Advise: Delivering Personalized Presentations

VIDEO 1: WHAT IS THE ADVISE STAGE AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Hi there. Welcome to final class of the certification – Advise: Delivering personalized presentations that turn opportunities into customers.

I’ve been in sales for almost 30 years. Selling things like yellow pages all the way to digital media. I joined HubSpot in 2009 just as the HubSpot sales organization began to scale. My job was to teach new HubSpot sales people the Inbound Sales model we are sharing with you here. I designed and implemented the HubSpot sales training program that as been responsible for developing hundreds of Inbound Sales reps. I’ve worked closely with Mark Roberge and Pete Caputa to design and execute a program that instilled the skills necessary to drive HubSpot’s hyper growth.

As we’ve discussed in the earlier videos, Inbound sales teams base their entire sales strategy on the buyer rather than the seller. Inbound salespeople personalize the entire sales experience to the buyer’s context. This is extremely critical at this stage of the selling process.

This class brings you to the final stage of the methodology – ADVISE.

Inbound salespeople advise prospects on the ways their offering is uniquely positioned to address the buyer’s context. If the buyer agrees they are the right choice, “opportunities” become “customers”.

You might be thinking – that’s what I’ve been doing all along. Advising my prospects.

To really understand what advise means, though, let’s take a look at the difference between legacy salespeople and inbound salespeople in this final stage of the sales process.

Legacy salespeople deliver the same presentation and same case studies to all buyers.

Ever felt like a broken record at times? Saying the same thing on the phone over and over again? Rarely deviating from the the script?

For legacy salespeople, auto-pilot and delivering a standard presentation is normal.

By sticking to the generic script, legacy salespeople fail to represent themselves as a solution to their prospect’s specific needs. Prospect’s want to know how features are specifically going to help them and their situation

In contrast, Inbound salespeople tailor the presentation to the buyer’s context, leveraging the information they already gathered. They tailor the presentation to explain why they are uniquely positioned to help.

By uncovering the buyer’s context and tailoring the presentation accordingly, the inbound salesperson adds tremendous value to the buyer’s journey beyond the information available online.

Inbound salespeople also determine buyer timelines differently. Legacy salespeople use discounts and promotions to get buyers to purchase on the seller’s timeline, rather than the buyer’s’ schedule.

Inbound salespeople understand the buyer’s timeline and adjust the sales process to it. They’ve developed enough trust with the buyer to not only understand needs but also understand the issue of not solving the needs by a certain date.

Inbound sellers help prospects determine the right time to buy by creating a plan to help achieve their goals by the time they need to achieve them. Instead of focusing on when the prospect will buy, they focus on when the prospect must achieve their goals. They then work backwards to determine a start date that will give them time to implement the right plan.

Legacy salespeople may even withhold buyer evaluation requirements, like a customer reference or access to their executives, until there’s commitment to purchase. But the empowered buyer is no longer dependent on the seller for this information. The empowered buyer has access to the seller’s customers and can request references without the help of the seller.

Interested in learning how to go about advising the inbound way? The next video will walk through how to use a final presentation to turn your opportunities into customers at a higher rate.

VIDEO 2: HOW DO INBOUND SALESPEOPLE ADVISE OPPORTUNITIES INTO CUSTOMERS?

This part of the class will walk you through the steps on structuring how you advise, determine financial and timeline criteria, and get your opportunity to commit and become a customer.

As an inbound salesperson, you serve as a translator between the generic messaging found on your company’s website and the unique needs of your buyer.

If you’re ready to advise, you’ve succeeded in capturing the buyer’s interest and exploring the opportunities to help them. Now you can convey your product or service’s value in a way that compels them to buy.

Helping your prospect move forward and advising them can be accomplished in a few different formats depending on your preference, your client’s preference, or the type of business you’re in. You or your industry might lean on one of these methods more frequently than the others:

A proposal
A presentation or demo
Or a contract

Whichever you choose, you must accomplish the same objectives, effectively advise your prospect on next steps, and get their commitment to move forward.

For the purpose of this training, we’ll focus primarily on how to accomplish this through an effective presentation.

If you do choose to write a proposal or contract, you should still set aside time, book a meeting, and review it along with your prospect to achieve buy-in.

