It’s the dream scenario for business owners and sales people everywhere… Receiving a phone call from a hot prospect ready to give you the biggest order in your company’s history!
The ultimate goal of most businesses is to get to the stage where customers are ringing them for business, and not the other way round.
But all too often, when we do start receiving those sales enquiries, we fail to capitalise on them and let what should be easy business, slip through our fingers.
Typically the enquiry goes something like this.
The phone rings. “Hello,” you answer, “How can I help?”
“Well,” says the customer, “I need an XYZ service, how much do you charge?”
Now at this stage your heart starts doing double time. “This must be my lucky day!” you think to yourself, and so having already imagined ringing up the sale, you cheerfully give the customer the exact price and get ready to take their order.
And then your customer utters the words all sales people and business owners dread, “OK thanks for that, I’ll call you back later.”
And in an instant, your dream phone call becomes just that – a dream! Your prospect, who only seconds ago you were sure was going to be the easiest sale of all time, is gone, usually forever!
As comical as it may sound, this scenario is being played out everyday, costing business owners and sales people an astronomical amount in terms of lost sales and wasted marketing and advertising dollars.
If this kind of thing is happening to you, your business or your sales team, stop and think for a second how much it actually cost to get that prospect to call you in the first place.
• How much money did you spend on that Yellow Pages ad?
• How much time and creativity was put into that brochure?
• How much money went into developing that website or advertising campaign?
• How much effort did your company put in to delivering great service so your clients would refer more potential customers to you?
All too often the great work we put in to generate sales enquiries is undone because we are unable to convert them into sales when they do come in.
Why does this happen?
So why do we miss out on great sales opportunities so often? And how do we stop wasting our time and ensure we make the most of these enquiries in the future?
Several things happen that cause us to let prime sales opportunities slip through our fingers:
1. We often get so excited at the prospect of making a quick sale that we forget that we still have to put the work in and sell to them. Remember, the prospect hasn’t bought yet – at this stage it’s just an enquiry!
2. We assume that the prospect already knows what they’re looking for, so instead of taking time to try and find out what their real needs are, we simply give them an answer and hope that they’ll like it. Unfortunately though, especially in service industries, our customers often don’t know what to ask for and simply start by asking about the one thing they do understand - the price!
3. If we’re only giving the caller a price, then our price is the only way they can compare us to our competitors. Inevitably they simply dial the next supplier in the phone book and keep going until they find someone cheaper or until someone is skilled enough to turn their enquiry into a sale.
4. If we’re only giving the caller a price, we miss out on the opportunity to present ourselves as experts in our field and therefore miss out on the opportunity to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.
Turning it all around Like most things in life, it should come as no surprise that the only way to increase your conversion rate for incoming enquiries is to practise, practise, practise.
So here are four easy steps you can take to ensure you and your team make the most of these hot sales opportunities.
Step 1:
Firstly, decide what the ideal outcome for an enquiry actually is and make sure your team knows about it. Depending on your business and your sales cycle, it may be completely unrealistic to expect a customer to make a buying decision after only one conversation with you. Instead you may just want to aim to arrange a meeting, or for them to come into your shop or to book an appointment or consultation - whatever the next step is in your sales process.
Step 2:
Make a list of all the sales enquiries you receive most often from customers when they call in. For example, the most common one will probably be price related, “Can you tell me the price of your____________ ?” Other questions commonly asked are, “I was just wondering, do you do _____________?” or, “What types of ____________ do you have?”
Step 3:
Next, for each of the enquiries you came up with in Step 2, come up with a question that you can reply with that will enable you to shift control of the conversation from the customer, to you. This step is absolutely critical if you want to have any influence over the direction and outcome of the conversation.
For example, if someone rings up asking for the price of sales training, you could turn it around very quickly by saying, “Well we have several different types of sales training to cater to the specific needs of our clients, so the price varies. What results are you trying to achieve with your team?”
In fishing terms, our aim is to keep them on the hook long enough for us to get them into our net.
Step 4 Once you’ve asked this first question you’ll then be able to proceed with your normal line of questioning, allowing you to uncover and quantify the callers real needs and build urgency so you can get them to the next stage of the sales process - the outcome you determined in Step 1.
As trivial as it may seem, planning for and practising taking those incoming enquiries before you actually get them, will enable you to maximise your chances of converting enquiries to sales and do your marketing and advertising campaigns justice!
Don't Let That Fish Off The Hook - The Key To Converting Incoming Sales Enquiries! - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Liew's Website.
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Richard Liew
(Visit Richard's Website)
Richard Liew is a founder and Director of
Rev Limited, New Zealand's leading Sales
Recruitment and Consulting firm and career
development network for Sales
Professionals. Starting out his
professional career as an accountant,
Richard's mission was to prove that anyone
can learn to sell! In just four years
Richard rose from sales newbie through a
huge range of sales jobs including
commission only sales, telesales,
territory management, key account
management, business development, and
product and channel management,
predominantly in the software, IT and
telco sectors. He also provides consulting
services helping young business owners
sell more and grow their businesses.
Richard is also one of the key instigators
of New Zealand's flourishing
parkour/freerunning scene.
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