More this year than any other year, I'm finding more prospects that are slow to pull the trigger for the purchase or lease. The slow down with pulling the trigger balloons your pipeline because you aren't winning or losing. With the larger pipeline there's also more time spent on managing the prospects that are in the sales cycle vacuum.
Promos and Specials
The question then becomes is how to get these clients to move? Many of our dealerships have promotions and specials on any given month, but what happens when the prospects don't take the offer? In most cases the promotion or special is not perceived as value from the prospect. It is not something that will help the prospect make a BIN (Buy it Now) decision.
Take for instance the current promo for knocking out Toshiba devices, where the sales person can earn extra trade in dollars for knocking out that Toshiba. The sales person can use this promotion in various ways.
- Lower the cost to the client for the purchase or the lease
- Don't offer the incentive and pocket the extra if and when you get the order
But what happens when the promotion does not align with the prospect? For example, you have a promotion for knocking out a Toshiba device, however your client has a Xerox. Thus, there is no promotion that you could offer that may enable the client to make the BIN.
Make Your Own BIN Promos
When it comes to selling you need to be creative to turn nothing into something. For years I've developed my own promotions to help prospect with BIN.
Something I've been using with recent success to to create my own promotions by using some of my Gross Profit to add value to for the prospect. Thus I'm creating my own promotions and putting a short time limit on that promotion to help facilitate the BIN.
I'll come up with a promotion that I know the prospect will understand the value of the offer for the BIN. Keep in mind I hate to lower the price but rather offer that perceived value. You also have to tell the story of the reason for the promotion. I go back to our weekly meeting and tell the client that there is a new promotion that was released (yes, it is a promo, it may not be the companies but it is MY promo)
- With a recent client I created my own promo that gave the client a free PDF license that was available until the 23rd of the month. 48 hours later this order closed.
- Another client was in that sales vacuum for 90 days from the initial proposal. They were an existing client with an existing lease. Three months of the lease paid down, thus I took those dollars and offered them the first quarter of the maintenance agreement at no cost. Of course as long as the order by the 23rd of the month.
- A net new prospect did not align with our Toshiba promo, thus I made one for their Xerox devices that my client has
- (always keep in mind that in order to make your own promo's you have to have decent GP in your offering, sometimes it takes giving up a little to get a lot)
Closing
The days of the pushy salesperson and the hard close are long gone. As sales people we need to better understand our prospects needs, and what they value. Is your service or product perceived as an expense or value?
There is always a reason why the sales process has stalled. I'm offering up some ideas that have worked for to get the two of us to the finish line.
Always feel free to post a comment or reach out to me if you have any questions.
-=Good Selling=-
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