How Are You Going to Pay The Buyer For His, or Her Time?

How are you going to pay the buyer for his or her time in meeting with you?  Just what will the reward be?

 

What is Your Return On Sales Encounter

The challenge is not just to demonstrate the benefits of your products and services, but also the benefits for the buyer of even meeting with you.  After all, the meeting has not been free!

Calculating the Cost of the Sales Meeting
Many sales managers have calculated the cost of a sales call and even a sales cycle. The figures can be frightening. However, few have stopped to consider the buyer’s costs and what he or she is getting in return! We call it the Return On Sales Encounter.

Return on Sales Encounter

Imagine the buyer took a calculator in hand and calculated the return on an encounter with a salesperson, starting with the cost of a meeting in the first instance and the inevitable follow up emails and calls that will result!

     Buyer's Direct       Cost of

     Salary Cost           1 Hour

     60,000                    47

     80,000                    63

     100,000                  78

     150,000                117

So, you have just cost the buyer anywhere between 47 and 117 euro, dollars, or pounds depending on how senior he, or she is. But of course that has just covered his direct salary cost, so his, or her encounter with you has to be worth a lot more than that!

Have you been worth it?

Now of course, very few buyers will do the maths, but that does not suggest that they are not acutely aware of the value of their time. There are not enough hours in the day and there are lots of other things that the buyer could have been doing instead of meeting with you. Not least of which is dealing with the many emails and voice mails that are now waiting.

How to Buy Yourself More Time?

It is time to show your value, to demonstrate your worth. So, tell the buyer something that he, or she did not know, or knew but had forgotten about. Instead of delivering your features and benefits pitch, share an insight that is relevant to the performance of his, or her business. Tell him, or her what his competitors and peers are doing and the implications, or lessons to learned.

What else is required?  Well, recognize the value of his, or her time. Don’t take up an more of it than is necessary. That includes not calling, or emailing unless you have some value to offer, that is something interesting and useful to say. It means that if you say your meeting is going to last for 40 minutes, keep it to 40 minutes.

If that is too difficult, then just write the buyer a check for him, or her time instead!