"Professional preparation can affect

up to 99%

of  direct sales efficiency"

If among the negotiating stages, the preparation is mentioned, it should also be included in the sales conversation structure. Especially, that it can affect up to 99% of direct sales efficiency !.

Most often, one of routine salesmen activities is obtaining preliminary information about a customer. As a rule, the trader visits the client's website to become familiar with the specifics of his industry. Often tries to get information from friends in the business environment. Sometimes he tries to establish a central decision maker. It happens that it performs early customer verification in insurance companies, especially for traders working in b2b industries.

Very often, preparing too much concerns price aspects. First of all, it is just too  much carefully focusing on the offered prices leads us to a weakening of our sales message. This may seem unlikely, but when I have been training, I have met many retailers who were preparing for trade meetings mainly by developing "good prices for the customer". This has often taken the form of hours of price analysis, containing maximum concession values for the customer. Although at first glance such behavior could mean a professional commercial approach, however, these were only appearances. Preparing for meetings only in such areas will most likely cause our conversation to focus mainly on prices. In addition, this will result in disbelief in our own skills. For example, a sales representative who, at the preparation stage, concludes that his offer is the most expensive, will not be willing to believe that the customer will choose his offer. Observing many sales employees who have many years of sales experience, I noticed that spending too much time on price preparation does not translate into our effectiveness. Sometimes even before meeting with customer, the seller tries to find a solution to make his products more cheapest. Most often,  without knowing the customer in person, salesman only  wastes his time in the act of releasing prices before knowing  actual customer’s needs. Preparing only in this way does not cause faith in our company and its products, but on the contrary – leads to disbelief and weakening of position. My experience working with trade groups and, above all, my own practice have confirmed my belief that pricing preparation should be the final stage of our preparatory activities.

So what method do I propose to put into practice so that we can prepare professionally and, above all, effectively for trade talks?

First, let's start from the very beginning?

Do you know the SMART rule for setting professional and private goals? In  general, the above method assumes that in order to effectively achieve the objectives pursued, our goals should be formulated on the basis of the following guidelines:

Figure 1. Smart Target Construction in Sales