In case you’re not paying attention, there’s a huge shift taking place right before you eyes, when it comes to how sales are closed. We no longer live in a time where face to face, door to door, or one call closes are the most effective ways to do business. Sure, I know I’m gonna catch some shit for saying it, but what worked in 1985 isn’t what’s best in 2019. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying cold calling or door knocking don’t work. I’m saying there’s a shift taking place and it’s not working as good as it used to.
Power vs Force
Most salespeople force their way into a sale. A few examples of forced sales tactics are door knocking, cold calling, face to face meetings and free networking events. The typical salesman shows up to close someone right there on the spot. They aim to persuade any prospect in the room to do business with them. Many of you can pull it off too! It’s just that forced selling isn’t the best route to take when closing deals in the modern marketplace.
Closers rely on power to close sales. While force has to push its way into a sale, power influences and attracts. A few examples of power in sales are lead generation, inbound calls, endless referrals and a following online. Force uses persuasion, power uses influence. When you have influence over your prospects, you become a powerful salesperson. The shift that’s taking place is forced sales are going away and powered sales are the future.
The one skillset you need to master in order to shift from force to power in your sales is pipeline building. The modern consumer is overwhelmed with information. They have YouTube videos, Google searches, FB friend suggestions and salespeople all trying to get them to make a decision. Overwhelm leads to indecision. Indecision comes from fear of making the wrong decision. This makes the modern consumer take 3X as long to make a decision as they did just a decade ago.
If we know the consumer isn’t just jumping at the first offer thrown their way, then we also know it’s your job to influence them that you are the best and most obvious choice. This may not happen on a one call close. Matter of fact, chances are, it will happen over a series of weeks and maybe even months. It’s not easy to gain instant influence over someone UNLESS you have some sort of celebrity persona. The average person has to earn influence. I can assume you’re like me, just a regular person. This means we BOTH have to work to influence our prospects.
What are the keys to prospect influence?
The first thing you need to do is position yourself properly online. You need to be the attractive character your prospects want to see, when they login FB, google or anywhere else. You do this by having a good clear profile picture. A good description of who you are and what you do. You need to list the city you live in as well as any websites your prospect might need to look at. When the prospect isn’t ready to buy on the first contact, you need to ask them to connect with you on social media. You can make it easy for them to choose where by signing up at clyxo.com for your free social bookmark page.
Once they follow you online, your job is to follow what I call “M3” which means 80% of your content is to entertain your followers and 20% is to talk about your business, what you do and how you help people. Not blatant sales pitches all the time. This is how influence is garnered day by day, step by step.
Here’s the breakdown of buyers:
5% are ready to buy in the next 7 days
45% are ready to buy in the next 6 months
50% might buy some day
Most salespeople force their way into the 5% and burn the 45% who are going to buy in the next 6 months. Trust me on this, 45% later is much better than 5% now. You gotta have patience grashoppa. Well patience and influence any way.
Prospect influence is crucial to your survival as a salesman, a business owner and for sure as an entrepreneur. If they don’t know who you are, then you can’t influence them. I recommend you grab my latest book “M3” on amazon and read the step by step guide on how to create prospect influence and powerfully attract clients instead of forcefully selling them. Pair influence with an ability to generate leads and you become unstoppable. You can build your first funnel for leads 100% free at phonesites.com
