Sandlerbrief

One morning Juan, a new sales hire for Acme, Inc., found himself under pressure from his manager, Brad.

Anne is a partner in a small consulting firm. During a recent meeting with a key prospect, a senior decision maker at a Fortune 1000 firm, she handled the presentation.

Grace is a new salesperson, recently hired by a major software firm. She’s three months into her first year on the job, and she’s in trouble.

Jane was in trouble. After a stellar year as an inbound salesperson for her company, she had committed herself to the challenge – and the dramatically higher income potential – of a sales career where she was responsible for developing her own leads. But after 90 days on the job in her new role, her closing ratio was anemic.

After three months on the job, Myra checked the weekly spreadsheet and saw that her closing rate was abysmal. In fact, it was so low that she had landed at the bottom of her company’s sales rankings.

Maria was quite certain she’d laid the groundwork for a really big order.

Has this ever happened to you? A seemingly “hot prospect” asks you a question that seems to signal interest in working with you.

Beth is a new sales hire at TaskFlow, an enterprise software firm specializing in custom-designed project management applications.

Have you ever had a qualified prospect pick your brain for information – and then turn around and buy from the competition?

When Jenny began working for ABC Widgets three months ago, she was put through the company’s sales training program, where she was taught three ways to begin a sales meeting with a prospective customer.

Has this ever happened to you? You’ve had a series of great discussions with a prospect, taken lots of great notes, and you’ve developed the proverbial “killer presentation.” You’ve started to deliver that presentation, and you’ve gotten all kinds of positive signals from the prospect: encouraging body language, words of approval, that kind of thing.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in discussion with a prospect about the possibility of working together. The meeting is going well.

Have you ever been in the middle of delivering a presentation to a prospect … when you noticed that he or she seemed to have completely tuned out of whatever it was you were saying?

Have you ever tried one of those tricky “closing techniques” that are supposed to transform hesitant prospects into instant customers?

Have you ever had a series of good meetings with a prospect … gathered all kinds of information … and given what you thought was a great presentation … only to receive a response like, “Let me think about it”? Or, “I have to share all of this with my boss”? Or, “We’ll get back to you”?

Have you ever given a presentation to a prospect who seemed to be showing you nothing but “green lights” … until you came to the final page of your proposal?

Have you ever seen a prospect’s eyes glaze over? Most professional salespeople have had this experience. Maybe you have, too.

Have you ever given a presentation to a prospect who seemed ready to buy … but found that, for some mysterious reason, the opportunity went nowhere once your presentation was complete?

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in the middle of your second or third “good discussion” with a prospect. Everything’s going great. The prospect seems engaged and positively disposed to work with you. 

Has this ever happened to you? During an initial discussion with a prospect, you make it a point to review your pricing information. You put everything right out on the table.

Has this ever happened to you? You're in the middle of a discussion with a prospect, and suddenly you're caught flat-footed by what seems like an attack.

How many times has this happened to you? You got a promising referral, or scheduled a conference call, or showed up at an initial meeting with someone who seemed like a perfect fit for your product, service, or solution. 

Has this ever happened to you? You had an initial meeting with a prospect. You asked that prospect what seemed to be all the right questions. You had what felt to you like a good conversation, and based on that conversation, you scheduled the next meeting. You sat down at your computer. You prepared a proposal...

Salespeople sometimes dig themselves into a hole by leaping into action at the very first sign of interest from a prospect.

Have you ever made a prospecting phone call whose central message sounded something like this?

One way salespeople get themselves in trouble is by rushing to answer a prospect’s question … before they uncover the intent that’s driving that question. The question you hear is probably not the “real” question, and the intent behind that question is far more important than the surface meaning of the words.

Did you ever have a conversation with a prospect who suddenly, and for no apparent reason, became unreceptive to perfectly good advice? It happens to many salespeople.

How good would you say you are at listening to your prospect? Most salespeople we talk to rate themselves pretty highly in this area. Yet most, sad to say, fail the Tooth Fairy Test.

David Sandler’s search for knowledge about why and how people buy coincided with the Transactional Analysis (TA) movement in psychology.