Solutions for: Owners, Sales Managers, Service Managers
 


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.

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

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.