5.  Sales people with purpose take responsibility for all outcomes.  Those who sell on accident shun responsibility and prefer to place blame on others.

Ivern Ball once said, “Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.”  When you blame others you give up your power to change. 

Part of being responsible for the outcome of an RV deal is in the understanding of what you as a salesperson are actually responsible for to begin with.  Responsibility involves specific tasks and have a beginning, middle, and an end.  Many of these tasks must be completed on an ongoing basis.

There are indirect as well as direct responsibilities.  Direct responsibilities are the first function of the salesperson and involves getting organized in your dealership, finding new customers (outside prospecting), planning sales calls, building relationships, understanding the steps to the RV sale, uncovering customers needs, showing how an RV provides solutions, making recommendations of RV’s that will meet the customers’ needs and presenting them, uncovering and solving objections, closing sales and following-up after the sales with service. In the RV business these activities can happen over a period of more than one visit to the dealership and in formal or informal ways.

Indirect responsibilities involve all the responsibilities salespeople must carry out to get themselves ready to sell, satisfy customers and create climate for continued sales. It almost always takes more of a salesperson’s time than direct selling to a customer and includes staying up to date on product knowledge, changing inventory, and improving selling skills, handling complaints, managing customers relationships, understanding the economy and how it affects the customers mindset, networking and many other functions.

All RV dealerships should have clear, understandable responsibilities for salespeople and managers in writing, that should be discussed prior to hiring, and also with all existing staff immediately following putting together your dealerships list of responsibilities.  You cannot hold anyone responsible for anything that was never clearly explained to them was their responsibility.  This will avoid, “that’s not my job.”

6.  Sales people with purpose begin a task at the earliest opportunity.  Those who sell on accident procrastinate, delay and run out of time. 

There is no shortage of wise sayings regarding procrastination:

Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin. - Victor Kiam

If you want to make an easy job semm mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it. - Olin Miller

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. - William James

One key to eliminating procrastinating is to understand why you are doing it to begin with.  Some examples are:

Poor Time Management. Procrastination means not managing time wisely. You may be uncertain of your priorities, goals and objectives. You may also be overwhelmed with the task. 

Difficulty Concentrating. When you sit at your desk you find yourself daydreaming, staring into space, looking at or reading things that have nothing to do with the RV business instead of doing the task. Your environment is distracting and noisy.

Fear and Anxiety. You may be overwhelmed with the task and afraid of failing. As a result, you spend a great deal of time worrying about it and not actually doing anything constructive.

Negative Beliefs such as; “I cannot succeed in anything” and “I lack the necessary skills to perform the task” may allow you to stop yourself from getting work done.

Personal problems. For example, financial difficulties, problems with your life outside the dealership.

Finding the Task Boring, or don’t see any real direct value to you.

Unrealistic Expectations and Perfectionism. You may believe that you MUST know everything ever written on sales and your products before you can begin to sell anything.

Fear of Failure. It’s amazing we can fail 9 out of 10 times with a fresh walk in customer, but do it day after day, yet put off follow up phone calls for fear of bad news.  I’ve never understood this!

Here’s some tips to overcome procrastination.

• Recognize self-defeating problems such as; fear and anxiety, difficulty concentrating, poor time management, indecisiveness and perfectionism.
• Identify your own goals, strengths and weaknesses, values and priorities.
• Compare your actions with the values you feel you have. Are your values consistent with your actions?
• Discipline yourself to use time wisely: Set priorities.
• Do your daily tasks in small blocks instead of long time periods. For example, you will accomplish more if you follow up in 60 minute blocks and take frequent 10 minute breaks in between, than if you follow up for 2-3 hours straight, with no breaks. Reward yourself after you complete a task. A cup of coffee works for me.
• Motivate yourself to do the things necessary for sales success:  Keep a reminder schedule and checklist. A daily written plan of action tied to a follow up system works great for many tasks. 
• Set realistic and achievable goals.
• Modify your environment: Eliminate or minimize noise/ distraction. Ensure adequate lighting. Have necessary equipment at hand. Don’t waste time going back and forth to get things. Don’t get too comfortable when working.  Be neat! Take a few minutes to straighten your desk. This can help to reduce day-dreaming.

My solution to stop procrastinating is simple; I just put it off until tomorrow.

More next time.

