse of what business conferences in October are going to look like. Expect social distancing, limited to no contact with your branded items (business cards, leaflets and brochures) and fewer delegates.

Yet, there’s plenty of opportunities to take advantage of these situations. Its likely events will be cheaper to entice an audience. You’ll also have the opportunity to stand out from your competition by creating captivating, easy to understand banners and videos on your stand to replace brochures. Also, all attendees will need to register, and it’s likely that more contact details will be shared with attendees and exhibitors, so this is the time to create engaging followup emails to WOW visitors.

Keeping safe

If you’ve been out shopping or into a restaurant lately, you’ll have seen the number of people on the high street begin to increase. Confidence is starting to be restored. However, at this present moment, it’s not going to take a lot to lose it again.

We must not be neglectful of the measures in place to keep us safe. Keeping staff and customers safe at this time is vital to keeping your business open. Anyone confirmed COVID-19 should self isolate for at least ten days. This could result in key members of staff being unavailable at critical times. It could also damage your reputation with other staff and customers and negate all the hard work you did in bouncing back.

How ETC can help

If you need help creating a comprehensive ‘bounce back’ plan to reduce recovery time, take advantage of new opportunities ETC can help, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

The UK is slowly reducing restrictions and ending lockdown. However, things aren’t going to return to how they were pre-COVID-19, and businesses need to prepare for a new ‘normal’.

The number one priority at this time is to re-open or return to work safely. A second lockdown, as seen in Victoria, Australia or local lockdowns as seen in Leicester, is a real possibility. And, as in the case of Leicester, local lockdowns could mean no special financial support from the Government – BBC News.

Government advice and changes are happening fast and planning for change is critical. To help prepare your business for these changes and for leaving lockdown, we have created an essential three-step guide:

1. Marketing should be your focus

Marketing is an essential element of bouncing back. 75% of consumers say that brands should inform people of what they’re doing.

There is still a lot of uncertainty around what businesses are doing. With some sectors still closed, your customers may need reminding that you’re open and ready for business.

There are many tools in the marketing toolbox, but at this stage, we advise that you focus on PR (public relations). This involves re-engaging with your target audience and rebuilding your relationship.

PR requires you to share your message through media channels, both traditional (press) and non-traditional (social media). The ultimate goal is to build awareness of your brand, reinforce your business values and demonstrate why customers will like doing business with you. This can include things like:

• How you’re re-opening your business (making sure you focus on what’s important to your customers, not your company)
• Case studies of post-COVID-19 business and success
• How you’ve supported your local community

For more information on how to market your business, re-read our previous marketing guides, or contact us and let us help you bounce back.

2. Let customers and employees know how you’re keeping them safe

Public health is at the forefront of everyone’s mind at the moment and informing your customers and staff about your ‘safe’ re-opening can be a compelling message.

Messages about ‘safe’ have become more important as lockdown has eased. Larger brands are opting for a clear, positive, inspirational, and helpful tone over humorous, witty, or casual.

According to a study by Econsultancy: one in five consumers have actively stopped purchasing from a brand because of its response to the coronavirus outbreak. This included not providing a safe working environment for its employees.

In the same study, 62% stated that they were more likely to spend money with companies that prioritise the health and safety of their staff.

The full study can be found here: coronavirus impact on marketing, ecommerce & advertising

3. Be consistent in your message

After you’ve invested in PR and promoted your ‘safe to return’ messages, you should always ensure you follow through. It’s great to have handwashing stations and social distancing in place, but if these aren’t clearly visible people may become anxious about what the protocols are.

If you have been into a retail shop recently, you’ll have seen the answer to this yourselves: large signs above sanitiser stations and 2-metres or 1-metre plus signs on the floor.

Without these highly visible, tangible changes to improve safety, all your PR and messages will be wasted – and potentially counterproductive as it may appear disingenuous.

Finally, on a more serious note, the importance of these COVID-19 safe measures cannot be stressed enough. If COVID-19 gets into the workplace, everyone exposed will need to isolate, which may include some difficult conversations with customers.

To protect your business, get your cashflow going again and rebuild customer trust, don’t just give COVID-19 safe the lip service – it’s the key to ending your business lockdown.

How ETC can help

If you need help creating a comprehensive ‘bounce back’ plan to reduce recovery time, take advantage of new opportunities ETC can help, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

Sending a quote or sales proposal to a client may seem like a basic step in your sales process; something that just has to be done after a meeting. However, it can be one of the most powerful, tangible sales tools you have. Don’t underestimate its value.

