We’ve been told from day one of sales training: gain commitment to the next step on every sales call. This makes perfect sense and I’m in complete agreement. The archaic message of “Always Be Closing” has closed thousands of sales careers in the last fifteen or so years.
However, if you obsess over getting to the next step and forget this one important thing – the most important thing to always remember in sales – then you’ll be one of those sales people with a lot of appointments but no sales. The most important thing to remember on every sales call: you’re there to ultimately win business.
While the short term goal might be to gain an appointment or move on to the next stage of the sales process, neither of these items can be considered the overall objective. Your primary objective is obvious: win the business. Therefore, securing an appointment in an annoying manner or impressing the audience with exaggerations might achieve your short term goal, but will hurt in your pursuit of the objective.
So, always have your goal of the next step clearly defined, but don’t lose sight of the ultimate objective. Always remember this: you’re there to ultimately win their business.