And although each of these formats are very different, the elements of what goes into all of these are very similar.

Regardless of how you close your prospect, the following four things should be accomplished:

A recap of what you’ve learned, so the prospect knows you completely understand their context
Suggested ways to achieve their goals and overcome their challenges using your service/product
Confirming budget, decision making processes, and timeline. So you that help the buyer make the decision to move forward to become a customer or not
And getting commitment that this new plan is what they want to pursue

Let’s go further into each of these steps to understand how to deliver a personalized presentation.

The presentation part of advising is crucial. Don’t let your prospecting and connecting efforts go to waste. It’s the performance piece. The place where you’re acting out your part.

The typical legacy sales presentation flow, that you may have even come across yourself, starts with –

Here’s who we are
Here’s who we’re working with
Here are the things that you told me
Here’s how we’re going to solve the problem
Here’s where you sign

Now think about it. In many ways that typical presentation flow is backwards. Does telling a prospect about who you are and other businesses you’ve worked with help add value to your presentation? A buyer could find this information with a quick search online. That’s not adding value.

Don’t start a presentation about yourself, your company’s history, and a description of what you provide. Somewhere along the way, salespeople were told that they have to earn the right to ask questions by educating prospects first, or they have to impress prospects with how awesome they are. But, really, all they are doing is wasting time giving a generic presentation that is irrelevant to the prospect’s unique situation.

The presentation is all about adding value. What value can you provide in the conversation that they can’t get anywhere else? Pitches that close are personalized to the buyer’s context. Be the advisor your prospects need you to be, not the pitch man you think they expect you to be.

The presentation flow should really be:

Here’s what I heard you tell me
Here’s most likely the ways those that are in your situation think about making this needed change
Here are the pros and cons to the different approaches you can take.
Here’s the outcome that you want and the approach that will yield the best outcome for you
Here’s why this choice makes the most sense for you
and Here’s how we can best support that

A recap of what you’ve learned

Before even getting into the meat of your presentation, you first recap what you’ve learned from the exploratory call.

Part of the presentation is understanding where the prospect is now. What’s the current state that they are in and what’s the desired state they want to get to? What closes that gap from where they are and where they want to be? That’s what you uncovered from all of your research and your conversation earlier on.

It can sound something like the following:

You: “In order to achieve your goals of a, b, c and overcome challenges x, y, z, we’ve discussed implementing d, e and f. Does that accurately recap our discussions so far?

Prospect: “Yes. Perfectly.”

During this stage, you need to paint a picture that your prospect’s current plan won’t get them where they want to go, and that the plan you are about to present will close the gap between where they want to be and where they are now. What you’re doing in your presentation is communicating how to close that gap.

This could be a challenge they have, a goal they want to achieve. Or it could be a severe pain point or fear that they have. It could also be a personal compelling reason or a desire their business has to accomplish something.

The other thing to accomplish during this part of the process is to impress upon your buyer that you are uniquely suited to help them. Recap why the prospect is talking to you. In a generic presentation, you focus on what you want to get the prospect to know. That’s the wrong angle. Why should they care about what you’re talking about? Instead, focus on what they need to know in order to close the gap they want to close.

To really illustrate the importance of this step, I like to use a metaphor. When you are presenting, try and envision there’s a table you’re both sitting at. In this presentation especially, you want the buyer to allow you onto their side of the table, right next to them.

During the exploratory period, the buyer should have allowed you to the other side of the table to understand their point of view. And if they’ve allowed you to stay there and lay out for them how they can seize upon an opportunity or overcome a challenge, the presentation that you’re doing should allow you to stay on that side of the table as if you were always there. You should use language such as “we” instead of “you” to refer to what success looks like when you and they are working together.

By starting with a recap, you’re able to make sure that you’re both on the same page. You’re both on the same side of the table.

Suggesting ways to achieve their goals

Now you’re ready to suggest different ways that they can make the change that you both agreed they need.

Working off of the example recap conversation, as the prospect responds with “Yes. That’s it. You’ve described our situation perfectly”, you might respond with something like

“Then today, I’ll show you how we can help you implement the best plan possible better than anyone else.”

Craft a customized presentation that connects their goals and challenges to your offering, and shows exactly how they’ll benefit with your service. If you thoroughly qualified prospects on the exploratory call, you’ll be able to provide specific, customized advice and they’ll be able to see that you truly care about what’s best for them. The better the qualification, the more customized the presentation.

