They Can Teach us About Sales
It’s Sunday afternoon – cold and raining outside- Winter in Margaret River.
My beautiful wife, 3 week old son Lachlan and 3 year old daughter Mischa are all down stairs quietly watching a Disney movie.
Leroy is in Copenhagen, just about to get smashed by massive ex Olympian Yugoslavians and Russians in the world masters water polo championships in Sweden.
He keeps sending me random photo’s he’s taking whilst on tour on his iphone.
So the reins are being passed over to me for the next couple of weeks.
Gillard and Abbott
Normally I don’t like to comment on politics.
Its’ my belief that we are lead to believe that our beloved government has way more control over the
economy than it really does and given way too much credit for the health of an economy.
To me the chief drivers of an economy are entrepreneurs and hard working individuals.
My interest here is purely one from a influence/persuasion standpoint.
You’ve no doubt seen body language experts recently on TV talking about what’s being said through body gestures that’s not being spoken.
My read on these two is that what they are saying as well as what their bodies are saying simply betray a gross lack of preparation.
Both of these people know precisely what questions they are going to be asked, yet if you watch responses from both of them you’ll notice ums arrrs and massive lack of congruence when they reply.
So what can we learn from this?
You already know what objections or questions you are going to get in your
business and your sales role.
You need to not only script the way you will handle all of them but drill the verbal delivery of them.
Only then can you turn what has been scripted into sounding non scripted.
Read that line above again (it’s the missing step from almost every sales system)
Like the SAS say when you ask them what it’s like when they hear “contact!” in battle.
“If it’s exciting you haven’t drilled enough”
In short – Make sure the words, tonality and sincerity are all present in your sales teams approach.
Drill Drill and over drill – full stop
What can we learn from Dr Seuss about sales.
Every night I read to my daughter before she goes to sleep and she’s recently fallen in love with the old faithful Dr Seuss.
Not only that I really enjoy reading them to her. We can learn heaps about sales from Dr Suess but in particular we can learn heaps from one of her favorites “Green Eggs and Ham.
Now in Green Eggs and Ham “Sam I Am” asks a Grumpy grouch if he would like some green eggs and ham.
Right from the word go the Grumpy Grouch comes straight out and says he doesn’t like “Sam I am” and is rude to him.
“Sam I am” then asks “for the order” 15 times in a row using the following approaches.
- 1 x Alternate advance close “would you like them here or there?”
- 1 x Direct command “Eat them, eat them, here they are”
- 1 x Repeating the objection ” you do not like them so you say, try them try them and you may, try them and you may I say”
- 12 x straight asks “would you like them with a goat, in a boat, on a train?” etc?
In the end, The Grumpy grouch agrees to try them, really likes them and ends up thanking ‘Sam I am” for giving him the opportunity.
What can we learn from this?
Firstly, and this is a scary statistic
48% of all sales people give up after he first rejection
Here are the stats on when salespeople quit:
48% quit after the 1st call
- 24% quit after the 2nd call
- 12% quit after the 3rd call
- 6% quit after the 4th call
- 10% quit after the 5th call
In fact 81 percent of all sales are made after the fourth call, by which time 90 percent of salespeople have quit calling!
Sam I am just kept on asking and in the end he got the sale.
Never underestimate the power of persistence.
Heavy isn’t it. Which is exactly the rationale behind the sales breakthrough system we teach. Because what makes a huge difference here is remaining relevant while persisting.
I have personally kept in contact with clients for 2 – 3 years before they have said yes to working with us. Clients that have been worth up to 200 to 300K with us.
And here’s the thing,
It’s almost never about you, its almost always a matter of right person right time with the right information.
So all you have to do (and this is what we also teach in our sales breakthrough system) is…
Identify your best client/s. Make a list of 50 – 200 of them if you are in Business to Business sales (or find out where that demographic lives if you are in Business to consumer sales).
Then build a systematic process for regular, relevant follow up.
You will be blown away how much this can make a difference to your average transaction size as well as the quality and quantity of your clients.
Coaching program (take 3)
After 2 false starts on this, in the coming weeks, I am going to simply bite the bullet and run a 4 week online video sales training course. This course will be ridiculously affordable and without giving too much away let me just say you will be blown away with the content.
Stay tuned and until then have a great week.
Regards,
John Blake
