Is it just me or are people getting ruder and more insensitive? Have common decency and what would once have been accepted as good manners gone out of the window? Or am I, at 42, just becoming a grumpy old man? I’m sure you will all have your opinions! You might indeed wonder why I am asking and what on earth this has to do with sales and success? Well, in my opinion, quite a lot. Sales is a relationship game after all so everything that you do and how you are perceived will impact upon your reputation, your relationships, your sales and your success.

I was thinking about this last week when I was reading a post on Randy Gage’s Blog about the uses and abuses of mobile phones and then I received this cry for sales advice and help…

Hi Gavin,

Last year I attended several of your motivational sales sessions which dealt with most of the problems and objections I’ve encountered in the past. However there’s an emerging habit in sales meetings that I’m having trouble with and I wonder if you have any thoughts on how to deal with it:

In the past few weeks I’ve had a number of product demo meetings with prospects who nowadays all seem to have Blackberry or similar ‘smartphones’ placed on the meeting table in front of them. Some even have two – presumably one receiving emails and the other one to talk into(?).

Although my prospects have (mostly) had the good grace to put them on silent, these devices buzz every minute or so with every received email; prompting the owner to divert their attention away from my presentation each time to see if it’s something urgent, and then return to my talk with a “sorry, where were we?”. Its driving me nuts as its becoming impossible to run smoothly through a pitch and I end up going over information several times to make sure they haven’t missed anything important.

If these people were subordinates or peers in my organisation I could politely (or impolitely) request they ignore or turn these devices off; but when you are a vendor having a first time meeting with a potential customer in their office – different rules obviously apply.

Have other people encountered this problem and are there any subtle ways of dealing with it without causing offence?

I doubt that there is anyone reading this who does not empathise with the question and I certainly have my strategies but what are yours? How do you deal with this situation? What would you do? Are you a phone boor yourself?

Related posts:

1. What Are Your Favourite Sales Questions?

At some point or other every salesperson, business owner, entrepreneur or professional needs to attend a client sales meeting to sell their products, solutions and services. The type of meeting, the product / service / solution that you’re selling, the complexity of the solution, the history with the client, where you are in the sales process, the length of the sales process, the seniority of the prospect and many other factors will determine exactly what preparation you need to do to be successful in your meetings…

But here, in one quick and simple list are 10 straightforward yet powerful pointers that you need to answer so that you can get yourself started on the track to running better client meetings and making more sales…

1. Who am I visiting? What is their job title and department?
2. What is their role and their responsibilites?
3. What size is the company? What division do they work for? What sector (s) are they operating in? What products, services and solutions do they sell? Who are their main competitors and what are their main products?
4. What do I think the client’s expectations are for this meeting? Why have they agreed to this meeting? What do they want to get out of this meeting? What do I think a positive outcome will be for my prospect / client?
5. What experience do I have of dealing with this level of person? What experience do I have of dealing with similar clients? What experience do I have of their likely issues and business challenges? What experience do I have of working in this market?
6. What problems is my prospect most likely to be facing at the moment or in the near future? How are these problems likely to be affecting their business and them personally? What experience do I have of dealing ith these issues with other clients? What solutions have I implemented to similar problems and for similar clients? What client case studies can I utilize to illustrate my expertize?
7. How am I going to open this meeting? How am I going to run this meeting? What questions would it be good for me to ask during the meeting? What questions (or objections) do I think my prospect will have during this meeting?
8. If I am attending this meeting with colleagues, how are we going to work together professionally and efficiently? Who is going to take the lead in the meeting?
9. What are my outcomes and objectives for this meeting? What are my clients likely outcomes and objectives for this meeting? How do these outcomes dovetail together? How can we both achieve win win?
10. What props, literature, business cards, testimonials, case studies, etc might it be useful to bring along to this meeting?

In today’s economy, we need to be thinking and working smarter. Maybe you’re doing more prospecting, perhaps you’re visiting more clients, but are you making  the most of those client meetings?

This list is not exhaustive, it’s just a starting point on your own personal sales training journey. Why not share your top point for running effective client meetings below…

Related posts:

1. Finding New Client Information
2. How To Listen For Hidden Client Objections
3. How To Upsell And Cross-Sell To Achieve Rapid Sales Growth