Recommendations for getting the business and staying in business

written by: Andrew Brown; article published: year 2007, month 10;



In: Categories » Business » Strategic planning » Recommendations for getting the business and staying in business

After spending months in meetings, logging a ton of phone calls, and sitting across from a prospective client for days in negotiation, you get the project. The hard part is behind you – or is it? Bringing in your dream deal is a great achievement, but if you cannot deliver on your promises, that dream could turn into a nightmare that buries your company.

Stiff competition exists in pretty much every market niche today, whether product or service. Growing revenues means selling more, which means offering better, faster, cheaper, or, better yet, all three. A tempting trap that snares many salespeople as they race the competition for prospects’ business is to make commitments that are beyond the company’s ability to deliver, that will stretch available resources to a dangerous extent, or that commit too many resources to a single client.

When you or your sales staff submit a proposal to a prospect, you put a lot on the line – your company, your reputation, even your employees’ salaries. Regardless of what you are selling, the only way to justify that kind of investment is to deliver on your promises. Offering the prospect bigger, faster, or cheaper will only work if you can follow through; if you can’t, it’s only a matter of time before you get replaced by a competitor. Having this happen even once can put your company in jeopardy – negative word of mouth travels almost at the speed of light, and an unhappy client can tarnish a company’s reputation beyond recovery.

So you have to be able to beat out the competition and deliver the goods, which is no small feat. How do you motivate prospect to hire you instead of someone else without overpromising or making commitments that don’t make strategic sense for you? Here are some recommendations for getting the business and staying in business:

  • Understand exactly and clearly what you are offering. If you have a sales team, train them properly so they can sell what you offer without extra embellishments.
  • Know your competition. Gather as much intelligence as possible about what they are offering, how they are selling, and why prospects do or don’t select them.
  • Do your homework. Gather as much intelligence about your prospect as possible. The more you know about the customer’s company and the challenges they are facing, the better edge you will have.
    Have a clear objective framed before you meet the prospect. Stay focused on this objective and avoid improvisation. For example, if your objective is to set up a demo of your product in a second meeting, quell the temptation to make a sale even if the conditions seem conducive.
  • Be prepared to answer any and all questions about your product and/or service. Rehearse possible scenarios beforehand so that you will be prepared to field a range of issues, queries, or objections.
  • Demonstrate your belief in what you are selling. Prospects can spot a hard sales pitch a mile off, and they know whether or not the person in front of them really believes in what they are selling.
  • Stand beside the prospect. Not literally, but in the sense that you see the product or service from their point of view and understand the benefits within their context. This allows you to make a connection beyond the sales pitch.
  • Be honest with the prospective client. This may not be as easy as it sounds. It takes courage. If the customer asks if you can deliver something that you know is beyond your capability, tell the truth. Focus on presenting solutions if any are available. For example, if the request is outside your capabilities but you know of a company that can fill the bill, offer to include them in your proposal as a sub-contractor that you will manage.
  • Make sure that whatever you propose fits your own company objectives and can be delivered as promised. Analyze your own risks and have back up plans for any occurrence that could jeopardize the successful completion of the proposed project.
  • Finally, leave the prospect with a positive and accurate memory of how you can help their company. If you have shown them realistic and proven ways of supporting their objectives, they will have realistic view or your product or service, and you will keep their attention and interest long after you’ve left the room.

legal disclaimer

1) Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article as well for any and all copyright infringements by authors and writers. E-articles is a free information resource. If you suspect this article for any copyright infringements, please read the Terms of service and contact us to investigate the problem.
2) The E-articles directory team is not responsible for inaccuracies, falsehoods, or any other types of misinformation this tutorial may contain and will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by a user through the user's reliance on the information gained here. Please read the Terms of service

Useful tools and features

Translate this article to...    Send this article to you or to a friend

Link to this article from your page   
If you like this article (tutorial), please link to it from your web page using the information above. Linking to this page, this is the only way to help us improve our service, the same time providing your visitors with a way to improve their online experience.

related articles

1. Significant Planning Guidelines and Policies
Planning guidelines and policies are statements or ground rules that provide a framework for management decisions and actions that are related to the achievement of organizational objectives. The framework established by these guidelines and policies also affects decisions made within the context of the strategic plan. It is not concerned with day-to-day decisions as long as those decisions are consistent with strategic objectives. This framework, in general, serves three important purposes: It (1) provid...

