Let’s suppose you have a meeting with a prospective customer tomorrow. How will you conduct that meeting?

The sales-professional who is driven by self-esteem (as the majority are) will naturally desire to impress. He or she will be rehearsing all the features and benefits of the offer, or the unique aspects of the methodology or service they are offering. Perhaps there are some impressive materials or presentations being prepared today. Stories are rehearsed, statistics collected, counter-arguments prepared to deal with any objections or awkward questions that may arise tomorrow.

If motivated by self-worth, a sales-professional may still do most or all of these preparatory things. However, as they walk in through the customer’s door tomorrow, their motivation is subtly different. Their focus is on having a really useful meeting with the customer, rather than a desire to impress. Therefore, they are thinking primarily about the customer’s situation and issues, not about themselves and their solutions. In other words, a mindset of self-worth allows them to focus on value.

The role of self-worth

Is this just idealistic make-believe, far removed from the tough reality of today’s marketplace? Emphatically not. Having worked for years alongside some of the world’s top professionals and salespeople, I’ve noticed one characteristic over and over: their ability to rapidly tune in to what is of most value to the customer.

You simply cannot do this if you do not have self-worth. If a person craves validation or approval too much, this diminishes their capacity to seek out value. Here are some of the behaviours that result:

– Talking too much, too soon;

– Telling stories that have no relevance to the customer;

– Going into one’s prepared presentation or story at the earliest possible opportunity;

– Discussing prices before value (or even budget) has been established;

– Building a relationship (and writing a proposal) with the wrong person;

– Generally, behaving more as customer-servant than a customer-partner.

The same pattern plays out when it comes to the question: “How much will this cost?”. The self-esteem based professional will seek to justify the price based on the quality / service / brand / track-record of the product or service being offered. The self-worth based professional has at least five advantages:

a) They can insist on knowing a bit more, before they are in a position to quote a price or a fee. Even if pushed, they do not behave as customer-servant.

b) Drawing on their experience of the marketplace, they can fine-tune / tweak the customer’s requirements. In this way, they build credibility – even before price gets discussed.

c) They can map out options and budget, tailoring these to the customer’s situation, before quoting a fee or doing a proposal/quotation.

d) When required to justify a price, they do so by reference to the benefits conferred (rather than just quality / service / time / track-record) plus the risks of inadequate investment.

e) All the time, they use their questioning approach to make sure they are having this dialogue with the right people.

Having better meetings with prospects

One of the joys of my business-coaching work is watching how self-worth grows via the exercise of these skills. As a professional gets fluent in value-centred selling and pricing, they often come to value themselves more deeply, which in turn enhances their capacity for the next prospect meeting. It’s a virtuous circle.

If you would like to improve any aspect of your conversations with prospects (even and especially if you detest selling!); you can book a call here: https://calendly.com/talktojohn