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We've talked repeatedly in this newsletter, our columns and workshops that if you are a commissioned sales person there are just three ways to spend your time.
- Prospecting for new business.
- Presenting for new business.
- Following up for new business.
Everything else is just noise.
Oh, I know, I know what about administrative things like organizing your desk, pushing bikes, rearranging the show room floor or using the old California Car duster in unauthorized ways on your bikes.
Are those things necessary? Sure. But I guarantee you the other three categories should be taking priority and should dwarf the time spent on the items mentioned above.
Notice when you are engaged in prospecting, presenting or following up you are engaged with a customer. As a salesperson the only time you can be successful is when you are face to face, ear to ear or text message to text message with a live customer.
In many studies on sales activities however, sales people are spending less than 10 percent of their time actually engaged with customers or potential customers. And most of their time engaged in, well, something else.
If a salesperson is just getting rolling in his or her career, the majority of your time should be spent in prospecting activities.
And then as your prospecting funnel fills your sales activities will shift.
Of course these are rough estimates of time usage but the model is pretty accurate. You may also be wondering what happened to the "other" category. Well it doesn't contribute to sales. So when do you organize your office, rearrange the showroom floor, and learn about the product? Come early, stay late, it doesn't matter just figure it out. When you concentrate your time usage as described - you will be more successful.
If you're really interested in getting better at the art and science of selling here's a tip. Find out how you are spending your time. For three weeks you should track how you are spending your time. That's right, get a paper log or do it in MS Outlook but track what you've done in either 15 or 30 minute increments. The results will astound you. And as an aside, often your performance is increased just as a result of this, because you are more conscious of how you are spending your time.
Prospecting:
If there is one area most salespeople can improve it is prospecting. And most have precious little comprehension of what it takes to be successful.
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For example the African Lion, one of nature's most impressive hunting machines is only successful about 10 - 25 percent of the time. Now, if you use our techniques you'll probably be more successful than that but let's use this as a starting point.
This means, conservatively speaking if your dealership's goal is to sell 50 units per month that means using a 10% success rate you would need to make 500 outbound prospecting calls per month.
(Yes this means you have to place outbound prospecting calls. I was at a dealer once with several sales people and after a couple of hours of "telling jokes and drinking cokes" I said, "Don't you guys think we out to call someone?"
They asked in return, "Call someone about what?")
500 calls x 10 percent success = 50 unit sales.
Now not every salesperson would have to make 500 calls (although that would be great, if not a bit unreasonable). If you have four sales people working in this dealership that would mean each would have to make 125 calls per month.
500 calls / 4 sales people = 125 calls per person.
That means if you have 20 calling days per month (not calling on Saturday or Sunday) that would mean you would have to place 6.25 calls per day.
125 Calls / 20 Calling Days = 6.25 calls per day.
Go ahead. Be an overachiever. Call seven. |
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Now you're starting to realize that you've got a prospecting funnel that needs to be filled. Where can you find quality prospects with which to fill this funnel? Here are some suggestions:
- Current Customers for Trade-Ins
- Current Customers for a Bring-a-Friend initiative.
- "Almost" Customers: Abandoned Credit Apps
- A customer relationship management system like Harley-Davidson's CONNECT.
- The Powersports Network's Website Leads
- Intenders
- Those You Can Convert to Intenders
(People ask me how I can identify intenders. Here's a guide.
If someone says to you, "I would love to ride a motorcycle one day. You've got yourself a prospect.
If someone says to you, "I would like to ride a motorcycle one day. You've got yourself a prospect.
If someone says to you, "I saw a motorcycle one day. You've got yourself a prospect.
Them: I saw a motorcycle the other day ...
Me: If you liked looking at them you ought to try riding them!)
Then think about appealing to ethnicity and gender.
- Reach out to the African American Community.
- Reach out to the Hispanic Community.
- Reach out to women.
Segment creatively and differently by thinking about categories of workers likely to be interested in motorcycling.
- Construction workers
- Engineers
- Musicians
- Professional or semi-pro athletes.
And you can fill your prospecting funnel even further by thinking about targeting specific companies, especially those that do well even through recessions.
- Utility workers
- Some manufacturers
- Healthcare workers
Why target companies? Well because when you get one person in a company to ride, they often bring friends as well.
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Now it's important to understand what you're trying to do with a prospecting call or contact. And first and foremost it's NOT TO SELL THE MOTORCYCLE.
Some don't get this so let me prove my point. If you're married, did you propose over the phone? Chances are good you didn't. Well although buying a motorcycle shouldn't be a lifelong commitment (well I guess neither are most marriages!) it's still a significant commitment and one that shouldn't be taken likely.
A ham handed approach to a prospecting contact is a waste of time. (From my I-Saw-It-Myself File.
Salesperson, "Hi Frank Customer, this is Steve Awful from XYZ cycles. We have the new model here and will sell it to you at retail. Do you want it?
Care to guess how this movie ended?)
Instead, think about sales success as a series of small "yeses." Small agreements pave the way to solid relationships. Solid relationships pave the way to win/win customer relationships.
Don't try and throw a touchdown pass on your first play.
Here are some small "yeses" you can achieve.
- Agree to take call.
- Willing to consider attending an event.
- Eager to accept an e-mail or hard copy information.
- Willing to consider visiting the store.
- Agreeable to accepting promotional gift.
- Willing to receive dealership newsletter.
You can probably come up with more. But notice your strategy should be something other than the sale at the prospecting stage. |
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Now you need a reason to contact the person. A warm contact would be someone with whom you've either had prior contact or has expressed an interest in hearing from you (website inquiry).
Here is a list of reasons you can contact a "warm" prospect and why they would want to hear from you:
- New models are in.
- Personally invite to an event.
- Follow up on a performance specification.
- Magazine review on a model.
- Your riding impressions of a model.
- New motorcycle legislation.
- Follow up on a personal event (when you call just to ask how their son did in the little league game and nothing more, this starts to set you apart).
- Google alerts (I like to set up Google Alerts for people or companies and look for reasons to stay in touch, e.g. business performance or news).
- Sports teams: If I know a prospects affinity for a sports team I'll contact them if there is an interesting development (well unless they are a Dallas Cowboy fan, then ... well, then I just can't).
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Obviously you'll have a much higher success rate with "warm" prospects but as we mentioned earlier you now have a prospecting funnel "monster" that needs to be fed. So you will have to do some cold calls. Here are some reasons to contact a "Cold" prospect.
- Special "Citizen" Event
- Sports figure signing autographs at your store. Milwaukee's House of Harley-Davidson had famous Green Bay Packer Quarterback Bart Starr at their store.
- Local hero appearing at your store: Some retailers had Olympic Team Participants at store for autographs and pictures.
- Celebrity appearance: A Murfreesboro, Tennessee dealership just had two famous country songwriters attend a dealership sponsored fund raiser.
- You could be offering a course on "how to ride" or "how to buy."
- Worthy causes
- Local Fund Raising
- National Fund Raising.
Ok so there you have it. Now go and call someone!
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| Feel free to share this info at your staff meetings, use it for training sessions, or in conversations. Co-workers not signed up? Forward this to them. Our goal is to help you be, have and do more for you and your customers. |
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