3.06 (V) Role Play - Working a Room
My friends Peter and Said and I are going to demonstrate a couple of different types of sales conversations. First, we're going to look at the art of the sales conversation, when it's looking like this person is not a prospect. How do you get out of this conversation? Then we'll turn our attention to engaging in a sales conversation, when someone is looking increasingly like a prospect. Remember, this sales tool called The Art of the sales conversation, is meant to get you into and out of as many conversations as possible. High performing salespeople have to be as efficient and effective in every interaction as possible. So let's just assume that I've walked up to Peter at an event. Hello there. I'm Craig. Nice to meet you. Hi Craig. I'm Peter. Peter, good to meet you. What brings you here tonight? Well, am in construction and I came here for the event. Oh! That's great. It's good to meet you. I've been looking forward to this event. There's a whole bunch of people I'm here to see. I'm sure you're the same way. So where are you from? I'm regionally from Kenya, but even Chicago now. Oh! That's great. And I live in Chicago as well. So Craig, what do you do? Peter I run a company called sales engine. And what we do is help companies build tune their sales engine. What does that mean? What it means is we look at three things; we look at the sales process companies use, the tools they use to support the sales team and the knowledge skill and discipline of the team itself. Okay. So, people, processes and tools. You got it. How do you do that? It's a great question. I'm going to put it right back to you. How do you think about those things now? Well, as I said before, I'm in construction but my role doesn't really have me thinking about salespeople or sales. And that's totally fair. Let me ask you, Do you enjoy construction? It must be really cool watching things come to life. You know, that is one of the reasons I love it so much. That's good. It's always fun to meet people who enjoy what they do. It's energizing. As I said a couple of minutes ago, Peter there's a whole bunch of people I'm here to see. I'm sure you're the same way. Great to meet you. Thanks for the time. Thanks Craig. Nice to meet you too. Be well. What you should have seen here, are the four forward years of the sales conversation and the reverse gear. This is a situation where even though Peter is a great guy, he's not my guy and we need to get out of these conversations. Now I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, urrgh! This feels transactional or even selfish on my part and you know what, You'd be right. But here's the way to think about this. If you use this tool called The Art of the sales conversation you will get into and out of the wrong conversations. But in that very room, it is very likely that using this tool I will meet more people in Peter's business or in Peter's industry. And then guess what happens, I can make introductions. I can actually do more good in this room than average sales people do just talking to a few people because they get comfortable. Now let's look at a different situation. Let's look at Said being a prospect of mind. How does the conversation change if it looks like Sid is actually a prospect. Let's assume that Said walks up to me at an event. Hi, I'm Said. Hi said, I'm Craig how are you. Pretty good Craig, how are you. I am well.. So what brings you here. Well, I'm in the construction business and I came here for this event. Oh! Good. That's great. It's funny I've been looking forward to this event all week. There's a whole bunch of people I'm here to see. I'm sure you're the same way. So where are you from. Well, originally I'm from Mumbai. Wow. But I live in Chicago now. Oh! That's great. And I live in Chicago as well. Oh! That's great. So what do you do Craig? So I run a company called sales engine and we help companies build into their sales engine. Oh! That's great. What does that mean? What it means is we look at the sales process companies use, the tools they use to support the sales team and the knowledge skill and discipline of the team itself. Okay. So, people, process and tools? You got it. And how do you do that? It's a good question, I'm going to put it right back to you. How do you think about those thing now? That's interesting. We have about 25 salespeople in my business. How do I know if they're disciplined? Oh! My gosh. It's a great question. It's a tough question you ask Said. Obviously we have thoughts and opinions about this. Let me ask you again, how do you think about measuring your sales people now? What do you look at? Well, the usual things.Craig. We see how many proposals they write- Okay. - And how many opportunities to bring in. So we agree with that. So I would totally agree those are the right measures. I'll tell you we tend to think about measures and disciplines on a much more granular basis so we're looking at how do your 25 salespeople execute meetings do they open a meeting crisply. Do they pivot through, do they close well? And then we look at weekly or even sometimes daily activity measures. How many touches? How many calls made? So you might think about adding some of those to the mix as you think about discipline. Interesting. I think we too should be tracking those tanks. Well, you may want to think about it. And you know it sounds to me Said, like you and I may have some things to talk about. Can I trade cards with you? Certainly, yeah. That would be great. And I'll tell you what I'll do. I will email you in the morning and suggest a few times to talk next week and you just pick the one that's open for you. How does that sound? Certainly, that sounds great. That sounds great. As I said a few minutes ago, there's a whole bunch of people I'm here to meet. I'm sure you're the same way but look for an e-mail from me in the morning. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much. Great to meet you. Again. What you should have seen here are the four forward years of the sales conversation and the reverse gear. It's looking like Said is going to become a prospect of mine and that's great. But guess what? There's still other people in this room and I've got to get around to them. Notice, I stayed a little bit longer but I didn't linger. I gave him a little bit of context, but then I executed my exit. Peter, Said and I hope that these examples are helpful to you as you have your sales conversations. Now, go get into and out of as many conversations as you can.