Maximizing Your Potential!

The 3 ‘W’s’ of Prospecting are:
1. Who – is the person you should be talking with?
2. What – does he want? (notice it does NOT say what do I have to sell him that he may want!)
3. When – is he going to buy?

You must make sure that you are talking with the decision maker, that he is in the market for what you offer and that he needs it pretty quickly!

We will take it a step further with AIDA.
1. Who is Asking?
2. Who is Influencing?
3. Who is Deciding?
4. Who is Actually using?

You must make sure that you know who is asking and if he/she is the one who will be using the product, as well as, being the decision maker, or not. Who will help in the decision making process and make sure that all of these people, be it 4 different entities or all rolled in to one, when you make your presentation. Otherwise, it is a waste of time.

The 10 GOLDEN RULES of Prospecting:
1. Quantify your efforts. Collect lots of names. The amount of sales you make depends in large part on the amount of prospects you contact.
2. Qualify your efforts. BEFORE you meet a prospect collect enough data to be able to judge whether you can get a close NOW.
3. Direct your efforts. Select first those who will give you big sales. Find out what public is ideal for your product or service. Do surveys.
4. Never stop prospecting. Leave your card everywhere!
5. Use all of your available existing contacts; friends, colleagues, etc. Propose an exchange for each name given, who is qualified to purchase.
6. A bad prospect can give you a good one. Take advantage of being there or on the phone to ask him/her for a few good people to contact. What do you lose? If you don’t ask, you don’t get! You would be surprised at how much people are willing to help.
7. Be organized. Keep track of every prospecting cycle. Build up a prospect file, make it as big as possible. Top sales people try to increase their database by 20% each month!
8. A small prospect can become a big one. Communicate with your prospects on a regular basis. Allow them to communicate back as much as possible.
9. Don’t ever give up. Persistence is a major quality. If you start working on a prospect, don’t stop. Consider he is yours!
10. Your attitude with a prospect is what may have him becoming a customer. It is not a matter of coincidence, YOU make the difference. The art of serving starts with prospecting.

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Of course, all of us want to bat 1000, so would any baseball player. The reality is that there are going to be times when even the best of us swings and misses one.

Here are some of ways this can occur:

1. Talk too much – Most salespeople have a tendency to talk too much. They forget that they have 2 ears and one mouth which is a 2/1 ratio. They get this reversed and talk twice as much as they listen. Develop your listening skills and see what happens.

2. Imposing your opinion on the prospect – this is one sure fire way to make your prospect wrong. Remember, everyone fights being ‘wrong.’ Listen to your prospect. Think about where he’s coming from. Let him know that you heard him and understand what he’s saying. You’d be amazed how powerful that can be and when you’ve done always those things, the chances are good that he will be willing to listen to you.

3. Denigrate the competition – When you put the competition down you are putting down the whole industry. It winds up hurting your position and may make you seem petty or weak. Just don’t go there.

4. Promise something you can’t deliver – I was reading a book by another trainer and he mentioned that when he was selling phone systems he would say that he could deliver it on time not matter how realistic the clients expectations where and he would up getting in a lot of trouble needlessly. Tell the truth. Your clients will be glad you did (and you will, too)!

5. Do not control the sales cycle – when you fail to have a plan and or have one but fail to follow it, you let yourself down and the prospect. They need clear cut guidance from you or they would do it themselves. Give them what they want. Be the professional. Take Charge!

6. Only be thinking of your commission – 90% of your communication is non-verbal. You could be saying all the right words but believe me, if ultimately, all you are really thinking about is the $ you’ll make on this sale, the prospect will hear this LOUD and CLEAR!

7. Do too much – talk too much, be overly effusive, push-push-push and you will have your prospect running the other way.

8. Wait – Just sit there hoping the client will get the idea that now is when you want them to buy is totally the wrong way to go.

9. Fail to be sincere – Let’s face it, per the above, that will be telegraphed right to the prospect, unconsciously.

10. Fail to be open and overt in your communication – I think it goes without saying, that this will NOT get you a happy, satisfied client.

Happy Closing!!!

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All of us have some concept of ‘Good’ time management.

Make a list of things to do, block out the time required to do it and then take the steps necessary to achieve the desired result. Right????

So, why, oh why are people spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year to become better time managers???

Let’s face it, opinions vary on exactly why people do not actually DO the above mentioned steps but the fact of the matter is that this is a HUGE problem for some people and they can never seem to get a handle on it no matter how much money they spend.

I’m going to take a few minutes to very quickly educate you on what Time Management IS and then how to apply these principles to your life.

First, let’s define the words…

Time -  ‘Any specified or defined period.’ From World Book Dictionary

Management -  ‘The process of dealing with or controlling things or people.’ From Oxford American Dictionary

What is Control?

It is defined as, ‘The power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.’ Again from Oxford American Dictionary

Control could further be defined as the ability to start, change or stop people or things related to life.

OK. So, how do we use this to help us to be better time managers.

Each of us has 24 hours in the day and 7 days in a week. How is it that I could help one gentleman go from doing 44 deals per year as a Realtor to 110 and still have more time off?  I did not wave a magic wand and make all his paperwork disappear. Nor did he hire ten additional staff to help him get everything done.

