When the prospect invites you in to make a presentation you can count on a finite number of potential possibilities.

1. The prospect has a compelling need and wants to correct an issue that is having a negative impact on their company.
2. The prospect has one of your competitors servicing them and your prospect is either checking out the providers pricing or is dissatisfied with the incumbent and wants to switch to someone else.
3. The prospect is taking a new direction and is looking to your industry as a provider.

In any of these cases the prospect is doing what they do for their own reasons.

One of the ways you can be requested to provide your product or services is by providing a quote.

I am working with a client that believed they were a commodity. When I spoke with the sales force they believed they had to have the best price to win sales and business. They were quoting their brains out and getting a low close ratio.

In one of our meetings I introduced the concept of A Compelling Reason to Buy. The sales people were reluctant to accept the concept and said their customers buy on price.

On my next visit with the president he had selected four prospects in the area. Our meeting went like this.

Client: “My sales people don’t buy into this A Compelling Reason to Buy. I picked our four prospects in the area we are going on the road and cold calling.”

Al: “That’s fine I will do the calls and you just watch.”

Client: “Let’s go.”

Prospect call # 1-When we called on the first prospect the gentleman came out said he didn’t have time to talk with us. After I made my compelling statement he stayed for fifteen minutes. We confirmed he had a compelling reason to buy from us and not just price.

Prospect call # 2 – The prospect told us they were tired of the company they were dealing with and would definitely buy from us. This prospect was purchasing over $2,000,000  of product a year.

Prospect # 3- This prospect was twenty minutes from my clients warehouse and had never heard of my client and typically purchased around $250,000 of my clients product from the competition and said they would buy.

Prospect #4- This prospect was out of business or had moved.

Now, here is the secret strategy of how to uncover a compelling reason.

On each of the sales calls my approach was the same. The only time I changed the approach was dependent on who I Spoke with. For example if it was the owner I started with… “Whenever I speak with owners… or Whenever I speak with Project Managers… or Whenever I speak with Purchasing agents.”

Here is a sample of the approach I took when the prospect and I were together.

Al: “Mr. Business owner I would like to ask you to participate in a one question survey I am conducting.

So you can make a decision to participate or not I would like to let you know what the question is so you can make a decision whether to participate or not. Is that ok?”

Prospect: “What is the question?”

Al: “Whenever I speak with business owners they tell me without exception that when they receive their deliveries of XYZ product they receive items they did not order, some of the items ordered are not delivered and are on back order or quantities are incorrect. Does any of that resonate with you?”

On all three cold calls I get the same responses in a variety of ways.

ü  Yes

ü  Are you kidding, all the time

ü  It happens at least twice a month

When I asked if that caused any inconvience or additional cost I was told,

Prospect: “ I had a crew of ten workers waiting for over an hour to do their work because I did not get all the items for the job. At $125.00 per hour per laborer it cost me $ 1250.00 dollars and then I had to pay them over time to do the work when I was able to get the materials.”

Al: “Would you have been willing to pay a little higher price and know that would never happen again?”

Prospect:  “I would. I would actually be saving money on my labor cost and it would be worth it not to have that head ache.”

Al: “Headache?”

Prospect: “Sure, it isn’t just the labor cost. My customer gets upset because we fall behind on our work that puts everyone else behind and then we get charged for being off schedule. We also run the risk of injuries on the job due to overtime which affects our safety record.”

So there you have it. Even when it looks like you have to sell on price you may not have to.

When my client and I drove back to the office he had a better understanding of his prospects and how his sales staff could stop selling on price and become a value added provider, capture new business opportunities without dropping price, increase sales volume, market share and outpace the competition.

No matter how successful you are you can achieve new levels and higher levels of sales success.

But sometimes, we get stuck in a rut and just settle for where we are. At times we think, “Well, I’ve reached success.”  Maybe it is because you just closed a great deal or you are the top performer in the company and are saying, “I have arrived.  I’ve gone as far as I want to go.”

If we’re going to continue to grow and reach high levels of sales success and really experience more market share, sales, and profits you must keep raising the bar.

You can actually limit the amount of success that can be achieved and that is by your thinking.  What you believe either allows you to move forward or to stay where you are.

The sales and business limitations that you experience in your career are there because of what you believe. Many sales people don’t realize that it’s their own uninspired thinking that is preventing them from higher levels of sales success.

Today, Change the Way You Think and You Will Change Your Results.

Here are 3 Example of How to Change Your Thinking and Change the Results.

1-“I must educate my prospects.” The result of this type of thinking is educating all prospects, following up on these educated prospects and wasting time.

2-If you change your thinking to, “I educate prospects that have a compelling reason to buy we have now raised the bar in our thinking, have to ask more questions, which leads to better qualification, which will produce greater results.”

3-When you raise your thinking, again to a higher level and think, “I educate prospects that have a compelling reason to buy and can invest money, the playing field changes again, because I now have to ask more questions and again will produce a greater result.”

