There may be more steps in the sales consultative process for your product or service than the simple ones of first meeting, proposal delivery and decision, but you should never leave a meeting without identifying what the next action step is and getting something on the calendar, even if it’s a date and time to make a phone call. 

Let’s look a little more closely at the basic steps of the process: 

Delivery of The Proposal 

A cardinal rule of mine is that a proposal should NEVER be emailed.  I tell my clients that if they are going to present a proposal it should be done in person, or if this is not possible, a phone meeting should be set up to review the proposal.  This insures that you will have the full attention of your client in reviewing the proposal.  It allows you to highlight areas you feel are important and critical.  It allows you to get immediate feedback from the client on what they like and to explain or make suggestions regarding what else is possible. 

Working Together

You Want This

Not

This

Email Proposal

The Proposal Itself   

It’s important that your proposal begin to paint the picture of what life is going to be like once the work is complete.  Whether it’s massage or consulting or getting a new printer, your proposal should move the client to a picture and feeling of what life is going to be like.  How are they going to feel after getting the massage or what is their business going to be like once the consulting is complete or how easy it’s going to be once the new color printer is in place.  

It’s up to you, the seller, to understand the prospects needs so well that you can paint a picture for them and bring them along so they understand the benefits of working with you. 

As a summary the benefits of creating a proposal that takes through to completion in their mind and going through it together with them provides many benefits:

• They are already starting to imagine what this product or service will do for them rather than trying to figure it out and worrying
• You are spending more time working together on something – creating relationship
• You get immediate feedback and make adjustments in your approach or proposal
• You know exactly where you stand 

Many times one of the most frustrating times for you, the seller is after the proposal is delivered and you are waiting for a response.  In last weeks story I showed one way to handle this.  Next week I’ll talk about that in more detail. 

In the meantime I encourage you to start to think about what questions you can ask your client to picture to have them paint their own picture of how improved their business or life will be after they work with you or purchase your product.

Related posts:

1. Sales Consultative; Build Relationship Through Taking Action Together – Proposal Delivery Last week I talked about using a sales consultative approach...
2. Sales Consultative; Build Relationship Through Taking Action Together – Continued The Sales consultative process doesn’t end with information gathering and...

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