I was listening in as a client of mine conducted an initial phone call with someone who was interested in her services. The call was going well and the prospect came out with, 

This all sounds really great, how do we get started working on this together?

To hear that sentence from a prospect is gold, right? They are asking you go close the deal. But what do I hear from my client?

Well, let me go back and work on a proposal. There’s a number of ways we can approach this — so I’ll outline each method, along with the associated costs and send that off to you. Then you can tell me what you think…

Did the prospect say, “Could you send me a proposal?” No!! The prospect said, “How do we get started?”

You need a clear next step that you can start on right away.

If you are focused on selling to a specific target customer, who has predictable needs you know what the next step is! You don’t need to go figure it out and write a proposal, spit it out right there on the phone.

In most cases there’s some kind of discovery phase, where you gather information, assess the situation, and make some initial recommendations — tell that to the client!

Well our first step is to audit your current processes, take a look at the analytics and get a good idea of what you’ve been doing, what’s working and what’s not working. That process takes 3 – 4 weeks and costs $4500. At the end of it we’ll present a report to you that outlines how your marketing looks compared to best practices and have specific recommendations for how to close those gaps. When would you like to schedule the kick-off call?

See how easy that is. No proposal writing, no chasing the client around to get their “feedback” on the proposal. They want help now, get them started NOW!

Do you have a clear next step that you can sell your prospects on the spot? Hit reply and tell me about it!