Tailor your suggestions based on what you’ve learned they care about most. Don’t add fluff. Don’t have an overly broad focus. It should feel like it’s customized for them. Any point that’s not relevant or interesting to them gives them a chance to mentally check out – and they might not come back.

Additionally, when you are giving your presentation, when you are presenting how you can help, make sure that your presentation is being received well. To keep your prospect engaged, adjust to what’s unfolding during the conversation.

Don’t be afraid to be flexible. The key to being flexible is to be prepared to address curveballs they throw at you. Know the answers to common questions and be ready to present the different capabilities of your solution.

There are usually different paths that your prospect can take to overcome their challenge or achieve their goals with your or another service. Be prepared to talk through all of these different options and anticipate the questions they will have as they try to weigh the pros and cons of each.

For example, if you find out mid-way through that they would like to concentrate on another area or probe into a different subject, adapt. After all, this meeting is ultimately for the buyer, so if they’d like to steer the conversation in a new direction, allow them to do so and meet them where their interest lie. Treat the presentation like a dynamic event.

Another important word of caution is to avoid showing off all of the bells and whistles of your product or all of the details about how you deliver your service. Most buyers aren’t concerned with learning about all the bells and whistles of your product or service. They are interested in discovering how a few of those bells and whistles translate into value for them.

As much as possible, keep the focus on the benefits to them instead of features of your offering, make it a two-way dialog to ensure they are following along, and remember be flexible.

Before moving onto the next step, ensure that you have complete buy-in from your prospect that your offering is the right one for them.

Confirming budget, authority, and timeline

If you’ve determined that you can help your prospect achieve their goals, implement their plan, overcome their challenges, it’s time to confirm how and when they’ll make the decision and how they’ll afford the investment required.

Confirm timing first. Verify when they need to achieve their goal, when they need to eliminate specific challenges and when they need to implement their plan. Ask them what negative consequences might occur if they don’t hit specific timelines.

Based on what it takes to set up their account and implement your solution, work backwards to determine when they need to sign your contract. Outline a timeline for the steps necessary to meet the buyer’s deadline. Don’t forget to include product evaluation, purchase processes, implementation, and/or training steps in your plan. You must be ready to adjust your expectations according to their needs. But, most importantly, get commitment that they will be able to sign the contract then.

Next, it’s crucial to confirm your prospect’s budget. After all, you can’t help them if they can’t invest in your solution. Confirm that they believe the ROI is strong and that they’re confident that the investment is the right one. Ask them to commit to your fee.

Finally, understand how your prospect typically goes about making a purchase. Who needs to be involved? Who signs the contract or issues a purchase order? Do they need to review the plan with others internally at their company, review with their external advisors of family members if you’re selling to small businesses.

Helping the buyer make the decision

Since this all comes down to the buyer making a change, you must agree with the prospect that they need the help to change, they want the help to change, then it’s about moving forward with getting commitment that they’re ready for you to help them.

There are many different approaches to gaining commitment. We recommend using a framework where you’re guiding the buyer as they weigh the pros of cons of their decision. Most prospects weigh pros and cons; you might as well be involved. One technique for getting commitment is the 1 to 10 closing technique, something Pete Caputa has referenced on HubSpot’s blog.

When the questions in the 1-10 closing technique are asked in the right order, you’ll get the prospect to share why they want to buy and then weigh whether those benefits are worth the risk or downside of their concerns. As they weigh the pros and cons, many prospects will overcome any lingering concerns.

Let’s cover all the different scenarios and how you should handle them when they inevitably happen.

The first question to ask is:
“From 1 to 10, where 1 is ‘I’m not interested in working with you,’ and 10 is ‘Sign me up now,’ what number are you?”

The second question aims to uncover why they will buy.

No matter what number they say in response to the first question (unless it’s a very low number like a 2 or a 3) you should act surprised or confused and say:

“Really? I’m surprised you picked a number so high. Based on our conversations, I figured you’d be much closer to a 7. Why did you pick 9?”

You don’t have to say 7, it could be 8 or 6. It doesn’t matter what particular number you use as long as it’s a number lower than the one they threw out.

