Developing a Sales Focused Mindset
Handle the initial meeting with the client
You have joined the scheduled meeting (e.g Zoom call.) with the client and don’t find anyone in the meeting. Don’t see any message from the client about the delay. Don’t wait for than 3 mins in that call. Disconnect the call and drop an email saying – Hey just a heads up. I have got a lot of projects to work on today and I have got a couple of meetings lined up for the day. I need to head so that I can get on with rest of my work. If you want to reschedule feel free to use the link and you can reschedule for another day.
note: It might look hard but it works. As the client understand the importance of the time you have. If it’s an old client you can wait for couple of minutes more and send them message saying you already joined the link.
Be Accountable for Your Service
Be accountable for every things you do for the client. Do anything whatever possible in your limit for the success of the client. The end of the day when the client is happy with the service it gives lot of satisfaction for the effort you put forward.
Practice Sales Pitch
Practice the pitch again and again and again. More you practice more your pitch will be refined and to the point. You know what all redundant information can be removed and what all important information should be included. Learn to take enough pause while during your sales pitch. If you rush it make you look like amateur. Take your time to communicate precisely and concisely.
Get rid of Imposter Syndrome
Most of us feel uncomfortable when the time comes to discuss the right price for the service. You start feeling its too high for the service you are offering. If you are providing high quality service don’t hesitate to quote justified price. Don’t quote low. When you get the right price, you will be encourage to provide the right service.
High Value Projects vs Low Value Projects
Less client, better service and high value project better than too many clients, compromise in services and low value project
The Power of Client Endorsements
After every happy client build a portfolio of evidence of clients.
Get rid of fear of rejection
When the client is not extending the offer to you, there could be multiple reasons. Always ask the reason for not moving forward to see if something can be changed in your offer.
What if the Client say No and Reject Your Offer
There are multiple reasons for rejecting your service e.g too expensive, looking for different solution etc.Always assess the situation and learn from it. Do following –
- Ask Directly – I was just wondering as we were having great conversations & we seem like a great fit. What was it that stopped us from working together? I am just wondering if there something we can do our side to help us being the perfect fit, then I will be more than happy to explore it together. There is 50% chance they come back.
- If they don’t come back – then write a helpful email which states what all things they should look for the solution. Even if the solution is coming from someone else. In this way we are keeping the communication open, incase they are not happy with the solution someone else is providing, they will come to you. e.g Obviously the next big thing in your business is doing digital marketing. We have packages and I will link it to the pages. So if you want to work with us please let me know. I am more than happy to work with you again. If you don’t that’s absolutely fine.I just want to make sure you are fully supported by us and you have all the guidance that you need to make your business successful. So at any point while working with someone else, if you have any questions whatsoever please let me know. I am here to help you. And I mean it.
Offer Free Consulting to the Client to Frame their Requirement
Even if the client is not moving ahead with your service, offer consulting to understand the right requirement for the business. So that they are able to get the right solution from some other service provider. Be an expert help them to take the right decision for their business. It will boost their confidence in you, in case the other provider failed to solve their problem the client will consider your to get the solution.
Sales Techniques and Methods
Feature vs Benefit
Focus more on benefit then feature in your offering. What all benefits client will have by accessing your service.
Sale vs Prescribe
My Calendar
During the presentation show your calendar in a subtle way just to make the client realise that your are having a busy schedule in providing professional services. It will have a positive impact and help in getting the contract sign with minimum number of calls.
Ghost Opening Method
Show the calendar and say – I had a client who was looking to start their website this week and they have basically had to postpone it because they want to go through the logo development process with us first. This slot in the calendar is open for website development project only. As you also want to develop the website, I can allot this slot for your work with $200 discount. It is just to say thank you for helping us out filling that slot.
Use Mirroring in the Sales Call
Start mirroring the same concern the client is expressing. It assures the client that you are align with their situation and you will make sure that your services will address those pain points. e.g When the client is expressing the difficulty they are facing to get the right solution for digital marketing, just mirror them “aah you are facing difficulties to find the solution in digital marketing”.
