You work hard to sell your product or service, right? Nothing is handed to you… Sometimes your sales cycle is short, other times it’s long. Regardless, as a sales professional you are out there pounding the pavement (or email system “virtually” pounding the internet superhighway) every day. Just when you think you’ve got the sale, the prospect puts the brakes on and calls a halt to the sales action. You hit the “pause” button as well and move on to another prospect. When you ultimately do buckle-back with the prospect, you find out that they’ve bought your product or service, just not from you! What went wrong? What will you do now? The following “Seven Tips to Offset Lost Sales” are for you if this scenario happens to you far too often (In our sales coaching practice, our clients learn that once is often enough!)
Tip #1 – Qualify the Prospect
One of our coaching clients is in the real estate industry. They successfully run one of the leading, and largest, real estate agencies in the country. During our initial meetings, I asked what made them different from the many other real estate agencies out there. Now I’ve asked that question before and I’m always excited to hear what the answer is. This time, I have to admit that I was a little surprised! The answer that I received back was that they do a better job of qualifying the prospect than other agencies. This allows them to fully serve those clients in their best interest. In order to avoid losing the sale and sell more, you’ve got to qualify your customer. Does your offering serve them better than anyone else? Do they have the budget? How long will your solution be the answer? These questions may seem to be way upstream regarding the lost sales conversation, but if you do a better job at qualifying your customers initially you’ll gain more sales!
Tip #2 – Stay in Touch
Ok, let’s get real here. If you’re like most salespeople you enjoy the hunt, sometimes you enjoy it more than the actual reaping of the rewards from the sale. So when you have a prospect that says “I need to think about it…” or “Follow-up with me in a few…” you fall for it and move on to the next hunting ground. When you buckle-back, they’ve bought somewhere else (Just like in the opening example!) What happened? You lost the sale because you got greedy and moved on to the next pond to fish when you should have left a line in the water, or at the minimum come back to the pond and fish more frequently. There’s a reason why people aren’t buying from you right here, right now. Do you know what they are? These are the “3 P’s” we discovered regarding why customers don’t buy from you. Send us an email (info@pathosleadershipgroup.com) requesting them and we’ll send you a special report so you stay in touch better!
Tip #3 – Polish Your Presentation
When was the last time you practiced your presentation? If you’re like one of our clients, they practice every day on their way in to the office. Unfortunately, they used to lose sales even with all that practice! So what was going wrong? Practice is good, but “Perfect Practice” is better! Also, if you’re presentation is taking place in a different “realm” (i.e., virtually like on the internet through a web-meeting or on the phone through a conference call) you’d better be practicing in that realm. No amount of “windshield” practice can prepare you for the challenges of these new presentation realms. We are convinced that Murphy’s Law is in full-force in these new spaces, so you better practice up!
Tip #4 – Serve the Prospect
Just because you didn’t make the sale on your first conversation doesn’t mean that you’ve lost it for good. So what do you do with your prospect during the sales process? In the New Economy sales-cycles have almost doubled. What could be accomplished leading prospects from introduction to successful sale over seven touches now takes fourteen! The time period associated with these additional touches gives you the opportunity to outshine your competition and deliver in other realms for your prospect. What else do they need, that you offer, that you could deliver while they’re in decision mode? Could you deliver them and help swing the decision making process in your favor? Stop serving only your current customers and start delivering to prospects.
Tip #5 – Survey the Lost Customer
Sometimes in defeat you can determine your next victory strategies! Survey your lost customers to determine what went wrong. Perhaps it was your presentation or follow-up efforts, perhaps you didn’t provide enough detail or perhaps too much detail, maybe you don’t have the right technology, etc. You’ll never know if you don’t ask, so ask! The feedback could be humbling, but beneficial in discovering what you won’t do the next time. Want even better feedback? Have us interview your prospects after they’ve bought somewhere else. What customers won’t tell you because they’re afraid they’ll “hurt your feelings” they will tell us!
Tip #6 – Know Thy Competitor
So who did you lose out to? Better yet, why did you lose out to them? These are common questions that we ask of our sales coaching clients. I continue to be dumbfounded when I hear “I don’t know!” You don’t know? You don’t know? Find out and more importantly find out what they are delivering that you aren’t. Then figure out how you can deliver it better! New competitors are everywhere all the time, even if you’re like one of our pharmaceutical clients! Keep your competitors closer to you and you’ll be more successful.
Tip #7 – Know Thyself
Time to get real again… You know why you lost the sale, so stop BS’ing yourself! Look yourself in the mirror and hold yourself accountable. If after reading the previous six tips you still don’t know why you are losing sales, perhaps sales is not for you! Bad news, you’re always selling something. One of the seminar companies that we did some work for a few years ago coined the term “lifelong learner” in their workshop presentations. They brought up the term right around the time they’d offer their products for sale. Guess what happened, people realized that they were not lifelong learners. However, they wanted to be so they bought! If you’re not investing 20% of your annual income in lifelong learning activities you’re falling behind your competition.
By following the preceding seven tips, you won’t win 100% of your sales proposals. However, you will greatly increase your percentage from where you are today by being aware of them, working on them, and implementing them into your sales game plan.
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