I'm probably going to go a little off topic here and there, however please bear with me.
A few minutes ago I finished up reading "Why a Lifelong Salesperson Thinks Salespeople Are Unnecessary". That the 80%of the purchasing process will take place without human to human contact by 2020, threw me for a loop! Dang, that's only three years from now!
The blogger wrote about a software company that has NO salespeople, and that they grew to 450 million in revenue in 15 years. The gist of the blog stated that deals flow in at a steady rate instead of concentrating around the end of the month or the end of the quarter. The client drives the process to purchase when they are ready, compared to the sales person that feels the urgency to meet quota at the end of the month or quarter.
Well...., it seems the Author is dumping all sales people into the same pot. My take away is that all salespeople are slackers and we only start to work near the end of the month of the quarter. I don't know about you, however I'm always looking to close orders at any time in the month. Competition is too fierce to let potential business hang on the tree, right?
Which gets me today. When I arrived at the office, I was told that a demonstration that I did for one of the rookies did not pan out for them today. Competition came in at the last moment and swept that deal away.
During the demonstration, I was able to listen to the client that they liked the equipment and that they were ready to move forward. However, they wanted to change a few accessories and I think change one of the models to another.
Our rookie, stated that some time was needed to revise the numbers and that they would receive the revised proposal via email. Arrggghhh! I was not going to step on the rookies toes, I was there to give the demonstration and really wasn't that familiar with the proposal.
After the client left the office. Our rookie revised the proposal, got the client on the phone later that day and the client committed to signing the documents and sending them back. Well, that never happened and a competitor followed up and closed the order.
I explained to the rookie today, that back in the good old days whenever we had a verbal for an order on the phone, we immediately dropped everything we were doing and scheduled an appointment to bring the order documents in person. Funny, I can remember sitting in clients offices for hours after I delivered the paperwork to close the order. We had a saying back then which still holds true today, once the demonstration is over and either the client or your leave without having an order, the chances of closing that order decreases by at least 80%.
After the demonstration was over I did explain to the rookie that he should have stated, "this will only take a few minutes to change the order, let's go back to the conference room to go over the order." Assume the order is yours, right?
I also explained that you could have gathered your docs, your pricing and written up the order while they were waiting. They were ready to order. You don't leave fish to find fish.
One of those Legacy skills is listening to the client. You pick up a certain sentence like "we'll have both machines delivered the same day, and then can you schedule training for one device one day and the second device on another day?" That my friends is a buying signal and you need to move right to closing the order. My answer would have been what day would you like the equipment delivered? That question would have moved the order to the potential close.
Mind you, I'm not bashing the rookie. I was like that once, and it took me losing many orders to finally figure out that I was not listening to the clients for those buying signals.
K, back to the 80% of purchasing process will take place without human to human contact. It could happen, probably will happen, but in three years?
Would love to hear from others on this 80% thing.
-=Good Selling=-
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