The key to this question is to get the prospect to tell you why they want to buy. Spend some time here. Acknowledge what they say by repeating it back to them. Ask them to elaborate on the things they say.

It’s key to get more than one good answer. After they give you their initial reasons, ask them why else they would move forward. If you know other reasons they want to buy that they haven’t shared at this moment, don’t be afraid to prompt them.

This is also a good place to remind them of how you’re different compared to competitive solutions — just make sure you do it in question format.

You might ask:
“What about reason X? Is that a reason why you chose a higher number than I expected? How important is X benefit?”

After they’ve shared an exhaustive list of reasons, repeat what they’ve said back to them:

“So, it seems like you chose 9 because of the following reasons: A, B, C, D, E, and most of all, F.”

At some point, you need to transition from why they would move forward to why they might not. The third question uncovers their concerns.

Ask:
“Okay. Wow. It seems like there are some really good reasons why you’d like to move forward. But, now I’m confused again. Based on all of those reasons, I’m wondering why it’s not a 10?”

Now they should share their concerns. Ideally, it’ll sound something like this:

“My only concern is X. If I didn’t care about X, we’d be a 10.”

Even if your buyer can only come up with one or two concerns, don’t get overconfident. Make sure you explore their objections. Say something like:

“I see. Does it make sense to talk about this a bit more? We may be able to work through this issue together.”

or:
“Hmm. I bet we can avoid this concern altogether. Do you want to talk through how we avoid this issue with other clients?”

And to make absolutely sure they don’t have any other hidden concerns, ask:

“If you were convinced this concern can be avoided altogether, would you be a 10?”

It’s difficult to tell how to handle their concerns exactly, because the specific concerns or objections could vary quite a bit.

Even if you can’t allay their concerns completely — and assuming they gave you a number pretty close to 10 — you may still be able to close the deal.

If they give you a number lower than 6 in response to your initial question, do not proceed. Instead, back up to the exploratory phase of your sales process and figure out what you’ve missed. You were very thorough getting them to tell you why they wanted to buy, be equally thorough here. If they aren’t forthcoming, don’t be afraid to bring up small concerns they’ve shared with you previously to get the ball rolling.

Perhaps something like “On a previous call, you expressed a concern that your team might not be able to handle X task on an ongoing basis. Since completing that task on a regular basis is key to helping you achieve your goals, are you still concerned about that?”

Now that you know all the reasons your prospect wants to move forward and all the reasons why they might not, you can ask the final closing question in this technique. It sounds something like:

“It seems like there are a lot of reasons to move forward: X, Y, Z, etc. It also sounds like you have two specific concerns. Now that we’ve discussed them, has your number changed at all? Are you still a 9?”

If they aren’t a 10 yet, prompt them to weigh the pros and cons they’ve just shared with you:

“So, you’re still at a 9. I see. In that case, are you prepared to walk away from all of the benefits… or do you think the benefits outweigh the risks and you should move forward?”

At this point, you have a list of pros and cons. Even if they don’t sign your contract right now, you have plenty of information. Ask them how and when they’re going to make the decision, and suggest next steps accordingly.

With the 1 to 10 closing technique, you are fully uncovering all the reasons why a prospect wants to buy and why they might not. Before you ask for their business, you’re helping them weigh the benefits, risks, upside, and downside of making a decision to move forward — or not.

In sales, you must embrace both closed-won or closed-lost results — after all, the only thing you control completely is who you spend your time with, not what decision they will ultimately make.

If you find the buyer is a “good-fit” but has prioritized goals not aligned with your offering, you may choose to provoke a different viewpoint on the buyer’s goal prioritization.

Share insights, best practices, or general advice from the industry that illustrate to the buyer that there may exist high-value goals that should be pursued ahead of the goals the buyer is currently prioritizing.

These higher-value goals are aligned with the unique differentiations of the salesperson’s offering. Of course, you should only pursue this path if you are convinced that buyer is focused on the wrong goals.

And if you find that the buyer is a “bad-fit” or the buyer has a prioritized goal you can’t help with, inform them accordingly. If possible, refer the prospect to a solution that may help. You can also ask them if they have peers with goals you can help.

Remember, you’re not trying to sell, you’re trying to help them buy.

