“He Who Prospects Best, Sells the Most”
Staff Article - As Seen in 'The Journal'
A great salesman once said “A salesman without prospects is unemployed.” This statement is more true today than ever before when it comes to running a retail lot. What if you opened your doors and nobody ever came in? Your best sales people are of no use if they have no prospects to sell to. Prospecting is the key to sales success. Not just prospect lists, but turning that list into marketing activities that yield prospects, and then getting those prospects in front of your best sales professionals so they become customers.
There are dozens of ways to generate lists of people to market to that might want to buy your product. Renters lists, credit qualification lists, demographic lists can all serve this purpose. But once you get the list, then what? How do you keep track of all the people on those lists? How do you market to them to get them to your door? And once they’re on the lot, how do you turn that valuable prospect into a qualified lead that will produce a sale?
Smart marketing gets them in the door
You probably already have some form of marketing plan at your lot, i.e.,
newspaper advertisements, radio or TV spots, maybe even mailings to area
residents. Marketing is essential to building a base of prospects. It
can create a favorable impression of your business and provide the incentive
that gets new prospects in the door. What your sales team does with them
from that point forward determines your sales success and ultimately how
well you do this year.
Prospecting gets them into the boat
A marketing plan without prospecting is like fishing with no bait. You
know there’s fish out there. Some may even swim around your empty
hook. But you won’t get them on the hook and into your boat without
bait. So it is with selling. Without prospecting, you’ll end up
going home hungry.
Today’s successful retailers are computerizing their sales forces with prospecting tools that help them create a base of qualified prospects to focus their selling strategies on. These tools help your sales force keep track of their prospects and empower them with everything they need to perform effective follow up to keep the sale moving forward. It allows them to:
· Keep up with all of the information provided
by prospective homeowners, including finance and credit information, demographics
and buying preferences
· Separate the hot buyers from the dead weight
· Qualify their prospects so they know exactly how to proceed with
the sale
· Implement effective follow up strategies with a built-in calendar
and activity scheduling
· Keep accurate notes and a history of activity so they can move
the sale forward no matter what stage of the buying cycle their prospects
are in
· Find new prospects
· Create referral programs
· Put their energies to work effectively
Follow Up is to Prospecting As Location is to
Real Estate
Remember this correlation: In real estate, the better the location, the
more likelihood of a sale. In selling, the better the follow up, the more
likelihood of a sale. Why is follow up so important? For one, it lets
you establish the three most important criteria in qualifying the prospect.
It lets you know:
- Their level of interest
- Their buying time frame
- Their ability to buy
Every prospect that walks on your lot has the same potential of becoming a sale until he or she is qualified. Until you know their desire and ability to buy, you don’t know how to proceed with that prospect. Once they are qualified, you know how your time should be spent on each relationship from that point forward in the sales cycle. You are then free to put all the prospecting tools in your sales arsenal to work for each prospect as needed.
Putting the right tools to work to keep the pipeline
full
So little time is spent in sales these days working the numbers, but that’s
an essential part of selling. Prospects fly in and out your doors over
the months, and information is tracked on sticky notes and legal pads.
It’s so important to work on the relationships that matter—with
qualified prospects—but this fact is often overlooked. In a down
market especially, it seems as if it would be doubly important to make
every effort count, making the most of each prospect and being especially
careful in keeping up with personal information to make all of your follow
up efforts effective.
Follow up 101
As an example, lets say 35 people respond to a newspaper ad and visit
your sales office over the course of a month. You have an opportunity
to gather information about each prospect and determine the critical criteria:
buying time frame, desire to buy, and ability to buy. You also find out
what models they’re interested in and other pertinent buying preferences.
Your job is to give each of these criteria a rating by assigning it a
number from 1 to 5, with “1” being the “hottest.”
Using an industry-specific prospecting program, you enter the name, address and phone number of each prospect into your computer, and any specific notes about your contact with them. With your prospecting program, you should also have the ability to schedule calls and activities that need to be done to ensure proper follow up. (This is one of your best prospecting tools!) Then, using the user-defined fields for each of your critical criteria, you enter their corresponding weighted numbers. In separate fields, you enter model preferences. Now you have a powerful database of useful information to help execute your follow up strategies! With this information, you can:
· Send a standard thank you letter to your group
of 35 prospects using a pre-defined template
· Print a daily call and “to do” list
· Using the “lookup” command and your criteria fields
you can:
- Create a customized follow up letter to your “hot” group
of prospects
- Send a letter about a new lender to a group whose “ability to
buy” rating is low
- Schedule weekly or monthly follow up letters regarding inventory specials
to prospects whose “model preference” is on a home that has
curtailment payments coming up
- Send a personalized note every few days to your hot prospects, to keep
them interested and move the sale forward
These are just a few suggestions and ideas that will
help you make the most of your prospects, wherever they are on the buying
spectrum. Having information about the prospects that are likely to buy
“at some point in the future” is just as important that those
prospects who are ripe for the sale. If you continue to build a rapport
and develop trust with these “long term” prospects by using
consistent, professional follow up techniques over time, you will most
likely become their supplier choice when it comes time to buy the “home
of their dreams”.
© 2003. For reprint information or permission please
contact Alpha Data Systems.
