Today we are going to talk about how to get to the “decision-maker”. This is something I talk about a lot but I see new sales people making mistakes like this all the time. That is they ask for the owner, manager, or the decision-maker. Guess what they hear every time they ask that? “No, they are not available” or “No, they cannot talk to you right now.” Now why is that? You are asking for the manager. You can’t ask for the manager or the owner, if you do, you are not going to talk to them.
So how do you get to the decision maker? By simply asking a question that only the decision-maker would know. So when you talk to the person at the counter treat them just like they were the decision-maker. This will do two things:
Let me illustrate how. Let’s say you are selling merchant services only. You are going to walk into the business and say, “Hi, my name is ________, the reason I stopped by today is I have a local business in the area. We provide business services like web design, point of sale systems, merchant services, etc. I am just curious who are you guys using right now for your credit card processing?” Now that is a question that only the decision-maker or owner would know. The response could be, “Yes, I am using _________.” Than you know you are speaking to the owner because only the owner or decision-maker would know that. The person may also say, “No, I don’t know who we are using. Let me go get Bill.”
They are volunteering to go get the owner/manager and bring them to the front.
It works the same way on the phone. So you want to make sure you are talking with the business owner. Let’s say I am selling point of sale systems. “Hello, my name is _______, I am also a local business owner. I wanted to find out if you guys already had a touch screen point of sale solution?” If they say, “No, we don’t have one”, then say, “Which ones have you considered?” At that point what are they going to have to do? They are going to have to go get the owner/manager/decision-maker or say, “I don’t know the answer to that but Susan would and she is usually here on Thursday.” Then we go to the next action steps and set an appointment for Thursday or a follow up.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions below.
Have a great day,
James Shepherd
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