Mark Hunter's Blog, page 47

Knowing the Customer’s Timeline to Buy – How Can I Tell If I Have Qualified Prospects?

The number one competitor every salesperson faces is the “no decision.” This is the customer who despite everything you do chooses to not do anything. They might choose to stay with their current supplier or simply say no just to postpone making a decision. Either way, for you, it is time wasted.

More on this in my video below:

 

 

You know what can make the “no decision” even more painful? A prospect who was never inclined to make a decision in the first place; their intention was purely to gain more information. Don’t think for a moment this doesn’t happen. Many times, a prospect begins the process thinking they’re going to make a decision; but due to other factors, their thinking changes yet they remain engaged with the salesperson. When this happens, you lose out in two ways. First, you waste time dealing with the customer. Second, you waste time as the process drags on without a clear end.

The sooner you can gain insight into the customer’s timeline for making a decision, the more you can avoid the process that gets drags you into infinity and beyond. If you’re not willing to ask the customer early about their timeline for making a decision, you’re setting yourself up for wasted time. Ask the question, ask it early and make sure you listen closely to their answer.

Don’t just listen for a specific date when your customer shares their timeline, but listen for other insights. For every date a customer gives, there is a reason and it’s your job to find out why. Often, your prospect won’t freely give you the information you need right away. This is where your follow-up questions come into play. You must probe deeper right after they share, but also, make a point to follow up even more on the next call.

If the customer has a timeline they’re banking on, the date will remain the same no matter how frequently you ask them about it. Don’t hesitate to ask them about their date multiple times. The customer who is committed to a date will appreciate you knowing it, and your focus on crafting the value proposition around it. If the customer’s timeline isn’t firm, you’ll be able to hear it in their words and tone. The prospect who is hesitant will let you know, because they have a different reason for meeting with you. Their goal is to keep you focused on them.

If you do find yourself dealing with a prospect who has a timeline that does not fit your current needs, that doesn’t mean you walk away. Walking away is admitting that all of your time up to that point was a waste. It was not a waste; however, it was just deferred. Your objective is to keep the process going, but in a manner that does not suck your time. Move the prospect into a different sales or marketing pipeline. You’ll need to continue to provide them value, but in a way that does not take you away from your core activity of closing deals now.

If you missed my first two posts and videos on this topic, check them out below. Stay tuned as I share more in the coming weeks!

Blog post and Video: How Can I Tell If I Have Qualified Prospects or Just Bad Leads?

Blog post and Video: How Can I Tell If I Have a Qualified Prospect: Confidential Information

As we continue to talk about this subject, I suggest you take 2 important action steps. First, buy my book, High-Profit Prospecting – available in paperback, audiobook and Kindle. Second, join my High Profit Sales Coaching program here. I promise both will yield valuable results for you and your business.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: What Doors Will You Open This Week for Your Customer?

I am talking about your customer’s doors and the doors of other people you’re going to help. That is where your focus should be. When you help others see opportunities, it’s amazing what you’ll do for them and for yourself!

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: What Doors Will You Open This Week for Your Customer

I am talking about your customer’s doors and the doors of other people you’re going to help. That is where your focus should be. When you help others see opportunities, it’s amazing what you’ll do for them and for yourself!

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

The Parallel Between Prospecting and Leading

This morning, during a call with a business owner, he shared with me about their latest product upgrade. As he talked, I could hear passion in his voice about how his product could help others. Without hesitation, he stated why his solution was better than his competitor’s offering. In this compelling conversation, he convinced me to believe.

There is a major parallel between prospecting and leading. When leading, you have to get people to do things that they might not otherwise do. When prospecting, you have to make people see things that they might not otherwise see. Great leaders don’t hesitate to ask tough questions or have engaging conversations, if they know it’s necessary. Those good at prospecting do the same thing- they ask tough questions and create engaging conversations.

Prospecting is About Helping Others:

 

 

Are you willing to engage your prospect with non-superficial questions? Do you engage the prospect with your questions? Do they create conversation? In the end, do your questions give the prospect confidence in you? Think about the people who lead you or have lead you in the past. Most likely, you followed those in whom you had a strong level of confidence and learned from the most.

Prospecting and leadership share the same principles. With this, why are so many people jumping at the chance to lead but then cowering when it comes time to prospect? If you’re willing to lead, you must be willing to prospect! They both involve the same thing, which is helping others see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible.

Prospecting is about helping people. Sometimes, that involves interrupting people. It’s no different than the parent who has to remind a child 10 times to do the same thing. To the child, the parent is interrupting and making them do something that they don’t want to do. From the parent’s point of view, on the other hand, he/she is helping the child learn responsibility.

Prospecting and leadership are one in the same, so who will you lead today by prospecting them?

