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Copyright Notice: Cheryl Clausen. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use, sharing, reproduction, distribution or distribution of these materials by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise is strictly prohibited. No portion of these materials may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher. Published under the Copyright Law of the Library of Congress of The United States of America by: Cheryl Clausen, Measured Success Inc.
Contents
Introduction Top 25 Reasons You Can't Sell ...................................................... 4 Reason Number 1 You Can't Sell You think your failures or lack of success is someone elses fault...................................................................................... 6 Action Item 1 ............................................................................................ 9 Reason Number 2 You Cant Sell You dont understand why your prospects dont want what you have. ................................................................................... 10 Action Item 2 .......................................................................................... 12 Reason Number 3 You Cant Sell You think you need a killer presentation ........ 13 Action Item 3 .......................................................................................... 16 Reason Number 4 You Cant Sell Your own fear has a strangle hold on you ...... 17 Action Item 4 .......................................................................................... 19 Reason Number 5 You Cant Sell You dont know how to gain interest .............. 20 Action Item 5 .......................................................................................... 23 Reason Number 6 You Cant Sell You struggle because you think everyone is a prospect .................................................................................................... 24 Reason Number 7 You Cant Sell You think you have to have all the gizmos to succeed ..................................................................................................... 26 Action Item 6 .......................................................................................... 28 Reason Number 8 You Cant Sell You dont know how to get a commitment...... 29 Action Item 7 .......................................................................................... 31 Reason Number 9 You Cant Sell You dont know what to say ......................... 31 Action Item 8 .......................................................................................... 34 Reason Number 10 You Cant Sell You talk too much even though you think you dont ......................................................................................................... 35 Reason Number 11 You Cant Sell You dont know how to listen even though you think you do .............................................................................................. 37 Reason Number 12 You Cant Sell Youre trying to persuade........................... 38 Reason Number 13 You Cant Sell You dont set appointments for the right reason ................................................................................................................ 40 Reason Number 14 You Cant Sell You prejudge others and yourself ................ 42 Action Item 9 .......................................................................................... 43 Reason Number 15 You Cant Sell You havent earned referral rights ............... 44
Action Item10 ......................................................................................... 46 Reason Number 16 You Cant Sell You dont get what your prospects need....... 46 Reason Number 17 You Can't Sell You dont earn their trust ........................... 48 Reason Number 18 You Cant Sell You dont understand the Law of Attraction .. 50 Reason Number 19 You Cant Sell Youre trying to succeed by being someone else ................................................................................................................ 52 Reason Number 20 You Cant Sell You dont work on being the best ................ 54 Action Item 11 ........................................................................................ 56 Reason Number 21 You Cant Sell You want the quick fix instant solution ......... 57 Reason Number 22 You Cant Sell You forget sales boils down to people liking you because youre genuine ............................................................................... 59 Reason Number 23 You Cant Sell Youre thinking about what you need not about what the prospect needs .............................................................................. 60 Reason Number 24 You Cant Sell You dont give first.................................... 63 Reason Number 25 You Cant Sell You dont understand you need to aim small miss small and fail forward fast .................................................................... 64 Summary .................................................................................................. 66
So what are the top 25 reasons you dont have the sales success you deserve: 1. You think your failures and lack of success are someone elses fault. 2. You dont understand why your prospects dont want what you have. 3. You think you need a killer presentation. 4. Your own fear has a strangle hold on you. 5. You dont know how to gain the interest of your prospects. 6. You think everyone is your prospect. 7. You think you have to have all the latest gizmos to succeed in sales. 8. You dont know how to get a commitment. 9. You dont know what to say. 10. You talk too much even though you think you dont. 11. You dont know how to listen even though you think you do. 12. Youre trying to persuade. 13. You dont set appointments for the right reason. 14. You prejudge yourself and others. 15. You havent earned referral rights. 16. You dont get what your prospects need. 17. You dont earn their trust. 18. You dont understand the Law of Attraction. 19. Youre trying to succeed by being someone else. 20. You dont work on being the best. 21. You want the quick fix instant solution. 22. You forget sales boils down to people liking you because youre genuine. 23. Youre thinking about what you need not about what the prospect needs.
Cheryl A. Clausen ~ Measured Success Inc. ~ http://CoachingMegaAgents.com
24. You dont give first. 25. You dont understand you need to aim small miss small and fail forward fast.
A long list of reasons you may not be able to sell, no easy fixes, or instant solutions just important truths about sales success that will help you to pinpoint where you can improve. Your biggest obstacle to your sales success is you and thats why its all your responsibility. Getting out of your own way isnt an easy or quick thing to do, but when you have your moments of revelation everything will change for you almost instantly.
