The Warm Up, an Essential Ingredient to the Sale

Well, as promised I am covering the importance and necessity of having an exceptional warm-up before giving any sales presentation.

Now if you are calling on people that are well known to you, the warm up can be short but still needs to be effective.

Obviously, if you are calling on strangers as you will be ninety percent of the time the warm is extremely crucial. People want to do business with people they trust and the fact that you got into their door or office means they have some trust in you.

However it takes a certain level of trust to listen to your story but it takes even more trust to commit to spending money with you or your company.

The way you develop this trust is to do a great warm-up.

When you first meet with people you have to have a short conversation to talk about your company and a little about your self.

It is also good to mention the weather and any big news headlines of the day.

However as always I would stay away from politics and religion as these subjects can either make you or break you.

Don’t make the warm-up overly long either. You will get a feel for when the people are ready to listen. I always learned to ask a few questions to get the prospects talking. After a short while they will be ready to shut up and listen to what you have to say.

You need to know your product or service inside and out so you can deal with any questions that come up.

However, should you not know the answer always explain that you are not familiar with the issue and promise to find the answer and follow up with the prospect with the answer.

What ever you do don’t lie!

Lying to the prospects or customers is simply shooting yourself in the foot.

Well I hope that will help you come up with some good ways to warm up to the customers so they will listen intently to your presentations.

Also a little humor is good as long as you don’t over do it and the humor is in good taste. You never know for sure who you are talking to so, be polite and well mannered and think positive.

Thank you,

Billy J Gibson

Also better known as The Selling Fool