How to Make Your First Meeting With a Prospect a Great One

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]First impressions last. And so do first meetings with a potential customer. The first meeting with your prospect can set the tone for the relationship you build going forward and whether they will actually do business with you. Here is what you should keep in mind to make your first prospect meeting a great one.

RESEARCH

You cannot go into a meeting or interview unprepared. You need to do enough research on the prospect and their problem, as well as possess in-depth knowledge about your product or service. Your prospect will question you about the benefits, pitfalls, execution, installation pricing and everything else they want to know about your solution. You should also know enough about the prospect—what they do, who you are meeting, their role within the company, news related to their industry. This is not just to make you appear credible and earnest, but doing your homework can also help you give them a better insight.

CURIOSITY

One of the first rules of a sales meeting is to listen more and talk less. This is especially important in your first meeting when you are getting to know the prospect and their problem better. Listening well help you because: (a) you show the customer that they have your full attention; (b) you learn more about their problem; and (c) you get to ask more with each question. Bonus tip: In order to listen more effectively and avoid taking notes, use tools like the Dragon recorder app to record the meeting so you can revisit later.

VALUE

Your meeting should also serve as a platform to determine whether you can actually move forward with the prospect. Before you send in a proposal and start negotiations, take time to understand whether they see real value in your product or solution and whether they want to continue the conversation. If they actually don't see value in doing business with you, why waste time and effort trying to woo them? If they give you a positive response, then you know you can take the discussion forward. Pay attention to the questions they ask in order to gauge value. For example, if they're consistently asking about pricing instead of the problems your solution will solve, they might not see the value in the conversation and just be shopping around,

ACCELERATE PROSPECT-TO-PIPELINE PROCESS

Accelerating the prospect-to-pipeline process has never been easier, thanks to Salesvue. Once you land a prospect, the back and forth process can be tedious—especially when you have several in your pipeline. Salesvue offers automated follow-ups and customizable campaigns that guide sales reps through exactly which touch points to utilize and eliminate the guesswork involved in finding a suitable follow-up time frame. Schedule a demo today to learn how it works, or learn more about how we help in our "4 Cs of Sales" white paper. Fill out the form below to download: [Formstack id=2012055 viewkey=sMUe8BkKEG][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]