The proposal you send your client is perhaps one of the only tangible references to your highly convincing sales pitch, so you must make sure it’s personalised, get’s your value proposition across and is straightforward to understand.

Sometimes, sending over a simple one-page quote with a summary of the work and the price is perfectly adequate. For existing clients who are familiar with you and your solution, this is usually the standard approach. However, for new clients who will compare you to other services, this won’t help you stand out – and a well-written email summary with an attached price is NOT the answer.

Here’s how to structure and write an effective sales proposal:

 

Introduction

The proposal introduction is an opportunity to outline your understanding of your client’s situation, remind them of the ‘pain’ they’re in and how you can help.

 

Your company

It’s important to remind the reader who you are and how you can help. Your proposal could also be passed from your contact to someone else in the business who’s never heard of you, so you should always outline who you are.

As much as you can on paper, you need to establish trust and experience to the reader. Your company introduction should always be tailored to the client’s current situation, and not your “About Us” page from the website. 

 

Your solution

When explaining how you’re proposing to solve the client’s problem, always remember to bring it back to the value you will add – what will the outcome be for the client.

In this section, you can add some technical detail about your solution, but remember to keep it simple. If your service has multiple stages, or your product has various features, this is where you can outline them. If you’re compared to a similar product, this is the page your client will check to see if you’re adding value.

Top tip: While writing, when you outline a solution or make reference to a product’s capabilities, ask yourself: “So what?”. If your next sentence doesn’t tell you how the client will benefit, the client most likely won’t understand what you’re trying to say.

 

Price and timescales

Your price should always be clear and easy to understand. If you have various options, or a shopping list pricing system, be sure to make it clear what the difference is between them. If it’s not clear, consider simplifying your offer.

Make sure you reinforce all the elements of your product and service next to the price (a bulleted list of all the things you outlined in the ‘your solution’ section). This is important if for whatever reason the price gets separated from the rest of the proposal, or someone skips to straight the price page. 

Finally, don’t forget to add timescales. Make sure you answer the following questions: how long will it take? And when can you start?

Top tip: Consider putting together a simple Gantt chart within the proposal. You can use the number of days/weeks/months instead of actual dates if you want to keep things open. This can help give the client a sense of urgency.

 

Call to action

Always end your proposal with a call to action. What does the client need to do if they want to progress with things? 

 

Don’t forget the design

This document is perhaps one of the only tangible sales document you’ll send your customer. It’s therefore vital for this document to look great.

Although professionally designed documents can help you stand out, you don’t need to spend hours on the design. Using a simple Microsoft Word or a free Google Doc template can help structure the layout of your proposal. 

Remember: A fancy document with terrible content can lose you a sale just as quickly as when you present an excellent proposal poorly. 

 

How ETC can help

If you need help writing winning sales proposals, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

This is the sixth in our sales series. If you haven’t already, you can read the others here:

1. Sales starting point: Attitude
2. The importance of a sales pipeline
3. Preparing for a sales meeting
4. Conducting a Sales Appointment
5. Quote based on value, not price

When you talk about the price of your product or service, are you buying business or selling something that will add value?

Many businesses, especially small businesses, believe that they need to be ‘low cost’ in order to win business and be competitive against more established companies – this is not the case.

When you’re putting together a quote or proposal for a client, the focus should never be on the price. The mission is to get them thinking about the value of your product or service. The final amount you outline in your quotes will then reflect the value-added to the client.

Quoting your solution based on value, not price, will not only increase sales, but it will also boost your profits.

 

How to establish value

Establishing the value of your service comes from the work you put in before and during the meeting.

Understanding the problems a business faces (the pain), will allow you to outline how your solution can add value.

For example, imagine you are a roofer quoting to repair a leak at a factory. The owner describes how he’s had to stop or remove machinery because of the leak. Your solution (fixing the roof) is worth the lost revenue from the inactive machinery over time, not the cost of the repair.

Sometimes, the ‘pain’ isn’t so apparent to the client, and you’ll need to work a little harder to establish value. The key here is to understand things like the current conversion rate, average order value, profit and staff-hours required to fulfil an order. With this information, you can paint a picture of how an investment in your solution will increase future sales and productivity.

For example, imagine you’re selling some order processing software that will track customer orders and send automated progress updates both internally and to the customer. The value here is the reduction in time someone needs to spend updating people on the status of an order. More hours are now available to achieve other things – things that have probably been on the boss’ mind for ages.

