Hi there, this is Rich Grof from RG Performance Sales Coaching Leadership Development. Today I'm responding to one
of my comments on my videos, and it comes around that whole concept of the ideal
prospect ,and what they're asking is, you know, how do we work with sales prospects who are "just looking". I don't care who you are, if you're involved in any kind
of selling whatsoever, or any kind of customer service, you're going to find
out about people who are "just looking". So today we're going to talk about "just
lookers". "Just looking", and these are important, sometimes we could call that
an objection, but really, when you really take a look at it, it's actually a kind
of a nervous response that people go through in the buying cycle. You think
about it.. you've been in, you know, a store before, you probably walked in and you've
probably had something on your mind where you wanted to purchase something, and maybe you don't do it all the time, but you can walk right into that store
but the purpose to buy a shoe, or to turn around buy a coat, and you'll walk in the
sales clerk will come up and they'll say, "Can I help you?", and your first response
is "I'm just looking". And that really shows up a lot ,and it's what I call the
first objection. The first objection is the objection that naturally just comes
out of our lips without us even thinking. It's like a knee-jerk reaction, or what I
call a spontaneous reaction to being approached in the sales process. So you
got to know the first objection, always happens. So how do we handle the first
objection? You know you're always going to have that little bit of resistance.
It's going to show up either at the beginning, you know, in the first couple
of interactions that you're going to have, and it's just going to be blurted
out. It's probably something that people aren't even thinking about, so you got to
know how to handle that. I was taught in my training as a salesperson,
years ago, the best way to actually change that is actually not pursue the
client. And so what you would do is you would actually acknowledge the client
coming into your store or location, or wherever you're going, but you would not
hunt them down and say "can I help you?", because that only relates to the same
objection. So if you just say, "Hi, how you doing? I'll be with you in a few minutes..",
by the time they work, walk around, or you have a little bit of conversation back
and forth, and if you look like you're busy doing something ,and you get to them later on, by the time you get to them that first reaction is gone because they
feel comfortable again. So that it's really what I call a deferral.
So if you're in a sales process or you're working with anybody you're
involved with in the sales process as a buyer the first objection is always
deferred. So deferral, is really not pushing it away, but it's really
acknowledging and saying we'll get to it later. And so deferring the objection can
really be a blessing if you're in the sales process. Just acknowledge that it's
there and then work around it. So if you can turn around to make it so it doesn't
happen if you're getting the same objection all the time, you may want to
turn around and if it's happening at the same place in your sales process, take a
look at what you're saying just before that and see if there's something you
can do to tweak it so that you can change the way the outcome comes. That's just natural and normal and that's what we'll probably do. Now, what does that
mean to you though, as the sales leader in this sales process? Let me show you
what I'm thinking here. There is a sales process that for buyers, so the buyers
process really has seven steps to it, and in those seven steps, I try and encourage
all of my clients and all of the people that I teach in my seminars, that in
those seven steps, the first three or four are all what I call logical. And
that's I need to you know decide if this is something that's valuable to me. I'm
going to do a value proposition on it. I'm going to get more information. I'm
going to see which process I need, or which product I need, pardon me, I'm going to look at all those different things, and somewhere in this around half way,
they shift into emotion. So when you get this particular "just looking", they're at
the very, very, very beginning. They're right here. They're just getting going in
the process. Now that doesn't mean that they don't need any help. In today's
marketplace we have Google, and Google will allow us to look up anything that
we want and get enormous amounts of information. The bad part is, we don't
know what the information means, usually. We don't know with all the different
opinions on the internet, which ones we're supposed to be considering ,which
ones we don't, and so they will still need to, the
buyers or the sellers, or pardon me, the buyers are still going to need to turn
around and search out an expert to find out how to figure out what they
really want to need. So they may be at the beginning here. They may be just
looking, which is 100% accurate on what somebody's doing. They're looking around
trying to grab information. "Do I want the one, you know, the car that's got a four