Now Go Sell Something

Chuck Morgan

Harvey Mackay says; “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it.  You can’t keep it, but you can spend it.  Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

Something I always share in my training classes is; “You show me what you do with your spare time in the RV business and I’ll show you what you’re going to make next year.  No manager or owner expects a sales person to actually “work” 8 hours a day.  It’s just not realistic.  As I speak to sales people throughout the US and Canada the common thread coast to coast is the average RV sales person actually “works” 2-3 hours per day.  That is per the salespeople, not my opinion or perception.  Not a bad gig if you think about it!  However, let’s look at the power of duplication.  At every training session I stress to salespeople the benefits of actually “working” just one additional hour per day.  Simply put its 5 hours a week, 20 hours a month, 240 hours per year.  That is 6 weeks of productivity per year! (240 hrs. ÷ 40 hrs. per week).  Not coming in early or leaving late, just a minor adjustment in activity; what you do with your day.

So where is this magic hour?  If you are a salesperson you know yourself well enough.  This is an easy thing to spot considering many times, most of our day in sales is down time.  If you run or manage an RV dealership your time is active most of the day, but could still stand analysis.   Find the time wasters and eliminate them, period.  Write down what you do every day and determine which of your activities is not related to selling RV’s.  This is a scary prospect for many, but a sure way to find your money making, and money losing, hours.  You will be amazed at what happens to your sales, income and life with focused, additional effort. 

Another great option is to determine when you are personally at your best.  I recently had a sales person share with me who had a ritual when he came to work each morning.  A list of things he automatically did each day.  We easily determined what he wasn’t doing each day, that he needed to be doing, and placed that short activity in the morning hours when he was more proactive in his day.  Sounds simple but the problem was solved.  He just wouldn’t do the clerical stuff later in the day and knew it, so we just moved our new activity up earlier and made it part of his morning ritual.  A new habit.

4. Sales people with Purpose plan and map their route to success.  Sales people who sell on accident however, think plans belong to builders and maps belong in the glove-box.

Napoleon Hill said; “Reduce your plan to writing.  The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.

It makes no sense to leave, or have left, a salaried position with another company or industry and entered into commission sales or management without a written plan.  One major key to being a top producer in our industry is having a written plan of action.   Why does it have to be written down?  A few reasons.  As stated by Napoleon Hill it makes it concrete, gives it substance.  It is also easier to convey it to others who can help you execute and complete your plan.

The structure a written plan provides makes it more likely that you will consider all relevant factors and that nothing important slips through the cracks.  What justifies the additional time and energy you’ll spend creating a written plan that presents a blueprint of your RV sales or management career? An increased chance for success. More specifically, a plan can be:

A reality check. A timetable for your operations. A modeling tool that helps you evaluate the variable factors that affect your career so you can better prepare to deal with situations that may arise as conditions change. A blueprint to help make adjustments when necessary.

There are many RV sales people and managers that will say “I have a plan.” However, in many cases, the plan they have is NOT written down and only in their heads. This imaginary plan doesn’t count as a qualified plan of action. The plan of action could be on a napkin or in a bound note book as long as it has multiple steps to follow and is written down. There is something magical about having a written plan of action you can follow that makes a difference. The important thing is to have a plan you can visualize and relate to on a regular basis.

Where do you think you can improve?  Your comments are appreciated.

More on the differences between selling on purpose and selling on accident next time.

PS All our Sales & Management Training Products Are On Sale Now

Use this link to view the special sales page.

Now Go Sell Something.

Chuck Morgan

www.rvsalestrainingonline.com

www.rvsalestraining.com

1-888-338-7355

In today’s market place, considering our floor traffic will probably not see any major increases for a while, there are only two things you can do to increase your income with your existing traffic.

A.  Increase your closing ratio.

B.  Increase your gross profit per deal.

Let’s look at a few of the differences between the doing things on purpose and on accident.
1.  Sales people with Purpose have a dogged determination.  Sales people who sell on accident however, lack the ability to see a deal through to its conclusion.

Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.  But simply being willing to try is not enough.  Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”.

The RV industry is full of cliches but this is what “ABC - Always Be Closing” actually means.   The reality is that you close until the customer has bought something or they have left the building.  It is those who pursue the deal to its ultimate conclusion on a regular and consistent basis that will become and remain successful.  Do you feel that Determination is a quality you or your dealership possesses?

2.  Sales people with Purpose never give up, give in or surrender.  Sales people who sell on accident quit the moment things get the slightest bit difficult or they come across an objection they don’t know how to overcome.

Winston Churchill said,  “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

A limit on what you will do puts a limit on what you can do.  When you feel like giving up, remember why you hold on for so long in the first place.  Every deal should begin with the end in mind.  It’s not just about making friends with our customers; it’s about closing deals and increasing your income.  Understanding how to close deals comes from being trained and versed in how to overcome objections by offering the customer solutions.  When all the objections are gone you have a deal.

