According to a 1982 study by McGraw-Hill you close every 5.1 appointments.  That means your sales success ratio is only 19.6%!  Wow, that translates into a whole lot of activity with very little productivity.

Are you aware that Top Producers close 90%, or better, of the appointments they hold?  While you’re holding 5 appointments to walk away with one new client they’re walking away with at least 4 new clients.  How would it impact your revenue if you were able to close even 30% of your appointments?

Now many of you think these Top Producers hold some kind of magical powers, or that they get all the breaks and have all the luck.  Not true, “no sale” breath.  Here’s what they do have to produce those magical results:

1. they know exactly who they want to get appointments with
2. they know how to get those prospects to reach out to them
3. they proficiently move prospects from strangers to people who know them and eagerly enter their sales funnel
4. they gently help the prospect to make the right buying decision for them, even when the best decision is no sale today
5. they continue to nurture their existing clients making it easy for them to buy more, and tell others about them

There isn’t one thing on that list that you can’t do.  There are several things on that list you don’t know how to do.  Consequently, those things are outside your comfort zone.  But, hey, no professional sales person can succeed entirely inside their comfort zone.  Get started increasing your sales success ratio now by stepping outside that comfort zone and doing what you need to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 4:59 pm and is filed under coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.