Does Your Client Know They’re in a Sales Meeting?

Last Friday I had a group session with some in our community, and we started to talk about sales meetings. During the course of our discussion, one individual asked me a question. She said, ‘How do you turn the conversation to your offering so you can share that with the client during the meeting?’ 

This prompted my own question – ‘Does your client know they’re in a sales meeting?’

The individual paused and thought about it. She finally said, ‘I don’t think I even know if I’m in a sales meeting! How do I know?’

She’d hit the nail on the head! Too often the client of consultants simply doesn’t know they’re in a sales meeting. And sometimes the consultants don’t know either. Because of that, it becomes really hard to sell. How do you suddenly start talking about what you have to offer when no one is expecting it? 

Coffee meetings versus sales meetings

In our modern business world, connections are the lifeblood of success. So to maintain those connections we have learned to keep up our relationships with our clients (You can read more about tribe building and client engagement in these articles: Always get the name of the dog and Mindset for a customer for life.)

As part of your focus on client engagement, perhaps you set up coffees and catch ups with your clients. This is great. The problem is that even when you want to book a sales meeting, you call these clients and ask them if they’d like to get together for a coffee or a catch up. We aren’t clear about the difference – that this isn’t just relationship building, we want to see if they need help and be ready to have an offer to propose (ie sell)! And then when we’re in the room it becomes really awkward to try to sell. It feels uncomfortable to try to bring it up. 

Even more importantly, if you do manage to overcome the awkwardness and bring up your offer, you can lose the trust of the client and harm your relationship. The last thing you want is having the reputation of someone who is just interested in selling, selling, selling. Most people don’t like that. 

Why do thought leaders, consultants and advisors struggle to get sales meetings?

Many consultants struggle to sell. Just because you’re an expert at what you do doesn’t necessarily make you a natural salesperson. And perhaps you’re held back by fear – the fear that you’ll be rejected. 

One of my favourite Ted X talks is by Jia Jiang. He speaks about desensitising himself to the pain of rejection and overcoming his fear of it by setting his own 100 days of rejection therapy. 

To do this, he put himself into situations for 100 days where people were likely to reject him or say no. He asked a stranger if he could play soccer in their backyards. He asked Burger King to do a ‘burger refill’ for him (and they did!). He also asked a Krispy Kreme manager to make donuts in the shape of the Olympic symbol (they also did). His goal was to build his resilience to rejection.

Like Jia, most of us don’t have strong rejection resilience, and this is particularly true when it comes to selling and it’s particularly true for women (despite the fact that women salespeople tend to outperform men). So, we lean into the safety of the low risk ‘coffee catch up’.

But if we give into this fear then the result is that we just waste everyone’s time – we don’t get to share our offer, and we don’t get to help our clients either potentially. 

How to get a sales meeting

When you book a coffee or catch up, that’s all it is! It can’t be a sales meeting too or you will lose trust and impact your reputation. So what’s the right way to book a sales meeting.

1. Be clear that this is a sales meeting.

As Brené Brown says, ‘Clear is kind.’ This holds for sales meetings. When you want to get a sales meeting, say that in your communication with your client. 

You don’t have to say, ‘I want to book a sales meeting with you,’ necessarily. But you can still make it clear that you have an offer for them by saying something like, ‘I think I have a resilience and wellbeing program that could be useful to you. Can we get together, and I can share it and see if it might be helpful for you?’

2. Have a compelling offer.

You want to have an offer that is compelling enough that the client is interested and share enough to get them into the room. You’ll then be able to share everything once you’re in the meeting. 

You don’t want to have to convince them to meet with you. This just means that it’s going to be a really hard sell, and likely a waste of everyone’s time. It’s too much opportunity cost. 

3. Focus on quality over quantity.

Your sales meetings need to be focused on the needs of the client, and giving your client something that will be helpful to them. This means you need to understand your client, and be well prepared for your meetings. Rather than having lots of meetings, have fewer that are higher quality. 

If we don’t do this then you could be wasting a lot of time by being way off course. 

4. Prepare a script.

To invite your client to a sales meeting, prepare a unique script. Again, something like: 

‘I know we’ve spoken about this challenge in your business previously. I think I have a solution that would be helpful for you. 

[Brief intro to solution]

Would it be helpful for us to catch up about [X]?’ 

5. Give an opt out

Always allow the person to opt out. This seems counterproductive to ‘selling’ but in fact, selling is often about leaving at the right time. 

Giving the person an easy, no pressure option endears them to you. They will trust you more. And if what you are offering is really a solution that will be valuable to them, they’ll be far more likely to come back to you. They may even want what you’re offering more. 

After you’ve secured the meeting

Of course, once you’ve secured the meeting, there are other things you can do to help the client to see the value of your offer and your expertise. You’ll want to come in with clear ROI, metrics of success, and world class selling assets.

Make sure you’re easy to buy from, every step of the way. 

Do your clients know they’re in a sales meeting? Do you know how to get a sales meeting? I’d love to hear your thoughts…