Surrender many times in the RV business means we start throwing money at the deal.  Sometimes a lot of it.  We do this for the simple reason that we didn’t take the time outside with the customer to do the things necessary to build the value in our product, justify the price and develop urgency to close the deal today, or offer solutions to the customers challenges.  Do you think the desire to never give up or surrender is a trait you or your dealership has?

Where do you think you can improve?  Your comments are appreciated.

More on the differences between selling on purpose and selling on accident next time.

Now Go Sell Something.

Chuck Morgan

www.rvsalestrainingonline.com

www.rvsalestraining.com

1-888-338-7355

PS The October 2009 live sales & management webinar training series is posted and starts Oct. 12.

Click here to see the schedule and to register.
 

The question is - can you close a single opportunity?  The answer is, of course you can. But not everyone will.  Any salesperson or manager, including myself, that has been in the RV business for any length of time undoubtedly has closed these customers, but why is it that some sales people will never close these customers?
It’s simply a matter of mindset - the way a salesperson thinks about a given situation or customer.  Many a manager has beat his head against the desk trying to change the mindset of strong willed sales people wanting to do things their way.
Single opportunity customers can and will close if given the opportunity.  They should be treated as buyers and nothing less.

I remember one day personally selling a used motor home to a female single opportunity who was married, on the first visit and front rolled the unit.  Unusual but real story.  I really didn’t do anything more than ask a few key questions, treated her like a buyer and proceeded with the process. I assumed my personal mantra, “Their going to buy - Their going to buy from me - Their going to buy today - Their qualified - They can afford it, that’s it period.”™ It may sound odd or silly to some but it closes deals by helping me create and maintain confidence and assume the sale until the customer proves otherwise. I figure the moment anyone in sales doubts any of those thoughts they need to get out of the deal and get help.  Reread them and tell me if you don’t agree.

It turned out my single opportunity female customer was the VP of marketing and sales for a major eyeglass manufacturer pulling down $250k a year and platinum credit.  She was buying the motorhome on a whim as her husband and son were at the Nascar races and were uncomfortable in the pits.  Good money down, platinum credit, VIB deal (back in the day) etc. After the sale we followed her to California Speedway with the unit and all was well.
Most single opportunities however are not treated as having the ability to buy “today”.  Many salespeople feel the best they can hope for is a be-back and that might be true, but why not try to close?
Salespeople often will not attempt to close because they don’t know how to, or don’t believe they can close a single opportunity. What these situations demands is a change of mindset; the way we think about these customers.
Often times just the opposite happens.  In their rush to “get back on the tape”, they short change the customer and offer little or no customer service. This can make the customer feel like an “interruption” of our busy day as opposed to “being” our busy day.

If a salesperson knew that every “all parties are here” customer they get, was not going to buy on the first visit, but might return and buy, how would they handle them?
In contrast, with a single opportunity, if they knew they were going to buy today, how would salespeople handle them?

So managers;  do you teach your salespeople to handle single opportunity customers and just as important, do they get it?
 
Salespeople, what do you think of one-leggers and how do you handle them?
 
I look forward to your comments.
Chuck Morgan
http://www.rvsalestrainingonline.com

The ability to turn an inbound or follow up phone call into an appointment gives any RV sales pro not only the ability to generate additional sales and income aside from the walk in customer, but also a level of confidence few receive.  We also know it is an age old challenge to get salespeople to make the necessary calls and make them in a high quality manner.

Good phone skills come natural only to a few however.  Most of us are just not good on the phones and need training and instruction on how to handle the different types of calls and knowing what to say and how to say it.  Recently I’ve had some interesting points come up regarding leaving phone messages. 

During some of my in dealership phone training classes occasionally a question comes up about something I recommend which is to always leave a message when contacting a customer who doesn’t answer and that sales people should be prepared on what to say should a customer answer or not.  My reasoning is simple in that most everyone today has caller id and if you call and don’t leave a message they know it was you, or the dealership, that didn’t bother to leave a message.  Putting yourself in the consumers place for a moment, how would that make you feel?  My belief would be that most customers would be put off and feel unimportant and that they were just another name on a list of calls the salesperson needed to make today.

Personally, I receive several business related calls in a day and almost daily as well, someone’s business name appears on my caller id as a missed call yet there is no message.  Sometimes worse yet there is a lengthy rambling message that makes me go numb and by the time it’s finished I really don’t recall where they started their message.  Another challenge is that of salespeople leaving a large number of messages with no return calls at all.  There are definite reasons for these challenges but let’s stay on the leaving a message topic for today.