Let’s recap. To turn your opportunities into customer at a high rate, you must accomplish these four things:

Provide recap of what you’ve learned in the buyer’s context
Suggest ways they can achieve their goals and overcome their challenges
Confirm their budget, decision making processes, and timeline.
And get commitment that the proposed plan is what they want to pursue

In the next video, we’ll welcome back Mark Roberge who will walk through examples of going through the advise process and closing out the certification.

VIDEO 3: EXAMPLE COMPANY #1

Welcome back everyone. Let’s put everything together from the Advise class into a real example. We will continue to build on our Tyre Recruiting example and apply the Advise best practices to that company.

Tyre Recruiting assembles a presentation guide following the four best practices Andrew outlined in the last video.

First, Tyre recruiters provide a recap of what they have learned about the buyer. For example, they may say: “Thanks again for taking the time to get us up to speed on the situation in our last meeting. To recap, we need to expand the sales team by 30% between now and the end of Q2 in order to make our revenue target for 2016. However, you have been struggling to find enough top quality candidates to meet these hiring targets with the current approach of using your internal recruiter and sales managers. Because the need is immediate, you would like to engage with an outside recruiting firm as long as the firm can deliver on the quantity and quality candidates you need within your cost per hire threshold of $15,000. The candidates you need have between 3 and 7 years of sales experience with a degree from at least a tier 2 college and experience selling to a technical buyer at a mid-market company. The firm you choose needs to generate enough candidates to yield at least 1 hire per month for you. Your preference is to work with a firm that has a track record for delivering this type of candidate at the pace you need. Is this an accurate recap our discussions so far?”

Next, Tyre recruiters suggest ways they can achieve their goals. An example flow for this section of the presentation is:

Show the buyer a candidate specification the recruiter developed for the buyer’s need
Show the buyer three sample candidate resumes that meet the specification. Ask the buyer for feedback on what they like and do not like about each candidate. Suggest revisions to the candidate specification based on the feedback.
Walk the buyer through a case study on how Tyre Recruiting delivered on a similar candidate specification at the pace and cost per hire requested.
Illustrate an expanded list of companies that Tyre Recruiting has worked with that have a similar context to the buyer
Confirm the buyer believes Tyre Recruiting is the right fit for their specific needs.

Next, Tyre recruiters confirm the timeline using the buyer’s context. For example, Tyre recruiters may say:
“I am glad you agree we are the best firm for your needs. As for your timing, you mentioned the team needs to be 30% larger by the end of Q2. That means, you need us to deliver one additional hire per month starting next month, correct?”

“You also mentioned it takes about 2 weeks to get candidates through your hiring process to an accepted offer. Therefore, if we started today, we only have 2 weeks to start sourcing candidates and scheduling opening phone screens for you. I usually like to have a 4-week runway for these tasks but I will get the right staff on the initiative to meet your hiring targets. Are my numbers correct?”

Next, Tyre recruiters confirm the budget buy-in. For example:
“From a budget perspective, you need the cost per hire to stay below $15,000. $10,000 of that can be allocated to sourcing the candidates. Our fee is 15% of the candidates base salary upon hiring. Given your hiring salary, we will be charging you $8,000 per hire. This fee is inline with your budget needs, correct?”

“Excellent. I will get you the contract within the hour. To confirm, you will get the contract to your legal department and CFO and will have a signature back to me by tomorrow end of day, correct?”

“Excellent, I will have my staff ready to go.”

Hopefully this example illustrates how effective it is to personalize the entire Advise sequence to the buyer’s context. It creates a great experience for the buyer and yields and effective result for your company.

VIDEO 4: EXAMPLE COMPANY #2

Welcome back everyone. Dan Tyre here. Sales Director at HubSpot. In this video, we’ll resume talking about CoGrow Marketing’s sales pursuit of a mid-sized B2B law firm. As we’re now covering the advise section of the training, this video will focus on how CoGrow Marketing’s senior new business person turns this opportunity into their newest client.

CoGrow marketing first puts together a proposal that includes four things. First, it includes everything about their prospect’s context that was learned during the exploratory process. Second, it includes the plan they discussed and agreed upon during the exploratory call. Third, it includes a review of pros and cons of the different options they’re considering. Fourth, it includes a customized recommendation of one of CoGrow Marketing’s fast, faster or fastest standard pricing packages. In this case, they are recommending their “faster” package as it fits into the budget the law firm has set aside and it will help them achieve their goals too.

