I had one of those “ah-ha” moments last week after hearing the same story from some of my clients. Let me give you a little background.

Both of them are very busy meeting with leads (we’re very fortunate to have about 4-5 times more opportunities than our competitors) but they found themselves getting stuck at the same part of the sales process.

My Transformational Sales System works like this:

Step 1 Preparation

Step 2 Meet and Greet

Step 3 Discovery

Step 4 Presentation

Step 5 Demonstration

Step 6 Customer Objections

Step 7 Logically Justify with Finance

Step 8 Close

Step 9 Follow Up and Get Referrals

Step 10 Follow Thru and Get Referrals

My clients were getting hung up on Step 6, Customer Objections. Can you guess what the consistent objection was? Of course it was price!

Now, there’s no way to eliminate price objections from the sales process. And it’s not like they couldn’t handle these objections (we’ve worked diligently on how to deal with them) it’s that they were consistently getting them with every prospect (sometimes with a lot of frustration). Is this happening to you too?

Misdiagnosis

I’m sure you’ve heard of stories of doctors misdiagnosing illness causing patient frustration and extended uncomfortableness. If you’ve been one of those patients you can empathize here.

Imagine being one of your prospects that’s also been misdiagnosed. Do you think they have some frustration with you too? You know the answer.

Most People Don’t Know How to Open

If I hear one more builder tell me there salespeople don’t know how to close I think I’m going to puke. This is a classic misdiagnosis. Sure it’s probably partially right, but their missing the bigger picture.

You Can’t Close if You Don’t Know How to Open!

When you know how to open you know how to diagnose and understand people’s problems. Only then can we properly close. Trying to sell without following this truism is fighting the natural sales process.

Remember the steps?

Step 3 Discovery
Step 4 Presentation
Step 5 Demonstration
Step 6 Customer Objections
Step 7 Logically Justify with Finance
Step 8 Close

 

You can’t get to Step 8 until you master Steps 3-7. Anyone you think is a great closer is really great at discovery or, uncovering problems. Once you truly understand people’s problems you’re presentation/demonstration builds the value of your solution.

How We Solved the Problem

We went back and focused on discovering their prospect’s problems. It turns out the salespeople were not spending nearly enough time in the discovery process. They were making assumptions and presenting solutions that weren’t understood or right according to the prospect.

The Results?

In a 2 week period they transformed 42 cold prospects into hot leads (by hot lead I mean appointments!). They’ve already moved 4 of them into design agreements (with checks) and are going out of their mind meeting with the rest of the leads (A nice problem to have in today’s economy). Oh, and by the way, neither of them lowered their prices!

Would You Like to Have the Same Problem?

If you’d like to find out the exact types of questions and sales strategies they used you can order a copy of

The Ultimate System for Transforming Cold Prospects into Hot Leads.

My new web site is nearly ready to go and this will be the first manual I’m making available for ordering.

I’m offering it to a limited group of people at an incredible introductory price, one that will go up substantially within a very short time period.

Stay tuned and Happy Selling!