Selling to Clients

Selling the Recommendations

Every sales person or marketing consultant must  discuss insights gained and recommendations after analyzing your client business.

This is when you give your expert advice and insights into solving the clients problem.

How you summarize and represent information is important in getting the client to “buy” your recommendations.

Consider the following tips as you plan to discuss your recommendations:

• Focus on the benefits of the recommendation.
• Consider the client’s PLOT and your partnering strategy.
• Use examples, analogies, and anecdotes to position issues. Provide supporting information in succinct comments, such as Expertise Statements.
• Share your insights about the organization’s readiness to undertake implementation activities.
• Remember that everyone will be wondering: “What’s in it for me?” Consider ahead of time what it will take to get a commitment.

Tie your recommendations to the client’s business and personal objectives and concerns. Be prepared to justify the costs and benefits for your recommendation. Speak in the client’s terms (e.g., return on investment, improved productivity, decreased costs).

Before making recommendations, you will want to discuss what you have based your recommendations on. Discuss the issues the recommendations are designed to address and the information and insights you have gained that led you to these recommendations. When discussing information and insights, be sure to:

• State the positives first.
• Position the issues in such a way that the client hears what you are saying.
• Provide detail on data and responses, such as the percentage of people in agreement or how frequently an issue was commented upon.
• Emphasize priority issues.
Avoid mentioning specific names or groups. Try to generalize or cite quotes that are representative of what you heard as key issues.
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Tool for Selling Recommendations
Use this tool to help you prepare to sell your recommendation to the client. You may want to use the Developing Recommendations tool first, to help you formulate the details of your recommendation.

How will you describe the issue to the client? How will you describe the implications of the issue for the client’s business and him or her personally?
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What options are being considered to address the issue? What are the strengths of each option? What are the weaknesses of each option?

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What input has the team had in developing the options?

What input has the client had in developing the options?
How will you discuss the options with the client? What benefits and risks will you describe for each? What questions will you ask to get the client’s feedback on the options?

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