#6 - Get the best out of your first meeting
So, your partner has successfully generated interest in your defined prospect base and now you have a lot of “level 0” meeting to deal with.
This is a great news as this was the expected result of ?well targeted multichannel campaigns.
Now, you need some tactical advice to get the best of your first meeting and beyond.
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Tip #1: Beware of selling with slides
They’re shiny. They’re polished. They’re presentation ready.
But slides can?easily?become your enemy if you use them on a discovery call.
According to a recent analysis from a well know Web conferencing platform, ?of 803,402 recorded sales meetings from deals,?win rates drop by 17% when reps use slides on discovery calls.
So why don’t slide work in discovery calls?
Because slides denote a?presentation, not a?conversation, and the best discovery calls are a real back and forth in terms of information exchange.?
In other words, when you use slides,?you end up talking to the slides instead of to your buyer.?
Using slides during discovery has three unintended (and problematic) consequences:
It’s definitely time to drop slides from your discovery call lineup. Stop talking and start listening so you can learn enough to position your product as the buyer’s dream solution.
Tip #2: Stop selling solo. Start team selling.
Got a $50k deal lined up? Good. Multi-thread it to boost your chances of winning.
Got a?$500k?deal lined up? Better get your crew involved.?
That’s not just true for enterprise sales these days. It applies to?every?major deal in your pipeline.
Big deals require big teams of people on both sides to get to signature. Get them all engaged and you’ll see a boost in your deal sizes.*
Deal value increases when more buyers are involved in the sales cycle. Let’s connect with your sales partner to benefit from the various resources offered. They are good at role playing different scenarios.
*According to our analysis of more than 1,000 sales deals
On the buyer’s side, you’ll want to get several types of people involved:
Think one lone rep can handle all those folks on their own??Not so fast... They need support from others in their org to get the deal done.
And that’s a?good thing. Sell as a team and you’ll win more often, and ultimately get a better win rate. From 15% with a “No team selling” up to a 50% with 3 or more persons involved.
Creating alignment on both sides of the deal means involving everyone from the technical folks who can validate what’s in the weeds, to big-picture alignment between executives at a strategic level.
Put simply, if you want to close 6-figure deals, you need a team selling strategy.?
If you want to close 6-figure deals, you need a team selling strategy.?
And that’s important because high-stakes deals can make or break your quarter.?
To reduce risk, sales leaders need?total visibility?into what’s happening inside these types of deals — who’s involved, who’s engaged, whose enthusiasm is lagging on the buyer’s side, etc.:
Only then can a sales org adequately support the lead rep in a major deal.?
“Never lose alone” isn’t just a saying in sales, it’s a strategy for winning BIG.
Tip #3: Avoid holiday “dead zones”
When the holidays approach, the foundation of every deal starts shaking.
When you try to close deals in certain holiday zones,?meetings will slip, deals will stall, and you’ll waste time chasing traveling execs for signatures that never materialize.
How do we know that’s true? We analyzed more than 400k sales interactions for holiday trends.?We found that prospects are much less likely to sign contracts during the week of major holidays:
During Christmas week, sign rates drop by 78% (!)
If you’ve forecasted a deal to close on Christmas Eve, you’re more likely to get a lump of coal.
Instead of aiming to close on holiday weeks, get agreement from buyers on a closing plan for the week?before?the holiday.?
Sales leaders, if you want to bring your reps through the holidays unscathed, keep an eye out for deals that are scheduled to close on the worst days for signing at year’s end.
Why are those dates?so?risky??
Because that’s when reps are?~2x more likely to get stood up for a sales meeting, and that will stall?everything.
Buyers who agreed to meet during the last weeks of the year will feel no remorse when they bail at the last minute, and?their attendance rate will drop by 78% during Christmas week.
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They’re tired. They’re depleted. And there’s holiday fun to be had if they skip your meeting.
Instead, hold your meetings on days when buyers are the most likely to show over the holidays.
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Tip #4: After the meeting, never negotiate over email
Once the meeting done, Negotiating is one of the most important skills in sales.?
Unfortunately, it’s also the skill in which reps are the?least trained.?
Even if you’ve read?Never Split the Difference, it’s a black hole of knowledge for most.
As a result, sellers (unknowingly) rely on tactics that do more harm than good.?
Case in point: negotiating over email.??
You’ve been told that it's a bad call —?but how bad, exactly?
We analyzed 7,854 sales opportunities, specifically looking at how emailing price impacted deal success.
First, the good news.?Win rates spike once pricing is shared over email.
But beware:?Win rates dramatically decrease as soon as you start?negotiating?over email.
It’s important to know that once you introduce pricing into the conversation,?it will inevitably evolve into a negotiation.
It might be obvious, like your buyer asking for a lower price.
Or they might ask a (seemingly) innocent question like “Does your finance team allow net 60?”
It’s tempting to reply with a “Yeah, no problem” to keep the deal moving.?
Don’t bite.?
Because here’s the thing: Once your buyer asks for anything, negotiations have begun.
Once your buyer asks for anything, negotiations have begun.?
Instead, move the conversation back to where you’ll win — in a live conversation, either in person or over the phone.
Negotiate over email and you risk being misunderstood (tone is tough to interpret in emails) or having your written offer used against you to negotiate with a competitor. You also lose control of the timing of your buyer’s response, unlike on the phone.
Make an initial offer, then suggest connecting to talk about it.?
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Tip #5: And start again: Write longer prospecting emails
You might’ve made this face when reading cold emails:
I mean, attention spans aren’t getting longer and decision makers aren’t getting less busy.?
So it’s easy to think “the shorter the better” when it comes to prospecting emails.?
Turns out, that’s not true.?
After analyzing more than 5,000 follow up emails, we learned that?longer emails are significantly more effective at booking a meeting.
Forget the “1-2” and “3-4” sentences and focus on 4+ sentences emails.
You can’t fit much value into a 30-word email. In something that short, your messaging is so broad, it loses the buyer’s attention.
You’re better off crafting something?substantial?and?personalized?that comes in at around 130 words.
A valuable 10-second read is more effective than a?quick?four-second read.
Make it concise. Make sure it’s well-crafted. Make sure?every word?adds value.
And whatever you do, make it?solid, because the effectiveness of cold emails decreases over time.
It is a known fact that prospecting emails effectiveness decreases steadily over time, with a reply rate that can go from 30 down to 20%.
Take a page from the book of closed-won and put your best move forward right off the bat.
That means NEVER using the phrases below in a cold email. If you do, your reader will hit?delete?faster than you can say “How’s next Thursday?”:
Reps use those phrases all the time, but they’re a disaster for your booking rates (and win rates… and commission...).
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Don’t hesitate to contact a Yoorop sales expert if you have plans to increase your sales.