When you provide your customers with options, they will be more inclined to ultimately buy from you versus shopping around and going with someone else. This is important to remember when you hit an obstacle or roadblock in a sales engagement. All too often salespeople make the mistake of getting so focused on their proposal that they forget that they may have other options that they can pivot to and recommend. As a result, the sales cycle gets stalled up and the customer goes elsewhere to find a better fit.
If you propose a product or service to a customer and it doesn’t result in a green light to move ahead, be ready to pivot and provide alternative options. When you do this, the more you work with the customer and talk through the different options, the more the customer will want to work with you on dialing in a solution that is a better fit. Why? Because it shows the customer that you care enough to get their needs addressed to their exact satisfaction. You were creative enough to be thinking outside the box. It also sends them a signal that you want to earn their business. You didn’t just give up after the first try like so many other salespeople. You stayed in the game and you made it work.
To illustrate this point, I recently had my entire house outfitted with new a new heating and cooling system. Furnaces, condensers, ductwork, and all sorts of other things that rang up quite a bill. I shopped around contacting several HVAC contractors and received a handful of quotes. Here is what I found: most HVAC contractors have a preference for the equipment that they like to install. So they naturally only propose their preferred equipment on the proposal. The problem here: the equipment makes up a good part of the overall price. So what happens next?
After the salesperson would send me their quote, I would let them know that their price is just too high. At this point, all the salesperson had to do was offer up some options for another alternative line of equipment that is less costly, or give me some options to change up the efficiency ratings or a feature/functionality that I might not need that would help reduce my costs. Anything! Out of the ten or so HVAC companies that I solicited quotes from, only one contractor was creative enough to offer up the idea of swapping out equipment for another line to help reduce the price tag. Everyone else either provided a small discount (not enough to make the numbers work) or just held firm and lost the business. What a shame!!
Now the one salesperson who won the business talked with me through several different options that I could choose. He educated me on my options and the pros and cons. He got creative and presented a few different routes that we could take. He really wanted to work out the details with me. We were getting closer to a deal but the price was still a bit high. He then didn’t give up. Instead, he called his suppliers and got a better deal on the equipment which he then passed those savings on to me. By the time I gave him the “go ahead” with my business, we had run through three different options from his original proposal. The result: I got the brand equipment that I wanted at the price that I wanted. I also knew that I was working with a true professional who thought out of the box and made things work. He truly earned my business.
Giving your customers options will help you close more deals! When you hit a roadblock on your proposal, think out of the box. Get creative. Bounce some ideas off other people in your company. Then call your customer back and propose a couple of other options. Don’t give up! Oh, and one last thing…. you have to be ready to pivot and provide options QUICKLY!!! Customers (especially a guy like me) don’t wait. We move right on to the next company as soon as we believe that a product or service isn’t going to meet our needs. So act quickly and keep them engaged with options.
-Happy Selling!