Setting the Stage

Before the show goes on, you have to set the stage. An axiom that’s obviously true when it comes to live performance…but also true when it comes to sales.

Good sales is all about the setup. You can’t just launch into a pitch and expect to capture a prospect’s attention right off the bat. You need to have piqued their interest beforehand - made them aware of a need or challenge that you have a solution for. That’s why they call it a sales journey - it’s a series of steps that have to be followed to successfully close a deal.

When it comes to that journey, the setup - or what we at Richter like to call “pre-sales” - is absolutely key. Without it, there’s no interest, there’s no conversation, there’s no followup…and there’s no sale.

So what does pre-sales consist of? Well, it starts with defining your exact target audience, down to the last minute detail. Which might sound overly obvious - but you’d be surprised how many sales teams miss or do a rush job on this crucial step.

Once you’ve identified your audience, you need to identify the problem they need solved - and create assets that will grab their attention by providing them with a solution.

This could be a LinkedIn ad campaign with short videos or banner ads that tease your product or service, YouTube ads, sequenced sales videos that live on a landing page - anything that will pique interest and get a prospect to book a call to find out more.

Once you’ve accomplished that, you’re off to the races. You’ve got their attention and now it’s time to focus on content that will give the sales team the ammo they need to close the deal. But we’ll talk about that in another blog…

The bottom line is, there’s so much information and so many companies, services, and offerings flying around these days. Having a strong pre-sales game enables your sales team to cut through all that noise, overcome early skepticism and build credibility with prospects.

But you’ve got to have a strategy in place, and compelling content to back that strategy up - content that will keep prospects engaged throughout that initial reach phase, and put them in a headspace to go on the rest of the sales journey with you.

You’ve got to set the stage.