door, two door, do I want these features? Do I want that warranty? Which manufacturers best for me? What style of vehicle?" They're going to want to go through that
entire process, and yes, they're just looking; However, that information process is different for every single person. So one person that might be two questions, and the next person could be two years. And so you've got to know that the
longer that you're willing to stay with them through this process, the less
likely you're going to lose a qualified individual, because the next time that
they come through the door, they've got information, now they're at the stage
where they're starting to get a little bit more, "Can you tell me a little bit
more about the specifics about this particular vehicle?", and they've narrowed
it down to one or two. Now wouldn't it be great that you would never have your
"just looker" go and leave your place of business, or leave your service industry
and go to someone else. Because if you could keep those people when they're
just looking even if it takes a year, two years, six months, five months, two days,
whatever, two hours, you got to know that the just lookers turned into just buyers
as a certain amount of percentage in each industry. So why why not just take
that and put that to use matter of fact in certain industries, like the car
industry, they can tell where you're at in the sales process ,and they know that
if you come onto the lot, and you're looking at a vehicle, you actually take
it for a test drive, how long it is before you're going to be making a
purchase, they know that, and they know at what percentage rates you're going to
get (those people making a purchase), and they know if you can take the vehicle
home for an evening, the likelihood of purchase goes way up, and the time frame goes way down. So you know all of those statistics really do make a big
difference, because it changes the way that we look. I know that some people get
really frustrated with tire kickers, because they eat up a lot of time and
you can help that process out by getting people very clear, and guiding them
through the process, so they're not jumping all over the place getting
information. And if you are the person that they're coming to as the industry
expert to get all the information, more than likely "just lookers" are going to
stick with you and make "just purchases". Now I've seen some brilliant people do
this. I remember one individual in the real
estate industry in Toronto, and his statistics were just bizarre. If he got a
phone call about somebody who was" just looking" he could convert those people
over to a buyer, and he would have them purchasing in no time. And so how do you
actually manage to do that? Well, it's the little things. It's sticking with them,
guiding them through the process, knowing what the next step is for them, and
taking them to the next step. So it's really about in your head when it comes
to "just lookers". You have to decide in your mind whether that's a potential
client that you're going to work with, and you're going to take them to the
next step, or you're going to turn around and get really kind of irritated with
their inquiries, and just push them off. Now I've been on both sides of this
fence as a buyer, and I got to tell you it's really disheartening from a buyer's
perspective to walk on to a site, you know, I've been I'm thinking when we were
buying our RV, I actually walked on to an RV site and the salesperson there didn't
have a time of day for me. Now he didn't think that we were going to make a
purchase. Why? Because we were out Sunday shopping just taking a look around, and
he literally just told me go take a look and if you find something you like let
me know. He wouldn't even answer my questions. I was so disoriented with what he had done, that I got really mad and we would
never ever visited that site again. We never went back there and purchased, but we did purchase something, and it was substantial. And so that individual lost
tens of thousands of dollars, in you know a sale, that he could have made because
he just didn't want to turn around, because I was just looking that day. Now
it didn't take that long either. We were looking one day, and literally three
months later we purchased. So it wasn't a long period of time. So how does that
happen for you? I'm not sure, you need to decide what you're going to do, but I got
to tell you, when people come in from your traction cycle and you have
certain things that you're doing all the way through and you get somebody two
years down the line that says, "hey Rich we made, you know, or we contacted you at such-and-such a time where we've been in contact, or whatever, and you know can we talk more? It's free money. It's absolutely free money. We've already
done the work, and so we just building the relationship. So it's really
important that you don't lose good potential possible clients. And so I'm
encouraging you to take your "just lookers," who are just looking, and
consider them as buyers at the beginning of the buying cycle, so that you can help
them better get where they need to go. This has been Rich Grof, RG Performance Sales coaching and Leadership Development. I hope this little tidbit
helps you out when it comes to deciding how you're going to handle "just lookers".
See you then.