Until you get yourself past these things you just feel stuck and frustrated, but once you overcome these things you have a fail-safe sales process that will get you moving far and fast. This overview provides a list for you to identify your areas for improvement but you need a lot more. You need to know what and where youre mistakes are, and what you need to do to fix those mistakes. And thats what well be doing in the following chapters.
Reason Number 1 You Can't Sell You think your failures or lack of success is someone elses fault.
Ok: your sales managers a jerk, the underwriters just ruined a perfectly good product, no one is providing you with good marketing materials, everybody already has an agent, your presentation isnt great and you dont have all
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the gizmos the competition does, you cant get compliance to approve anything, etc. So what, all that may be true and more, but if you want to succeed its entirely up to you, and no one else. If you want sales success your first biggest step is to accept that no matter what isnt working, no matter what you dont have, no matter whos a jerk, you and only you can change all that and make it work in spite of all your obstacles. When you cant sell or youre just a little stuck it feels rotten, and its easy to lose your confidence and feel down on yourself. To overcome reason number 1 you have to change the way you think. It will take a conscious effort on your part to change the way you think because what you think is an ingrained habit that formed early in your life when things didnt work out for you, and as you experience troubles in your sales career now you automatically think a certain way about the experience based on those past experiences.
There are really two parts to overcoming reason number 1 and neither involves rah-rah motivation. Overcoming reason number 1 requires self-leadership and opportunity expectation. You can have a positive outlook and mindset, and still be an absolute sales flop. Having a positive attitude and mindset is good because it makes you a pleasant person, and if youre not a pleasant person you arent going to sell anything to anyone. But thinking happy thoughts alone will not put money in the bank in the form of closed sales.
Self-leadership is essential for sales success. Leadership isnt about a set of characteristics or traits that someone is born with. Leadership is a developable skill set. Leadership is all
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about achieving results through yourself and others. A leader sees the world as it is and accepts it. A leader takes responsibility for their own results and never places blame on others. A leader does the things others wont to get results others dont. A leader is totally responsible for their sales successes and their sales flops.
Opportunity expectation comes from accepting every situation and acknowledging there is an opportunity to be found. The opportunity that exists in situations that outwardly appear poor is potentially your greatest opportunity of all. Be glad you may be struggling to sell anything, or struggling to get unstuck now because when you figure out what you need to do to change that, youll learn a valuable lesson that will serve you over and over again. Ive had clients that were terrifically successful their first couple years, and then all of a sudden there success came to a screeching halt. They came to realize and related to me that during that time of great success they were accidentally successful, and now they needed to learn how to be intentionally successful. Learn how to be intentionally successful by: learning how to turn failures into successes, learning the lesson to be learned in every temporary defeat, finding creative ways to turn temporary defeats into future successes, and using your imagination to make connections no one else has thought of. You have more opportunities in front of you at this very moment than you could ever handle. Use your self-leadership to start turning those opportunities into results.
Action Item 1
Use the table below to start changing how you think about and approach problems and challenges. In the first column list the challenges, problems, or obstacles that are keeping you from sales success now. In the second column list an action that youre committed to taking to remove or overcome that challenge. Then in the third column identify the opportunities that will open up for you as you remove these challenges. Current challenge Action youll take Opportunity
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Reason Number 2 You Cant Sell You dont understand why your prospects dont want what you have.
You have exactly what they need its as plain as day, yet they just dont get it. How can that be? Are they just stupid, lazy or what? None of the above, youre approaching things the wrong way. Your prospects dont want what you have because you havent taken the time to learn about them and their wants. Its that simple. If you want to be a sales super star, do your homework before you ever approach anyone. You need to identify very specific groups of people, these groups are called your target market, and you need to know them and their wants and needs. People buy to fulfill their wants before their needs so place your main focus on learning what they want.
How do you find these specific groups of people? Start with your existing affiliations. Unless youre a hermit you already belong to groups of people. People naturally group themselves based on the type of work they do, how they like to recreate, and how they want to support their values and beliefs. So, what groups do you already belong to or what groups could you belong to because theyre part of what you like to do or believe in? When you belong youre one of them, you know their language, you know what they care about, and you can learn what they want.