4- When you raise your thinking to an even higher level and say to yourself, “I educate prospects that have a compelling reason to buy, invest money, and made the statement that they will buy from me if I present an acceptable solution.” Then you have really raised the bar to the highest level.

The rule is your thinking is the most significant part of your sales success. When you change the way you think about sales, market share, profitability and sales volume you will sky rocket to levels of sales success you never thought possible.

At a dinner meeting last night the person to my left was telling me how he has to convince his prospects they need his service. “And, they just don’t get it.”  

As the meal continued the conversation with the person to my left, who we will call Joe, said to me;

Joe: By the way what do you do?

Al: I am a surgeon.

Joe: What do you specialize in?

Al: I removed Gaul Bladders.

Joe: Oh, that’s interesting.

Al: I did my training at John Hopkins and I can tell you need Gaul Bladder surgery.

Joe: No I am fine.

Al: You may think so, but I know better, as a surgeon I am telling you, you need surgery. If you come to my office tomorrow I will make the arrangements.

At this point Joe got a little irritated and said, “No, I don’t need surgery!”

I now had to admit to Joe I was not a surgeon but was the keynote speaker at this dinner meeting and I was trying to show him, you just can’t convince people what they need or what they need to do.

Joe asked, “Well if I don’t convince them, how do I make any sales?”

Here is what I shared with Joe on how to increase his sales volume, market share and profits.

1. Build a model of your ideal prospect.
2. List a number of questions that can be used to capture data from the prospect.
3. When you’re with the prospect ask the questions.
4. Measure the information you receive from the prospect against the ideal model.
5. Determine if they have a compelling reason to do business with you.
6. If they do not have a compelling reason that you can confirm, then move on.
7. Keep the prospect in your database and nurture them with periodic contact.
8. Move on to the next prospect and do the same thing until you find a prospect with a compelling reason to say “Yes”.
9. Don’t waste your time trying to convince people they need you.

In this article we will focus on a 9 Step Process. How to Identify More & Better Business & Sales Opportunities. After reading through the nine steps you will have an organized approach to territory management, discover how to discover more potential business for you to close than you may have realized, and how you can be more selective in quoting while capturing more market share. It is very important to read each step in order to get the real value of this report.

1. Define the geographic area you prospect and sell into. The number one rule is to define the geographic area you have defined as your territory and manage how you travel through your territory.

2. Break your territory into smaller hub territories and grid territories. Your territory may be a town, county, state, many states or even international. A hub is a larger section of your territory while grids are subsets of hubs. By way of example a state may be your entire territory and the counties in the state are your hubs. The towns and villages within the counties are your grids.

3. Plan your prospecting activity. When making phone calls to set up appointments make your phone calls by grid so when you are in the territory on appointments you are decreasing your windshield time and increasing your time in front of prospects and customers. When you move from grid to grid work the next grid closest to the one you just left. If you have to travel back from one grid to another to have follow up meetings or if you missed someone your drive time will be shorter.

4. Know how many competitors are in your territory. In the geographic area you have selected as your territory determine how many competitors you have. I know I am asking you for a subjective number. The number doesn’t have to be exact. With the best of your ability write down the number of competitors in the space provided. (Number of competitors______)

5. What are the gross sales of the territory? Now within your defined territory, estimate the total sales for you and all your competitors for a twelve-month period. Now I know this is somewhat of a subjective exercise so let’s be conservative. Write down the number you best feel represents the group’s total sales in the space provided. (The collective total sales for twelve months (____________)

6.Know how economic and other factors impacted your territory. Pick a percentage number that represents a percentage you believe the economy is down. I would suggest you slightly over exaggerate the number. If you believe the economy is down by a certain percentage number make the number larger. Write the percentage you believe the economy is down in the space provided. ( %_________ ).

7.Know your gross sales for the past twelve months: Our next step is to take the twelve-month gross sales number you arrived at in step five and deduct the percentage you believe the gross sale number is down. For example if the total sales for you and your competitors over a twelve-month period was five-hundred-million dollars and fifty percent of the business evaporated as a result of the economy and other factors there would be two-hundred-and-fifty-million left. Write your number down in the space provided. ($____________).

8. Know the dollar amount of the net sales. Using the number you came up using the previous steps which is the calculation of your gross sales plus your competitors less the percentage down and write that number in the space provided. (___________).

9. Determine if there is a gap between your gross sales and the total of your sales plus the competition. Write down the total gross number of sales dollars in the last step in this space and then subtract your gross sales for the past twelve months and see if there is a gap. The gross sales of the group are ($___________) minus my gross sales ($__________) = ($__________).

I would be very surprised if there was not a gap. When a gap is present between your sales and the total sales of you and your competition it demonstrates you can be more selective in your quoting process and can go after the more ideal business opportunities.

 If you are not getting the quotes, you should go out and build relationships and a value proposition. Be perceived as the premier value provider that partners with their customers and get out of the quoting business.

This owner was very busy answering the phone, taking orders and completing requests for bids.

We have a choice of working in our business or at our business. When we are not working at our business we do not put the energy into planning and strategizing.

When we are constantly working in our business we really only have a job and not a business.