Prospecting: Three Attention Grabbers to Get the First Meeting

June 9, 2011 - PRLog -- Getting that first appointment with a prospect isn’t easy.  What can branch managers, small business bankers, and others responsible for selling bank products and services do to increase their chances?  Grab the prospect’s attention with one good reason to meet and chances are MUCH better they’ll say “yes.”

Clarity Advantage, a consulting and bank sales training firm, offers this advice to bankers:

•   Find out something about the prospect – concerns, recent decisions or actions, anything that provides a clue to their thinking.  Use it to form a “warm-up” sentence like: “I’ve heard you’re planning to build a new building this year.”
•   Play to the dark side – raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt.  Example: “We see interest rates rising in the next six months.  We think companies should fix rates now to avoid paying extra interest expense.”
•   Ask a question – “We’ve been able to help other companies address this challenge.  I’m wondering whether you’d like to talk about how we might do the same for you starting in the next 30 days.”

Nick Miller, small business banking sales specialist and president of Clarity Advantage, will explore these and other prospecting strategies on June 28, 2011 in a live webinar entitled First Calls on Prospects.  The one-hour, free webinar will begin at 12:00 PM EDT and is intended for bank salespeople who are meeting with owner-managed, owner-led companies with annual sales ranging from $500,000 to $20 million.

First Calls on Prospects is part of Clarity Advantage’s Deep Diving into Sales Techniques summer webinar series.  The webinar series, which also includes sessions on Selling the Value of Bank Solutions and Negotiating the Fees You Deserve, will provide coaching material for sales managers and actionable tips and strategies for sales people.  To learn more about the series and register for the webinars, please visit http://www.clarityadvantage.com/wst/2011/05/news/summer-2....

# # #

About Clarity Advantage: Consulting and bank sales training firm Clarity Advantage helps banks generate more profitable relationships faster with small and medium-sized companies, their owners, and employees. Clarity consulting, communications, sales tools and training help banks recruit and deploy sales team members, choose their best business and consumer prospects and clients, then approach, engage, sell, expand, and retain relationships. Clarity also assists banks with consumer sales and cash management sales. Clarity clients have posted increases in household penetration, cross-sells, deposit volume, and loan volume. Visitors to Clarity’s website, http://www.clarityadvantage.com, can subscribe to “The Weekly Sales Thought,” a free eNewsletter and podcast focused on business-to-business selling and sales management.