Elements of Client Control and Sales Psychology in the Consultative Selling Cycle by Mike Lions
Channel: Lions and Associates Sales Team Training & Success Building Channel
Date: 18/07/2014

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The sooner a new salesperson uses the elements of client control, the faster the progress toward higher fees and more income. Anyone who can't or won't use client control will perpetually struggle to stay alive.
It is an axiom of professional selling that the key to success is to do the most productive thing possible at any given time. This usually relates to time management and organization, but is just as applicable to client control.
The most productive thing possible when dealing with clients is to call at the right time and to get as many good collectable accounts as there are to get. In other words, you should verify when the client will complete their aging and will be prepared to turn over all problem accounts on one call.
Other parts of client control are training the client to turn accounts over in a timely fashion and to let us do our job without interfering or requiring daily status reports from you, teach them to use their online access. Timely fashion means before they file bankruptcy, before they are a year old and before they are turned over to another agency or an attorney. We like to get them "with some meat still left on the bones."
Client control actually begins with your introductory remarks to the receptionist. An authoritative approach with an assumptive attitude creates the impression that you have the right to call and that you deserve respect and that you should be quickly transferred to the right party.
Continuing in the same vein, your introduction to the authorizing party should also be forceful, professional and polite. This helps establish your permission to ask qualifying questions.
When asking qualifying questions, you should concentrate on making them sound "informed" and specific. Ask "hard" questions. You will learn more and get to the real issues more quickly. Suggested wordings for hard questions and rigid responses will be included later.
Client control is also affected by the type of presentation you make. You should employ a features and benefits presentation, with frequent use of tie-downs and trial closes. This helps establish, maintain and qualify the prospect's interests according to their own "hot buttons." It also helps you to focus on the best potential benefits around which to build a closing sequence.
If you have done a good job of client control in the presentation you will have properly set up your call-back or follow-up call. You will not only have established the time and date of your next call, you will also have set up an agenda for conversation.
Specifically, you should have probed to find out which problem accounts you will be discussing. Who are they? Where are they located? How much do they owe? How old are they? Why aren't they paying? Then, when you call back, you can utilize an assumed close technique to get the placements.
Closing is the final culmination of controlling tactics prior to actually setting up a new client. When we close a new account, however, that is just the beginning of a whole new set of controls.
The ultimate in client control is to be able to guide our clients on every debtor they place. We want them to place all accounts which are beyond normal terms before they get too old. We want collectable accounts; no disputes, bankruptcies, skips or prior placements. We will take some of these to get the client in the door but you will want to train your client to place collectable business in a timely fashion.
In short, we must help educate our clients as to what their role is and what our role is. If they do their part, we can do our part. We will both realize more profit from our associations.