In doing some research for an Advanced Closing course I’m developing, I stumbled upon several articles about the benefits of NOT leaving a message.  Some sales people have told me they refuse to leave messages for the simple fact they don’t get calls back.  Again I think some, not all, of that has to do with the quality of the message to begin with; i.e. the vague and non-customer driven “I’ve got great news” call etc.

One article I read said; “More than 30 percent of voice mail messages remain unheard for three days or longer, according to uReach Technologies, which designs voice messaging systems for Verizon and other phone companies.”  Also according to cell phone companies, very few customers call in to ever check their voice mail messages.  I believe this to some degree as many times I cannot leave a message due to someone’s mailbox being full and no longer can accept messages.

So, what do you think?  Should we leave phone messages or not?  Does it do more harm than good?  Do you feel age demographics play a part and should that figure into how we handle the phones in RV sales?  Is the new mantra in this high tech age, “At the tone, please don’t leave a message”?

I look forward to your thoughts.

Chuck Morgan

There are basic rules to follow of course when it comes to phone skills and there is no lack of places to find ways to improve those skills.  Our Phone Skills for RV Sales Professionals for example, can give you many of the necessary skills to improve on the phone dramatically.

1.  We sometimes create buying objections by skipping the steps to a sale.

Rarely do deals run perfectly smooth.  It is the salespersons responsibility to make sure to follow the necessary steps to ensure the deal runs smoothly until the customer decides otherwise.  Skipping any step to the sale will increase your odds of receiving objections from the customer, and rightfully so many times.  If you do not supply the proper information to the customer to help them make an educated decision, objections are sure to arise.  Not taking the time or improperly building rapport for example, will usually create objections.  If you don’t attempt to briefly interview your customer to determine the important factors in making their decision you will quite possibly do a presentation and attempt to close on the wrong product and create more objections.  If you don’t do a dynamic presentation to build value in your product, you will get price objections.  If you don’t understand how to properly qualify the customers’ budget you will get the same result.

2.  Many salespeople do not know how to properly bypass objections they don’t want to address.

Contrary to popular opinion, especially in today’s tough price market, price is not what everyone worries about.  You need to learn bridging sequences to allow you to professional change the subject from one you don’t want to talk about yet, to one more suitable for where you are in the deal or presentation.  Bridges allow you to move from one sequence of words to another smoothly and help you stay in control.  Practice “changing the subject” using bridges like “By the way…”, “When thinking about…”, “When deciding on…”, and “As a matter of fact…”.

3.  We sometimes attack the objection, rather than understanding and solving the problem.

All of us, including our customers, say and do things in a buying situation that we might not normally say.  As a salesperson, if you react to those statements in an unprofessional manner you may inadvertently turn an easily solved reflex objection into a sincere one.  No matter what objection is presented you must remain casually confident.  Developing great selling skills is what creates this confidence.  Stop using the typical washed up “If I could… would you?”  Nearly 90% of the retail buying public recognizes this as a selling technique and is uncomfortable with it.  Learn to improve your language skills through professional sales training from someone who has experience in your industry and understands your customer.

4.  We often use price to overcome most objections - even though most of the time it’s not the objection.

The purpose of a proper interview is to correctly determine the customers’ wants and needs.  If you can discover the 5W’s of a customer (who, what, where, when and why) you will do a better job at product selection, price point, and features important to the customer as well as determine the important emotional need for making an RV purchase to begin with.  Most customers will bring up price objections, so expect them and respond to them correctly.  RV deals are made when value exceeds the price.  Understanding the customers’ needs, combined with getting the customer excited about owning the RV and showing them how it will meet their needs will help overcome most price objections.

5.  Sometimes we focus on the wrong objection.

People never say exactly what they mean under stressful situations.  You must learn the difference between reflex and sincere objections and know how to handle both, and strive to determine the sincere objections.  Sincere objections are the real reason a customer believes they cannot buy today.  You must also learn how to clarify, rephrase, and isolate objections to make them easier to manage.

Remember, if you can determine the sincere objections and the communication lines are clear, you can now close successfully.

Now Go Sell Something

Chuck Morgan

Be sure to check out our live, online RV sales training webinars at www.rvsalestrainingonline.com

If things are looking a little bit thin around here you’re right.  We recently moved all of our websites successfully to a new server but the one folder that got left behind and is now gone, was the one that contained all our previous articles and comments.

We fear all has been lost and we will have to start from scratch.  I suppose there could have been many more important things and information lost.

So we will carry on from here.  If you notice anything not looking right on the blog drop us a note at admin@chuckmorgangroup.com

I’ll see you on the next update