Sales Tactics

MUTUAL ACTION PLANS - A NEW TOOL FOR YOU

When. Definitely not after your first discovery call with the prospect. I tend to use these MAPS (Mutual Action Plans) after a couple of meetings with the prospect.

Where? I have a template for you to use. Click below.

How? Take a look at the video I posted on LinkedIn here.

Why? So many reasons.

1. Understand how sophisticated your buyer is. I.E. Do they understand HOW to buy what you are offering?

2. Forecast when you can get the deal done.

3. Test your prospect to see if the opportunity is real

Presentation skills

Your boss may not like this one.

We need to get rid of the agenda slide.

It's boring. It doesn't provide for a good presentation experience. It doesn't help anyone stand out.

I don't know about you, but when I see that thing I think "Boring!" and "Here comes another sales pitch"

Plus, didn't you have the agenda already laid out in the title of your meeting invite?

"Company X // Company Y - Meeting Demonstration"

It's hard to capture people's attention these days, and this slide doesn't do it.

When's the last time you bought something from an advertisement that had an agenda? haha.

I hate saying why to take something away without giving something better than we can do. So here it goes:

Put a kibosh to the agenda slide at the beginning of your presentation. Instead, use a "Questions we are going to help you answer" slide.

Now that is valuable.

Prospects are going to get their questions answered (I'll show you how to come up with a list of questions later). You will have the chance to ask,

"What other questions are top of mind right now for you? What are you trying to answer in your job"

It's rare that people have answers to their problems. If that were the case they wouldn't be meeting with you!

Now, here's a simple way to come up with a list of 3-5 questions for your "Questions we help answer" slide:

1. Define 3 personas you present to.

2. List out 3-5 problems each persona faces before coming to you.

3. Frame those problems as questions.

For example,

Persona: Sales Leadership

Problem: They have no budget and a ton of inefficiencies in their processes.

Problem framed as question: "How can I optimize my processes without an increase in budgets? "

^^^ That last part is a question you include on your slide.

Put this slide together in your deck

Try this. Let me know how it goes. $20 says it will help get your audience talking and more interested in what you are about to present. You'll be more memorable that that product you are competing with.

Negotiation

WE ARE NO CHRIS VOSS, BUT WE DON'T NEED TO BE

Don't know about y'all, but after reading all these sales & negotiation books, I'm like "What do I do again?"

Todd Caponi breaks down a simple, easy-to-use, negotiation tactic in his book, The Transparency Sale.

I'll be releasing a podcast with Todd in the next couple of week. Stay tuned. Get out your airpods.

What do we do?

Take a look at the slide below. Copy it. Put it into your own slide deck. Whenever someone asks for pricing, pull this bad boy up. Be upfront about what levers you can pull from the get go.

Here's a video explaining how to use it.

Who else is surfing?

• Chorus has been posting daily briefings. Executives are joining calls +%56 more of the time.

• Saleshacker shares 6 tips to doing product demos.

• Unleash is next week. Exciting speakers and > 10k registrations.

• The Brady List features some fresh music finds.

• Scott Barker released his newsletter as well. My hair is not nearly as good as his but I think you’ll like if you enjoy Revenue Surfing :)

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