3 Tips That Will Get You More Sales
No. This isn’t click bait. Yes. I know that the generic answer is simple: sell more of your company’s product or service and you will make more money. That is a given. You already know that. What you may not know is how to do this while adding even more value to your position without going crazy.
Here’s what I know about you. You are a professional salesperson, or you employ professional salespeople.
Right now, I’m only speaking to the professional sales people, although employers can still benefit from this content. Personally, I am both. I still sell and I employ professional salespeople so I do empathize and relate to both very important positions as one cannot exist without the other.
I am going to give you 3 quick tips on how to make more money at sales.
Tip #1 – Outbound Prospecting
I’m used to reaching out to the client cold. I come from an industry where we fish for business. All day. Every day. Real Estate practitioners are not fed leads unless they are purchased or the salesperson has developed some type of internet marketing that gets their phone or their IM to buzz. Other professions receive warm lead inquiries from their marketing departments and it is the salesperson’s job to get a hold of the prospect. Either way – you will need to develop your outbound prospecting skills and strategies.
The best of the best sales salespeople know how to follow up with a client using all the tools that they have access to including but not limited to texting, instant messaging, social media messaging, and even video messaging. Not someone might argue, “But Paul, isn’t that taking it too far? Do I really want to send them a text, an email, a video message, and a social media IM?” My short answer is YES. You don’t ever know what form of communication they prefer, and more importantly, you are making the false assumption that they will review every message they get immediately. That’s is a huge false assumption. They might review the text message today, and not get to your email until 3-4 weeks from now. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve had clients not reply to a single email or text message, but respond to my LinkedIn inmail request. It’ll happen to you too. Use everything you’ve got unless prohibited by your company.
You don’t know [initially] what form of communication a prospect prefers, and you assume that they will review every message they get immediately.
Tip #2 – Close Early. Close Often.
Has this ever happened to you? You receive a lead. You contact lead. Lead says I’m ready to buy. You start selling them on all the benefits of your product or service over the phone, text, or via IM. Lead receives info and never buys. What happened? Chances are you talked them out of the sale. When someone says I am ready to buy, that isn’t the moment to start selling again. They’ve already sold themselves. You close the sale. Simple closes include:
- How would you like to pay for this?
- I’m sending you the link to order it right now.
- I think I have a coupon code that expires in the next few hours…(only if true)
Here’s my point – close early. It’s your job to make the sale, not give them ammunition that could result in additional objections you’ll have to overcome. The minute you start closing, any objections or questions they might have about your product or service will come out. Then and only then should you be handling those and only those objections. Then once you’ve handled those objections, your close again. So it should look something like this:
- Close.
- Handle objection if any.
- Close Again.
- Handle objection if any.
- Close Again.
- Handle objection if any.
- Close Again.
A true sales professional knows that it may take you closing up to 4 to 5 times before the buyer buys your product or service. Amateurs give up after the very first now. Handle objection. Close again.
Let me be clear. Closing a sale is not the same as convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do. You are not a professional “convincer.” You are a professional salesperson that can help someone who is already interested in your product or service make an educated decision based on how you handle their objections and close the sale. If they aren’t interested, there is no closing strategy in the world that you can use to get them to buy, and even if they do, they’ll suffer buyers remorse and you’ll suffer cancelled contracts or charge backs. You don’t want or need that.
Tip #3 – Follow Up
Chances are, you’ve heard the saying, “The fortune is in the follow up.” This couldn’t be more true. Outside of not closing the prospect enough times, not following up is the second biggest reason professional salespeople fail.
The higher the price point, the longer the prospect will take to make a decision. As crazy as this sounds, people don’t like making decisions-especially big ones. More often than not, people will take the, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” path.
As the professional salesperson, you have to stay in communication with the prospect as they weigh out their options. This is where most salespeople give up. Believe it or not, you will lose more business due to lack of follow up than you will ever lose to a poor presentation or due to your professional sales skills.
The average consumer needs to be reminded (contacted) a minimum of 7 times in order for them to remember your message and/or who you are. Just having one conversation, one consultation, sending one email, one text message, or leaving one voicemail is not enough for them to consider you as their Real Estate Agent.
Most salespeople DO NOT follow up enough with their prospects because they are afraid of calling, texting, messaging, mailing, or contacting them too much out of fear that the client will be turned off by them.
You will lose more clients by not following up enough over a bad presentation.
There are plenty of ways for a client to be turned off by you, but professionally following up and demonstrating your enthusiasm to work with them is not one of them. If you do your job and follow up effectively and professionally, only one of two things will happen:
- The client will let you know they aren’t interested
- The client will let you know they are interested.
That’s it.
Having someone tell you they aren’t moving forward is not the end of the world. In fact, it’ll help save you time in the long run. You want prospective clients to make a decision. It saves you time. Stop taking it personal when someone decides to not sell or buy. Them deciding to not buy or sell has nothing to do with you. Now, if they tell you they aren’t going to buy or sell, and then they do with someone else-that was you. Sorry. Sorry not sorry.
You will have that happen to you. More than once. There’s nothing you can do about it. Your goal should be to have about 20-30 warm prospects and 4-5 hot prospects that you are working with at any given time.
You warm and hot list should be changing on a daily basis. You are adding and subtracting hot and warm leads daily. If your funnel of hot and warm prospects is shrinking consistently for more than 3 days, you are not prospecting enough. There will reach a time when your inflow of prospects is more than your outbound efforts through the use of internet marketing.
Most coaches will tell you to just prospect on the phone or to just canvass. These coaches don’t want to adapt to the market or learn new skills. This is why you must always incorporate an active and passive marketing strategy daily. Too passive and you won’t see results for 6-8 months MAYBE. Too active and you’ll be stuck prospecting for the rest of your career.
Apply this tips today. Make our profession proud!
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– Paul