Sales Strategy Question #1 - How Many Prospects Do You Have?
I was just leafing through some of my sales training tips that I place in articles and sales seminars.
One of them pertains to maintaining “flow” in conversations with the timely injection of transition phrases.
I use the example of a person you call who says right away, “I’m pretty busy right now.”
You can offer to call back, politely say goodbye, or you can parry the statement with a transition such as: “Well I appreciate that and I’ll make it brief.”
Your decision as to what strategy to employ will be informed to a major extent not by your personal style or even your training in using transitions, important as these considerations are.
Your strategy will be governed by the size of prospecting universe that you’re phoning into.
Example: One of my clients is a large distributor of farm equipment in the Midwest. How many prospects can buy HUGE crop cultivation machines, or even tractors?
Not that many. Even the most eccentric New Yorker won’t commute to work “On a Deere,” so market enlargement is, practically speaking, out of the question for combines and harvesters.
Farmers are your market, and with consolidation and the rapid disappearance of family spreads, there aren’t that many to call, so you had better cultivate strategies for keeping those folks you have on your short list on the phone, or otherwise interested in hearing from you.
On the other hand, if your prospecting base is relatively large, you may not have to parry or address objections, at all.
At the first hint of resistance, you can seek out the next set of ears.
Beware of sales training that is so doctrinaire that it implores you to ALWAYS do this or that.
Your particular marketing universe will, to a large extent, determine the tools you can use.
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is the
best-selling author of 12 books and more than
a thousand articles. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV,
(See: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=417455932#) he is quoted often in prominent publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week.
President of Clientrelations.com and Customersatisfaction.com, his seminars and training
programs are sponsored internationally and he
is a top-rated faculty member at more than 40
universities. Dynamic and fun, Gary brings over two decades
of management and consulting experience
to the table, with the best academic credentials in the speaking and training industry.
Holder of a Ph.D. from the
Annenberg School For Communication at USC,
an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management,
and a J.D. degree from Loyola, his clients include several
Fortune 1000 companies and successful family
owned and operated firms. More
than a “talking head,” Gary is a top mind that you’ll
enjoy working with.
He can be reached at gary@customersatisfaction.com.
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