Mary Kay McBrayer
Mary Kay McBrayer
The Secret Behind the Most Powerful Sales Tool: The Question
When challenged by his manager on why his numbers were so poor, a sales representative repeated the old cliché, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” The manager said, “Your job is not to make them drink! Your job is to make them thirsty!” The question we ask in […]
Starting a Strong Sales Proposal: 6 Points in 60 Seconds
Every good story (which is what a sales proposal should be) is a persuasive story. It’s constructed with a beginning, a middle, and an end—but the most valuable part of the story is its beginning. That’s because our opening either captures the audience’s attention or it loses them. And if we don’t engage our prospects […]
Sales Proposals: How to Begin with the End in Mind
The goal of every sales presentation is to move the audience toward your objective. In the sales proposal, you want to move your audience from where they are at the beginning of your presentation to Point B. At Point B, the prospect understands their situation, believes in your capabilities, and finally accepts the call to […]
How to Visualize Your Prospect’s Return on Investment
The final step in the Discovery phase, and the fourth type of Discovery Question, is the Desired Results Question. Desired Results Questions help buyers identify the returns and benefits of the desired state. It is the opposite of the Impact Question in that it asks, “What are the positives?” The answer to a Desired Results […]
The Key to an Effective Sales Proposal
Effective sales proposals are great presentations, but they’re also so much more than that. They involve psychology, storytelling, and inspiring your audience to respond to your call to action. Essentially, it’s all about striking at the root of emotion! As sales professionals, we want to transfer emotions from ourselves to the buyer. In order to […]
Ask Problem & Opportunity Questions to Develop Buyer Urgency
The biggest mistake that sales professionals make is responding to a concept, need or problem with an immediate solution. As sales professionals, we need to grow buyers’ needs, amplify their urgency, and move “solving the problem” into the number-one slot on their To Do List. In other words, we need to illuminate that the prospect […]
6 Best Options for the Opening Gambit of Your Sales Proposal
The first mistake most sellers make in delivering their sales proposal is not starting strong. In fact, many apologize for taking their prospect’s time, or they set very low expectations. Instead, we want to start with something that is intentionally going to provoke the prospect’s interest. When beginning the pitch, the first words out of […]
How to Perfectly Initiate the Business Relationship
If there is one cliché that rings true every time, it’s that first impressions are critical. In the business relationship, first impressions begin long before the first actual meeting. In order to clarify that we will deliver a perceived value to our prospect, we need to cultivate rapport and establish trust. We do so by […]
The Discovery Question Problem: Too Many of the Wrong Kind
In the selling process, the right question can be like mind control in that we can steer the listener into thinking about what we want them to think about. This window of opportunity does not last very long, though, unless the questions are interesting and revealing to the buyer. In other words, we can’t play […]
The Top 5 Sales Proposal Errors
The top five most common errors when presenting a sales proposal have to do with developing the clarity of the narrative or story. And here are the five biggest mistakes in developing that story: no clear purpose, no audience benefit, no clear progression of events, too much detail, and/or too long-winded. Many sales presentations only […]