I had been in auto sales for a while and my closing ratio was dismal. Week-after-week I was always at the bottom of the board; the lowest producer.
My Sales Manager would give me pep talks, encouragement, and explain some how to's. He'd get me to do more walk arounds, go over features, but minimal improvement resulted.
Then it happened. Quite accidentally I overheard the top producer on the phone with a prospect. I only heard his side of the conversation. But what I heard him ask changed everything for me. It was a Eureka moment! I went right over to my desk, got out my prospect list, and I started dialing. In roughly thirty minutes I was able to reach four qualified prospects. Actually, I shouldn't really refer to them as prospects because they had already bought. They had bought elsewhere - not from me. I knew that when I called them. I knew another salesman had earned a commission I should have had. That is exactly why I selected these people to call.
Each call went something like this, "Hello Mr. Smith, this is Jeffrey at ABC Motors. I just need a quick moment. Is this a good time?" The prospect answered yes, one of them actually said "Jeffrey, you know I already bought." Once I was given permission, I continued with "I realize you bought elsewhere. That is exactly the reason I am calling. Could you tell me what I could have done differently?" That was it. To each one I simply asked what I could have done differently to get the sale. Read More...