The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 39 Degrees
You haven’t lived until you’ve worked a summer in Scottsdale Arizona on a car lot. I still remember the summer I did that. The parking lot was so hot it felt like it could melt right through your shoes! Good thing we only had to work 12 hours a day, six days a week 🙂
I have no idea what the car business is like these days, but back then, it was quite an operation. I had the opportunity to work at a lot that actually trained its salespeople how to sell. I use the word “sell” loosely, but it was better than nothing. (Maybe.)
Here’s how the sale would go:
The salesman would spend time getting to know the prospects. You’d do the test drive. Then you’d walk them into the lion’s den building. That’s when the manager came into the picture; especially for green salespeople like me.
It was basically supposed to be a “good cop, bad cop” type of situation.
You, the salesman, were the good cop. A dumb cop but a good one. You didn’t make the decisions. The decisions were made by the “bad cop.” You brought the “bad cop” (the manager) in to actually close the deal.
As I think back on it now, it’s a really poorly crafted bait and switch type of scenario that leaves your poor prospect feeling like he’s just been fed to the wolves. Terrible way to sell if you ask me.
But I didn’t know any better, so I just went along with it.
Little did I know that I’d be using a similar principle years later. My approach these days is an effective strategy. It’s kind of like the “good cop, bad cop” thing with one important change. I threw the “bad cop” out on the street!
What you basically do is “offload” the selling part of your business to your processes. That way, you remain an advisor. You don’t have to cross that line and push your prospect into any particular path.
It’s real, it’s authentic and it works really, really well.
Do you have processes? Are they strategically designed to do this?
If you want to ADVISE your prospective clients to the sale, process is how you do it. If you want to SELL your prospective clients, then you don’t need this advice.
Which path you choose doesn’t matter to me. But I can tell you, you’ll stick out a lot more if you advise. There are plenty of people “selling.”
Plus, SELLING hard when it comes to selling YOU requires that you make concessions. You can’t really sell hard and THEN ask for premium fees. The whole “beggars can’t be choosers” dynamic really screws with that possibility.
Use the power of the process.
The process prompts a decision from your prospect to buy or move on. The process delivers the scarcity. The process does it all.
But you have to build it first. And before you build it, you have to THINK it!
If you need a head start, scroll down and get your login info for the training library. Go through the Client Management Mistakes training over the weekend. You won’t be sorry.