But unlike most agencies, they do not send the proposal over to the prospect. Instead, they plan a meeting with all of the prospect’s stakeholders, so they can review it in person.

Let’s walk through the contents of the proposal just like CoGrow would in their meeting. We’ll recap the buyer context first using our exploratory call guide framework: CGPT, CI, AB. We won’t rehash all of the details here since we covered this in the exploratory video. But since it sounds a bit different, we’ll give you the outline.

It’ll sound something like this in the beginning,

“Your law firm has an amazing story. Not only is the quality of your work and the breadth of your capabilities very impressive, but you are having life-changing impact on your clients’ businesses. Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed, your website and online marketing initiatives are not communicating that effectively. As a result, you’re losing business to smaller, less effective law firms who just happen to be more digitally savvy.

After spending a bunch of time together really understanding what makes your firm special, as well as educating your team on the modern best practices of mid-sized law firms, we’ve put together a plan to help you fix these problems. This is more of a working session than a presentation. So, please don’t hesitate to stop me at any point with questions.

We’ll start by reviewing the current state of affairs, including your stated challenges and the goals that are important to your firm and your employees.”’

“For every client and project we take on, we first define goals and plans. Everything we recommend and do is focused on helping you achieve your goals.

As we discussed, your main goal is to acquire 20 new mid-market b2b clients per year averaging about $30k in billings. With 25 employees on the current payroll, adding 2 new associates per year, this pace of new client acquisition allows you to secure the future of the firm. At the current pace averaging only 8 new clients per year over the last 3 years, you are at risk of losing some of your up and coming associates who might be attracted to firms that are growing faster and where they can earn ownership stakes sooner. If this were to happen, you’d risk pushing back the retirement plans of your senior partners, since you wouldn’t have a new set of associates who would be able to take over the firm. There are also many employees who are counting on year end bonuses to pay off mortgages, college bills and save for retirement, but you have not paid bonuses in the last 3 years. In short, it’s critical that you increase your client acquisition rate.

The root of the problem is that you’re losing to newer firms who are much more digitally savvy. They’re being found online. You are not. Your old playbooks of networking and referrals are not getting you the results you’re used to. It’s getting harder for your senior partners to find the time and more junior associates just aren’t having success with your playbook. Let’s discuss the plan we’ve designed together to not just fix these issue, but to make you the first and only choice of local B2B companies when they need legal counsel.

Our first step in any new ongoing client relationship is to conduct a workshop with your entire team. In this workshop, we’ll get full buy-in from your team. Everyone will understand how we’re going to grow this firm together, as a team. We’ll work together to define a focus and priority for the content we’ll produce together and who we’ll be targeting with that content. We’ll tap them for ideas on content and get their buy-in to help create it. We’ll teach them how to use social media effectively during the workshop, and set them up so that we can leverage them to amplify the reach of your content on an ongoing basis. By the end of the day, we’ll have a plan that will allow us to start implementing the rest of the strategy.

From there, we will implement some new software that will allow us to not just execute our work, but measure the impact it’s having on your topline. There will be certain things we will do for you. And there will be some things that your team will need to learn. We’ll hold your team’s hand as we implement all of this. Most of the software works in the background for you with little extra effort. But, there will be some new prospecting approaches you’ll want to put into place that will require some new habits. As we discussed, you have two newer associates who will take this on.

In the beginning of our conversations, we both agreed that your website needs work. However, we agreed later in our exploratory call that we should prioritize lead generation activities over redesigning and relaunching your website. Therefore, our primary focus for the first 6 months of working together will be blogging and lead generation. We will brainstorm topics together and agree on a calendar for blog content as well as long form content. Our writers will interview different partners to create the content. We will optimize it, publish and promote it to your social channels. We will discuss the frequency of this activity shortly. But, as we discussed, remember that higher frequency results in more traffic and leads. We will begin talking about your website redesign once we have made traction with lead generation. When we do this relaunch, content will play a major role. Over the next 6 months, we’ll create content that more fully communicates the quality of your work, the breadth of your capabilities and the impact you have on your client’s businesses and lives.”

