It’s time to up your win rate.

When thinking about the sales process and how to design it, like any good design, you need to solve some problems: the problems of your prospecting client.

Then you realise this isn’t a sales process at all. It’s a buying process.

So let’s talk BX. Buying experience.

Does your BX let a buyer experience what it’s really like to work with you?

If the purpose of the buying process is to pick the best partner, then nothing will help make a great decision more than feeling first hand the value of working with you.

Are we about to make the case for spec work?

No, and we aren’t talking about every prospect either, only the qualified ones. That’s our design constraint. What I’m making a case for is that your agency is amazing to work with, and reading a PDF about that isn’t as powerful as seeing you in action.

There are 3 things that will convince them of what they are getting, collaboration, expertise and service level.

Here’s how to show them off.

Collaboration

Break the ice and form a team.

Find an efficient way to start working with the prospect on their problems.

They will start getting value and you will learn more about what they are struggling with than any sales questionnaire can tell you.

After we qualified a lead as worth pursuing, we used to arrange a workshop to start building user personas with people. It took an hour at the end they had experienced working with us in the context of their business, they had unlocked some a-ha moments and associated that value with us. We gained knowledge of their pain points that went far deeper than anything their original brief told us.

The workshop took effort, but let them experience what it was like working with us

The sales process isn’t all about efficiency, it’s about an investment of time. Bespoke up-front effort and knowledge sharing is fine as long as you win. And when everyone else is sending slide decks, you will stand out

Work out what your version of our workshop is. Make it true to how your agency works. What does collaborating with you look like and how can they experience it?

Expertise

People want to feel the business is suddenly going to have expertise on tap.

One of the reasons people choose an agency is to add to the collective knowledge and experience of their team.

They haven’t hired in house because although they know they’ll only be working with 1 or 2 people from your team, those people are backed by everything your agency has learned (and is still learning) about the problem they want solved. A freelancer can have 10 years of experience; a 10-person agency can have 100.

No one will ever be more engaged with your content than a prospect at the moment hey are deciding whether to choose your agency. In between your sales calls and sales-focused touch points make sure to be generous with your expertise. This could be as small as sending them an article you’ve written, or a piece of research, explaining why it’s relevant to them. The more deluxe version would involve getting them on a call with a specialist from your team for some advice.

Whatever approach is a good ROI for you, make sure you are teaching them from the start.

It means more touch-points, which equals a higher chance of winning. Their reaction to it will also help you learn more.

If they just wanted the job done they would have hired a freelancer.

The advice and insights you give away here should be the ones you are already sharing in your content, this isn’t spec work and shouldn’t be lots of effort. As a bonus, if you don’t have enough ideas for your content then thinking about what your engaged prospect wants to know about it a great place to start.

Be generous with your expertise.

Sales processes will bend your way if the client thinks working with you makes their business smarter.

Service

People buy on vibes.

However structured the buying process, however objective they try to be, everyone has a gut feeling and, more often than not, follows it.

At this point in the sales process you are up against other agencies with broadly the same positioning so it’s down to the details. You can’t control if the other team have a case study that’s a better fit, or if they use a certain tool the buyer likes. But you can out-first-impression them.

This is where the real BX starts. Become a designer. Now map every touchpoint and ask if it’s going to delight them. Does it give them what they need at that point, and does it go above and beyond? This spans from the basics – being responsive, on time, and having an agenda – to anything you can innovate to make their experience easier.

Solve the pain points of the buying experience

Because a bad detail hints at poor service level and, to the prospect, that equals risk. And people come to agencies precisely to reduce risk.

Show them you are a safe pair of hands.

If you don’t know the pain points of the buying experience, now is your chance to find out. Ask your current clients what it was like.

You’ll be amazed at how far something as straight-forward as replying quickly to the initial enquiry will get you.

Get the details right and make sure the vibes are good.

It’s incredible how agencies can be so good at solving their clients’ problems, and solving the problems of their clients’ customers, but only start using those skills once the contract is signed.

Apply some of that problem solving to your prospect’s buying process.

Let them experience how great you are.