At the start and close of all sales calls, you either assert or desert…yourself!

Everyone knows that in a court of law, both the prosecution and the defence begin ‘their case’ with an opening assertion of guilt or innocence…after which they each have to prove ‘their case’, while consistently relating all evidence back to their formal assertion. There has to be a beginning to everything we do, and in many sales situations the start of proceedings is crucial to both the presentation and the outcome. This fact certainly applies to my work as a speaker at conferences, at which times I am often faced with an audience of several hundred people…all of whom are wondering the same thing: ‘is this going to be like most of the other motivational talks I’ve had to endure?’ In my line of work, someone has the job of introducing me to the audience, and so I provide something very short and sweet, and then sometimes my first words after the introduction are ‘Thank you for the introduction, I can hardly wait to hear myself speak.’ At every presentation I make at conferences, I always begin proceedings by engaging in appropriate humour, closely followed by two or three observations about selling/business that I know the audience will not have heard before…and I also know that the observations will have the effect of causing people to think ‘this could be very interesting for me.’

How do customers and prospects think when you start to talk to them, in the course of your selling work? You must know in advance that your opening words will cause them to entertain one of three thoughts: ‘this could be interesting for me’, or ‘this seems like it’s going to be boring’, or ‘this could be a complete waste of my time.’ The big question then is how should your opening assertion be structured, so as to be full of promise and void of arrogance? Here is a 1 minute ‘opening’ to consider, following the ‘Hi, how are you?’ and ‘Thank you for seeing me’ stages:

• ‘First of all, in talking about (mention product or service to be discussed), I know that there is no point in me being here today if I can’t show that our company is capable of delivering much better results for you in this area, through the use of unique ideas and strategies. I am not sure who your current supplier is (and if you do know, then state who they are) but I assume of course that they provide good products and service, otherwise you wouldn’t work with them. Having said that, in most cases where customers have satisfactory supplier arrangements, they often miss out on a range of serious benefits. As a company, we like to think that our products and service are also good, however our main point of difference is that we aim to find and use very creative ideas to help people achieve significant improvements in business results. So, what I would like to do is give you some information about what kind of results are being achieved in this market (the results to be presented should show the highs and lows of performance…for companies like his, so that he is interested to know where his company fits in the scheme of things); I also need to ask just a few questions about your business, and if I believe that there is an opportunity for us to deliver better results for your company, I will present ideas and a plan that involves a trial period (or show you the results we have achieved for other customers)…so that you can be sure that what we promise can be delivered. None of this will take very long and the end result will create one of two positive outcomes for your company. The first is that we find that your current results cannot be improved, or that we find that the current results can be much improved.’

This kind of ‘opening’ can be modified for any sales situation, plus it can be shortened or lengthened, according to circumstances. There isn’t a person in any market who would not be interested to hear more after such a respectful and assertive opening, and after the evidence is produced, the ending must be assertive too. At the close it is worth briefly going over what was stated at the start, and the ways in which better results can be achieved…and then a form of ‘acceptable’ action plan should be provided.

Most sales people desert themselves by using indulgent presentations, void of promise. Knowing this, why not assert yourself from the start in future.