Two Tips to Eliminate Momentum Killers in Your Deals

Imagine for a second that you're the customer.You’re searching for the final key bits of information on a product or service that you want to buy. You've invested a fair amount of your time in the buying process and you're already starting to anticipate how it will be to use the product.You've only got one or two more key questions about the product before you make your decision. You ask the salesperson for answers and get the dreaded “Let me get back to you” response.It's probably not the answer you were hoping for, right? I call this a “get-back” and it can bring your sales efforts to a crushing halt.Get rid of your “get-backs.”Get-backs impede your ability to build trust and confidence with the customer. If you continually have to ‘get back’ to the customer to provide the information they need right now, then the prospect has to invest more of their limited time to reach a decision point with you than with your competitors. Which means the ROI buyers earn on the time they’re investing with you is smaller than with your competitors. Strike one.Get-backs inject unnecessary delay into your customer’s buying process. Taking an extra day, or even an extra hour, to provide information to your prospects that they need right now increases the chances that a competitor jumps in and demonstrates the complete responsiveness needed to win the business. Strike two.Remember, every time you hit the customer with a ‘get-back,’ you're disengaging from their buying process. This pause, this momentum crusher, creates an incentive for the prospect to consider alternative solutions that keep them on the path to making a decision. Strike three. You're out.So, what can you do to eliminate ‘get-backs?’ Here are two quick tips to get you on the right track:1. Know your product better than your customer does. This is not a very high bar to set for yourself. The bottom line is that you must know more about how your product functions and have a better understanding of how it can integrate into your prospects' current operations (or processes) than they do.Invest your own time to learn your product or service offering inside and out. Create a personal learning plan and block out at least one hour per week in your calendar to spend time with the product experts in your company. And, just when you think you've learned enough, double down and invest even more time to learn the detailed ins and outs of your offering that others won’t. This detailed and nuanced knowledge is an instant credibility builder with a prospect.2. Thoroughly understand how your existing customers are using your products in their businesses. Spend time with a current customer and interview them about how they are using your product or service. Dig beneath the surface to develop a deep understanding of the value that they are receiving from their use of your product. How does it exceed their expectations? What are the top line and bottom line improvements they are experiencing with your problem? What are the financial returns they are earning from their investment in your products or services? Lastly, ask them to share with you one piece of advice that they'd give to one of your current prospects to help them with their evaluation of your value proposition.At the end of the day, selling is really just a service that you provide to your prospects. And, when has it ever been good service to make a busy prospect wait for you to “get back” to them?