With the right information, you could outline both cost savings and increased revenue in one go.

For a guide on how to get the information needed to add value to your quotes and proposals, read our meeting preparation article and our conducting a sales meeting guide.

 

The competitive edge

It’s important to remember that value is based on the customer’s perception.

Without establishing value, it’s highly likely that your solution will be compared to a price they found on the internet or the last thing they bought – which could be a cup of coffee.

If you establish value based on a genuine understanding of how your solution will meet their requirements, you will have a competitive edge regardless of whether your price is higher or lower than an alternative.

 

Questions you can ask to help establish value

Factfinding is essential to creating the value of your solution. The easiest way to gather information is during a face-to-face meeting. The questions you ask during that meeting can help reveal the companies ‘pain’ points – which can sometimes be unknown to them.

Here are some example questions you can ask in your meeting:

1. What is your current conversion rate?
2. What is your average order value?
3. What the average profit from each order?
4. How many sales do you need each month to maintain operational?
5. How is the company structured? How many departments, and how many employees in each?
6. What are your growth plans?

These questions are just some examples to get you in the right frame of mind. It’s usually best if these questions are woven in-between the conversation rather than fired at the client as a questionnaire.

For more information on how to conduct an appointment that gives you the best chance of closing a sale, read our conducting a sales appointment article.

 

How ETC can help

If you need help turning your conversations about price to one about value, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

This is the fifth in our sales series. If you haven’t already, you can read the others here:

1. Sales starting point: Attitude
2. The importance of a sales pipeline
3. Preparing for a sales meeting
4. Conducting a Sales Appointment

How do you increase the chances of winning business at a face-to-face sales appointment?

Many people believe that you need to be a salesperson to sell your products or services. However, sometimes, this stereotypical, chatty salesperson trait can be counterproductive. The key to a successful sales meeting is to listen to the client and directly answer how your product or service is the solution.

Here are our top tips on conducting an appointment, giving you the best chance of closing a sale.

 

Establish rapport

The first thing you should do in any meeting is to establish a foundation relationship with everyone in the room. Everyone knows you’re there to talk about your solution, so there’s no need to be too familiar, but remember people buy from people, so if there’s an opportunity to find common ground, use it.

The aim is to gently transition from this less formal conversation into the purpose for the meeting. Ideally, it should be seamless. A great way to do this is to talk about finding more time to engage in hobbies or spend time with the family – your solution can help.

TOP TIP: Keep an eye out for any personal items in the room. This could help break the ice. For example, they could have sports memorabilia on show. People love to talk about their hobbies.

Word of warning, don’t pretend to be knowledgeable about something you’re not. You don’t need to share the same interests. The purpose is to show genuine attention and get them to open up about their experience.

If there aren’t any personal items, why not mention the roadworks you probably sat in to get there? They probably have to sit in that every day!

 

Clarifying what their needs are

The key to a successful sales meeting is to position your solution, either product or service, as the means of solving their pain points.

You are never going to be able to do this effectively if you don’t know what these are specifically. So, you need to ask questions and truly understand what they are trying to achieve.

It’s best to avoid closed questions, those that invoke a “Yes” or “No” response. Instead, practice using open questions that invite people to provide a detailed answer. These type of questions usually start with ‘what, ‘when’ and ‘how’.

Finally, make sure you listen to their answers. Your objective is to investigate what one or two things are causing them the most pain. When it’s your turn to talk, your answers can then always refer back to how your product or service is the solution – this is how you establish value.

 

Talk about value, not cost

One of the most common stumbling blocks in a sales meeting is the cost, or price, of your product or service.

Some people are uncomfortable about giving a price, and you can see them physically shy away from talking about it. Others are happy to provide one, as they are confident that it is fair.

Regardless of the situation, it’s not about how you feel about the price. It’s always down to their perceived value of your solution. If you are providing a price without establishing value, the cost will almost always be too high.

So, how do you establish value? After you understand the pain points of your potential customer, you need to understand how much it costs them to work around their problems, or how these pains are preventing them from achieving growth.

Ideally, in understanding their pain cost, you want to get a financial figure from them. This can help you talk about your solution as being a fraction of the cost, or identify how you can add additional value and open new opportunities. Again, its always about the value to the client, not the price of the solution.

If you take this approach, you’ll find that you rarely ever talk about the actual price of your solution.

 

Always close

You might be familiar with the ‘Always Be Closing’ (ABC) sales technique. And while this does conjure images of ‘pushy’, perhaps unethical salespeople, it is a phrase you should remember for each meeting. 

