Промышленный лизинг Промышленный лизинг  Методички 

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Each stage along the process should reinforce your firms value proposition to the client and involve a go/no-go decision. Selling services is a process of seduction, not brute force, says Jim Jonassen, partner at Riviera Partners, an executive search and placement firm. Desperate moves are quickly identified by prospects, and no one wants to do business with a desperate firm, he notes.

Preliminary Discovery. Preliminary discovery determines whether the prospect has the potential to be a good client for your firm. There is a definite, though sometimes difficult to identify, differentiation between good business and bad business, also known as the qualifying or prescreening phase. This phase includes examining:

High-level needs Industry specialty Availability of buyer/decision maker

Credit history

Most of the areas can be understood through secondary research and a brief telephone conversation with the prospect. Though it depends on your pipeline and sales structure, securing an in-person meeting with a prospective buyer-assuming a financial decision maker or senior staffer who influences spending decisions will be present-is almost always a good idea. Regardless of whether the potential to serve that organization is a perfect fit, youll be giving your firm the opportunity to display its capabilities and make a favorable first impression, which often leads to related opportunities. The high-net worth financial community that Im involved with is small and tight-knit, says Antony Abiatti, a director at SCS Financial, so any time I can get in front of a member of that community and leave them with a positive impression of my firm, its time well-spent.

However, at the same time, you want to make sure scarce sales resources are deployed effectively. To do that, your organization should already have in place a target client profile to use as a guide during the screening process. A prospects size, industry specialty, geography, and buyer description (CEO, CIO, general manager, etc.) should be established based on the organizations success and failures serving diverse customers.

In-Person MMeeting and Presentation. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Theres no better opportunity to showcase your firm than during an uninterrupted, in-person 45 minutes with a prospective buyer. Making the most of that meeting-that is, taking the necessary steps to successfully secure a second meeting-requires staying focused on two initiatives:



1. Mining the prospect for detailed information about his or her specific needs

2. Demonstrating deep competence and some form of differentiation

Good services salespeople have a knack for being able to identify good prospects and then extracting an incredible amount of information from them during the buying process, especially during the first in-person meeting, says Alan Osetek, senior vice president at Carat Interactive.

First meetings can be casual and informal or highly structured. Firms need to be prepared for either scenario, which can most times be ascertained before the meeting. To make the most of the initial meeting and get the organization in a position to craft an effective proposal, business developers need to be prepared to be active listeners and effective presenters.

A good business developer will have the following questions answered after the first in-person meeting:

What is the driving force behind the issue being discussed (e.g., reduce operating costs, prepare for acquisition, improve profitability)?

Who is most affected by the suggested improvement (e.g., CEO, shareholders, VP of HR)?

What is an ideal outcome of what is being discussed?

What, if any, budget has been made available, and how will the success or failure of this project be measured?

Depending on the nature of the project, there are endless additional questions to be addressed, many of them arcane and specific to the services being provided. But by making sure you also address high-level issues and, therefore, appeal to the fundamental needs of the buyer, who likely has to justify expenditures in some economic fashion, you ensure that the proposal will be aligned with the buyers needs.

Firms also need to be prepared to address the core questions that every prospect is interested in getting answered:

What does your firm do (services)? Who have you worked for (clients)? How do you do it (process/methodology)? How much does it cost (pricing)? When can you do it (timing)?

Though they wont ask for it explicitly, prospects are also interested in how you differentiate from the competition. Firms need to walk a fine line here. You need to differentiate to stand apart in a crowd, and one way to do that is to address the preceding questions completely. Present irrefutable



examples of your work, and be prepared to talk about them in great detail. Tailor the examples to the expected needs of the prospect. Discuss the unique philosophical approach your organization employs when delivering services and how it benefits clients. Remember that prospects use the vendor evaluation process to attempt to mitigate risk while also maximizing return on investment and look good in the process.

Lead Evaluation and Approval. After the in-person meeting, you should have enough information about the prospect and his or her needs to determine whether there is a potentially good fit between your organizations. Can your organization serve the prospect successfully and profitably? Is there an opportunity for a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship?

Depending on the nature of your business, this decision could have huge implications. When talking about large-scale information technology projects, for example, the upfront investment can be significant. Sarah Casalan, vice president of IT at Ecko Unlimited and former Accenture consultant, comments, Sometimes we want to see a free proof-of-concept, on a small scale, before were willing to move forward on a project. In these scenarios, firms need to have a solid understanding of the opportunity before making such an upfront investment. The following questions help determine an answer:

Does the prospect fit in the firms sweet spot ? If not, how far on the periphery is it?

What is the history of the relationship between the firm and the buyer?

What is the prospects history in dealing with service vendors? Is the prospect a veteran, successful user of services or notorious for squeezing vendors?

What are the prospects future plans? Is the prospect on a growth trajectory or simply protecting market share?

Ultimately, the decision to move forward or not with the prospect relies on a variety of internal and external factors. The wise firm will walk away from a project for an attractive, strong brand name company that will bring a significant dose of favorable publicity along with it when there are too many warning signs-price sensitivity, low perceived value of outside vendors, no decision maker, and zero growth plans. The presence of several negative factors will turn an otherwise attractive prospect unattractive. Alternatively, firms also make the decision to take on projects as loss leaders because the prospect has the characteristics of a profitable long-term client, yet needs tangible evidence in the way of a small project to understand the value of the firm.

Proposal Development. Its usually time to develop a proposal after:

A lead has been sufficiently qualified.

A detailed needs assessment meeting has taken place.



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