The buying process of prospects:

1. Mislead or lie to salespeople to maintain control.
   • When you sound and look like a salesperson, you will be treated like one.
      
2. Information gathering.
    
3. A mini lie can either be a yes, a no, or a maybe.
    
4. Deal with you after you gave the proposal.
   • Hide you in their voice mail.
      
   • You always have to talk to the assistant, your prospect always has a meeting, etc.
      

There's always a plan in play and someone who has a stronger plan will always win. Once you've understood your prospect's buying system, you can start constructing your selling system.

Step 1: Bonding rapport.

• Have your enablement team set you up for an appointment with your prospect.
  • Prepare fact sheets for you.
     
• It has three concepts:
  • Relationship.
     
  • Qualifying.
     
  • Closing.

Step 2: Upfront contracts.

• The upfront contract is vitally important to create every meeting with your prospect. It ensures that you and your buyer are on the same page.
  • Appreciate your prospect with their time.
     
  • Reconfirm the amount of time that you set up for the meeting.
     
  • Uncover your prospect's agenda and expectations of the meeting.
     
  • Share your own agenda and expectation of the meeting with your prospect.
     
  • Decision or outcome.
     
• Relieve pressure from your prospect and allow them to say no to you if they see that you're not the solution for their problem.
   
• Be sure that you have these three things on your upfront contract:
  • Purpose
     
  • Agenda
     
  • Decision
     
• Adapt yourself to fit your prospect so when you speak, they hear it.

Step 3: Emotional drivers.

• There are only two reasons why people take action to buy something: pain or pleasure.
   
• There are two phases of time for each reason: now and in the future.
   
• During the "pain right now", people spend more money to fix their problems quicker.
   
• During the "pain in the future" is the second easiest to sell.
   
• During the "pleasure right now" is harder to sell than "pleasure in the future".
   
• There are three personas in your buyer:
  • The child - the buying process.
     
  • The adult - the voice who fact checks.
     
  • The parent - the one who confirms if buying is a good decision.
     
• You should know how to speak to the child, and not the adult and parent as these two represent the intellectual side.

Step 4: Budget.

• This step is basically you talking to the intellectual voices of your prospect.
   
• Budget is a conversation about three things:
  • Do they have the ability to fund it?
     
  • Do they have the willingness to fund it?
     
  • Is there any impact in funding it?
     
• Techniques on how to uncover budget:
  • Learn the skill of when to ask.
     
  • Fix the mindset that makes you uncomfortable asking for your prospect's budget. Be comfortable talking about money.
     
• This step revolves around money.
  • Who signs it off?
     
  • Where is it coming from?
     
  • What's the time frame?
     
  • What are the terms?
     
• Flush out any money issues during this phase.

Step 5: Decision-making process.

• The outcome will depend on the prospect you're talking to and the number of people involved with the process.
   
• Keys in the decision-making process to ask your prospect:
  • Who, besides yourself, is involved in the decision-making process?
     
  • What kind of process does your company go through to make a decision?
     
  • When do you want to have the solution in play?
     
  • How do you know which is the best one for you?
     
• When you've figured out that there are other people that are part of the process, you've got to build rapport with all those other people.
   
• Qualify your prospects.
  • Ask the ultimate contract question - this is the actual proposal.
     
  • Bring the future into the present with the question.
     
  • Get your clients, to be honest with you.
     
  • It eliminates assumptions while giving clarity.

Step 6: Presentation/Fulfillment.

• This step is all about how you are going to solve their pain, within their budget, in front of the decision-makers.
   
• The fulfilment has 4 steps:
  • Always review what you did.
     
  • Show them how you can resolve the problem.
     
  • Close. Dwell on the issues that they want to be solved. If you've covered two-thirds of your agenda, pause and confirm your disposition to your prospect before proceeding.
     
  • Make sure that when someone buys, it sticks.
     
• This is actually the best part of the process because that's when the fun happens.
   
• By the end, ask your prospects if they're sure about their choice. This is to have them hear the reason from themselves.