Hi there, this is Rich Grof from RG Performance Sales Coaching Leadership Development.
Today I'm responding to one of my comments on my videos, and it comes
around that whole concept of the ideal prospect ,and what they're asking is, you
know, how do we work with sales prospects who are "just looking". I don't care who
you are, if you're involved in any kind of selling whatsoever, or any kind of
customer service, you're going to find out about people who are "just looking".
So today we're going to talk about "just lookers". "Just looking", and these are
important, sometimes we could call that an objection, but really, when you really
take a look at it, it's actually a kind of a nervous response that people go
through in the buying cycle. You think about it.. you've been in, you know, a store
before, you probably walked in and you've probably had something on your mind
where you wanted to purchase something, and maybe you don't do it all the time,
but you can walk right into that store but the purpose to buy a shoe, or to turn
around buy a coat, and you'll walk in the sales clerk will come up and they'll say,
"Can I help you?", and your first response is "I'm just looking". And that really
shows up a lot ,and it's what I call the first objection. The first objection is
the objection that naturally just comes out of our lips without us even thinking.
It's like a knee-jerk reaction, or what I call a spontaneous reaction to being
approached in the sales process. So you got to know the first objection, always
happens. So how do we handle the first objection? You know you're always going
to have that little bit of resistance. It's going to show up either at the
beginning, you know, in the first couple of interactions that you're going to
have, and it's just going to be blurted out. It's probably something that people
aren't even thinking about, so you got to know how to handle that. I was taught
in my training as a salesperson, years ago, the best way to actually
change that is actually not pursue the client. And so what you would do is you
would actually acknowledge the client coming into your store or location, or
wherever you're going, but you would not hunt them down and say "can I help you?",
because that only relates to the same objection. So if you just say, "Hi, how you
doing? I'll be with you in a few minutes..", by the time they work, walk around, or you
have a little bit of conversation back and forth, and if you look like you're
busy doing something ,and you get to them later on, by the time you get to them
that first reaction is gone because they feel comfortable again. So that
it's really what I call a deferral. So if you're in a sales process or
you're working with anybody you're involved with in the sales process as a
buyer the first objection is always deferred. So deferral, is really not
pushing it away, but it's really acknowledging and saying we'll get to it later.
And so deferring the objection can really be a blessing if you're in the
sales process. Just acknowledge that it's there and then work around it. So if you
can turn around to make it so it doesn't happen if you're getting the same
objection all the time, you may want to turn around and if it's happening at the
same place in your sales process, take a look at what you're saying just before
that and see if there's something you can do to tweak it so that you can
change the way the outcome comes. That's just natural and normal and that's what
we'll probably do. Now, what does that mean to you though, as the sales leader
in this sales process? Let me show you what I'm thinking here. There is a sales
process that for buyers, so the buyers process really has seven steps to it, and
in those seven steps, I try and encourage all of my clients and all of the people
that I teach in my seminars, that in those seven steps, the first three or
four are all what I call logical. And that's I need to you know decide if this
is something that's valuable to me. I'm going to do a value proposition on it.
I'm going to get more information. I'm going to see which process I need, or
which product I need, pardon me, I'm going to look at all those different things,
and somewhere in this around half way, they shift into emotion. So when you get
this particular "just looking", they're at the very, very, very beginning. They're
right here. They're just getting going in the process. Now that doesn't mean that
they don't need any help. In today's marketplace we have Google, and Google
will allow us to look up anything that we want and get enormous amounts of
information. The bad part is, we don't know what the information means, usually.
We don't know with all the different opinions on the internet, which ones
we're supposed to be considering ,which ones we don't,
and so they will still need to, the buyers or the sellers, or pardon me, the
buyers are still going to need to turn around and search out an expert
to find out how to figure out what they really want to need. So they may be at
the beginning here. They may be just looking, which is 100% accurate on what
somebody's doing. They're looking around trying to grab information. "Do I want the
one, you know, the car that's got a four door, two door, do I want these features?
