If you’re doing sales for a service business, having a locked down sales process is going to save you a ton of time, a ton of work, and a ton of frustration.
If you have it, then you’ll also have a much better business. At minimum, you’ll close a lot more work.
Over the last few years we’ve been honing our sales process at Credo, both with clients coming through the system as well as my own personal consulting clients. While I’ve mostly phased that out, those lessons have taught me how to sell much better work and we’ve then turned around and taught that to many of our agencies who have seen dramatic improvements in their close rates.
And you know what?
Most of it is due to one specific email, the scope/recap email.
This one email alone in your sales process can change your trajectory.
So have a listen, and I’d love to hear if your close rates change too when you implement it.
I agree with John all the way. The deal is in the follow-up sequence. I still have problems sticking to a short Discovery Call. I tend to give away to much during this 1st meeting!
Jason, I’m the same, unfortunately. I can’t keep the Discovery Call short. I answer a prospect’s questions in detail and provide them with insights they, I guess, should be hiring me to deliver. Part of me wants to believe that this is why clients hire me, then. They see my expertise, and all the information I share convinces them that I’m the person for the job. But part of me also feels crap after each such call, precisely because I think that I’ve given too much away 🙂
This is why the strategy call exists! The Discovery call is to build trust with them and for you vet if they are a good fit for you. Then you go deeper after you’ve had time to dig into their needs and business/site. They still get that value, which helps with closing, but you don’t invest too much time up front on people that aren’t the right fit or that you do not want to work with!