One of my mentors is fond of saying, “Oh, so you emailed the proposal? I guess someone had to lose the job…” This snarky bit of feedback always makes me shudder, as it was meant to. Who among us hasn’t emailed the odd proposal here and there? We know we shouldn’t, but we do anyway. It’s easier and, hey, the client doesn’t need us hand-holding them to control sticker shock, right? Sure. If you say so…
If you’ve been selling long enough, you’ve experienced a prospect eschewing attempts to schedule a follow-up appointment to review the proposal. Worse, maybe you failed to set the appointment to review during the initial consultation and are left chasing your tail. Either way, the interactions always follow a predictable pattern.
You: “Mr. Big, I have your proposal ready for review. How does Monday at 10 AM sound?”
Mr. Big: “Can you just shoot it over? I’m slammed right now.”
You (biting nails): “I’d really like to walk you through it personally.”
Mr. Big: “I asked for a few other bids and they’re sending them today. I will be making my decision by 5 PM. Your call.”
You: “Okay, I’m sending it right now.”
If you failed to budget qualify your prospect or collect a design retainer, congratulations, you’ve just made them fall out of their chair onto the floor and they’ll be difficult to get hold of from now on. You did everything the prospect asked and were punished for it. Isn’t sales fun?
Also by Henry Clifford: Internal Referrals For the Win
Even in scenarios where you’ve properly set a future proposal review, the same “Could you just email it?” request can easily rear its head. We can’t change prospect behavior. We can, however, manage around it. Recently one of our A-player salespeople, Mario Lugo, came up with a genius method for saying “Yes” to this deadly prospect request.
Mario has taken to recording himself on video messaging platform BombBomb walking through the proposal as if he were doing it live in front of the prospect. As soon as the video is accessed, Mario gets a notification and he can immediately see how much of the sales presentation they watched and where attention was focused (usually price). When multiple decision makers are involved, Mario doesn’t have to pitch over and over again. The prospect just forwards the video along. He’s used this technique with great success to close large commercial projects over the last few months.
Also by Henry Clifford: Get in the RMR Ring
I was blown away when Mario showed me his method. It’s a great example of a highly skilled sales professional thinking outside the box and executing well.
What are you doing to leverage tools like BombBomb in your business?
Stay frosty, and see you in the field.