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

How Can I Tell If I Have a Qualified Prospect: Confidential Information

So, you think you have a great prospect; however, why do you think they’re even interested in you or what you sell? Sales is a two-way street. You can have all the feelings you want, but the customer’s feelings are really what matter. Get over yourself and your feelings, because they don’t count!

A key way to measure how the prospect feels about you and your potential to help them is by how much information they’re willing to share with you. If they’re quiet and unresponsive, the only way they will buy from you is if their pain is so great that they have to buy from you or they just care about a low price, which is more often the case.

 

 

In the prospecting phase, your objective as early as possible is to get the prospect to share confidential information with you. This is considered any information that the outside public doesn’t know. This is key for several reasons. First, it indicates that the prospect trusts in you. Second, this is information to build upon.

Take a moment to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. Ask yourself: would you share confidential information with a salesperson you did not trust or have confidence in? No! Every good sale is built on confidence and the ability for the two parties to trust one another. Your job in the prospecting phase is to allow the prospect to gain confidence in you. The sooner they trust you, the sooner you will hear the information you need to know to help them. The greater the level of trust, the less of a need to negotiate. It’s a direct correlation, and it starts in the prospecting phase.

The fastest way for the prospect to build confidence and trust in you and in turn, be willing to share confidential information is for you to be seen as not just an expert, but someone who cares. The world is full of experts who don’t care about others. People in the world desire experts who care, so that’s the role you need to play. Do this by asking questions that are relevant to the prospect’s needs and their industry. As you ask these questions, you can share how you’ve seen this in other companies. Some sort of magic happens when the prospect begins to hear that this is not your first rodeo. An example I like to use is if you were needing surgery and the surgeon had never performed that kind of surgery before, you would be cautious. Conversely, if the surgeon tells you that they’ve seen this case hundreds of times and always had a positive, safe outcome. Boom! Immediately, you’d feel reassured that you’re making the right decision and comfortable with sharing everything with the surgeon. Start viewing yourself as the experienced surgeon.

Once you hear a piece of confidential information, your job is two-fold. First, ask a follow-up question so you can gain even more insight into what they shared. Your follow-up question also tells them that you care and you value what they’re saying. Second, use the confidential information as a way to start off your next conversation with them. I have found this to be powerful, because the question you asked in an earlier meeting links the two conversations. Also, this approach gives the prospect even more confidence about your ability to listen and care.

If you missed the video and blog post from last week where I laid out the five points in qualifying a prospect, check out the blog and video link. I promise both will be well worth your time. In the coming weeks, I’ll dig into the other four points.

Blog post: How Can I Tell If I Have Qualified Prospects?

Video: How Can I Tell If I Have Qualified Prospects or Just Bad Leads? 

As we talk about this subject over the next 5 weeks, I suggest you take 2 important action steps. First, buy my book: High-Profit Prospecting – available in paperback, audiobook and Kindle. Second, join my High Profit Sales Coaching program here. Both will yield valuable results for you and your business.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: Do Your Goals Have an Action Plan?

Do you have goals and aspirations? That’s great, but if you don’t have an action plan to go along with them, they’re just dreams. Your action plan is the foundation of what you will achieve. Action creates achievement. What are the steps you need to take this week to achieve your action plan in order to reach your goals, dreams, and aspirations?

 

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Why Relationships Matter in Sales and Business

In our on-line world today, it’s easy to think that relationships aren’t as important as they used to be. I feel strongly that it’s the opposite, actually. Relationships are more important than ever, because most everything else in life has become automated.

The power of the relationship is trust and confidence as well as what that means both short and long-term. With a variety of options in the marketplace, a customer can find anything they want without ever connecting with a salesperson. The reason why this is a problem is because it’s limited to what they already know or what they learn from the internet.

Why Relationships Matter in Sales:

 

 

Think about your current customers, past customers and even solid prospects. How many of these people do you also have a great relationship with? I content that there is a direct correlation between the customer’s lifetime value and the relationship between the customer and salesperson.

A relationship is defined as the state of being connected. It looks like each person trusting and confiding in the other person and valuing each other’s opinions. Read that last sentence slowly. Now, go back and look at your list of customers and prospects again. Do you need to draw a line through any of the names?

The objective with each conversation is for you to create trust and confidence. This cannot be done if you’re doing all the talking. This is impossible without listening to your customer. Until you focus on understanding your customer, you will not be in a position to help him/her.

If you’re serious about relationships and their value in sales and business, repeat this exercise with everyone that you work with in your company. Sales is not a solo activity; sales is a team sport, and that means having quality connection with everyone you interact with. Relationships are not an option. They are a requirement.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

How Can I Tell If I Have Qualified Prospects?

We cannot forget that not all prospects are created equal. Some prospects are actually not prospects at all, they’re just suspects in disguise. Everybody in sales cannot find enough time to prospect. If we’re already challenged for time, shouldn’t we focus our time on the best opportunities?

