In the continuing series on The A.B.C.D.E. Sales & Marketing System™, let's look at step three:...
In the continuing series on The A.B.C.D.E. Sales & Marketing System™, let's look at step three: Convert the Customer, i.e., get the cash, close the deal.
(Go here to review A: Attract)
(Go here to review B: Bond.)
If you did the first two steps correctly, the conversion to becoming a customer should be natural and easy.
I know I'm doing it right when the prospect asks,
So, how do we get started?"
It should not be a grind.
I tell my clients all...the...time...that their job is not to close. Their job is to prospect. Their job is to sort, sift, and separate.
I tell them,
I'm looking for the guy looking for me."
Perry Marshall says,
I'm looking for the guy with the bleeding neck."
The paperwork to get started should be easy and obvious and exciting and fun for both parties.
Now the party really begins.
But Wes, they signed on the dotted line. They converted to a customer. Aren't we done?"
Ha!
That's like saying,
After the wedding, the hard work is done. My job is done. Now we just coast."
How's that working out for 50% of married couples over the last few decades?
Now is when the work begins.
Like a baseball player swinging through impact, a good fiancé provides for years to come after the wedding, and a professional salesperson ensures the new client has everything they need.
This gets into the "D" and "E" of The A.B.C.D.E. Sales & Marketing System™, which I'll continue with soon enough.
But for now, understand what it takes to build trust with your prospects and get them to actually pay you.
That means making it easy for your typical customer to pay, i.e., get your merchant account set up, accept every form of payment possible—or make it hard by design, if this is a weeding out step, which is fine in many cases.
Have your legal agreements created, if needed.
You should be taking notes along the way that are easy to populate into your boilerplate agreement, so the prospect reads their own words when they are signing.
All of this needs to happen the moment the prospect says, "I'll take it."
When you set yourself up for success, the "close" is the easy part.
Most sales trainers have you focus "80% of your effort here, because that's where the money is made."
That's only true when you don't control the opening of the relationship...the Attraction...the Bonding/Building Trust.
When you drop in like a ninja, yes, you have to master a lot of closing techniques, NLP, framing, persuasion, body language, hypnosis, cold reading, future pacing, negging, negative reversing, etc. etc. yada frickin' yada.
Who wants to do that?
Who wants it done to them?
Who wants that done to their friend or loved one?
Jeffrey Gitomer says,
"People love to buy, but they hate to be closed."
So learn to open relationships instead of close deals, and watch your sales grow and your stress diminish.
Wanna have more sales and less stress in your career and your life? Click the Inner Circle image below.
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.