Nicities – Start the meeting off with some basic, polite questions. How are you? What’s on today for you? What’s the main project you have going at the moment? Don’t spend too long on this though. Dribbling into your personal life or trying to bond on having the same interest in a sport or talking about the weather for ages will make any prospect sick to their stomach. Get to the point by saying something like “Awesome look, I know you are busy, sounds like we both are, so let’s kick things off.”

Discovery Questions – I have heard sales gurus profess to talking about your company and process first before discovery questions, I disagree. You want to get out as much information about their needs and pain points without coming accross as though you are intregoating them. You don’t want to come accross as someone who is working out just how much money you can squeeze out of them. I would ask 5-15 discovery questions usually such as “How long have you been in the market for a ________” and “Why do you want this now, what has triggered it?” “What has stopped you from doing it in the past?” “Do you need this by a certain timeframe?’ Then I would move into asking questions about the scope, size, personnel, current systems of the business.

Introduction – Introduce yourself first, your experience, your credibility. Maybe other staff members credible backgrounds also. Then talk about your company and who you help and for how long you have been doing so(Though if you are only a year old or so I wouldn’t mention how long in business).

Goals for their business – “So Gary, where do you want to take the business this year?” and then “Let’s go deeper into that, what is behind you wanting such growth?” You could also ask how long has this been your goal and how will you feel if you, in a year’s time have not achieved this. While speaking about the benefits of action, don’t forget the cost of inaction also.

What do they know about what your selling – Just clarify that they fully understand the product/service that you are selling.

Talk about your service delivery – This is the main body of the presentation, this is where it’s time for you to talk about how you get the results you do for your customer. Talk about how you are different. I would advise splitting up the benefits of working with you into 3 easy to remember pillars. For example: 1) We do all the work for you 2) We do it faster than the competition 3) We give you a money back guarentee. Then explain each pillar in this format: THE PROBLEM, OUR SOLUTION, YOUR BENEFIT. For example:

THE PROBLEM – We find our clients don’t have the time nor the internal resources to do this themselves. We know you are a busy director, juggling a million things. You know you need this but you just don’t have the time to get it done right first time around.

THE SOLUTION – We have listened to our clientele and we know what they want… They want us to do all the work so that is what we do. We will do this that and this all for you, working for you in the background on your behalf.

THE BENEFIT – This way you can be 100% confident the job will get done and you can focus on your highest and best use in the company and not getting bogged down with this that and the other.

Recap and Resonate – Recap the three pillars and ask them if they resonate or if they are attractive or if they are what they are searching for. Which ones? Why? What would it mean for you if decided to have us handle this for you?

Clarify exactly what is required from them – We want to make sure that they are 100% clear on what is required from them in order to avoid any confusion or disstaisfaction down the track.

Show your work and clients – Showing your quality of work and the great clients you have signed up will give them some visual peace of mind. They will be able to see that others similair to them have taken the plunge and therefore it won’t be so risky working with you.

Recap buying motivators – Recap their pain points, needs, wants and deeper reasonings for wanting your service. Ask them if there is anything else you need to know? Or if they are 100% clear on the service delivery.

Pricing – Use the pricing stage as one more opportunity to resell the value in your process… E.g. So we will do _____ which will save you 6-12 months of work, etc.

Close – “Look it seems to me that you have thought this through and it’s something that you want to get done and dusted, is that a fair statement?”

“Ok No problem, so… Are you happy with myself and the team taking care of this for you?”

Speak with confidence when you ask the above. Any quiver in your tone could mean NO SALE.