Selling Software: Introduction To Face-to-face Selling Of Software - Set Up And Discovery

Selling software face-to-face, usually in a B2B sales setting

, is a complex process. Having a good sales template for the process can both improve your results and lower your stress, allowing you to perform in a more natural, powerful way. Here's a high level introduction of an effective sales process.

Break the pattern - Keep prospects from falling into a standard sales defensive posture. Try to initiate all conversations with something that cannot be interpreted as sales talk. Avoid prolonged ritual pleasantries, at least to start. There's no formula for this, just do your best to avoid sounding like a sales person.

Get agreement for today's step and the next - State your agenda for the meeting, ask if they have an agenda, get their agreement on how long it should take and that they will commit to the time. Get agreement on the possible outcomes of the meeting, and what the next steps would be if the meeting is successful. Do all this fairly quickly.

Discover the pain - This may be your most difficult task. Your job is not to talk, but to get them to talk. You want them to tell why you they would consider buying something. "What problems are you having? Why is that a problem? And what problem does that cause? Why does anyone care about that problem? What's the business impact? What's the personal impact? Do you care enough about the problem to do something about it in the very near future?" Also ask what they've tried to do in the past to fix the problem and why it didn't work.

Some prospects will push you to just tell them about your product. Learn to avoid that at this stage. If they press you, try something like, "typically our customers come to us for three reasons... Do any of those sound familiar to you?" ...back to their problems.

Discover the budget - Most sales people find this step uncomfortable. But it needs to be done and it needs to be done early. (Usually after some overview discussion of pain points.) Here are a couple techniques (besides simply asking if they have a budget):

Ask if they have any idea how much their problem is costing them. "Has anyone quantified it? Is there a way to quantify it? What work or purchases could be eliminated? How many mistakes can be prevented? How many more sales can be made?"

Another technique is to give them a trial balloon range: "We find that customers with your particular needs end up spending somewhere from (lowball number) to (highball number). Is that a range that makes sense to you?" "Where do you see yourself fitting into that range?"

Discover the process - This comes down to the who, how, when and where of the prospect's decision making process.

If there is a single decision maker, you want to do your pain and budget discovery with that person if at all possible. If the purchasing process has been assigned to a subordinate you can try to arrange joint meetings. Your ultimate presentation will depend heavily on how well you've done your pain and budget discovery, so it's critical to get the best information possible before that presentation.

If the decision is by committee you need to try to arrange for input from other committee members beforehand through various communications you put together - in cooperation with your assigned point of contact. Get as much information as possible about the pain and budget perspective of each person.

A key part of qualifying the prospect is the timing of their decision, so you need to get their commitment as to when they will be ready to make a decision. In the end, you want to present your solution to the final decision maker(s) if at all possible. Do not leave it someone else to present your solution, they will not do it nearly as well.

This is a high level overview of the steps leading up to presenting your software solution. Again, up through this point the prospect should do almost all of the talking. Your talking should only be focused on getting them to talk 1) to make sure this is a good prospect for you and 2) to give you the information you need to create a great proposal. If you successfully execute the discovery process then the actual proposal process will be far more effective.

by: Steve Kilner

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