Do I want that warranty? Which manufacturers best for me? What style of vehicle?"
They're going to want to go through that entire process, and yes, they're just
looking; However, that information process is different for every single person.
So one person that might be two questions, and the next person could be two years.
And so you've got to know that the longer that you're willing to stay with
them through this process, the less likely you're going to lose a qualified
individual, because the next time that they come through the door, they've got
information, now they're at the stage where they're starting to get a little
bit more, "Can you tell me a little bit more about the specifics about this
particular vehicle?", and they've narrowed it down to one or two. Now wouldn't it be
great that you would never have your "just looker" go and leave your place of
business, or leave your service industry and go to someone else. Because if you
could keep those people when they're just looking even if it takes a year, two
years, six months, five months, two days, whatever, two hours, you got to know that
the just lookers turned into just buyers as a certain amount of percentage in
each industry. So why why not just take that and put that to use matter of fact
in certain industries, like the car industry, they can tell where you're at
in the sales process ,and they know that if you come onto the lot, and you're
looking at a vehicle, you actually take it for a test drive, how long it is
before you're going to be making a purchase, they know that, and they know at
what percentage rates you're going to get (those people making a purchase), and
they know if you can take the vehicle home for an evening, the likelihood of
purchase goes way up, and the time frame goes way down. So you know all of those
statistics really do make a big difference, because it changes the way
that we look. I know that some people get really frustrated with tire kickers,
because they eat up a lot of time and you can help that process out by getting
people very clear, and guiding them through the process, so they're not
jumping all over the place getting information. And if you are the person
that they're coming to as the industry expert to get all the information, more
than likely "just lookers" are going to stick with you and make "just purchases".
Now I've seen some brilliant people do this.
I remember one individual in the real estate industry in Toronto, and his
statistics were just bizarre. If he got a phone call about somebody who was" just
looking" he could convert those people over to a buyer, and he would have them
purchasing in no time. And so how do you actually manage to do that? Well, it's the
little things. It's sticking with them, guiding them through the process, knowing
what the next step is for them, and taking them to the next step. So it's
really about in your head when it comes to "just lookers". You have to decide in
your mind whether that's a potential client that you're going to work with,
and you're going to take them to the next step, or you're going to turn around
and get really kind of irritated with their inquiries, and just push them off.
Now I've been on both sides of this fence as a buyer, and I got to tell you
it's really disheartening from a buyer's perspective to walk on to a site, you
know, I've been I'm thinking when we were buying our RV, I actually walked on to an
RV site and the salesperson there didn't have a time of day for me. Now he didn't
think that we were going to make a purchase. Why? Because we were out Sunday
shopping just taking a look around, and he literally just told me go take a look
and if you find something you like let me know. He wouldn't even answer my
questions. I was so disoriented with what he had
done, that I got really mad and we would never ever visited that site again.
We never went back there and purchased, but we did purchase something, and it was substantial.
And so that individual lost tens of thousands of dollars, in you know
a sale, that he could have made because he just didn't want to turn around,
because I was just looking that day. Now it didn't take that long either. We were
looking one day, and literally three months later we purchased. So it wasn't a
long period of time. So how does that happen for you? I'm not sure, you need to
decide what you're going to do, but I got to tell you, when people come in from
your traction cycle and you have certain things that you're doing all the
way through and you get somebody two years down the line that says, "hey Rich
we made, you know, or we contacted you at such-and-such a time where we've been in
contact, or whatever, and you know can we talk more? It's free money.
It's absolutely free money. We've already done the work, and so we just building
the relationship. So it's really important that you don't lose good
potential possible clients. And so I'm encouraging you to take your "just
lookers," who are just looking, and consider them as buyers at the beginning of
the buying cycle, so that you can help them better get where they need to go.
This has been Rich Grof, RG Performance Sales coaching and Leadership Development.
I hope this little tidbit helps you out when it comes to deciding
how you're going to handle "just lookers". See you then.