The 4 Pre’s that’ll make Selling easier.

The 4 Pre’s that’ll make the selling easier.

We all want to make more sales, yes? If you’re not looking to make more sales, you’re at least looking to make your existing sales process easier. In this short blog, I’m going to describe the 4 Pre’s that will make selling whatever it is that you do easier.

Before you get to talk to anyone about sales of whatever it is that you do i.e the closing stage. You want prospects who are:-

• Pre-informed
• Pre-qualified
• Pre-motivated
• Pre-disposed

This is about selling the right product to the right person at the right time, who is both motivated and predisposed to buy, we all like to buy but we hate being sold to. So let’s break this down into distinct steps that you can build into your processes.

Step 1. Pre-qualifying.

There are few things more disheartening than focusing time, energy and thought on a particular sales pitch, only to have it end with a shake of the head and a firm “No thanks”.  You wonder where it went wrong: you thought this was a guaranteed sale, but did you pre-qualify your prospect?

Naturally, there can be a variety of reasons for losing a sale, but often it can be when you don’t pre-qualify your prospects. We all remember Alec Baldwin’s mantra in the film Glengarry Glen Ross – ‘Always be closing.’ But sometimes, those in sales try to close a sale long before it’s even a sale. Consider the salesman who sees you walk into the shop and immediately launches into a well-rehearsed and confident sales speech – and this is before they even know why you’re there!

Rather than blindly selling to those who may not even want or need your product or service you need to qualify your leads. It begins with profiling, knowing who would benefit the most from your product or service (look at the ‘Step by Step guide to identifying your ideal customer’). However there is another little step you need to take here, and that’s asking the financial question. They may benefit from your product or service but can they afford your product or service? To successfully qualify your prospects you need to know that they would both benefit from owning what you sell and that they can afford it, or are willing to pay for what you sell. This leads to the next step ‘Pre-informing’ your prospect.

Step 2. Pre-informing.

If you have prospects who are fully pre-informed before you enter the final closing stages of the buyer’s journey then the chances of you successfully closing the sale are considerably higher. At the beginning of the journey your prospect knows nothing about:-

• You
• Your Product
• How you solve their problem
• Or even if they have a problem in the first place.

Therefore the role of this step is about pre-informing your prospect of these four points before you go any further. So have you firstly, identified the problem that you solve, this could be helping business owners understand the numbers in their business for example for an accountant or solving a logistics problem of getting stuff from A to B for a freight forwarding company. Knowing the problem you solve for your prospect will enable you to talk with them on an emotional level, and we know that people buy emotionally and justify with logic.

It may be that your prospect is completely unaware that they have a problem in the first place, or that there is a solution to the problem they have. Your job here is to pre-inform the prospect that the problem exists and that you have a solution to that problem. In describing your product you need to link it to the problem that the prospect has and doesn’t want, or to a solution that they are looking for.

Finally in this step you need to pre-inform the prospect why they should choose you in the first place, this means not just highlighting the benefits you bring as opposed to your competition but also reminding them why they need the problem solved in the first place. Your competition is not always obvious, it can just as easily be ‘doing nothing’ as opposed to something (more about this later in Step 4).

Step 3 Pre-motivating.

If you’ve done the first two steps right, i.e. pre-qualifying and pre-informing your prospects then the next step is Pre-motivating them to take action. The actions you require can be small steps or large it doesn’t really matter, because if they are not pre-motivated enough they won’t take any action.

Pre-motivation is all about creating a desire in your prospect for their problem to be solved. This is about highlighting the benefits the prospect will receive once their problem is solved or they have the solution they are looking for. Selling them on a future that is better than their current situation.

In any form of sales if there is no desire there is no sale – it’s that simple! Desire is to wish or long for something. But how do we get our prospects to want it so bad they just have to have it?

Here are my suggested top questions which will create the necessary urgency and give you a better understanding of your prospects needs.

1. How important is it that they solve this problem and what’s the timeframe?
2. What are the consequences if they do nothing – cost per day?
3. How do they assess value?
4. What are the major challenges they are addressing at the moment?
5. What are their key areas of focus at the moment, and are these likely to change in the short/medium term?
6. Why do they want this so much?

Step 4 Predisposed.

If you’ve done the previous 3 steps right you should have pre-qualified, pre-informed and pre-motivated prospects who are predisposed to buy, however even at this late stage it’s still possible to lose the sale. Just because prospects are predisposed to buy doesn’t mean that they’ll buy from you. You need to give them a reason to choose you over your competition. This means that you need to highlight your MDP (Market Dominating Proposition). An MDP comprises both your USP (Unique selling proposition) and your business delivery model.  When you create your own market-dominating position, you will consistently get businesses and individuals to choose your business over your competitors. A “market dominating position” is any value-added customer perceived benefit, or a combination of benefits, that differentiates you from your competitors… and does so in a strong enough manner that it makes your business the logical choice in the minds of your prospects and customers.

For example, a dry cleaner that offers pick-up and delivery would be the only logical choice for anyone that hates doing laundry and values convenience. The key is to create added value in everything you do. The critical point you must understand is that your prospects and customers DON’T buy based on price… they buy based on the value they receive for the price they pay. Only when you fail to communicate value do prospects default to price. Creating added value is a strategy that can take the form of a product or service that’s added to your original offering for free or as part of a discounted package.

So to summarize, if you have prospects that are pre-qualified, pre-informed, pre-motivated and predisposed to buy from you the hardest part of the sale is done.