In the past, the “ABC’s” of selling was a recognized acronym for “Always Be Closing.” as you may remember for the 1990s movie Glengarry Glenross. Here at ASLAN, we want to rework that definition to mean something more aligned with our Other-Centered® Selling philosophy.
Focusing on the idea of “advancing the sale” not pushing prematurely for the close. Our new ABC’s of selling stands for “Advance Because you Care.” It’s about choosing the right thing, the next right step, at the right time, to move your sales cycle along.
If you prefer to take this topic on the go and listen to our conversation, feel free to check out sALES with ASLAN podcast episode 76:
Advancers > Closers
When you leave a meeting or presentation, or any interaction, without getting a commitment to a specific next step, your chances of getting a follow-up meeting or call with the prospect are drastically reduced. At ASLAN, we refer to this as the Exit Principle. Asking a prospect, “Can I follow up with you in a few weeks?” isn’t good enough. You need to get a commitment, a concrete commitment, with a planned next step in the sales cycle, before leaving the current meeting.
What stops sellers from asking for the logical next step, setting a date, or assigning any type of “homework?”
I think the main reason most sellers hesitate to ask for a hard commitment to this next step, is that we don’t know what to ask for. Transactional selling is a bit more straightforward – you’re essentially just getting to a point where you ask the customer, “Would you like to purchase?”
But with the other 90% (more complex, involved or B2B) sales cycles, a process of steps is required before the customer is ready to commit and make a purchase. As sellers, we need to know what those steps are/ should be, in order to be able to ask the customer to commit to each one as we advance the sales cycle.
Do some homework. Sit down and make a list of potential next steps/ events. Have (or create) a process. A process will actually help you advance the opportunity more quickly, because the idea and purpose behind this process is not to undermine your creativity as a salesperson, but to give you “guardrails” to keep yourself on track and moving forward.
3 Steps to Advance Your Sales Cycle
We’re in the “advance” part of the sales cycle. Either we’ve had a meeting, made a presentation, made a recommendation, had some questions, maybe covered some objections… but we’re at a point where the customer has either a neutral or positive response to what we’re recommending.
It’s time to sell your process, not your products. Stop selling what you do, you’ve done that, now you’re trying to sell, or influence, them to buy into (and commit to) your process.
The most important part of this is to have one! And by process, we don’t mean your company’s sales process (i.e. qualify the opportunity, identify needs, etc.)
We’re talking about a process of possible next steps, a course of actions, that your prospects and customers can take to better evaluate what you do and make a decision about whether or not it’s something they should commit to.
There are 2 criteria for the event or next step. It should:
- Help them understand your competitive advantage, the value of your solution. It helps them see what you do, experience it and understand it.
- Require action from the customer.
That second step is the key, and most sellers miss this piece. We ask, “Can I send you a proposal?” To which the customer may reply, “Yes” and then never read what we send. There’s nothing prompting them to reply, or even necessarily review, the proposal. This doesn’t qualify as advancing – this is just the rep putting in the work, while the customer has nothing for which they are accountable.
This is why we need the process, the action steps:
1 – Make Your List
Sit down and actually make a list: write down several things (logical next steps) that you can ask your customers to do. This could be a very wide range of actions, depending on your industry and company.
Let’s take ASLAN for example, as a vendor of sales training. When advancing a prospect, I could ask for things like:
- Send me a job description of your reps, so we can better understand their role and where we might be able to help.
- Set up a content review call, so we can go through a few of the things we teach and see if it’s relevant for you.
- Attend one of our trainings
- Talk to one of our customers
- Have us come onsite and conduct an assessment
One of the things on your list should probably be a proposal review call or meeting.
Rank these steps from top to bottom based on the customer’s commitment level. Put higher level commitment steps near the top. For example, if the customer is getting ready to make a decision and make a purchase, that’s a high level of commitment, and they may be ready for a proposal review meeting. But a prospect you just connected with for the first time will have a lower commitment level, and require something from the bottom of your list, like a follow-up call or a demo.
