You can’t take a Walmart shopper and turn them into a Nordstrom customer. It simply is not going to happen, but that is exactly what too many salespeople think they can do.
If you want full price, you need to spend your time prospecting customers who can pay full price.
Are you one who jumps at the sight of a new prospect and fails to qualify them before spending too much time with them?
I see salespeople spending time with prospects solely based on the fact they can get an appointment with them or they responded to an inquiry. One reason I see salespeople getting into this problem is because they aren’t pushing back fast enough on prospects.
When we spend time with a prospect only to lose them when we try to close, we immediately think we need to improve our closing skills. There might not be anything wrong with your closing skills, and I’ll argue it’s more likely your prospecting skills that you need to work on.
If I’m looking to go from Chicago to New York in 4 hours, I need to take an airplane. Thinking I can drive it just because I have a car at my disposal is not going to cut it.
That’s the problem salespeople have. They have a prospect — in this case a car — and they think they can use it go from Chicago to New York. Sorry, it won’t work in under 4 hours. If they started out with an airplane, then they’d be successful.
Many of your prospects are merely suspects. Unless you’re willing to ask tough questions about the outcomes they want and how they go about making a decision, there is little chance you’ll succeed.
Your goal is to be spending more time with fewer prospects, and when you do, you’ll find yourself closing more deal at full price.
Check out my new book, High-Profit Prospecting, to gain insights as to how you can speed your prospecting process. You can get it at this link.
Copyright 2017, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results.
