Increase Sales and Profits - Decipher The Prospect Code and Pattern
Enabling you to increase your sales and market share, to become an added value provider, and outpace your competition you must understand and decipherer the prospect code, and break their patterns.
If you are intrigued that’s good. If you are ready to stop reading you will miss the opportunity. You will be out paced by your competition, and they will gain the market share you were hoping to capture.
First here are 6 factors to always remember when dealing with your prospect.
They have very specific business objective they want you achieve.
They are focused on increasing their market share, and like you want to win business away from their competitors.
They want to operate profitably.
As they look at the work they must do, and see what they are able to achieve, they experience gaps. There are pieces missing and they look to you for a solution. ( you will discover this soon)
The solutions they are looking for may manifest themselves as give me a quote.
Your prospect is hoping everyone understands what they want. Based on that understanding they will ask for a price or a quote.
Let’s say you and your competition are in the business of selling widgets. In your prospects mind the only way to distinguish one company from another is price. NOTHING IS FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
Last week one of my customers put me to the test. When I walked into his office he had picked out four prospects and told me we were going on the road and cold call. My client’s statement was as follows:
Customer: Al, you have told my management team, my sales people and me, about compelling reasons to buy. Now I am putting you to the test.
Al: Ok, what do you have in mind?
Customer: I have picked out four prospects to call on. You are the sales person and I will ride shot gun.
Al: Ok, I am game.
Without getting into the details, we had completed all four cold calls in 90 minutes. In ninety minutes we had unearthed almost three million dollars in potential business. One prospect had not heard of my clients company, and he was less than an hour away from the corporate office. At the end of the field trip I asked my client the following question.
Al: We made four cold calls in an hour and a half. Do you think I could make six cold calls in a day?
Customer: Yes
Al: Let’s look at the numbers. 6 cold calls X 5 days = 30 cold calls in a week X 4 weeks = 120 cold call. How much do you think that would equate to in potential sales. We both agreed it would be OUTRAGOUS.
Here is how we Deciphered the Prospect Code and broke the Pattern to Increasing Your Sales and Profits.
Each time we went on a sales call I did the call and it went like this.
Al: Good morning, I am Al Turrisi from XYZ company are we getting you at a bad time?
Prospect: Yes, but what is this about?
Al: I would like to ask you one question. Before you decide to answer it or not may I tell you what the question is?
Prospect: ok, sure
Al: When I speak with business owners like yourself they tell me when their companies place an order for ABC products and they receive the delivery the owners find:
ü There are items missing and have been backed ordered.
ü These issues cause delays in getting the job done.
ü There are items on the delivery ticket that they did not order.
ü When customer service is called it is difficult to get through, and get the issues resolved.
Do any situations resonate with you?
In every case it did resonate with each of the prospects.
In one case the owner of the company told us he had 10 workers on a job waiting for materials for over an hour. He had lost over $2500.00 in labor cost and then had to pay the same workers overtime to complete the work. When I asked if he would be willing to pay a slightly higher premium for the materials, and have the problems go away forever, he said absolutely.
Another company told us they purchase over two million is products annually and when it comes to returns they get a hard time. This same company gets wined and dined by their current supplier and said they would forgo the dinners and have better customer service. This same prospect said that while they were at the dinner table with other customers everyone was complaining about the same thing.
If you believe you have to get business by having the lowest price you are sadly mistaken. To increase your sales volume, market share and profitability you must become a value added provider, and do a fantastic job of asking the correct questions and doing a better job of qualifying. And deliver solutions !