In a sales meeting, everyone knows you’re there to sell, so there is no need to be afraid to ask for business. If you have established value, the close should flow naturally, and you can move from talking about how you can help to when you can start helping – this is an assumptive close.

The assumptive close can be a gentle way to establish a commitment by creating an easy way to start. A great way to achieve this is to get the diary out and pencil in a delivery date.

Finally, don’t fall at the last hurdle, get the paperwork over as soon as possible. Whether this is a quote, proposal or summary of your agreement, get it their hands as quickly as possible. Generally, people are busy, and as soon as you leave the meeting, they will get absorbed into other things, you don’t want the value you’ve just spent time establishing to diminish.

TOP TIP: A great way to keep at the forefront of a prospective clients mind is to send them a ‘thank you for your time’ email following a meeting. Why not create an email template in your email client to save you writing one each time. Here are some guides based on the most common email clients:

• Outlook 
• Gmail 
• Apple mail 

 

How ETC can help

If you need help turning your sales meetings from a conversation about price to one about value, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

This is the fourth in our sales series. If you haven’t already, you can read the others here:

1. Sales starting point: Attitude
2. The importance of a sales pipeline
3. Preparing for a sales meeting

Finally, that prospect you’ve had at the start of your sales pipeline for months has agreed to meet. It’s time to prepare for the meeting.

There are two elements to preparing for a sales meeting: the first is preparing your attitude, (and if you haven’t read the first part of our sales series, we recommend you check it out: sales starting point: Attitude), the second is research.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to researching the company before that first sales meeting. Either you can thoroughly investigate the company, or you can go straight in there without doing any research at all.

So which way is best?

 

Preparing for a sales meeting – The full research approach

If your preference is to research the company before your appointment, it’s always best to make sure you fully understand the company and the industry they operate within.

Nothing stalls the progress of a meeting more than making the wrong assumptions or delivering incorrect information about the client back to them. However, if you get this research right, it demonstrates that you’re familiar with the industry and have an understanding of the top-level company objectives. This can go a long way in establishing confidence in your abilities.

The best places to do company research include:

• Companies House
• Website
• Reviews platforms
• Social media
• LinkedIn profile of the person you’re meeting
• Partnering websites

 

TOP TIP: Remember, looking at a company website or literature alone won’t give you a true reflection of what the company needs. A company’s marketing is (or should be) customer focused. It’s giving you a clue as to what they want the end goal to appear to be, not how they operate.

Think Wizard of Oz – you want to see ‘the man behind the curtain’, not the Great and Powerful Oz.

And it’s this very sentiment that leads people to consider the second approach when preparing for that first sales meeting:

 

Preparing for a sales meeting – The open approach

The main benefit of the open approach to sales meeting research is you shouldn’t have any preconceptions or assumptions.

It’s always best to do a little research, like understanding who you’re meeting and the purpose of the meeting. However, only doing this basic research should mean you don’t have any preconceptions about the company. You’ll have to ask questions and seriously pay attention to their answers.

This approach can make the meeting feel more natural. However, it does rely on your skills as an interviewer. If this is something you’re concerned about, it’s best to write down some questions you know you need answering before you enter the meeting – it’s always best to know what you don’t know. Then, towards the end of the meeting, you can quickly check down your list to see if you can answer each question.

 

What is the best sales preparation approach?

At the end of the day, neither of these approaches has been proven to be better or worse than the other. However, understanding each method should help you refine your chosen technique, and you may even find that your approach is entirely dependent on the industry or individual client.

Whichever position you take, it’s about working in the best way for you. Your objective during these meetings should always be to gather enough information to effectively answer their needs with your product or service – and close the deal. How you get that information is up to you.

If you’re still unsure, one of the most effective ways to understand which approach to take can be to practice a technique called ‘Mental Rehearsal’. This visualisation process is what top-performing athletes use to help prepare themselves before a competitive performance.

Mental Rehearsal is designed to help you visualise your journey to success. This can be visualising your walk to the car, the car to the meeting, the questions in the meet and the handshake accepting the deal at the end. It may be that by mapping out this journey, you identify where barriers to your success are going to be, and can help you think about how you’re going to overcome them – either through research or writing a question to ask in the meeting.

There are lots of resources on visualisation techniques online. This one from American coach Jack Canfield is simple to follow and provides a practical example of Mental Rehearsal.

 

If you need help preparing for a meeting, or want to discuss either approach to preparation, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.

