The Best Leads You Can Possibly Pitch. Highly Likely Prospects. Claude's 3003rd Post

6 replies
I hope you guys profit from this as much as I have.

The single most important factor I've seen to guarantee success in selling, is finding people who are highly likely to buy from you.

This is a little different from "qualifying". You are looking for the ability to buy, but you are looking for more than that. You are looking for evidence that they are likely to buy, because they have done so in the past.

Here are a few methods I've used that are highly profitable. Enjoy.

People who habitually buy, what you sell, will buy from you.

Selling online marketing programs, or leads, or anything generated online to help a small business....can be thought of as advertising. And here is a truth. Some business owners never buy advertising...ever...from anyone. Some business owners buy almost any advertising offer they get. These are usually the more successful business owners. You want to talk to these guys. Why spend time trying to turn mud into gold? Just find the gold.


People are more likely to buy if you sell, the way they like to buy.
People who buy from infomercials, are very likely to buy from another infomercial. Online buyers are online buyers. Mail order buyers, and people who buy from other sales letters mailed to them.
When I sold in the home, I would ask "Has anyone ever showed you a product or service, in your home?". If they did, I would say "Tell me about it". And everything they told me, would help me know what approaches they liked...and what they didn't. I wanted to know if they bought, and why/why not? Think of all the ways you could use that information.

If I went in the home, where another in home salesperson sold them something in the past, my chance of making a sale just shot from 40% to maybe 75-80%. Really.

Do you accept credit cards? Do your prospects usually pay with a credit card? The chance of them buying, just went up.

There is a buying cycle. In my core business, it's about 5 years.
One of my salespeople once came to my office after missing a sale. He said "That woman would have never bought from me. She had one vacuum cleaner that was ten years old, and one that was five years old. And they were both very expensive models".

And what did this mean? It meant that this person is used to buying a very expensive vacuum cleaner..every 5 years. And it was time for her to buy a new one. (I grit my teeth, just recalling the incident)

So, what did I do? I went to other vacuum cleaner sales offices, of other brands, and got the names of customers that bought 5-8 years ago. I offered to give the dealer the trade in I got. Honest, almost all of these people let me do a presentation, and about 90% bought.

People who are already thinking of buying need to be able to find you...to give you money. In your town, today, there are maybe 10-100 people that are actively looking for what you sell. Where are they looking? Not the Yellow Pages, but online. You need to dominate the page one Google search results. They find you, call you, and these are the easiest sales you'll ever make. But they have to find you. This is what paid advertising does, it finds the ready buyers. But online? You can do this for free...and if you do it right, it stays for years.

Every single month, I bring in between $3,000-$8,000 in profit, to my retail store, from videos that I put on Youtube 2-5 years ago. Magic.


Small talk pays. People buy from people they like.
How many people engage you in small talk in a month? 100? 1,000? Don't pitch them, but I almost always ask what they do for a living...am I really interested? Not really. But they will now ask what I do for a living. I used to say "I own a retail store". Now, I say "I sell $800 vacuum cleaners for $399", and then I change the subject. 90% of the time, they just ignore what I said and move the conversation on. But about 10% of them stop me, and ask "What do you mean?" or "How do you do that?"

And I say "Well, when we are having a sale, most of our vacuum cleaners are 40% off. We sell high end vacuums, that last for decades"...

And you know what they always ask? "When is your next sale?'...and you know when my next sale is? Always? Right now..and it ends Saturday.

Results? Yup, a few a month come to the store...a few buy...and it's another thousand dollars or so in profit. Not Earth shaking, but easy...

Think about how you could craft a fast answer to "What do you do for a living?". Something that takes less that 10 seconds to say. Something that identifies prospective buyers, and doesn't irritate the no-buyers.

When I'm talking to prospective clients for my local online marketing service, I say "I provide leads and sales to businesses that already have a website", and then I say "pass the mustard (or whatever is the next natural thing in the conversation)

I know a consultant that does nothing, except attend conferences, and engage people in conversation......and he makes a high six figures a year.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone. I wanted to post this as my 3,000th post, but I can't stop running my mouth in the other threads.
#3003rd #claude #highly #leads #pitch #possibly #post #prospects
  • Profile picture of the author misterme
    Originally Posted by Claude Whitacre View Post

    I wanted to post this as my 3,000th post, but I can't stop running my mouth in the other threads.
    I've heard tell you have the slimmest but muscular fingers on WF.
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  • Profile picture of the author Underground
    For an upcoming campaign I was putting a lot on a hunch I had that if they'd bought similar before they'd be interested in and open to looking at better versions of that kind of purchase. So glad to see this validated with your post.

    Absolute class post. Thanks.
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    • A woman who owns twenty pairs of shoes is certainly a better prospect for a shoe salesman than someone who has none.

      from Dan Kennedy
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      • Profile picture of the author Claude Whitacre
        I had a client who owned a Karate studio. Nearly all his students were young kids.

        He wanted to know how to get students.

        I told him "Find out which kids are already going to several extracurricular activities; Gymnastics, softball, Boy Scouts, Soccer...anything. Those are parents who like their kids to be involved, and socializing. You don't want to try to convince a parent that his kid should do something after school. You don't want to be the only activity. That's a very hard sale to make. You want to be the fifth activity that parent is taking their child to. Much easier to make that sale".

        And, of course, the names of the kids in these activities are easy to get. Sponsor teams, buy advertising in their newsletters, give three free lessons to any Boy Scout member.

        These are the easy sales.
        Signature
        One Call Closing book https://www.amazon.com/One-Call-Clos...=1527788418&sr

        What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    and if you're selling B2B then when a key re structure or key decision makers have just changed, that's a great time to sell and the new arrivals will want to put their own stamp on their department/ responsibilities
    Signature

    Mike

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    • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
      Another great timing opportunity is when a fast growing company
      has a lot of moving parts in the delivery of product/service.

      Automation of the order process to create speed and same standards
      gets them over the speed bumps.

      Great place for automation through software.

      Best,
      Ewen
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