The L.A Fox Developer Newsletter

November 1995

Technical Perfection (Con? from page 5)

evidence of performance on your part so that they

feel you have earned your keep. And you must be

aware that esteem among their peers has to be

maintained as no one wants to look foolish to their

friends.

When a client buys is dependent on four issues:

1.

Need. If they don’t really need your product

or services, no sale can occur.

2. Money. Are they in a position to afford your

product or service? If their budget can’t afford it, they

can’t buy it.

3. Timing. Do they need you product or ser-

vices NOW? If not, a sale is unlikely to be made.

4. Authority. Does the person you’re dealing

with have the horsepower to get the Purchase Order

issued or the deposit check signed?

No sale is likely to occur if any of these issues can’t

be verified.

Fruitless meetings with potential clients can be

minimized if you initially qualify your contacts with

these four issues in mind. Keep a card posted on the

wall next to your phone with these issues listed on it,

and don’t hesitate to check off each one as you’re

able to confirm it.

The Selling Process

There are five steps in the actual selling process:

1. Sales Prospecting

2. Initial Contact

3. Fact Finding

4. Presenting the Proposal

5. Closing the Sale

We can waste a lot of time and money with Sales

Prospecting and direct promotion techniques. We

see direct sales promotions in computer hardware

junk mail and we answer calls nearly everyday from

some printer-ribbon telemarketer. These are direct

promotion techniques. But it remains true that most

clients will treat you only as a salesperson, unworthy

of their full attention, if you call them first. If the client

calls you, you become the consultant, whose time

and knowledge is valuable. Getting clients to contact

you happens through indirect prospecting tech-

niques. Referrals are the easiest method because

referrals require no additional effort to generate the

lead. Speeches to industry or business groups,

articles, and seminars are also ways to create the

image of expertise. The content of these presenta-

tions should provide your audience with valuable

information. Any marketing hype in the content will

likely reduce your image and generate fewer sales

leads.

The Initial Contact will probably be over the phone.

This is your opportunity to qualify a potential client.

Granted, first impressions are important and are only

made once, but skipping the chance to qualify a

lead means you’ll have to find out if they’re a quali-

fied client the expensive way - in meetings. Promote

yourself in a low key manner, but ask qualifying

questions that can keep your business on the right

track. Remember that if a prospect doesn’t have the

need, money, timing, or authority to make the pur-

chase, your time will likely be wasted.

Fact Finding assumes a qualified client, and is the

stage where the sale is actually made. Frequently,

fact finding occurs in meetings with key client per-

sonnel, and focus is on the problems within a client’s

business. Some consultants charge a fee for this

phase of the selling process, but many times the

situation is not such that a fee can be addressed.

Information should be gathered and solutions to

problems developed with the assistance of the

client’s staff. In a fact-finding interview, a ‘mirror’

approach frequently works well:

“...so you’re saying that if a list of back-ordered

medical supplies were available on a weekly basis,

you would save the four hours a week you now

spend to gather that information.” You should have

fun at this stage, and every interview should be

viewed as an opportunity to develop an ally within

the client’s organization. The client (or client’s

representative) will know whether or not you can

offer solutions to their problems by the end of the

fact-finding process.

If everything has been handled effectively to this

point, the Proposal will serve to formalize the sale.

You will also want to identify the details of the

(Con?, page 9)

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