Success with Leads: Listen Up!

Success with Leads: Listen Up!

by Bill Baskin / Thursday, 02 June 2016 / Published in ePath to Leadership

Talk LESS? “You’ve got two ears and one mouth for a reason!”

“It’s not the leads, it’s you!” If you’ve been with us for some time, you know that that’s CEO Bill Baskin’s battle cry when it comes to handling complaints about leads “not working.” We’ve already discussed sales culture and contact time while working leads, but there’s much more when it comes to strategizing how to make successes out of leads. Now we move on to:

Sell yourself and your company

On your initial call, start with a warm and enthusiastic greeting as it is important to get the consumer engaged in the process and build rapport. Be sure to articulate why you are better to work with. Why your company and its fulfillment process is better to work with than your competitor. In other words, how the experience you or your company provides is different than other companies they may be speaking with. Why your process is easier. Think about these things and differentiate yourself and be the product expert. Let me give you an example.

I sold Mercedes Benz cars for a period early in my career. The leads we received were from customers over an hour away. They had to drive past three competing dealerships to get to mine. How did I overcome this? Well, I developed a script to overcome this frequent objection and nip it in the bud, the conversation went like this:

Me: Have you had a chance to speak with your local dealer?

Customer: Yes.

Me: Why didn’t you buy from them

Customer: They wouldn’t give me the price I wanted (or some derivative)

Me. It sounds like they had a chance to be up-front and honest with you, but chose not to be. Let me tell you how we are different. ………and not only that, I am your closest dealer because I’ll put it on a flatbed and drop if off in your driveway so you never have to leave your home.

The biggest problem most sales people have is we like to listen to ourselves talk. I know I’m guilty of this sometimes. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason, so ask open ended questions about how the customer could benefit from your product, their needs, and so on. Your job is to discover the problem(s) they may or may not realize they have, and demonstrate how your product can not only solve that problem, but benefit them. They will tell you how to close them if you pose the right questions. Qualify, qualify qualify!

These are my basic steps to the sale:

1. Develop a relationship. – Engage them!
   
2. Sell yourself, sell your company
   
3. Analyze the needs of the client.
   
4. Educate the client on the product and use real world stories of how the product was used, tailored to each client’s goals.
   
5. Identify and provide a solution to solve the customer’s specific need
   
6. Earn the customer’s trust and business by being the “expert”, credible, and compassionate.
   
7. Gain commitment.
   
8. Ask for a referral.
   

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