Some of the salespeople reading this article book may be muttering to themselves “face to face selling... I wish! If I could only get more in-person time with my prospects, I wouldn’t need to be reading this article!”
If that’s your situation – that once you’re with a prospect, you’re home free and you do really well from there on out in your sales process – then pay careful attention to what we’re about to share with you.
Your challenge is linkage. You don’t start each phase of your sales process with a clear picture in your mind of what the next step is going to be.
Perhaps you feel that your selling process should be different with each prospect or that if you had a template or a system you use with everyone, that would be insincere or it would somehow ring false when you put different people through that same process.
Let’s turn away from sales for a moment.
Let’s talk about brain surgery. Or dental work. Or flying an airplane. Or doing someone’s tax return.
These processes all have the following characteristics in common:
•They are executed by a professional
•He/she has had a good deal of training
•This professional has had plenty of opportunity to practice under the supervision of someone more knowledgeable and experienced
•This person is required to continue their professional learning throughout their career
•This person uses a clearly defined, proven, documented system for making incisions, using anesthetic, take offs and landings, or amortizing expenses
•Many of these processes are system-atized to the point of using simple checklists, logs, and computer programs to ensure the proper sequence and completeness of steps
•Any significant variation or omission in these procedures is at the risk of injury, death, lawsuit, bankruptcy, prison time, or all of the above
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Sell More Using Sales Psychology
True sales pros use psychology to sell more, the psychology of urgency, time, choice and stories. Let’s look at each.
The psychology of urgency
Another typical sales scenario involves the salesperson doing everything right – until after the first appointment. Then, suddenly, the emails stop, messages don’t get returned, and the lead runs cold, leaving you scratching your head wondering how that nice, friendly, responsive, involved prospect dropped off the face of the earth.
Does that ever happen to you?
What you’ve just experienced is a good sales process gone bad for the lack of a key ingredient: urgency.
As Stephen Covey says, there is a big difference between the “urgent” and the “important.”
In everyday business, the urgent category includes soothing angry clients, “putting out fires,” production stoppages, surprise inspections or audits by regulators, labor problems, media blowups, and things of that nature.
The important category includes things like making employees feel appreciated, upgrading to new office technology, listening to someone’s ideas, increasing your industry knowledge, developing good corporate citizenship (charitable, environmental, etc) and so on.
Guess which category is at the top of every executive’s agenda each morning when they walk in the door?
If you’ve positioned the product or service you’re selling as a “nice to have” instead of a “have to have,” – or even better a “have to have now” – your leads will run cold. Simply put, buying from you (even if it’s important) takes a backseat to the urgent matters of the day.
If you as a salesperson haven’t identified the pain, then you will get a less than urgent response. If you walk up to someone on the street and they have a nail sticking out of their knee- they would have a high sense of urgency to have the nail removed. This is the same with the prospect. When you can identify their “nail” they will want to move on it quickly.
In my seminars, I ask people to think about these questions:
•Why is it urgent for the prospect to ACT NOW?
•What is the incentive?
•How can you create meaningful deadlines?
•How is buying both an important *and* an urgent issue?
Again, I’m not going to supply you with gimmicky stock phrases or clever comebacks, but rather suggest that you spend some time and energy thinking about how to intelligently and professionally address legitimate buying obstacles such as “We have no budget,” “We have no need for this product/service,” “We’re happy with who we’re using,” and “This is bad timing for us.”
I don’t believe in the process of “overcoming objections” – sounds too much like fighting. And if salesis a battle, you’re going to lose.
One method I like to use is simply turning objections into objectives. In other words, if you can intelligently address the objection in terms of reaching a goal, agreement, or solution that addresses the problem, you will be well on your way to collaborating with your future customer on buying your solution.
For example, if the objection is “it’s too expensive,” you can show, in clear dollars and cents terms (and using numbers supplied by your future customer!) how your solution will save money, generate sales, increase profits, reduce costs, etc.
You’re turning the price objection into a value objective.