Your job, before leaving the meeting, is to match the prospect’s commit level to the next right, logical step on your ranked list – and get a commitment to it. This leads us to Step 2.
2 – Ask For It
Just ask for the commitment to that next step. But this is important: ask your prospect in an OtherCentered(R) way. Because it’s not just a close, it’s an OtherCentered offer.
Closing, or advancing, is more about timing than technique.
There are all kinds of “sales” tactics used to close deals – the assumptive close, the sympathy close, the favor close. The book Spin Selling by Neil Rackham covers many of these in detail and is a great read for those of us who sell for a living.
Do not get caught using a “closing technique” – it’s not about tricking someone into the sale. But you do have to ask them to take the next step, in an Other-Centered way.
You have to give your customer the reason why it benefits them, and not just you, to take that next step. This is the rule for making an Other-Centered offer. In some way, you have to communicate to your customer: Taking this action will benefit you, even if you don’t buy from us.
Skip to minute 23:30 in this sALES with ASLAN podcast episode for a few examples of how this could sound.
Remember, you’re giving the benefit of taking the proposed next step, not the benefit of your product. Your motive matters – your job is to help people make decisions, not tell them how awesome your products or services are.
3 – Set a Date & Time
Get a date and time from them, a specific and on-calendar commitment. You can frame it as a tentative placeholder if need be: “I’m not sure if we’ll need to meet, but I know if we leave we’re going to end up playing phone tag or emailing back and forth. Would it be okay if we just looked at our calendars now and set a time just in case?”
Pick a couple weeks out and put something on the calendar as a “placeholder” meeting. You can check out more of our resources on sending Other-Centered invitations and setting meetings.
While this doesn’t 100% guarantee the follow-up will occur, it’s a lot more likely than if you were just to leave the meeting with a vague plan to “reach out at a later date.” It’s a lot easier to blow off a call or an email than a set calendar invite.
Relationships Are a Two-Way Street
There’s an interesting dichotomy with the relationship between the rep and the client. When at its best, the relationship should work both ways, it should be a two-way street. If the sales rep is doing all the work, it’s a warning sign that the prospect may not be all that interested.
But if the rep and the prospect are sharing in the process and the workload, that shows a more serious level of commitment on the customer’s end as well. While I don’t love the word “assignment,” if you assign some type of “work” to the prospect and it’s well-received, that demonstrates they are also invested in the process. For example, “I’m going to send you this article to read, before I send over a proposal, just to make sure some of these questions get answered.” This requires commitment from both sides, buyer and seller.
If you’re going through all the time and effort to put together an awesome and unique proposal, ask the customer, “Would it be okay if we got together to look over and review the proposal together, so that I can explain some of the nuances and specifics?”
It’s not necessarily a quid pro quo scenario, the workload won’t be “even,” so to speak. As the rep, we should be putting in more of the work – but the customer needs to come to the table as well.
This is where having a process will help both you and your prospect move through the sales cycle with efficiency and actionable steps.
Does this Always Work?
There is still a chance that your prospect may hesitate or even say no. If and when this happens, don’t erode the credibility, trust and rapport you’ve built by pushing too hard.
If your prospect previously seemed receptive and positive, but is now hesitating to commit to your offer, it’s likely because you picked wrong on the commitment scale or your list of next steps.
You can always back it down again and propose one of the lower level commitment steps. The customer may feel they “owe” you that, if they were interested but turned down the first offer you made. If they like you and the second offer makes more sense for them, they’ll probably agree to it.
Remember, the ABCs of selling: Advance Because you Care.
Ready for More?
If your team is struggling to make the transition to virtual selling, be sure to check out our new program.
We would be happy to understand your challenges and see if we can help. We started as an inside sales training company in 1996 and the challenges we faced then are in many ways the same as those we all face today.
Marc Lamson
As President of ASLAN, Marc is responsible for all day-to-day operations including our sales and marketing efforts and growing our success in helping our clients be Other-Centered®.