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Figure out how to match what you have to what they want. Lets use an example to demonstrate how understanding your target markets wants will increase your sales. Lets say you absolutely love golf. You play golf every minute you can. You attend tournaments. You belong to a club and participate in club activities. People associate you with golf, and they may not even know what you do to earn a living. Now lets say you know that most of the people that also play golf, that you see on a regular basis, really want to retire to a golf community. These folks already know you and its your job to move them from just knowing you to knowing something about you. So when the opportunity arises and someone asks what you do you might respond that youre the person who helps golfers to have the financial wherewithal to retire in a golf community. Can you see how that might get their attention? How they might ask you how you do that? Isnt that exactly what you want, attention?
Your confusion about why your prospects dont want what you have stems from you having a product or service and trying to find someone to sell it to. That, my friend, is the wrong approach. That is an approach that will lead to lots of hard work, extreme frustration, and very little reward to show for your efforts. Change your thinking and start getting the return on your investment you deserve. Know what your market wants and then give them exactly what they want the exact way they want it. It works like magic.
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Action Item 2
Use this table to start figuring out how you can have what your prospects want. In the first column list your target market. This is a very specific group of people that you want to work with. I wouldnt recommend focusing on more than 1-3 target markets especially to start out because it will be too overwhelming for you, and completely unnecessary. Find out the top three things each target market wants. Youll easily be able to do that with a little research. Then start thinking about how you can communicate your solution in terms of what they want and record those thoughts in the last column. Who What they want Solution match
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Reason Number 3 You Cant Sell You think you need a killer presentation
And that belief is killing your sales success. Your sales success is never about a presentation. The only person a presentation is helping is you. You may be using it as a crutch so you dont forget anything, and so you have something to say. You think it helps you to move the prospect forward and gets them to buy into your line of thinking. These are all false presumptions, and the sooner you change your thinking about your presentation the sooner youll start having greater success. If you knew absolutely nothing about your products, but you went ahead and met with a few people you would have greater success than you probably are now. And heres why: you wouldnt be trying to sell them anything, youd really have to listen to what they told you, you could relax and act like a normal person instead of a pushy salesperson, and the people you met with would like you. If all you did when you met with them was to engage them in a conversation like you would any new person youve ever met, asked them about what they wanted, listened intently and asked more questions to make sure you had a full understanding, and then you told them that theyve given you a lot to think about and you wanted to spend a few hours reviewing their needs to make sure you provided the best option for them, and scheduled a follow-up appointment for a couple days later you would make more sales. At the end of this meeting theyd like you. Because they like you and you expressed concern for doing what was best for them theyd trust you, and because they trust you when you meet for that followup appointment and you handle that even half-way right youll more than likely gain their business.
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When you try to use a presentation to gain business it doesnt work because its all about you and what you have to offer. A presentation is all about selling and people hate to be sold. The minute you open your Power Point, brochure, or presentation notebook your prospect withdraws and disengages because they perceive theyre being sold. Never whip out your presentation, and take off full tilt giving them your whole spiel. Instead, wait until theres an appropriate moment, a pertinent question, and then gain their permission to show them something you have that speaks to that question. Go directly to that item, use it, and leave your presentation material. Only go to points in your presentation material when there is a logical reason to do so in relation to the conversation youre having, and always get their permission first. When you do this youll notice a big difference in your prospects body language. When you whipped out your presentation and launched into your spiel did you notice how your prospects physically leaned backward away from you, and perhaps at certain points they even folded their arms, and the longer you talked the more their eyes glazed over? But when youve gained permission to show them something theyre interested. Notice how they lean forward, how they focus on what youre showing them, how theyre engaged and actively listening, and how they ask you questions.
When you fall into the presentation trap you have limited logic. Heres what I mean by limited logic. The presentation forces both you and your prospect into an artificial sales conversation. Plus this artificial conversation may have little to do with what is on the prospects mind. Because youre focused on the presentation youre missing important cues from the
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prospect; and the prospect feels like theyre being sold, manipulated, or maybe even coerced. These are all feelings you never ever want to evoke in a prospect. When you evoke those feelings you may get this one time sale because there are a lot of people who will go along with things they dont agree with just to get you to leave. But youll never get a referral from this customer, and theyll cancel their policy as soon as a better option comes up. They wont like or trust you, and the word of mouth marketing they do for you will make others avoid you like the plague.
