Greetings Floor Dealers!
If someone leaves your store without making a buying decision, you should plug them into the Shock-and-Awe campaign. (Platinum members only site.) Along with doing this, the sales person should phone them weekly until they get a yes or no answer.
Gold level member Kitty Eyestone brought up a common concern on a recent coaching call. She was worried that if she made follow up calls with potential clients after giving them a price quote that they might get annoyed. I know this is a common concern. Early in my selling days I had those same feelings.
Here’s why I think you and your sales team should be persistent with your follow up calls in spite of concerns about annoying clients or (more commonly) sheer laziness:
Most clients appreciate it
Let’s face it, service businesses (especially remodeling contractors) have a horrible reputation for never following up with clients. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve literally gone through the phone book and newspaper calling remodeling contractors, leaving messages, and having only one (or none) call me back. How many times has that happened to you or someone you know?
(These same contractors are the first to whine and moan about how there’s “no work out there” because of this “slow” economy. Nuts to ‘em. They absolutely deserve to go out of business and the community is far better off without them.)
If you do a polite follow-up call to see if they have questions and to find out if they’ve made a decision, most clients will appreciate you for it.
It creates differentiation
Since follow up calls are so rarely done, you’ll immediately stand out.
It costs nothing
By training your sales team to do follow up calls with every single prospect until they get a yes or no answer, they can conservatively close an extra 1-2 sales per month. Let’s say you have three sales people and your average ticket is $3,000. That’s an extra $9,000-$18,000 in monthly revenue, or $108,000-$216,000 annually. All with ZERO marketing costs.
Gets people off the fence
You need to train your sales team that when someone leaves without committing to buy this does not necessarily mean they’ve run off to a competitor. Most sales people assume this is what has happened, but it’s simply not true much of the time. A large percentage of your prospects have simply put off buying anything from anybody.
The good news is that sometimes all they need is a very gentle nudge to get them moving again. I know it sounds crazy. I mean we’re talking a big ticket item here, and it doesn’t seem like a simple call could get someone to pull the trigger on a $5,000 purchase, but it can. And sometimes that’s all it takes!
True Story: I have a background in the mortgage and real estate industry. Buying a home or refinancing a mortgage is a transaction in the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars usually, especially in California. Talk about a big ticket item! What blew me away, time and time again, was that a simple follow-up call was all that was needed to get a client to move forward on one of the largest single financial transactions in their lives.
Remember: your clients operate mostly on emotion, not logic. So providing that little emotional nudge can oftentimes get them to move forward.
Shows you care
We live in an economy that is so automated and “big boxed” and cold and sterile that your clients are craving care and concern from a real human being. By following up you are demonstrating that you care.
Positions you as a Trusted Advisor
Getting your clients to see you as a Trusted Advisor (instead of a “used car salesman) cannot be accomplished by any one particular action. Remember there’s no such thing as a “Silver Bullet.” Positioning yourself as a Trusted Advisor is the accumulation of multiple strategies to paint that particular picture in the mind of your client. Follow up calls help paint the picture.
Who gives a ripe rat’s behind if someone gets annoyed???
Look, you strive to provide good service, right? You truly care about the welfare of your client, right? You deal with them honestly and ethically, right? Then you have earned the right to follow up with them until you get a yes or no decision. Period. If a client can’t handle it and gets snarky with you, then they are obviously not your ideal client. They have just disqualified themselves from being able to purchase from you. Move on and thank God that you found out what a pain-in-the-you-know-what they are before you got hip deep into the installation process.
By training your sales team to be P.P.P.P.I.T.B’s, they will have more successful careers and your store’s bottom line will increase tremendously.
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!