Unsuccessful Webinars & Demonstrations: when you lose, get a win!
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
If you do online demonstrations and webinars, you know very well that in spite of your great product offering, superior questioning skills, and good delivery, you sometimes come away with a promise for future business, or a flat “no.” In other words, no order. You can still get a “win” out of it, though.
To preface the rest of this post, ensure that you’ve read my whitepaper on conducting a successful sales webinar, so that you haven’t left any bases uncovered when you did your due diligence and made your presentation. It’s free, and I’ve gotten some very good responses on how it’s helped sales reps to get closer to making a sale.
Today, I’d like you to consider taking one more step after you’ve finished your unsuccessful demo or webinar, a technique that comes right out of my inside sales training courses. Your contact, in most cases, appreciates the time you’ve taken, and knows that because he or she hasn’t given you the business, it’s a loss for you. That’s a great time to invite him or her to be a LinkedIn contact for you. A great way to approach this is to say “John, I’ve had a great time showing you what we can do for you, and even if we can’t move forward today, I’m going to invite you on LinkedIn so we can stay in touch.”
As soon as you’ve gotten off the phone, send the invitation. Don’t wait a day, do it now, and the prospect will probably LinkIn to you. Now you have an additional contact that likes you, appreciated your professionalism, and knows your company. And thus, when you check your new prospects’ LinkedIn profiles before calling them (you do that, right?) you’ll be able to warm up your cold calls by referencing people you both know. Within a relatively short amount of time, you should have a pretty good network of prospect contacts. In a given vertical, the world is very small. These people attend the same conferences, and know each other professionally, and sometimes socially, too.
Here’s a caveat: be sure you know why your webinar or demo prospect didn’t buy. It could be money, timing, changed requirements, anything. But if the prospect didn’t buy because he or she thought your solution offering was decidedly sub-par, he or she is probably not going to want to LinkIn to you. So again, take my approach when your prospect loved you and your solution, but decided not to buy for unrelated reasons.
Some of you may be thinking “why don’t I just ask for a reference to someone at another company that might need my product, instead?” Good question, I’m glad you asked. Many people are reticent to give out names, that’s why, and if you get a “no, I don’t feel comfortable giving you other names” that’s two losses. Asking for other references is always easier after the prospect becomes your customer. On the other hand, using a LinkedIn invitation is easy, especially immediately after you’ve taken the time to work with the prospect.
So go ahead and get yourself a “win,” even when you walk away without an order. And add this technique to your Best Practices Playbook.