Who wants to work harder?
Ya, not me either.
So let’s not. Let’s dissect five ways to improve your sales results working with the prospects you already have!
Most entrepreneurs seem to believe the biggest factor in successful growth comes from lead generation. There may be some truth in this, but only some.
Let’s see what statistics—as dry as they might be—say about lead generation for growth:
- When we get referrals, we close between 50-80%. However, for most of us referrals represent only a small piece in our efforts to create a sustainable business.
- Warm leads, those who call you, close at a rate between 30-70%. Warm leads usually deliver less than 5% of your qualified customers.
- Highly qualified cold leads? The range runs between 20-35%.
- Semi-qualified cold leads ranges around 10%.
- And cold, cold leads? If you get 1%, you rock.
Those numbers just don’t add up in your favor.
How about getting better at closing more people?
Now you’re not struggling and sweating to find more people. Instead, you’re doing more and better with the folks you already have.
Insights into making more out of what you already have—so you aren’t working hard to get more prospects–seems like a valuable place for us to spend some time.
For the next several weeks I’ll share five simple tips you can implement quickly and cost you little or nothing. Each will have a huge impact on your sales.
Here’s the first…
Tip #1: NEVER “SEND THEM SOMETHING”
You may have had this experience. You make your pitch and the prospect says,
“Can you send me something?”
Because that’s how you’ve been trained and you want to serve your prospect, you oblige. But when you follow up a week later the prospect says, “Oh, I have your material right here, but I haven’t had time to look at it yet. Can you call me in a week?”
You can see where this is going, right? As soon as you “send something” you have totally lost control of the selling process.
Take back control! You’re the leader. So here’s your new response.
Instead, when the prospect says those dreaded words your response should be something along the lines of, “What is it you’d like to see that isn’t clear from our conversation?”
Now your prospect will ponder and share what’s on their mind, cycling you back into the sales conversation and keeping the process on track.
A simple shift in mindset will have an immediate impact on your closing ability. It doesn’t mean you’ll close all those people who say “no, never”, but now your odds of getting to a “Yes” at some point improve radically. At least now you have a chance.
Go put this tip to work for you this week. And then for each of the next four weeks, I’ll share four more tips that will change your sales results.
Send them nothing!
Go forth and do great things.