The God’s honest truth, we removed all the distractions from his life. We handled anything and everything that was preventing him from getting the job done and then we focused on getting the job done. Simple, right???

The biggest drain on a person’s ability to stay focused and get stuff done is all the backlogged and incomplete projects hanging around the person.

I’ll never forget working with another gentleman. He was in a very cramped office and he had tons of clutter and incomplete projects around him. I spent a full day and helped him clean it ALL up. He was so thrilled that he raced home and cleaned up his office and the garage. His wife called to thank me. Needless to say, he was twice as productive that year and made more money in that one year than he had in the previous three years.

Of course, you can do this on your own but most people that I know are too easily distracted and fail to handle every thing. It really helps to have someone there to help you sort out what you should do with each and every thing you come across.

Next I’ll teach you about the 4 D’s of good time management!

Have a productive day!

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OK, so you’ve already tried to handle your prospect with ACCORD and let’s say, they said, “Joe, we decided before you came, that we were not going to make a decision today.”

Now, you can move on to the for steps for handling ‘I Need to Think About It’ or some version of that statement.
I like to use the Acronym ‘STOP‘ to help deal with this. Remember, This is NOT the real objection. It truly just reflects a lack of conviction on the part of the prospect.
1. Stay serene in showing them that you understand where they are coming from.
2. Track the source of their lack of conviction (you can do this one of two ways, ask them what it is they need to think about or what concerns them or ask if they are comfortable with you, your company, the product or service you offer, the price or the timing). Either way you will eventually get their true objection.
3. Handle the REAL objection and direct them toward their TRUE objective (their personal emotional reason WHY they need your product or service).
4. Push them gently toward the close using strong conviction and emotion.

Let’s say, your prospect says, “Joe, I just don’t know about that price?!? Is there any way you can give us a discount?”
I use do the following, thinking of the acronym CHEAP while I’m doing it.
1. Let your prospect know how much it may Cost him if he does not take action.
2. Stay Honest with your cost analysis.
3. Evaluate features vs. how much they mean to the prospect in terms of value (for instance, they are thinking of purchasing a home. They want a pool. The home they like most has a pool. It costs $15,000 more than a home just down the street which does not have a pool. I would ask them if the pool is a MUST for them. How much is it worth to them to have a pool and all the landscaping associated with it already done for them. They may not be sure and may ask you how much that would cost. You need to have a good honest answer ready in that case. Be prepared but in most cases it will cost less for them to purchase already done in both dollars and inconvenience).
4. Focus on the long term Advantages for them.
5. Hold your Position on this, especially if it is related to the commission you earn on this sale.

One last objection that comes up quite regularly (especially if you do NOT have all the decision makers present) is, “I have to talk to…” (my wife, my accountant, my in-laws, my lawyer, whatever)
Use this acronym to help you remember these simple steps, MAN.
1. Motivate your prospect to present the person they feel has the authority to make the decision.
2. Make sure your prospect is an Ally. (Ask him/her, “If it was your decision alone, would you do it right now?” This will tell you very quickly if they are sold. You may need to handle them first before you talk with the person who has authority).
3. Get a conditional agreement Now, if you have trouble getting the authority tag there right away.

Good Luck!

Technorati Tags: Acronym, Analysis 3, Emotion, Emotional Reason, Honest Answer, Objection, Personal, Pool, Strong Conviction, True Objective, Two Ways

There was a survey done by the New York Sales Club a while back as to what a salesperson’s success rate was after each attempt to close. The results were pretty interesting:
1st Attempt to Close 8% said Yes
2nd Attempt 14% said Yes
3rd Attempt 18% said Yes
4th Attempt 27% said Yes
5th Attempt to Close 44% said Yes

Now, if you continued to carry this forward you would get up close to 80%.

But let’s face it you will probably never make it to 100% closing because there are many factors which are out of your control, such as, the person has just lost their job or any number of other unforeseen factors.

However, there is an interesting correlation here. Another survey was done that showed that 80% of salespeople gave up after the third attempt to close. The 20% who persisted beyond the third attempt got 80% of the sales.

So, what happens is that the salesperson seeks to interest the buyer and meets with a person who is trying to pretend that there is no sale. He’s got his attention on other things and is trying to ignore the sales person.

Then the sales person starts to really desire the sale. He’s desiring to get the sale done but the prospect is doing his or her best to inhibit the sale. They may say something like,

‘I’m just not sure if now is the right time.’ or ‘We have decided we need to think about it.’

They are trying to put on the breaks on this process.

The salesperson then tries to pressure the client, ‘This is the best time to purchase this product,’

And get’s pressure back from the prospect, saying, ‘We said NOW is not the right time!’

And right about the time the prospect starts to desire the product or service the salesperson starts to inhibit the sale saying something like, ‘You are probably right. This is not the best deal for you.’

Here the poor prospect is ready to buy and totally interested and the salesperson is ignoring the prospect. You think this seems to far fetched but it happens all the time.

Remember, 80% of sales people give up at 3 above, when both of them are at enforce (the sales person pressuring the prospect and the prospect insisting that he’s not interested.)

All the salesperson has to do is stay at interest and let the prospect move up the scale to meet him or her. This is super simple and super powerful!

Good luck!

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