The psychology of time
A lot of sales trainers suggest using the personal touch: handwritten notes, personalized gifts, etc.
We think these are powerful tools, but for different reasons. Whether a note is typed or handwritten makes little difference in and of itself. Whether the note comes with a small gift (personalized or not) also doesn’t really matter.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Cheap Mortgage Leads Equal Bad Leads
"You get what you pay for," the saying goes, and that's the real problem in the mortgage industry. A lot of mortgage lead companies sell leads to other mortgage lead companies which results in recycling leads within the mortgage lead industry before it even gets to the average mortgage loan officer or broker. The aftermath is not pretty, 20-40 calls a day for the prospective borrower just within the first 4 days if the lead being generated.
Obviously this creates a headache for the potential borrower who is being bombarded with endless phone calls, and unnecessary competition for already frustrated loan officers.
The Solution:
* A. Real-Time Leads
* B. Exclusive Leads
* C. Timestamped Leads
* D. Origin-stamped Leads
A. Real-time Mortgage leads are received within seconds of the borrower completing a short online form. These are perfect leads since the prospect is usually able to be contacted within 2 minutes of them filling out the form. The prospect takes the time to fill out a form so are not cold calls nor recycled. Just Fresh Leads. Also the prospect loves the fact that a loan officer got back to them so fast.
B. Exclusive Leads are leads that not only are designated for you but cannot be resold as a semi-exclusive or non-exclusive lead. Make sure the lead company you deal with is a reputable company has timestamped and origin-stamped the lead.
C. Timestamped leads are the only leads that should be bought. If a lead is not timestamped then there is no proof of when the lead actually was submitted. This is the problem that allows crooked lead companies to sell you recycled leads and waste your hard earned money.
D. Origin-stamped leads are leads that are stamped with the website that originated the actual lead. You should look for lead companies that obtain their leads through websites they own and operate themselves. If they won't tell you their website or don't have them posted then it's time to look else where. Otherwise they are obtaining them from third party companies and recycling them.
Remember you work hard for your money so be sure that when you invest with a mortgage lead company that you will be getting your money's worth.
Obviously this creates a headache for the potential borrower who is being bombarded with endless phone calls, and unnecessary competition for already frustrated loan officers.
The Solution:
* A. Real-Time Leads
* B. Exclusive Leads
* C. Timestamped Leads
* D. Origin-stamped Leads
A. Real-time Mortgage leads are received within seconds of the borrower completing a short online form. These are perfect leads since the prospect is usually able to be contacted within 2 minutes of them filling out the form. The prospect takes the time to fill out a form so are not cold calls nor recycled. Just Fresh Leads. Also the prospect loves the fact that a loan officer got back to them so fast.
B. Exclusive Leads are leads that not only are designated for you but cannot be resold as a semi-exclusive or non-exclusive lead. Make sure the lead company you deal with is a reputable company has timestamped and origin-stamped the lead.
C. Timestamped leads are the only leads that should be bought. If a lead is not timestamped then there is no proof of when the lead actually was submitted. This is the problem that allows crooked lead companies to sell you recycled leads and waste your hard earned money.
D. Origin-stamped leads are leads that are stamped with the website that originated the actual lead. You should look for lead companies that obtain their leads through websites they own and operate themselves. If they won't tell you their website or don't have them posted then it's time to look else where. Otherwise they are obtaining them from third party companies and recycling them.
Remember you work hard for your money so be sure that when you invest with a mortgage lead company that you will be getting your money's worth.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Are You Achieving Sustained Sales Growth Efficiently - Reliably And By Design
In his book “Fundamentals of Selling”, Charles Futrell identifies careful use of selling time as perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of the successful salesperson. Frequently there are two main pitfalls that even experienced salespeople can fall into in terms of activities. First, they simply aren’t doing enough. What’s enough? Enough telephone calls to make appointments, enough face-to-face calls, enough calls that involve or influence the decision-makers. In general, the more focused sales activity salespeople generate, the greater the number of sales opportunities they can create.