For the sake of time, we won’t review CoGrow’s entire plan for their law firm prospect. At a high level, though, CoGrow would discuss how they’d help their client implement the full inbound marketing and inbound sales methodology. By discussing every step, they ensure buy-in and also separate themselves from any competition. Most of CoGrow’s competition is focused on softer branding and design issues and top of the funnel metrics like search traffic and social followings. By focusing on how they’ll drive sales for their client and being honest about the effort required, CoGrow differentiates themselves as someone who can really accelerate growth.

Remember, while you’re reviewing a plan with a client, ensure they are following along and agreeing to each step of the plan. To do that, check in with prospects as you’re reviewing your proposal. Ask questions like, “Do you still believe this is the right path?” and “Are you committed to this step in the process? or “Do you understand why this part of the plan is critical?”

Also, as s marketing firm, CoGrow uses visuals to communicate the quality of their work and especially the concepts they are introducing. For example, they might show things like:

A search optimized client blog post that is ranking well for a key legal search term. AND
A landing page with an ebook from one of their other professional services clients. AND
A Linkedin Pulse article that is driving significant traffic to a legal client’s ebook. OR
The amount of traffic a client gets from their blog subscribers who receive an email alert when a new blog post is published. OR
How one client connects with a large number of leads by using email templates. AND
A video that shows how easy it is use a CRM to project revenue, and why that’s important for knowing which content is producing clients.

After reviewing their law firms goals, challenges and the plan they designed together in their last meeting, CoGrow’s new business team will then make sure they are the chosen firm and solution. They’ll bring up a visual which has three columns. The first column is the solution. The second and third are a list of pros and cons.

They seed the table with a few pros and cons themselves. They then collaboratively walk through the table together and fill it in completely. In doing this, they’re trying to help the prospect think through their decision. They will say something like, “Now that we’ve reviewed the components of our plan, we usually try to help our prospective clients think through the pros and cons of each option they have in front of them. As we’ve helped companies make decisions like this many times before and we’ve worked with companies who have chosen all four of these options, we have a very good feel for what the pluses and minuses are.”

Once they’ve agreed that CoGrow is the right option, they walk the prospect through their final decision. This decision is what package they will choose. In order to help the prospect make an informed decision, CoGrow has put together 3 standardized packages. They customize these packages each time, but they start with a base of services in each, and they always have three to choose from. They are called fast, faster and fastest based on how fast their client wants to grow. In this case, where budget is not an issue, but not unlimited and the growth goals and timelines are reasonable, they’d suggest the fastest package.

As you can see, the packages provide estimates of the amount of work to be completed. These are guidelines as some months they will be doing more of some things and less of others.

Next, CoGrow confirms the budget buy-in. For example, they’ll say:
“From a budget perspective, you’ll need to dedicate $8k/month. You might decide that you want to do more once we get going, but we recommend starting with our “faster” package for now. By our calculations, you’re goal is to grow the firm by about $600k this year. We think we can help you get there with a $120k annual investment. Are you satisfied with the ROI this investment will provide?”

Once CoGrow gets the partners to agree that hiring CoGrow is the best option and they’ve agreed on the right package, they then transition into a discussion of authority, and timeline. For example, CoGrow’s new business person might say:
“Given that you believe we are the best option to help you grow, and you mentioned the team wants to start immediately so that you have a chance of hitting your growth goals this year, how soon would you like to get started?”

Once the prospect provides an answer, they will say, “There are a bunch of steps after this that need to be planned. The first is signing our contract and the contract for the software we recommend. Concurrently, we can schedule our workshop as well. Our schedule is rather tight, but we could try and fit your workshop in next week if you’d like?”

Finally, CoGrow confirms the purchase authority and the agreement. “During our last conversation, you mentioned that once we get you a contract, you’ll want to review the fine print of course. Then, one of your partners will sign off. You said that will be you, right? Am I missing any steps? Do you want to sign it today?”

“Ok. I will get you the contract within the hour. We’ll talk to you in the morning to finalize our schedules. We have some software we use that will make scheduling the workshop pretty painless. We’ll just need your help getting a scheduling link to everyone”

And that brings us to the end of the CoGrow example and how they would apply the inbound sales methodology to their sales approach.

Good Selling!