Be Careful What You Ask For - You Just Might Get it!
In tough economic times, it's easier to get current clients to do and spend more than it is to beat down the doors on prospects in a "cold" fashion.
However, there are ways to break down those walls, as I recently heard Elton John say. Some recent successes from the field demonstrate that the art of closing is not as challenging as you think. Sometimes, you just need to ask for the order, or have the confidence to ask, and believe in the value behind your "ask".
Last week, after training print sales reps in the art of closing, I hit the field with one of our newer reps. We made five sales calls, all on existing clients or clients that have had a relationship with the property before. He up-sold four of those calls. Some were up-sold on size, and some were up-sold on just adding color to their ad, so it would rise above the clutter compared to others.
In our training, we discussed:
The "Alternative of Choice" close: Do you want to separate yourself from the other advertisers by adding color/creative/sticky content, or are you willing to risk having your ads blend into the paper/radio/TV/website's content and other advertisers and not be noticed/heard/viewed?
The "Higher Authority" close: If I can get this approved by my manager, will you okay our agreement (versus signing the contract) today? In return, I will lock in your ad and placement/time/inventory/space.
The "Price and Commitment" close: If we can do it at this price, will you okay the agreement today?
We also discussed time. The correct time for a sales rep is.ta da.today! Not next week. Not next month. Today! You have a purpose for being there today, so meet that purpose, and ask for what you want - the order. Closing doesn't have to be a six- month wedding march. If you don't ask for the order, somebody else will, and if I'm in your market competing against you, well, you know how that story will end.
Important note: Remember that the above examples refer to closing calls. With new prospects, closing happens after the CMP call, where you perform a needs analysis on your client, quantifying and qualifying, setting expectations & objectives, and then qualifying the dollars it will take to accomplish the prospect's goal (if in fact you can deliver the desired expectations based on your needs analysis).
Lesson #1: Leaving the CMP call without quantifying and qualifying leaves you in the disastrous position of facing the prospect on the closing call, where you plan to ask for the order, and the prospect's first response is, "That's too much money." You'll have invested all of your time putting together a great closing presentation with a spec campaign only to hear that they don't have the money.
That response should never happen if you did your CMP, finding problems on the first call, and quantifying & qualifying the prospect.
The three closes listed above can also be used with new prospects as well on the closing presentation. After all, closing is closing. However, you can't successfully ask for the close if you haven't prepared to do so, and the information you learn on your CMP call forms the basis of all your preparation for the close.
Some sales reps are afraid to ask for the business. If you are afraid of asking, you need to stay home and watch reruns of "90210." You will have less stress and enjoy your day more.
As Alex Baldwin said in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, "Coffee is for Closers." That's a classic line.if you drink coffee. If you don't, just remember the acronym "ABC": Always Be Closing. (Oh, and if you sell for a living, and you're not familiar with the scene, shame on you. Pull up youtube for seven very entertaining, educational, and NSFW minutes.)
Lesson #2: Don't leave without asking for the business. There is the prospect that will tell you they have to ask their partner or business associate for permission. This should have been filtered out on your first call, which we did on one particular call. There are legitimate reasons someone would say that, though if you are dealing with the "economic" buyer who you qualified on the previous call, and they can make the decision, then you better not leave without saying, "Go ahead and okay our agreement, and I'll hold the inventory. If something comes up, then just give us a call and let us know."
95% of the time, this buy will hold. That's because buying from you is something you've made the prospect want to do if you've established an emotional connection with a customer benefit such as "increasing their customer base and profits".
I can't say it enough: Make sure you ask for that business.
On our call, the prospect signed the agreement and then called back that afternoon and said everything was a go. Imagine if we had not walked out of there with that signature. The buy would have been put on the back burner in the prospect's mind and it's hard to say what would have happened.
You have a window when it comes to closing, and it's not going to be open for long. You're there for business, so ask for it. I've seen way too many calls where the sales rep walked the business down to the one yard-line and "punted" the ball by not asking for the business.
Lesson #3: Stick and wait. Another sales call put me in front of a client who advertised with us a few months ago with another rep who is no longer selling. I was in there with a new rep, and since I had some input on the first sale, being in the market, I wanted to stop by and thank the business owner for the business.
It was 4:20pm, when most sales reps have called it a day. The client's business, a furniture store, was still open. One of the most unique times to get to the client is after other reps have gone home. You generally don't have to battle for "share of face " with other reps in the market at that time of day.
The client was a "technical" buyer, the person who thinks they make the decision but can't. The person who can't say yes and can only say no usually does, and this "tech" buyer was blowing us off, telling us her Pre-Labor Day Sale was out of the question, as the owner was not going to want to buy advertising.
She told us that we should come back another day. Really? My sales rep pointed to the owner walking down to another part of the furniture store. I told the "tech" buyer I would like to meet the owner. She said, "Okay, but he's not going to want to do anything."
We stuck and waited - my rule of thumb is not to wait any longer than 15 minutes - and less than 10 minutes later, the owner walked towards us. I told him I wanted to come by to thank him for the business and explained my role as the consultant. He responded by saying, "Yes, we've had great response, and as a matter of fact, we need to place another ad for the Pre-Labor Day Sale."
As the "tech" buyer shrunk in her seat in the most embarrassing of postures, the owner looked at his delivery log and noted all the new places they were delivering furniture, stating the deliveries had to be because of us.
We could have left. We didn't. We got the order.
Digging a little deeper, we found out that the owner was going to be out of town on that particular Pre Labor Day weekend, while the "tech" buyer was working all weekend long. The owner wanted to run the ad, but the "tech" buyer didn't want to handle the increased traffic. Hmm.maybe she is on a salary?
Last Lesson: Be careful what you ask for - you just might get it. Before leaving a call, I wanted to demonstrate to one of our new reps that even though all appears lost and it seems like a waste of time, you should always ask for the business.
On this call, I wanted to move the prospect off-center, and after five minutes, I didn't want to waste any time. We were moving, and I wanted some action now. I discounted the rate on this call and thinking it was one in a million that the prospect would say yes. I put it out there with a "today only" availability because I wanted him to make a decision. The prospect asked us to give him an hour to think about it. We went back, and of course he said yes.
Yikes! He wasn't supposed to say yes. We got what we asked for - discounted rate included. Even a one in a million could say yes.if you ask for it.
Sean Luce is the Head National Instructor for the Luce Performance Group and can be reached at www.luceperformancegroup.com