Loading Sales Environment: The Home Field Advantage
One of the most overlooked yet common problems people have when making sales is the environment that the prospect and salesperson is in. There are three possible environments we will discuss today. These are home field, neutral field, and away field. I will also give you a way to tilt the advantage in your favor ahead of time.
Home field is when a prospect comes to your place of business. If at all possible, it is of course always best if someone comes to you. You can create the environment ahead of time to reflect on various things. What things should you pay attention to?
Everything!
The color of carpet, the pictures on the wall, the type of clothes you are using, the aromas, the furniture, the lighting, temperature, sounds and on and on. You are a movie director and creating an experience, so act like one.
What type of feelings are you trying to get your prospect in. Comfort? Relaxation? Confidence. Different colors bring about different moods, so it is important that you ask yourself what is the desired outcome, and then start working backwards towards your goal.
Neutral field is when you meet a prospect at neither your place, or their place. Now, let’s also analyze some things. The distance traveled, who recommended the place, and the seating can all effect the outcome of the meeting, but for this purpose we are still going to consider it neutral.
Things you must be aware of in a neutral environment: everything from the home field environment applies that you have control of.
Further more, there are things of psychology that are implied here. The person who has to travel farther is normally the person “at the disadvantage.” The person who recommends the place normally has the advantage. If people know your name at the place you are meeting, that is a bonus. You also want to consider the noise, viewpoint, and more. Am I being overly analytical? Perhaps. But you need to remember that it is important to think about everything you can when making a sale or a presentation.
The last environment is their home field, or for you away. This is the most difficult, because the prospect will feel the most power, the most control, and generally be the most resistant. At the same time they will probably feel the most relaxed and confident, so it is an advantage to look at this scenario and remember the position that you are in.
What are the things you need to be aware of? Once again, everything. Your grooming, your breath, your finger nails, the type of portfolio you use, the pen you bring, the watch you wear…all of these to some extent will play an important role in the meeting.
Now that we’ve covered the three types of fields you can encounter and some of the variables, let’s look at how you can help yourself ahead of time. If you have never met this person before, and only spoken via phone or email remember you only have a few seconds to make a good impression.
So what should you do?
I believe that you need to utilize pre-positioning or pre-impression material. What is this?
Pre-impression material is information you send before you arrive that educates the prospect on several things. The idea is to impress them, wow them, and let them know how good you are at what you do. Now there are an endless variety of possible influences that are involved here, but you need to be aware of a few key items.
- There are some guidelines in place, but other than these guidelines there is no one size fits all strategy.
- You need to test the outcome.
- Your competition is NOT doing this, so this gives you advantage.
Here are the guidelines.
1) The material has to be interesting
2) The material should touch on their hot buttons and be about their pain and the removal of the pain of doing business with you
3) The material should be helpful and educational
4) The material should be fun to go through
5) The material should utilize references and case studies whenever appropriate
6) If you have any media articles written about your business, you need to include these articles.
7) Depending on the situation, a guide on how the prospect should choose the item they are looking for should be utilized
8 ) Information about yourself (your hobbies, etc.) helps the prospect feel as if they know you and allows them to begin to trust you.
All of this can fit in a neatly prepared little box and off it goes to do a little “mini’ presentation ahead of time. Now sometimes the person won’t open it before you get there, which is not a problem. You just show the person the information when you get there. These are little props.
Does this make sense? The goal is for the material sent ahead of time to create an awesome presentation for you and to present you as different, interesting, and the material must also be interesting. If you do this, when you get to the appointment you will already have an icebreaker prepared, and additionally the prospect, if done correctly, should feel like they know you. This will allow you to level the playing field whether at home, neutral, or away.
Now, go out there and make sure you get home field advantage in all of your situations.
-Matt