Poor Quality Activity:
Second, but equally important, salespeople often aren’t clear about how to identify the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. Without an objective way to prioritise which prospects to contact first and/or an efficient strategy for contacting them, salespeople are doomed to waste a large percentage of their time.
Another huge dilemma for many salespeople is how to divide their time between servicing existing clients and generating new business from new prospects. Existing clients frequently make requests for service that could be dealt with by support staff. But salespeople who lack a disciplined, future-orientated plan for generating new contacts and sales often find themselves spending more time attending to “urgent” tasks for existing accounts instead. A common approach among salespeople can be summarised in the saying “If you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it is bound to stick”. This approach is exhausting, demoralising, extremely unproductive, and very expensive in the long term.
Speed Of Relaying Customer Information:
The Sales Director provides another interesting dimension to activity management. Apart from product or service knowledge, salespeople require knowledge about prospects, clients, and market trends. Therefore, if the information those salespeople require isn’t relayed in an efficient manner, their “face-to-face” selling activities are dramatically reduced.
Harder Rather Than Smarter:
In the book Emerson’s Essays, there is a section on “Law of Compensation”, which can be summarised simply as “give more, get more” This is what most salespeople try to do, so they end up working harder when they could be working smarter. This begs the question, are your sales activities deciding your strategy or is your strategy deciding your sales activities?
Developing A Consultative Sales Process:
From the Sales Director’s perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams as it is for external pro-active ones. This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.
It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:
* Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results,
* Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action,
* Redirect individual sales effort efficiently.
Poor Quality Activity:
Second, but equally important, salespeople often aren’t clear about how to identify the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. Without an objective way to prioritise which prospects to contact first and/or an efficient strategy for contacting them, salespeople are doomed to waste a large percentage of their time.
Another huge dilemma for many salespeople is how to divide their time between servicing existing clients and generating new business from new prospects. Existing clients frequently make requests for service that could be dealt with by support staff. But salespeople who lack a disciplined, future-orientated plan for generating new contacts and sales often find themselves spending more time attending to “urgent” tasks for existing accounts instead. A common approach among salespeople can be summarised in the saying “If you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it is bound to stick”. This approach is exhausting, demoralising, extremely unproductive, and very expensive in the long term.
Speed Of Relaying Customer Information:
The Sales Director provides another interesting dimension to activity management. Apart from product or service knowledge, salespeople require knowledge about prospects, clients, and market trends. Therefore, if the information those salespeople require isn’t relayed in an efficient manner, their “face-to-face” selling activities are dramatically reduced.
Harder Rather Than Smarter:
In the book Emerson’s Essays, there is a section on “Law of Compensation”, which can be summarised simply as “give more, get more” This is what most salespeople try to do, so they end up working harder when they could be working smarter. This begs the question, are your sales activities deciding your strategy or is your strategy deciding your sales activities?
Developing A Consultative Sales Process:
From the Sales Director’s perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams as it is for external pro-active ones. This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.
It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:
* Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results,
* Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action,
* Redirect individual sales effort efficiently.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
How To Deliver A Professional Sales Presentation
All professional salespeople have to be involved in a presentation at some time in their sales career and Top 5 % players present their proposals every time.
Presentations allow us to : -
• Influence a group of important people.
• Gain consensus and commitment.
• Find out who the real players are and the real status.
• Set ground rules for a major sale.
• Make a lasting impression of professionalism.
When it comes to the enthusiasm that sales professionals have for making a presentation, they broadly fall into four categories, (as I highlighted in a previous article - :”When It Comes To Making Presentations, The Very Best Salespeople Are Seekers”)
The Avoider:
An Avoider does everything possible to escape from having to stand in front of an audience; in some drastic cases salespeople may seek positions that do not involve making presentations.
The Register:
A Register is also extremely hesitant of speaking in public, however Registers may not be able to avoid speaking as part of their job but they never encourage it. When they do speak they do so very reluctantly.
The Acceptor:
The Acceptor will give presentations as part of their job but does not seek opportunities to do so. Acceptors occasionally give a presentation and feel they did a good job. They even find that once in a while they are quite persuasive and enjoy the experience.