2. How to Control Interruptions
How much time do you lose each day to interruptions? Thirty minutes? An hour? Two hours? Are most or these interruptions of value? When you are interrupted, do you find that when you go back to what you were working on it takes almost as long to get back to where you were as it took to do the work originally? If so, all the work you did originally and all the time you invested are wasted. If you are one of the many people who are constantly interrupted, you’ll benefit enormously when you use the ideas that follow...

3. What Does It Mean That an Enterprise Is Effective
Fundamentally, an enterprise is effective when it is able to reach its goals and satisfy its objectives. Its goals and objectives must be realistic and reachable and in line with the enterprise’s purpose. From more practical perspectives and in detail, for an enterprise to be effective requires that its functions be executed efficiently in close support of its intent and desired direction. It also requires that the enterprise innovate and renew itself from top to bottom. A basic goal of any enterprise &...

4. Comparing Product Oriented and Customer Centric Organizations
The design and implementation of a customer-oriented strategy, having as a central concept the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), represents a very good example of a complex operation which necessitates a radical reorganization of the company. Such reorganization is not necessarily in terms of physical structure, but rather in terms of philosophy and process management. In a product-oriented organization, the firm studies the market and its own resources, attempting to create a better marketing-mix offer than the competitors...

5. How to Prepare a good Business Budget
Sales Planning Consider the historical patterns of behavior for your customers, your markets, your products, and your competitors. The success of your company depends on the success of your customers. Company sales will be affected by the economy. Identify how future economic events will affect your business. This includes looking at consumer outlook, inflation, taxes, political events, and the business cycle. Ask the sales organization for its input. The salespeople know the customers ...

6. Basic strategies of Business Planning
There are a number of reasons why planning is necessary: The future is not an extension of the past. The rate of change in the marketplace will continue to accelerate. Technological progress is taking place at an extraordinary rate. Regulatory issues require constant attention. Population changes, demographics, and geographic shifts require constant adjustment of marketing strategies. Global competition is common in almost every industry. B...

7. How to Sell Solutions at the Highest Level
Sales take place at different levels. Some sales require what I call the clerk approach. If I’m buying a toothbrush and the store clerk started asking about how often and how long I brush, I’d run. I just need a toothbrush. Some sales require the salesperson approach. If I’m buying a computer, I need to buy one that will help me with the kind of work I do. Knowing the number of gigahertz and gigabytes doesn’t help me much, except to assure me that it’s big and fast. If I am making strat...

8. Strategic Issues and Action Plans for Business Success
There is a lot of talk these days about how this period of prosperity cannot last forever. This is certainly a true statement, because nothing lasts forever. The fact is that many public companies have already begun to report reduced earnings. There are many explanations for this. 1. Companies that sell to Asia or Europe have already been experiencing a recession. Those with heavy investments in the Far East have certainly been having severe problems for the past few years. The Japanese stock market is do...

9. Estimating the Cost and Risk of Capital for Individual Projects
Although it is intuitively clear that riskier projects have a higher cost of capital, it is difficult to estimate project risk. First, note that three separate and distinct types of risk can be identified: 1. Stand-alone risk is the project’s risk disregarding the fact that it is but one asset within the firm’s portfolio of assets and that the firm is but one stock in a typical investor’s portfolio of stocks. Stand-alone risk is measured by the variability of the project’s expected r...

10. Seven Questions in Strategic Planning
There are seven key questions in strategic planning, both for you and for your business. These are questions that you need to ask and answer over and over, throughout your career. Sometimes a new answer to any of these questions can dramatically change the direction of your business and your life. Insights that you get from continually asking these questions can lead you to establish new goals and new focal points for your future. Define Your Business or Career Clearly The first and most important question is,...