November 7, 2017

Is there a good fit?

A couple students in my private coaching Slack have sales meetings coming up with prospective clients. In preparation for the meetings, a questions came up that basically amounted to:

Would should I plan to sell them and how much should I charge for it?

I’m paraphrasing this from a longer and more complicated discussion, but I wanted to abstract it out because I think it’s a very common mindset.

After all, it’s sale meeting. You should probably know what you’re planning to sell, right?

Nope.

Going into a sales meeting with a pre-conceived notion of what you want to sell to the client is backwards. This approach leads to all the awkward feelings that folks like us dread about sales meetings.

Instead, view the meeting as an attempt to learn whether or not there’s a good fit between you and the prospect. Try to talk them out of working with you.

Make them convince you that there’s a reasonably high likelihood that working together will be beneficial for both parties.

This is a tough mindset for most people to adopt, so here’s a tip:

Imagine that the client is one of your buddies who called you in for some advice, and that you’re not even in the running for the work.

Doing so takes all the pressure off you and projects a confidence that the client will find attractive.

Once you have an understanding of what the client is ultimately trying to accomplish, you’ll be in a position to propose an engagement (or not, if there isn’t a good fit).

Yours,

—J

BackRandomNext