Use Assumptive Sale Technique
After the call with the client we almost almost can guess whether the client is really interested to move forward or giving lip service. So use assumptive sales techniques. “Fine, I pretty much have everything that I need to move forward. I am going to send you over an email including all the packages that we offer. Just let me know which one you would like to go ahead with. We will take it from there.” This shows more confidence and easier for the client.
Ask about pricing. Thats fine even If the client not decided about the pricing.
Don’t end the conversation with – “Do you want to go ahead with a package? So that I will send you in the email.” It difficult for the client to decide and answer in the spot. So chances of rejection is more.
Urgency and Scarcity
Be proactive after your meeting with the client. Always send back a mail or detailed about your offering within 12-24 hrs. In some occasions the client might take some time to rollout the offer to you. Just put the ball in their court – “Obviously take as much time as you need to make the decision. I know it’s a super important decision for you. Once you are ready to get the ball rolling and get started, let me know and I can check our schedule.” What does it say subconsciously? Check our schedule not my schedule. Because that suggests that there’s a big team of us. And we work in multiple other projects. We definitely want to work with you in case we are not having our schedule packed during that time. It adds urgency and scarcity without being too pushy.
Parrot & Captain
Usually the area you are providing service, you are the expert there and client needs your guidance. If you empower the client by saying you are the captain of the ship and the parrot on the shoulder. Provide different options pros and cons. And together make final decision. The client feel more empowered and involved in the project.
Power of FOMO
The client has desired to work with you but need a little extra push. Make it clear in your website, calendar & even mention in a subtle way that you work with a limited number of clients per month to maintain the quality of delivery. We get 10-20 enquiry every single day. We select the one that we think we can do best because we really care about our clients. It completely shifts the power dynamic of a client and service provider relationship.
Garden & Butterfly Philosophy
Don’t chase butterfly rather make a beautiful garden that butterflies come by themselves. The client will come to you if you provide value to the client. Take the example of two freelancers where one constantly messaging clients – “What you think about our offering? Is the price correct? When can you get back? Blabla bla”. On the other hand another freelancer send mail saying – “Fine, I pretty much have everything that I need to move forward. I am going to send you over an email including all the packages that we offer. Let me know whenever you want to get started.”
Halo Effect
When a client work with you something and you did extremely good job. He starts assuming you will be good at everything.
Power of Niche
Find the area you are the best at.Or the service which is at the very very beginning of the buyer’s journey. As they are developing. Don’t try to be best at everything. Even if you are best at everything don’t let people know that. They don’t believe you. They want specialists in a particular field. And then you can build business on top of that.
Sales Call Structure
Listen to the client carefully. Ask detailed questions until you unearth what all pain points they want to get resolved. At the end of it, reiterrate all pain points one by one, and mentioned what all are common problem almost with every clients that you have solved so far. Which gives the confidence to the client that you have the solution they can get once they decider to move ahead with you. But at this point instead of asking for sale, ask if they have any questions.
Shock Technique
In this technique you down sell your services. Say you have two packages – one const 2k and other cost 4k dollar. You know customer have money and would be ready to pay for the high cost package as well. But if you think the low cost package will be sufficient enough to meet their need. Then put it this way – Explain both the packages to the client and then mentioned that go for 2k as you think it will meet their requirements. Your this move will make the customer feel that you are there not only to make the profit but you think of the customer first. This is bring the repeat business which will be much much more higher than the 4k dollar. Be honest with your suggestion.
Client Relationship Building and Management
Discover the Clients Budget
The client usually do not disclose their budget because of the fear that the service provider might misuse it by raising their service cost. The simple way is to put your package price in the website. It makes life easy. Only those clients will approach you who are ready to match your price. But most of the service provider don’t want to put their service cost upfront in the website.
