SALES & CLIENT SKILLS

From prospecting to pitching, handling push-back and ultimately closing business, the top revenue generators have self-awareness and self-discipline in their process.

Prospecting
Across sectors, sales and distribution professionals have an imperative to prospect and win new business. Deepening existing client relationships remains critical but salespeople also need a healthy pipeline of fresh opportunities. For many, networking, cold / warm calling, cross-selling, and getting referrals are parts of their role that they relish the least. Templar help them become more systematic, more confident and more successful when developing new opportunities.

Strategic understanding and discovery
Business development professionals often fail to gain a deep understanding of their clients’ and prospects’ circumstances and needs. This can lead to a misalignment of solution, and worse, a complete failure to engage the client at all. All too common is the trap of selling too quickly when the first need is uncovered. The opportunity can be lost as the client often isn’t yet motivated to buy. With a disciplined framework for gaining rich insight of the client’s circumstances, professionals will learn to uncover new opportunities for their clients and for themselves. By applying a structured and strategic approach to questioning, therefore, RMs will differentiate themselves and their offering.

Pitching the solution
Having a good product or service is not enough. We help firms to differentiate themselves and be distinctive in the eyes of the prospect or client. Today’s sales cycles and buying processes are taking longer and are more complex than ever. The vast majority of sales processes involve a pitch – or even a series of pitches – in order for the client to select their partner. The client’s selection criteria might involve both quantitative and qualitative assessments. Even intangibles like team dynamics and cultural ‘fit’ can play a part in winning or losing a pitch. Knowing what the winning success factors are and how to leverage them is critical.

Handling client concerns
Challenging conversations are an inescapable part of any high value client relationship. It often takes a tough discussion to earn a seat in the client’s inner circle. Whether the contention originates as an ‘outbound’ or ‘inbound’ discussion, the most successful client-facing professionals ensure that the client’s concerns are fully recognised and clearly understood. Beyond that, however, the best salespeople are able to see past a particular issue in the moment, and remain focused on their broader commercial objectives for the relationship. Many salespeople are ineffective at advancing opportunities in their pipeline because they lack foundational objections-handling discipline. With a toolkit, client objections become opportunities and coverage teams will drive revenue ‘up and to the right’.

Closing more business
Senior management consistently comment that their coverage and distribution professionals lack strong closing skills. Getting client commitment and commercializing opportunities are typically seen as the most important parts of the sales process to master. Even seasoned client-facing relationship managers often lack formal training in the disciplines and practices of effective closing. By breaking down the closing process into a comprehensible series of steps and being aware of the psychology involved, individuals can more easily improve their win rates.

To find out more about sales & client skills contact us at sales@templaradvisors.com or send an enquiry >

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