Before Making Sales Calls


In sales, like most professions, success is 90 percent planning the work, and 10 percent working the plan. You need to make sure that you understand who the ideal customers are—and who are not. You need to ensure that you select your customers, not settle on them, if you are going to sell compensated value—that is, provide more measurable dollar benefits than competitors or the cost of doing nothing (status quo is often a salesperson's biggest competitor)—and receive your expected profit margins for doing so. The five perspectives, or viewpoints, from which a salesperson views opportunities are illustrated in Exhibit I-4.

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Exhibit I-4: The five viewpoints of the MeasureMax selling system.

An overview of the four selling phases of the MeasureMax system used to sell compensated value is illustrated in Exhibit I-5 on page 8.

MP 1: Spark Interest (salesperson viewed as a customer expert on initial contact)

  • Step 1: Research and Membership (salesperson confirms valid business reasons exist for contacting customer)

  • Step 2: Take Your Pick (customer selects a potential goal[s] he or she is interested in achieving from the ones you suggested)

  • Step 3: Track Record (salesperson documents success from same industry)

MPC 1: Interest Confirmed (customer agrees to meet to determine ability to achieve goals)

MP 2: Measure Potential (salesperson helps customer gauge ability to achieve his or her stated goal[s])

  • Step 1: Market Focus (salesperson reinforces industry expertise and knowledge)

  • Step 2: Purpose and Goals (salesperson reinforces that meeting is to help customer determine ability to achieve stated goals)

  • Step 3: Eliminate Unknowns (salesperson's questioning helps customer provide measurable purchasing information)

  • Step 4: Yellow Light (salesperson summarizes the measurable purchasing criteria required to achieve the customer's stated goal[s])

MPC 2: Potential Confirmed (customer agrees goals are worth pursuing)

MP 3: Cement Solution: (salesperson connects solution to customer's goal[s])

Before meeting customer:

  • Step 1: No Blanks (salesperson sees what measurable purchasing data is missing and determines strategy to find them out)

  • Step 2: Benchmarks (salesperson connects features of products and services to the measurable benefits of customer's goal[s])

  • Step 3: Oops! (salesperson determines what measurable benefits cannot be achieved and develops strategies to address them)

At the customer meeting:

  • Step 4: Purpose & Summary (salesperson reinforces that meeting is to present how selected solutions achieve customer's goals and recaps measurable benefits)

  • Step 5: Connect the Dots (salesperson connects measurable benefits of customer's goals to features of selected solutions)

  • Step 6: Conditions Met (salesperson demonstrates how all requirements of customer's purchasing decision are satisfied)

MPC 3: Solution Confirmed (customer agrees that solution achieves goals)

MP 4: Implement Agreement (salesperson inks the deal)

  • Step 1: Deal (salesperson confidently asks customer to purchase agreed-upon solutions)

  • Step 2: Logistics (salesperson goes over details needed to start business relationship)

MPC 4: Agreement Confirmed (customer agrees to enter into a contract and inks the deal)


Exhibit I-5: The four phases of MeasureMax. (Note— MP stands for Measurable Phases, while MPC stands for Measurable Phase Changes.)




The Science of Sales Success(c) A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results
The Science of Sales Success: A Proven System for High-Profit, Repeatable Results
ISBN: 0814415997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 170
Authors: Josh Costell

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