Jump on those ROI clues as soon as you hear them.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 15, 2011 @ 10:02 AM
In my inside sales training courses, I discuss the importance of hearing Return-on-Investment (ROI) clues and addressing them immediately, before the topic goes away. I heard some beauties in a coaching session last week. The prospect was a Director at his company. Here are some things the prospect actually said in the conversation:
1) On the one hand, we’re probably going to pay a programmer for a month’s worth of programming. On the other hand, since you already have the solution, it might be worth looking at your solution instead.
2) We’re concerned about the maintenance fees we’re paying with our current solution.
3) Our people really don’t like our current solution.
4) We’ve got a dozen locations, so we’re looking at the cost of bringing them all into the mix.
Two of these (#1 and 2) should lead to questions such as “How much are you going to pay that programmer?” and “How much is maintenance costing you now?”. In #3, a great question would have been “What don’t they like about it?”. And in #4, that would have been a great time to ask “Given the number of entities, tell me how the decision process will work to get a solution on board.”
The call took 28 minutes, and the rep only addressed question #2. The reason? He was so busy trying to ask a myriad of other questions that he completely skipped the other three. After the call, we debriefed, agreed to call the prospect right back, and the rep got his answers. That programming cost issue is a key, because software development is both an art and a science, and savvy prospects in upper management are well aware that software development costs often spiral out of control.
As a rep, keeping to your own objectives is important, but in doing so, remember to stop when you hear a great ROI clue, and address it right then. Much of the time, those ROI issues will be more important to your sale than anything else you discuss. Seriously listen to what your prospect has to say, and add immediately addressing ROI questions to your Best Practices Playbook.