Show Your Clients the Money!

Are you wondering how to close those opportunities lingering in your funnel? While these are admittedly challenging times for many, I still see lots of sales being made. So what're those sellers doing differently? They're showing their clients the financial justification behind their decisions.

Ask clients if their people, processes or budget are causing their biggest issues. This question will help your customer pinpoint where their biggest challenges exist and you can begin to develop a plan to resolve the situation together. In today's economy executives need your help to discover the financial justification behind their decision to work with you - for themselves and their board. They want to be confident they are doing the right thing. And if you can show them the money, you'll close the business.

So, now's the time to master financial questioning with your clients. And you don't have to have a Masters degree in accounting like I do to do it!

One IT seller I was working with couldn't get his prospect to close even though the prospect's computer system crashed twice a month like clockwork. The prospect felt the pain for the multiple hours the system was down, told the seller he really wanted to fix it, but couldn't bring himself to open his wallet to do it. It just wasn't in his budget and business was too slow.

In good conscience the prospect didn't feel it made good business sense to invest in fixing a problem that only happened a few times a month.

With my coaching the IT seller worked with his prospect to identify the impact the downed computer system was having on his business. He questioned his prospect about:

• Revenue his business wasn't able to generate when the system was down
• Customer dissatisfaction when they couldn't schedule appointments
• Duplicate work that occurred across the staff
• Lost invoicing when the system didn't recover properly
• Employee dissatisfaction when they couldn't do their jobs and had to work overtime

This seller didn't need an accounting degree to ask financial questions and show his prospect the money. So how can you do it with your opportunities?

• Think about all the issues resulting from your prospect's business issue and the impacts they could have on his business
• Use your questioning skills to help the prospect determine which impacts are important to him
• Document your findings in your proposal to provide your prospect the financial return he needs to justify and sell his decision internally

Kendra Lee is author of "Selling Against the Goal" and president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group helps companies rapidly penetrate new markets, break into new accounts and shorten time to revenue with new products in the Small & Medium Business (SMB) segment. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and association events. For more information, contact the company at +1 303.741.6636 or info@klagroup.com or visit www.klagroup.com.

KLA publishes an industry-leading online newsletter. To subscribe and get a free Quota Gap Calculator ($18.95 value) visit www.klagroup.com. For information on sales training, call 303-741-6636.