You dont need this crutch and the sooner you get rid of it the sooner youll see your sales success increase. Every sale begins with a simple conversation. It begins by you being able to get yourself introduced to your prospects, and establishing rapport. When you actually hold the appointment you need to continue what youve started by continuing to be a genuine person who cares about other people and wants to help your customers get what they want. Its a simple conversation where you want to be listening rather than talking, so you can understand, and once you understand your objective is to help your prospects discover how your solution is the best option for them. Presentations put you in the talking position and you want to be in the listening position if you want to enjoy greater sales success.
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Action Item 3
I want to challenge you to scrutinize the next 6 sales appointments you hold. For your first 3 sales appointments I want you to continue using your presentation, but I want you to start noticing the impact of the presentation on your prospects.
At what point did the prospect disengage from you: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
How comfortable did you feel and how comfortable did your prospect appear to feel: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
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Now I want you to put your presentation materials away and only get them out when they add value to, or reinforce the sales conversation youre having.
At what point did the prospect become animated and fully engaged: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
How comfortable did you feel and how comfortable did your prospect appear to feel: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
Reason Number 4 You Cant Sell Your own fear has a strangle hold on you
Your own fear is keeping you from sales success. Fear isnt a logical response its an emotional response, and emotional responses have very little if any logic to support them. Youre afraid: to focus on a target market, to ask people for an
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appointment, no one wants to talk to you, to make phone calls, of marketing yourself, of failing, and of succeeding. You know youre afraid, but what you may not know or understand is why you have that fear. So lets look at the reasons you may be holding these fears. You havent grown into your own skin. Whenever youre new at anything you go through a phase that I call growing into your own skin. You really arent sure exactly what benefit you bring to people. Plus you want to sell anything you can to anyone who has a pulse, so the benefit or value you bring changes with each person you talk to. You dont know how to make yourself unique, so youre no different than the competition. Because youre just like everyone else you dont know why someone would want to meet with you. All these self-doubts are visibly obvious to everyone you talk to reinforcing your fear.
You dont understand your customers. Because you dont understand your customers you dont know how to communicate to them in a way that gets their attention, and makes them want to meet with you. When you understand your customers and the top things they want you can create a core marketing message that gets them to ask you how you do that, and as you explain they suggest that perhaps you should meet to talk about that. Youre looking at your service as a boring necessity that people have to have rather than finding a way to make what you have to offer part of the solution for what your customers want. Your product is the emotion your customers want to have.
You expect perfection. You want every phone call every meeting every conversation you have to go perfectly. And by
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perfectly you mean you either made a sale or you set a sales appointment. What if you made a conscious effort to have at least 10 imperfect conversations each week? And after your imperfect conversations what if you evaluated when, where, and how you could have improved that conversation? Is it possible that if you did that you would begin to have more perfect conversations, and youd know why those conversations were perfect? Then wouldnt you be able to have perfect conversations more often?
You havent figured out how to adapt everything you need to do to fit you and your strengths. Youve been shown systems for sales and parts of those systems may be working very well for you, and parts of those systems feel like you have your left shoe on your right foot. When youve tried a system a number of times, and it just doesnt feel right dont presume the system is right and the problem is you. There isnt one system thats perfect for everyone because you arent everyone youre you. You have to adapt and develop your own selling style until youre comfortable with it because it builds on your natural strengths. Tiger Woods doesnt focus on what he doesnt do well. He focuses on what he does well and strives to do it better, and thats what you want to do too.
Action Item 4
What are the things that youre afraid of? What parts of your current sales process arent working for you? List each fear and each aspect of the sales process that isnt working for you in the first column. Now brain-storm how you can change your actions
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adapting them to feel right for you, so theyll work for you and record those thoughts in the last column.
Reason Number 5 You Cant Sell You dont know how to gain interest
You dont know how to gain the interest of your prospects. You use marketing to effectively gain the interest of your prospects so they reach out to you wanting to know more about how you can help them. You can use the shot gun approach to marketing which is what the average salesperson chooses by
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default. When you use the shot gun approach to marketing be prepared to: work very hard, have a poor response to your marketing message, and to earn an average income. The other approach is the laser approach to marketing. When you use the laser approach to marketing you can expect to attract more clients with less work, you can expect an above average response to your marketing message, and you can expect a better than average income. Lets clear up some marketing terminology. When you decide how you will market yourself there are two words you need to understand. The first word is target market. Your target market is the group of people you want to work with and the group of people you want to connect with. Most agents believe their target market is anyone who needs insurance. Its actually harder to find and identify with anyone than it is to find and identify with someone. The other word is niche. Your niche is what you help your clients to get. Most agents think their niche is insurance. Wrong, insurance isnt a niche. If you really understand the word niche you realize that your niche is related to an emotion your ideal clients want or dont want.
