291: Your Agenda Or The Buyer’s When Selling

<p>What would the buyer’s agenda be, during the sales call?  “Don’t take too long, because I am busy”, “Don’t waste my time with stuff I don’t need”, “Don’t erode my cash flow”, “Don’t rip me off”, would probably be the most prevalent.  Our clients often tell us one of the biggest problems they have with their sales teams, is the buyer runs the sales meeting. Their own salespeople just sit there, nice and sweetly and do whatever the buyer wants.  “We are paying them, but we feel they are working for the buyer not for us”, is another common complaint.  This is all very fortunate or we would have nothing to do!</p> <p> </p> <p>“Always be closing” is an old saw in sales and is partially correct.  As salespeople, we have no idea if what we do or what we have is going to be relevant for the buyer.  From the buyer’s point of view, they are not sure if we or our company are the right people to do business with.  We need to build trust from the very start, before we even think about closing the buyer.  How do we do that?</p> <p> </p> <p>Trust is hard to build in sales. The image of salespeople is high pressure, lots of smooth talking and duplicitous attempts to get a sale.  This would be a great set of descriptions for failing salespeople, who will shortly be ejected from the profession.  We do not want to get smeared with that brush, so we need to make it clear to the buyer we are real professionals. </p> <p> </p> <p>We present ourselves in a manner which says, “this is a solid person, who looks professional”.  Buyers initially only have our outward appearance to go by, when they meet us.  We must make that winner.  For men, that means no food stains on the tie, no crumpled suit or one which doesn’t fit properly, no scuffed, worn down shoes, clean ironed shirt, etc.  In my experience, women have better common sense about how to dress for business and don’t have these types of problems.</p> <p> </p> <p>What comes out of our mouth has to be clear, articulate and confident.  That means no umming and ahhing.  If we don’t so