What can we learn about closing trade show leads from Warren Buffett’s right-hand man?
“A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.” – Charlie Munger
In other words, if you want to achieve something, discover what you shouldn’t be doing first.
Munger calls this inverted thinking.
This thought process was first brought up by a German mathematician where he said: “…many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backwards.“.
Sales isn’t like a mathematical equation where 1+1=2. When it comes to closing deals with trade show leads, there are many approaches and techniques you can use to close the deal. By applying the inverted thought process, the best place to start is by thinking about the things you shouldn’t be doing.
How does this relate to converting leads into clients?
Here’s how the majority thinks: “What do I need to do to win this deal?”
By applying the inverted thought process, instead of asking what do we need to win this deal, we would ask ourselves,
“What do we need to do to lose this deal?”
Here are just some of the 9 things you would do to lose the deal:
- Not communicating clearly on how your solution will help the client: People don’t buy what they don’t understand.
- Not following up: 50% of clients don’t respond the first time you make contact. This immediately cuts your close rate by half.
- Take one week to reply: How can you rely on someone who doesn’t reply promptly?
- Not giving what the clients want: This breaks one of the fundamental rules of selling which is to give clients what they don’t want.
- Client forgets about you down the road: Even if you lost the current deal, will the client remember you when the next opportunity arises?
- Not having a better solution than your competitors: Why would they buy something from you if your competitor has a much better solution at half the price?
- Not giving a compelling enough reason to switch: Would you go through all the hassle of switching to another electricity provider to save $1 per year?
- Clients don’t trust that you can do the job: People do business with people they trust.
- Clients don’t like you: People do business with people they like.
What do you think would happen if we did all of the above? We would lose the deal.
So, how do we improve our probability of winning clients? Do the complete opposite.
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