The Seeker:
A Seeker looks for opportunities to speak. They understand that anxiety can be a stimulant which fuels enthusiasm during a presentation. Seekers work at building their professional communication skills and self-confidence by speaking often.
The reality is, that making presentations is an essential sales skill, Top 5% achievers are very good presenters. Any salesman or woman, who has ambitions to become the best in their sector or industry, will need to ensure that they can deliver dynamic, convincing and professional presentations, whenever they are called upon to do so.
Becoming a Seeker is a pre-requisite to success!
There Are Four Key Elements Of A Successful Presentation:
Element One: Structure
In preparing for any presentation, there is a simple, yet useful structure: -
• Prospect Need
• Prospect Advantage
• Your Proposal
• Your Action.
Prospect Need:
It is essential that you consider your prospects/ audience’s views because every prospect/audience has a need. Need consists of two parts - symptoms and causes, (through identifying the symptoms we find causes).
Prospect Advantage
• Main - This demonstrates how your ideas will meet the needs and resolve the prospects problems
• Added - These are powerful persuasions that explain why your ideas are superior and compelling.
Presentations allow us to : -
• Influence a group of important people.
• Gain consensus and commitment.
• Find out who the real players are and the real status.
• Set ground rules for a major sale.
• Make a lasting impression of professionalism.
When it comes to the enthusiasm that sales professionals have for making a presentation, they broadly fall into four categories, (as I highlighted in a previous article - :”When It Comes To Making Presentations, The Very Best Salespeople Are Seekers”)
The Avoider:
An Avoider does everything possible to escape from having to stand in front of an audience; in some drastic cases salespeople may seek positions that do not involve making presentations.
The Register:
A Register is also extremely hesitant of speaking in public, however Registers may not be able to avoid speaking as part of their job but they never encourage it. When they do speak they do so very reluctantly.
The Acceptor:
The Acceptor will give presentations as part of their job but does not seek opportunities to do so. Acceptors occasionally give a presentation and feel they did a good job. They even find that once in a while they are quite persuasive and enjoy the experience.
The Seeker:
A Seeker looks for opportunities to speak. They understand that anxiety can be a stimulant which fuels enthusiasm during a presentation. Seekers work at building their professional communication skills and self-confidence by speaking often.
The reality is, that making presentations is an essential sales skill, Top 5% achievers are very good presenters. Any salesman or woman, who has ambitions to become the best in their sector or industry, will need to ensure that they can deliver dynamic, convincing and professional presentations, whenever they are called upon to do so.
Becoming a Seeker is a pre-requisite to success!
There Are Four Key Elements Of A Successful Presentation:
Element One: Structure
In preparing for any presentation, there is a simple, yet useful structure: -
• Prospect Need
• Prospect Advantage
• Your Proposal
• Your Action.
Prospect Need:
It is essential that you consider your prospects/ audience’s views because every prospect/audience has a need. Need consists of two parts - symptoms and causes, (through identifying the symptoms we find causes).
Prospect Advantage
• Main - This demonstrates how your ideas will meet the needs and resolve the prospects problems
• Added - These are powerful persuasions that explain why your ideas are superior and compelling.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Real Time Hot Mortgage Leads
The fresher te lead, the better the quality, so it makes sense that Real-Time mortgage leads are the hottest they come. Think about it, mortgage borrowers looking to refinance or do some home improvements find a broker that is looking to give them a great rate, perfect match?
Of course it's a perfect match. The truth is that if a lead is not real-time then it might as well be a dead lead. Even a one day olf lead is useless if the potential borrower has already found a mortgage company while your 1 day old leads was making it's rounds through the different lead companies, and then getting to you. How many hands touched that lead being delivered in the next day's bulk lead email? There is no way of telling unless, one it is timestamped and origin-stamped.
Why Real-Time? Borrowers want to get info now! They want to be impressed when you call them within 2 minutes of them filling out the online application. What that says is yeah this loan officer and mortgage company has their heads on straight and can quickly take care of my needs. Usually a prospect starts working with th first person to contact them.
