Every business, whether they provide products or services, needs a sales approach. Regardless of how your sales approach continues, it is incomplete unless you start with this one step.
The first rule in Action Selling, a sales training program ABA offers, is “Never call on a customer without a specific commitment objective in mind.” If this is not your first step, then your sales approach is not only incomplete, but ineffective.
What is a commitment objective?
A commitment objective is a goal, but more specifically, a commitment objective is an agreement from someone else related to your goal. For example, planning to make a sales call on a particular day is simply an objective. If you have a goal to schedule a get acquainted meeting as a result of that call, it is now a commitment objective. A true commitment objective involves something you want someone else to agree to.
Having a pre-defined commitment objective for every interaction saves time, keeps the sales process in the proper sequence, and allows you to keep moving ahead. A step-by-step process needs a commitment objective for every step in order to keep progressing.
A meeting with no commitment objective ends with nobody knowing what comes next or whether the process is over or still ongoing. Knowing this information is critical to a company’s sales efforts.
Analyze your sales approach and help your sales team recognize the difference between objectives and commitment objectives. Commitment objectives not only apply to the sales process for your business, but also are relevant to other business processes and your personal life as well. Using commitment objectives will save time and improve communication.
The ABA Insider is published by American Business Advisors, Inc. to provide business and personal improvement information and ideas. All material is presented to provide general and broad information only. The information found in this publication does not constitute business, tax, financial, or legal advice and should not be acted upon without seeking the counsel of professional advisor.