The sales pipeline, or sales board, is a set of defined stages that a prospect moves through to become a customer.

An effective sales pipeline will ensure you take each prospect on the best journey to maximise conversion. It also means you shouldn’t forget a prospect, what you need to do with that prospect and when you need to do it. It can also serve as a powerful analysis tool for your business.

If you want to increase sales and profits, you need a sales pipeline.

 

Do you have a sales pipeline or sales list?

It’s common for the sales pipeline to be confused with a list of prospective contacts. Although this is useful information, alone this isn’t likely to make you money.

Here’s a quick test to see if you have a pipeline or a list of people you’re trying to sell to:

Right now, without opening more than one spreadsheet or document, you should be able to answer these simple questions:

1. How many new prospects do you have?
2. How many quotes are with clients?
3. What’s the value of your last quote?
4. How many days until you need to follow-up your latest quote?

If you can’t answer each of these questions with a number, you need to re-evaluate, or create, a sales pipeline.

 

How to create a sales pipeline

When creating your pipeline, we recommend you start by looking at the stages you went through to secure your last successful sale.

The structure of a sales pipeline can differ from company to company, but here are some of the more common stages:

1. Contact. This is the initial exchange of contact information. This could happen via a referral, or through a phone call or meeting.
2. Qualification. This is where you take the time to understand the prospect’s problem. This could happen at the same time as the initial contact, but it’s usually a good idea to allocate some time to talk through their specific requirements. It’s also an excellent time to determine if there is a genuine need, they have the budget, and authority to buy in the near future – are they a legitimate prospect?
3. Proposal. At this stage, you outline the solution that best fits the prospect’s need and the cost.
4. Follow-up. You should always follow up each proposal. It may take several attempts to close the sale. Keeping on top of your follow up schedule will keep your pipeline live and useful.
5. Sale (Close). This is where the final negotiations are made and contracts are signed. The prospect is now a customer.

After you’ve written down the stages you need to make a sale, talk it through with someone who knows your business. They can help fill in any gaps or remove any unnecessary steps.

Once you’re happy with your pipeline, start placing each contact on your sales list in these stages.

The idea is to keep the sales pipeline simple, but not void of substance. As a guide, why not refer back to the questions at the start of this article. If your pipeline doesn’t allow you to answer these questions quickly, you may have missed a step.

 

Create your pipeline today

In a digital world, many people have their sales pipeline on a spreadsheet or use a sales tool built into their CRM system. At an early stage, it’s probably best to keep your pipeline as simple as possible. A complex tool or spreadsheet might prevent you from continually using it.

A pipeline is only useful if its used and continually updated and reviewed. When used correctly, a sales pipeline will increase the number of converted sales, guaranteed. Don’t over complicate it. Here are some simple ways to help you create and maintain a pipeline:

Online tools. Free tools like Hubspot and Trello allow you to create digital boards and then, using your mouse, drag cards through the various stages of your sales pipeline. Here’s an example of what a digital pipeline can look like:

Spreadsheets. Don’t want to use online tools? Why not use a spreadsheet? Simply create a list of all your prospects and detail what stage they’re at in your pipeline. You can then use filters and formulas to quickly summarise information.

Whiteboard. Have your sales board information prominently displayed in your office on a whiteboard. Divide your board into a grid and move each contact through the board manually. This is a great way to feel physically connected to each stage of the sales journey.

Top tip. If you prefer to go down a digital route, we still recommend using a whiteboard. This is absolutely best way to keep you sales focused as its always in front of you, prominently displayed in your office. You can keep the detail on your digital version, but use the whiteboard to remind you how many contacts are in each stage without opening up a document or app.

 

The power of an effective sales pipeline

The sales pipeline is probably one of the most powerful sales tools at your disposal – if used correctly.

Without complicating your pipeline, adding additional information will allow you to measure sales success and evaluate specific areas of your business.

For example, if you record when you first made contact and when you closed the sale, you can start to understand how long it takes you to convert a prospect to a client (on average). This helps you better forecast and understand how many prospects you need at the start of the year to pay the bills at the end.

Likewise, this information can be used to understand how many prospects turn to customers. This will tell you how many prospects you need at the start of the pipeline to make a profit. You may need to look at ways to improve your conversion if the numbers become concerning.

 

If you need help creating a sales pipeline, or if you have one and want to get more from it, please get in touch.

If you’re new to ETC, why not contact us for a free new business review? We’ll spend two hours with you, giving you professional coaching and will leave you with actions for immediate implementation.