You want to get the attention of your prospects, so you can fill your appointment calendar. Its much easier to do that if your prospects understand why you and why them. Your marketing message is immediately more interesting when the person receiving the message knows that you have something to offer someone just like them. In fact, as they receive your message you want them to be thinking that either they are someone like that or they know someone like that. Their attention and interest grows when they also understand that you
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help someone like them with exactly what they want or dont want.
You have to have a marketing message that they understand as being emotionally meaningful to them. Your sales will increase when you get the attention of people who actively want what you have to offer. These are qualified prospects. And when your appointment calendar is filled with qualified prospects your close ratio will go through the roof. Youre like the ice cream truck pulling into a neighborhood filled with little kids on a hot summer afternoon. When your prospects recognize and understand that you have something they really want, or that you can prevent what they really dont want theyll flock to you.
Once you have their attention you need several nonthreatening ways they can raise their hand and enter your sales funnel. Clearly identifying your target market and communicating how you can help them to fulfill their emotional wants is the first requirement for a full appointment calendar. The second requirement is providing options for advancement in your sales funnel. When the only option you offer is an appointment, thats going too far too fast for many of the people who are thinking they may want to do business with you. When you try to go too far too fast you often blow a good opportunity forever because they lose trust in you, and view you as a pushy salesperson. We dont all like to communicate or be communicated with in the same way, so set up several options to advance and further develop your relationship with these prospects in a way that caters to different communication styles. Getting the right attention in the right way is potentially the
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fastest and best way to develop a solid business for current and future insurance sales success.
Action Item 5
Complete the table identifying exactly who you work with. Think about what they want and list that in the second column. Now that you have their attention how could they connect with you and enter your sales funnel? Enter those ideas in the last column.
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Reason Number 6 You Cant Sell You struggle because you think everyone is a prospect
Everyone isnt a prospect and most of the people you try to appoint arent even suspects. You can change your success by changing who you try to appoint. Your sales success increases when you only appoint prospects and qualified prospects. In the world at large there are people who have no need for what you have to offer. There are people who are suspects. Suspects are people who fulfill one or two of these criteria: they have a need, they have the money to do business with you, or they can make a yes decision about doing business with you. A prospect fulfills all three criteria, but they may not be ready to make a buying decision right now. A qualified prospect fulfills all three criteria, and they want to take action now.
Even a qualified prospect may not be a prospect for you because they dont see anything about you that makes you the person they want to do business with. You and I and everyone else in the world at large likes to feel both important and special. When you narrow your focus on a target market, and take the time to do your homework so you know a lot about that target market, its easy for you to make them feel important and special. Because you understand them and their needs, and the way you communicate to them makes it perfectly clear to them that you do. If you sound like and act like the agent they have now, or the other agents that are chasing them for their business, they have little if any reason to choose you.
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When you try to appoint everyone you look desperate and needy, and people want to get as far away from you as possible. If youve ever been to a networking event at the chamber you have a clear visual of exactly what Im talking about. These are the folks that are trying to sell you something at the networking event, or pressing you for an appointment. You notice how people literally scatter to get away from these desperate souls who have no idea what theyre doing wrong. Remember you dont want to appoint just anyone you only want to appoint prospects and qualified prospects. Thats the surest way to get sales and grow your business. But to get those appointments with these chosen people you must never appear desperate. The quickest way to move closer to an appointment is actually to pull away a little. In other words, if youve done a good job in crafting an attention getting core marketing message so theyve engaged you to find out more about you they may suggest you should talk further. Rather than pouncing and going for the appointment right there, maintain some control. Let them know you may not be the right person for them, but youre willing to get together so the two of you can find out.
Everyone isnt your prospect and the more comfortable you are with this fact the sooner youll have sales success. Accepting and understanding this is part of your growth and development. It doesnt have anything to do with rejection. It has everything to do with you understanding exactly what you do, who you do it with, and why you do it with them.