Gain more insights in my video:

 

 

One concept I strongly advocate is to qualify a lead fast to ensure that you’re quickly able to know who has potential and who does not. This allows you to keep a cleaner pipeline, so you’ll have more time to spend on your best prospects.

The question is how do you know that the person you’re talking to is even capable of being a qualified prospect? Here are five things I would encourage you to look for to help answer that question. If you’re not qualifying them fast enough, ask these tough questions to get you the answer faster.

First, has the prospect shared any proprietary information with me? This is information unknown to the public – AKA: confidential information. No one will share this type of information unless they have a high level of confidence and trust that you can help them, or they’re in so much pain that they need help right away. Either way, this is a win for you, because they could be a great customer.

The second thing you should do is understand their timeline for making a decision. Your greatest competitor in sales is the “no decision.” Every one of us hear it! This happens when the customer doesn’t move forward with a decision, because they do not have a compelling reason to do so. Another reason you hear a “no decision” from a prospect is because they’re locked into an existing contract, or there’s some other roadblock. In the end, none of this matters. If they can’t give you their decision making timeline, ask yourself if you want to work with them. Are they worth your time?

The third piece you look for is if the prospect is willing to invest their time into the buying process. When a prospect is willing to spend some of their own time outside of the meeting on the buying process, you have someone who is engaged. I like to share key information or questions with the prospect outside of the sales call and ask for their input. Most likely, the prospect that’s motivated to work with you will respond in this kind of discussion. Ask yourself: would they choose to spend their time engaged with you if they weren’t interested in working with you? The answer is no.

Fourth, know who the players are in the decision-making process. This may sound simple, but too many salespeople spend way too much time with fake prospects who are just gathering information. These people ask good questions and they get involved, but when you go to close the sale, they tell you that they have to take it to others to make a decision. These people are not prospects; they are nothing more than a librarian who gathers information and shares it with someone else. You don’t have time for these people, because now you’re forced to make a double sale: sell to the librarian and then, the librarian sells to the decision maker(s).

The fifth and final way to help you find out if he/she is capable of being a qualified prospect is learning the prospect’s reasoning for buying. If you can’t uncover this in the prospecting phase, run for the door! All too often, salespeople spend a great deal of their time talking with nice people who are willing to meet. Sometimes, a lead may not immediately know their need; however, if your questions don’t point them in the direction of their need, it’s time to exit.

Over the next 5 weeks, I will dig deeper into each of these five points. Your ability to qualify leads fast will help you improve your sales pipeline more than anything else. It all comes down to how you choose to spend your time which must always yield the greatest return on your investment.

As we talk about this subject over the next 5 weeks, I suggest you take 2 important action steps. First, buy my book, High-Profit Prospecting – available in paperback, audiobook and Kindle. Second, join my High Profit Sales Coaching program here. I promise both will yield valuable results for you and your business.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Monday Motivation Video: Success Without Sacrifice and Sweat is Luck

How do you look at success? What tools do you use to measure success? How do you define success? When you actually live and breath sweating and sacrificing making it a constant action, you achieve real success. Do you want to be successful? Think about what you will do this week to sweat and sacrifice.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result

Which Hurts Salespeople More: A Lack of Confidence or Poor Selling Skills?

Recently, I worked with a very capable salesperson who had a great sales plan and great leads; yet, she failed miserably in at hitting her number. She knew what to do and when to do it; she just could not bring herself to actually do it. To make matters worse, her boss provided zero support other than a constant threat of termination if she didn’t make her number.

How do I Overcome my Lack of Confidence When Prospecting:

 

 

It’s sad to say, but this situation is a major issue and one of the biggest reasons why there’s such a high turnover in sales.

Sales is merely a mind game. How you feel and the state of your mind drives what you do and your results. Also, sales is a team sport; it’s not a solo activity. You might think you can fly solo, but it’s far more difficult than it looks for one reason: your mind loves to play games. The games your mind plays are there to bring down your self-esteem and convince you why something can’t be done. As soon as this happens, your confidence factor goes to zero. When this is your mental state, regardless of your selling skills, you will never be effective. Why? Because customers know when you’re going through the motions. If you want proof, just listen to the next telemarketer that calls you. They have the script and a process, but zero belief in what they doing; it shows in their lack of confidence.

Your customers will not have confidence in you until you first have confidence in yourself. This is where the team sport of selling comes into play. The sales manager must play a key role in this area by displaying confidence in their salespeople. Each member of the sales team owes it to every other person to have confidence in them. Having confidence in one another is contagious; it has a way of lifting up everyone. It’s amazing how confidence can change your conversation with a customer.

Give me a person with great selling skills and I’ll say, “fine.” Give me a person with confidence and I’ll say, “let’s go make it happen!” Watch the video to see the 5 things you can do to increase your level of confidence.

If you’re ready to take your confidence AND selling skills to the next level, check out my coaching program here!

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result