Here’s a quick story to show you how most people are working on the wrong problems…
While talking with my mentor we were going through some sales strategies.
Because I admit, I SUCK at face-to-face sales. I always have for the last 10 years and just haven’t really worked on it.
Then while chatting he stopped and said:
“Hold on… What exactly IS your conversion rate????”
“I’m not sure,” I said… “let me figure that out right now…”.
Did some quick additions. Subtracted the no-shows. Pressed divide…
“53%”, I said.
“53%!?!?!”
He asked.
“Dude you don’t have a sales problem you have a lead problem.”
So at the moment, I realized, I was spending the last 2 weeks working on sales when that wasn’t the (real) problem. It’s just that I have a longer sales window/cycle so the math gets lost and I forget that I’m actually converting every other person that shows up on a call, eventually.
So it is with many as it is with me: we focus on the wrong problems.
It’s hard to actually solve problems if you’re focusing on the wrong thing (or diversifying your problem-solving, spreading yourself thin).
Now, regardless of that conversion rate…
I’m still no good at sales calls, yet.
(I still haven’t had my coffee since “Coffee’s for Closers” — Hat tip to the Glengarry Glen Ross movie)
So how do I have a 50% conversion rate and suck at sales…?
It’s in what I do BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER in my marketing.
Marketing can pick up quite a bit of slack for bad phone persuasion.
So a lesson in that?
Dial in your numbers to figure out the real problems: Lead to appointment (or lead to offers), appt to offers, Offers to contracts, contracts to deals.
Paul do Campo
P.S. Stay tuned for my optimization package — You’re already a client of mine, and I’ve learned that with SMS and email regs it’s more important than ever to keep things tight and keep things fresh and updated…. and you might not have the newest content and strategies I’ve added that’re working like gangbusters.