Selling is All in the Timing

A proud salesperson wrote to me and shared how well his next big opportunity was teed up.

• He had an introduction in to the company.
• He knew they liked golf and arranged to play.
• He had arranged a tour of their products in use at a company similar to theirs.
• He had a meeting scheduled with their team.

It all looked very impressive – except for one thing…

The sequence was not ideal…

I suggested that the sequence be modified to coincide with their sales process:

Golf builds relationships so that occurs when Getting to 2nd base (of the Baseline Selling model).

The tour compliments a presentation of capabilities so that occurs while Running Home.

The scheduled meeting is really their first formal meeting and should be used to identify compelling reasons to buy and build SOB Quality – so that too takes place on the way to 2nd Base.

So the meeting sequence should be:

• Golf
• Meeting with the team and Reach 2nd and 3rd Bases
• Tour of the Client Site as one part of Running Home
• Score.

Selling is like cooking.

In this case we had all the right ingredients but in the wrong order – and when salespeople do things at the wrong time, those things are much more difficult to leverage.  Effective Selling is all about doing specific things at specific points in time.  Outcomes are in direct relationship to a salesperson’s consistency of application and timing.  They get it wrong and they’ll usually get the wrong outcome.  Get it correct and they’ll usually get the desired outcome.