Real-Time Exclusive Mortgage Leads are the answers to your prayers. Real-Time leads need to be generated from a source which you can trust and actually visit yourself. You should be able to tell exactly what website generated the lead, and exactly what time. Real Time Leads should not be from some unknown 3rd party company your lead company buys leads from, and resells to you for a profit.
A Great Lead Company owns and operates their websites themselves and timestamp and origin-stamp (What website the lead is generated from) the lead any and every time. There is no playing games since everything should be automated and you can feel relax. Some lead comanies like Perfect Town USA have guarantee that if you don't get your leads in 5 seconds or less it's free!
Of course it's a perfect match. The truth is that if a lead is not real-time then it might as well be a dead lead. Even a one day olf lead is useless if the potential borrower has already found a mortgage company while your 1 day old leads was making it's rounds through the different lead companies, and then getting to you. How many hands touched that lead being delivered in the next day's bulk lead email? There is no way of telling unless, one it is timestamped and origin-stamped.
Why Real-Time? Borrowers want to get info now! They want to be impressed when you call them within 2 minutes of them filling out the online application. What that says is yeah this loan officer and mortgage company has their heads on straight and can quickly take care of my needs. Usually a prospect starts working with th first person to contact them.
Real-Time Exclusive Mortgage Leads are the answers to your prayers. Real-Time leads need to be generated from a source which you can trust and actually visit yourself. You should be able to tell exactly what website generated the lead, and exactly what time. Real Time Leads should not be from some unknown 3rd party company your lead company buys leads from, and resells to you for a profit.
A Great Lead Company owns and operates their websites themselves and timestamp and origin-stamp (What website the lead is generated from) the lead any and every time. There is no playing games since everything should be automated and you can feel relax. Some lead comanies like Perfect Town USA have guarantee that if you don't get your leads in 5 seconds or less it's free!
Friday, December 29, 2006
"High Touch" or "High Tech", What Do Clients Want?
I still hear comments from agents in our industry talking about the need for “high touch” versus “high tech”. They feel that we are all potentially losing our contact with our clients because of the impersonal nature of email and the internet. The National Association of Realtors completes a yearly buyers profile report. According to this report, the number of people initiating their home search on the internet continues to increase at an explosive rate. (Close to 79% of all consumers begin their search on the internet.) All trends are pointing toward greater reliance on real estate information on the internet: including listings, school information, and mortgage information.
With the popularity of real estate sites, it is clear consumers find value in the ability to search and find the information. We, in the real estate industry, are also consumers and prefer the speed, anonymity, and control provided by the internet. As a result, it highlights the importance for all real estate professionals to utilize and understand the technology that enables our clients to become more knowledgeable about the local market.
Being comfortable with technology, in many cases, allows us to communicate effectively with our clients and to be “high touch”. We are finding that many clients actually prefer the interaction through email. Communicating through email enables them to better control their time, balance their busy lives, while searching for a home. So our internet clients would agree that we are providing “high touch” customer service on their terms. With the increase in the number of internet and email users, the definition of “high touch” may be changing. Maybe the line between “high touch” and “high tech” is beginning to blur and the two are actually becoming the same thing.
With the popularity of real estate sites, it is clear consumers find value in the ability to search and find the information. We, in the real estate industry, are also consumers and prefer the speed, anonymity, and control provided by the internet. As a result, it highlights the importance for all real estate professionals to utilize and understand the technology that enables our clients to become more knowledgeable about the local market.
Being comfortable with technology, in many cases, allows us to communicate effectively with our clients and to be “high touch”. We are finding that many clients actually prefer the interaction through email. Communicating through email enables them to better control their time, balance their busy lives, while searching for a home. So our internet clients would agree that we are providing “high touch” customer service on their terms. With the increase in the number of internet and email users, the definition of “high touch” may be changing. Maybe the line between “high touch” and “high tech” is beginning to blur and the two are actually becoming the same thing.
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