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Reason Number 7 You Cant Sell You think you have to have all the gizmos to succeed
Remember when the first laptop computers began to be used as sales tools? Remember how sales people whined they couldnt sell because their competitors at XYZ Company all had laptop computers and they didnt. Unless youre selling the gizmo itself you dont need a gizmo to be extraordinarily successful in sales. In fact, gizmos can turn off your prospects and actually hinder your sales. There is one very old tool that you need access to. That tool is the telephone. You can use the telephone as a lead generation follow-up tool, to confirm appointments, to gain the information you need to complete the sale, etc. How comfortable are you with this basic sales tool? Many sales people are actually very fearful of the telephone, and because of that fear theyre missing a lot of opportunities.
You can overcome your telephone fear by being properly prepared to make the call long before you ever pick up the phone. Before you ever make a call you need to understand exactly why youre calling this person, you need to have a succinct message that conveys the value you offer, and you need to identify potential options for advancement. When you make the call there are four parts to every call. You dont want a script, but you do want an agenda for the call. The four parts to every call provide your agenda: opening, qualification, listening, and closing.
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Dont dismiss the pre-call preparation and research. There is a direct correlation between your pre-call research and the results youll get from your calls. Your research objective is to: identify a specific group of people who want what you have to offer, to understand that group and why they want what you have to offer, and what they pay attention to. As a result of your research youll be able to develop your succinct attention grabbing message. Test your message with some people face-toface before you start making calls. If your message doesnt get your desired result in a face-to-face setting it really wont work over the phone. Remember youre just trying to gain enough attention and interest to introduce yourself, and establish rapport with the other person. You arent trying to make the sale. An appointment isnt the only potential outcome from the call. Everyone you call wont be ready to take immediate action, so before you make the call know the options you can offer allowing you to further develop rapport and a relationship with the person youve called.
The agenda. In the opening you want to quickly introduce yourself and make your attention getting statement or question that will give the person youve called a reason to give you another 10 seconds. When qualifying youre objective is to engage the other person so they can indicate they either are or arent a legitimate prospect. The next part of the call requires you to listen. Let the person youve called talk and really listen to what theyre saying. The more they talk the better the outcome of the call. Finally, you need to close the call, and this is the point where you offer an advancement moving this person into your sales funnel, or out of your sales funnel if they arent a match. And you can do all this without any sales gizmos.
Cheryl A. Clausen ~ Measured Success Inc. ~ http://CoachingMegaAgents.com
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Action Item 6
Prepare for your calls. Develop a succinct opening statement or question that will get the other persons attention and demonstrates your understanding of their struggle including your ultimate result solution so they know exactly who you work with and why. Opening:_____________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ What do you need to know to determine if the person youre speaking with is a qualified prospect? Qualification: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ What do you need to understand about the other person? Listening:____________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ What advancement options can you offer? What will you ask if the person youre speaking with isnt a prospect? Closing:______________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
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Reason Number 8 You Cant Sell You dont know how to get a commitment
A commitment is either a commitment to take an action that advances someone through your sales process, or its a commitment to do business with you. You need to know how to achieve both if you want long-term sales success. At no time do you ever want to use hard sell closing techniques or a slick line to get a commitment. That makes your prospect distrust you, and decreases the likelihood theyll do business with you. It also decreases the likelihood theyll stay with you if they do cave under your pressure and agree to do business with you. A commitment should naturally evolve from your conversation. There should never be a point in your presentation where you have to say something manipulative to get them to buy.
You earn commitments that stick by helping your prospects to naturally reach the conclusion that they want to buy. Because its their idea, its a great idea and backing away from their commitment later would require the prospect to disagree with their own argument. This is the opposite of what happens when you pressure a prospect for a commitment. When you pressure someone for a commitment they arent ready to make they dont feel comfortable with the commitment, and the longer they think about it sometimes the madder or more uncomfortable they get, and the less likely they are to fulfill that commitment.
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Learning how to help your prospects naturally reach a commitment decision will greatly increase your sales success. That lesson is the difference between a fail-safe sales process where your role is the role of an assistant buyer, and all the other sales methods youve probably tried. Learning a failsafe sales process begins with you changing your mind set and objective for the appointment.
Your most profitable objective is to understand the prospect. As you seek to understand youre listening instead of talking, your finding out the details of what has to change between where your prospect is now and what they want, youre gaining an understanding of whats getting in their way, and youre finding out how this is impacting your prospect. By the time they share all this with you while you listen intently they discover if they need your solution and why, and they discover why they need to take action on that decision now, or what needs to happen so they can take action on that decision. At the end of your conversation theyve made a commitment and all you had to do was be a good listener.
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Action Item 7