Professional:  I was wondering if you could help me.  I’ve been told that I talk too much at sales meetings.  And I know it’s true.  I’ve tried to stop, but I always seem to be the one who’s doing most the talking?  Is this the kind of thing you can help with?
 

Coach:  Tell me more.
 

Professional:  Well, I always go into a sales meeting with the best intentions, but somehow I always end up talking and the prospective client ends up asking the questions.  I don’t know how it happens.  I feel I have to answer his questions and that means I have to talk.  I’ve been doing this work for many years, so I can size up most issues that a client is concerned about pretty quick.  That’s a part of the problem.  In some ways I know their problems better than they do, I’ve seen them so many times before.
 

Coach:  Can you give me an example?
 

Professional:  Sure.  Last week I met with an old client.  I asked him if he might need our help over the next few months, and he mentioned an issue his department was struggling with and asked if we had ever done any work in that area.  I only knew about one matter of that kind that we had ever worked on, so I described it. I could tell I had scored some points, because his level of interest picked up a lot, and before I knew it the hour was up, and I had done all the talking, and it was time for me to go.  He acted as if he was ready to hire us.
 

Coach:  Really?
 

Professional:  Oh yes.  We even talked about getting started next week.  He wants the work done fast, and he was particularly interested in how we had delivered on such a tight schedule for the other client. That hour went by in a blink. He was so interested in the example I gave, I thought for sure we had won.  But I was wrong.  He called this morning and told me he had hired someone else.  When I asked him why, he said that the other firm understood their problem better. It’s the third time in two months that I’ve had my head handed to me this way.  Have you seen this kind of problem before?
 

Coach:  Yes, but I have a few more questions.  Can you elaborate on what happened during the first part of the meeting?
 

Professional:  You mean right from the beginning? . . . .  Let’s see. . . . He met me in the lobby and we went into a small conference room.  I asked how things were going, and he talked for a bit.  I don’t remember exactly what he said.  But somehow he brought up their new operation in Minnesota.  That’s when he asked if we had done anything similar.  I guess that’s when I started talking.  But I’m not sure what choice I had.
 

Coach:  You sound pretty frustrated.
 

Professional:  I sure am.  I just don’t see how I can avoid talking so much.  I mean, when a prospective client asks you a question, you have to answer him, don’t you?
 

Coach:  What else?
 

Professional:  I’ve sometimes been criticized for talking too fast, too.  I always . . .  

*  *  *  *  *

In a sales meeting do you act more like the professional in the preceding dialog or like the coach?  There are many short phrases that will keep a client talking:
 

Tell me more
Can you give me an example?
Really?
Can you elaborate?
You sound frustrated or That can’t be easy
What else?
I’m not sure I understand
And then?
And so?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Rain making, Prospective Client, Selling Professional Services, Questioning Technique, Sales Meeting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.