E178: The First Meeting is Where Most Sales are Lost (A Leaders 'Must Listen')

In this episode we are going to focus on how you can really nail your on site meet and greet process to absolutely close more deals. Welcome to Sales Process Made simple. The show helping seven to eight figure industry construction and trade sales and business leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, a leader who has been building businesses and sales teams just like you for the last 20 years. Today we're going to focus on three things when it comes to your meet and greet process. How you can generate warmth and begin to create a relationship with your customer. Secondly, what value looks like in this meet and greet and how you can leverage it to your advantage to close more deals. And last but not least, why alignment at your meet and greet stage can be really impactful to a fast close and more importantly, getting more yeses than no's. So as a business in the trade industry, it's so easy, certainly in my experience and that's in my experience as a business owner in this industry and also my experience as a customer, both as a residential customer and a business customer. It's so easy to have a rushed meet and greet process and even more impactfully to have a process that is impacted by your mood in the day. And I think the question I'll ask you as a leader now is, have you ever gone to a quote, an on site experience with a customer and you've just been grumpy, you've been pissed off about something that's happened either in the few minutes earlier, you're rushed, you're out of time, you're stressed, you're under pressure, you feel like the customer might have stuffed you around a little bit. But have you ever been out to an on site experience and just not delivered something that's a really great process for your customer? I'm just gonna put my hand up now and say, yep, I've done that. In fact, I've done that multiple. In fact, more than multiple. I've done that dozens and dozens of times across my career. And Even now at 43 years old, I'm constantly checking myself to make sure that the process I'm generating for my customers is really pleasant. So today I wanna have a think about that meet and greet process when we get to site and we're quoting customers, which I'm gonna argue is without doubt the most important step in any sales process. So today I wanna focus on how we can really nail that. And there's three areas I'd love you to think about number one is warmth. And that's how you create that great first impression with a customer. Are you taking a small gift? I've spoken about the Noosa chocolate example I use. I've got a customer who's actually using Hague's Chocolates down out of Melbourne now as their go to. But how are you creating that warmth? Is it a small gift? Is it how you turn up really well presented? Is it your mannerisms when you first get to site? We should all know our personalities and for many people have a natural personality that's really warm and engaging. And if that's you, are you leveraging it well enough? Are you taking your shoes off before you walk in the door? Are you asking permission to enter the home? If you're dealing with a business, are you making sure that you say hello to people when you're walking down the corridors? That not only starts to build relationships across the business, albeit at a very small level, but it shows the person you're dealing with warmth and friendliness and genuine care. So certainly for me, I live by the saying, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And I'd really be encouraging you to think during that meet and greet process how you nail that first impression, that moment that someone first gets to really spend some time with you and make that judgment on you. Because if we get that right, we're already ahead before we start. Number two is all around value. Value is an interesting, very interesting topic here because for many of the particularly building and trade businesses we work with, value is all about saying what you offer. Whereas those businesses that are most successful in this meet and greet phase, those who close the most deals fastest, are focusing on what is valuable to the customer. So what is it that they want out of this engagement? What is it that they want from the air conditioning company that's coming in to their home or to their offices? What is it that they want from the gardening business when it comes to their home or their premises? Is it just get it done quick and easy or is it make it seem brilliant? What is it that they want from their pool builder? Do they want something to just jump in, get the job done or do they want something that's a statement piece so that when their friends come over it looks just amazing? So really understanding the value that their customers want and then aligning the value they deliver to, that is where I see these businesses absolutely nail the on site meet and greet because at the end of the day. Once we are talking a language that that's creating value for someone, we have their attention. If we're just talking about the value we think that they want, then we're not really sure if we're generating attention for them. So my strongest advice here is create that value and if you're not sure, ask it the three Ds. That is a process that we have spoken about in depth across this podcast and if you need any more reminding on it, go back to episode 149. That was a terrific episode around the 3Ds. So value being number two there, the third piece here is all around alignment. So making sure that before we finish that meet and greet process, we're really clear with not only what the customer wants, but when they want it by how quickly do they need the quote, when do they want to talk to you next, what's the best way you can engage with them moving forward and when do they need the product or service delivered? If we can get the alignment piece right, what we're doing is we are now talking to a customer in the same speed or at the same pace that works for them. Rather than us being desperate for a deal so we're rushing it forward or rather than us being so busy that we're deprioritizing or pushing a quote back down the queue and potentially missing getting a deal from a customer who needed to move quickly. I know people that deal with me, I'm often moving really quickly and slow quotes, even though they might be really good quality, slow quotes often miss me because I've already decided on someone that's coming quicker. So the three pieces there we're speaking about to really nail that on site meet and greet, which I would argue is the moment when, when you have greatest impact on a yes or a no for sale. These three pieces are around warmth. So beginning to build that relationship as soon as you possibly can value and that's aligning the value you're going to deliver with the value the customer wants. And last but not least, alignment, getting really clear on when you need to move, what pace you need to follow, how the customer wants you to behave moving forward so that you are working at a similar pace to that customer there. So as we're finishing this episode, what I'm hopeful you'll take from today is some thoughts around that meet and greet process and a little bit of a self check or a health check around what you think you do and don't do well around those three areas. If there's one thing you can do better. Please get out and try it. Do it yourself. Do it through your team, but find a way you can embed that 21 times to get something embedded and three lots of 21 to memorise. Right. Or to systemise. So you want to be getting out and finding ways you can use that as much as you possibly can. I'm grateful that you've listened. I'm even more grateful if you go and action. Something from here. We're dropping episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We have this focus on 1% better each and every day. Today was a perfect example. Each of those are small things you can do that over time will accumulate through big changes in your business. So please get out and practice them. That's it for today. Can't wait for the next episode. Bye for now. Are you struggling to grow your monthly sales numbers? Feel like you've reached a sales ceiling, are involved in every deal, or have no real sales system in place to help you grow? And is that causing a level of worry or stress about how you can get more sales in the future? If that's you, that's exactly why we created the Sold Out Sales Teams program to help you get month on month sales growth with less stress. In just the first week, we will lock down your quoting process to grow sales by 25 to 30%. And that's just week one. And for the first three podcast listeners that we speak to this week, we'll offer you a bonus one on one strategy session with me to make sure you can pay off your investment even faster. Which, by the way, for most businesses is only one or two extra sales to book in, click the link in our Show Notes. It's a direct calendar link so you can instantly confirm your meeting time.