Have you ever had the ear of a high level executive in a big company for conducting business yet one employee became your worst nightmare?
“Mary” relayed this very story, to which I replied, “Wow, the possibility and the aggravation!”
Diplomacy during these times is critical and requires a good deal of thought beforehand. A similarly stressful situation with new clients may one day face you whereby you will need to sell your agenda.
The following steps for diplomatically selling your agenda are meant to also help develop your leadership capacity with the client company. The primary goal is to develop a plan of action with everyone in agreement and having landed on the same page. This will work to diminish future frustrations and encourage everyone treating you as a welcomed guest.
1. As soon as possible establish a meeting with everyone involved. Label it as a meeting of the minds to make 2012 the most successful year yet for all concerned. State you are developing an agenda for the meeting to include topics of concern and that you will appreciate everyone’s input. Provide a target date for receiving input.
Prioritize the agenda as you deem appropriate and include the team contributions under the appropriate topics. Give yourself the title of moderator to lead the meeting.
2. Begin your agenda by stating a few positive points and express appreciation for all. Where areas of dissatisfaction are concerned, refer to them as “areas for improvement”. After each point, ask, “Does this sound reasonable and doable?”
The question, in sales speak, is referred to as a “buy-in question” posed with the expectation of receiving a mini-agreement in return. You need to get 3-5 agreements to get to a sale or the favor(s) you are requesting. Carefully sprinkle these questions throughout the meeting.
3. Conclude the meeting by verbally recapping the mini agreements you received and other high points of the meeting. Type up the recap of the meeting and send via computer to everyone who participated in addition to others who need to know the end result.
As a result, taking this pro-active stance to outline expectations of all parties and adhering to an agenda will bring about increased respect from your client company.
4. Paperwork is essential for agreements. The expectations and finer points on how you service your clients, delivery, transition, collaboration or just the sharing of payments received should all be documented. In the case of legal documents you might consider the services of legalzoom.com or PrePaidLegal as possible options or in more complicated instances, investigate attorney services as you believe are required.
5. Always follow-up. Successful salespeople and entrepreneurs do one thing differently from everyone else; no matter what, they follow-up. After delivery of the confirmed agreements, check in with each person from time to time to see if everything is working to their satisfaction. Upon checking in, ask for their further suggestions for improvement.
6. Establish continued quarterly or six-month reviews. Each successive meeting bring in the previous year of documentation to compare where you were and where you are that day. Note the progress and together work on strides you may make for further improvement.
Your personal brand will thereafter include the title of “Strong Leader”. From this point forward business will be more orderly and appear as if it were always a Smooth Sale!
Author:
Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results” and “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”. She provides corporate consultation, training, coaching, and Inspirational keynotes. Elinor may be reached at Elinor@smoothsale.net or call (800) 704-1499 today.