Other way just understand the clients requirements, at the end repeat each requirements point by point and mention the solution can be achieved in multiple ways- some are bit expensive and some are more expensive. Let me know where roughly you want me to aim. If you say your budget is $500, it’s going to be really difficult for me to help you. But you can set it up for 5 to 4k dollars it will be far doable and you are going to get a result which is going to last the test of time. By saying so you are anchoring the client to stay in the range of 5-4k dollar. Observe their expression, if they say they never thought of this high price, you have a rough estimation what they are looking for. Try to see you put your quotation forward as 5-4k not 4-5k. (higher to lower value) Psychologically it provide comfort to the client.
Connect with Your Client’s Dream
Overcome Challenging Client Objections
Every business will be having a set of standard objections that will keep coming from the clients. Analyse those objections and prepare yourself to handle those. See how you can turn those objections into benefit. Whenever the client bring up with the objections the first thing you need to do is agree with them. Say, honest there are many clients who brought up the same questions. You are not alone. I am really glad that you ask them. The reason we keep it here blabla…. (Turn into benefit)
Negotiation
In any negotiation the person who wants more to get the deal done need to do more compromises. So try to create a deep funnel so that anyone asking for more discount you can say – honestly speaking the discussion is on to revise the offering and hike the price in two months. Currently we are working with multiple clients that it is getting difficult to handle.
Unbreakable Rapport
Find some common interests, hobby etc. Spare sometime to discuss on those common ground. A person always wants to work with another person they are comfortable with.
Minimise Client Revisions
Spend time to understand the client’s requirement. Discuss with them the approach before start working on it. Refine your system and processes.
Use Stories from Previous Projects to put the Client at ease
How other clients had similar problems, how your solution kept refining until it reached the final desired solution.
Managing the Expectation
Under promise over deliver. In case you are missing the deadline keep the client posted. Ideally keep updating the client frequently about the progress. e.g If a train is running late and all passengers having no clue when it will reach. Instead of investing on making the railway track super high tech, add a timer in the station which shows how long more it will take the train to arrive. In that way the expectation of the passengers are managed.
Getting Pricing Perfect
Use Number to Make Your Price More Attractive
Sometime client may ask you to justify your pricing. Be ready with number to justify your price. e.g Say your giving service like performance testing.
- You can ask how many visitors are hitting your website per day?
- How many of them are making the purchase?
- What is the average amount spend by customers who are purchasing? say $10.
- What is your average cost of customer acquisition?
- What is the number of customers who is not purchasing? Say answer is 1000.
- Even if 10% of the customers are not purchasing because of the performance issue, it’s a huge loss if you calculate in month and then year. That where our service is fixing the issue.
How to Raise Your Prices Effortlessly
If you have no idea what should be your ideal price, refer some professional in your area and compare your skill level with that professional. It will help you to decide your price. Constantly keep improving the value of your service the price will get improve as well.
Price Anchoring Sales Technique
Create three packages for your service.
- 1st basic package that will never meet all client’s requirement. Priced medium.
- 2nd package should be good enough to meet all the requirements of the client. This is the package we are targeting that client will select. Little expensive.
- 3rd package always covers services little more than the client’s requirement. But price is super premium i.e very high.
Price Your Services Strategically
When you are not available to work or wanna take a break for sometime. Increase your price in a big way. Incase you are getting any client who is ready to pay you such an inflated amount it will give you the push to work during that time. It will also give you an idea that your service charge can be hiked. If no one comes thats fine anyway you wanted a break for yourself.
Use discount to charge more
Two same services in quality. One is charging $1000 and 2nd one is charging $2000 but giving 50% discount. The client will choose the 2nd one where discount is given. This is human psychology.
Sales Generating Assets
- Design a portfolio that wins more client
- Setting up Calendly meeting
- Strategically improve your website using Hotjar
- Get client testimonials for your website
Reference
https://calendly.com — The calendar link you can share with your client so that they can book slot for discussion
https://www.hotjar.com — Understand what all activity the client does on your site before booking the service with you.
