Rating a Prospective Client, (Opportunity)... Expert Advice Needed!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bobby Compton on
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I give a meeting called - CREATE THE SALE.
Everyone is a prospective buyer, especially those not in the market!
The process starts with great relationship building skills, and accompanied with sales questions dumb like a fox.
I'm in your corner Superstar, and offer my experience anytime and all the time freely to you!~
CREATE THE SALE IN ANY AND ALL ASPECTS OF THE PROCESS....
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Permalink Reply by NANCY SIMMONS on
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Thanks so much Jerry....Let me ferment and come back to probably ask another question in a more direct fashion.
Jerry Cardelli said:I have attached Prospect Nomenclature. I developed this from CRM EXperienced in implementing our BDC. My weekly Meetings include this Topic. I hope this helps...
Jerry Cardelli
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Thanks Bobby.... I am really trying to devise a fresh and maybe too intricate approach....Too many prospects, I have found, fall through the cracks... I want to keep all leads controlled and monitored as long as it takes! I too am a believe that EVERYONE is an opportunity! Thank you again!!!!
Bobby Compton said:I give a meeting called - CREATE THE SALE.
Everyone is a prospective buyer, especially those not in the market!
The process starts with great relationship building skills, and accompanied with sales questions dumb like a fox.
I'm in your corner Superstar, and offer my experience anytime and all the time freely to you!~
CREATE THE SALE IN ANY AND ALL ASPECTS OF THE PROCESS....
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Permalink Reply by Brad Alexander on
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"Follow up is for losers who can't close TODAY." - The Old Car Dawg
Totally kidding! Just had to get that out. I think you have to be careful rating a customer's buying "temperature". I've seen people use Green, Yellow, Red to indicate customer readiness or Hot, Warm, Cold etc. The danger is in not giving ample attention to those we don't deem as "hot" leads. If we reduce the frequency of our follow up with any unsold traffic we will find ourselves congratulating the customer on their purchase @ another dealership. My experience has been, with follow up just as on the lot, treat them all as though they are buying today. They tell us they are 3 or 6 months from a decision when, truth be told, given proper motivation- they will buy today. We don't just lead the horse to water, we make 'em thirsty. Of course I realize they don't all buy today, in fact most don't but the second I let my guard down they are someone else's customer.
For my priority of calls I've always focused on this order: 1- Unsold traffic (from previous day) 2- Other leads (unsold customers prior to yesterday) 3- Sold customers 4- Referrals 5- My circle of influence outside the dealership. Now, if you are looking for ways to better manage those "other leads"- not yesterday's traffic but unsold folks from days gone by; the cool thing now is we have so many avenues in which to keep contact with clients. Text, e-mail, phone, snail mail, social network sites etc. The important thing is having a valid, legitimate reason for your contact. New inventory, new incentives, sales/promotions, buyer for trade OR a quick comment on something relevant to them not related to a car purchase: stuff you found out while building rapport sports, music and so on; to keep your name in front of them.
I don't know if I hit on what you were looking for, but I feel really smart about all the stuff I said! LOL. You rock Nancy.
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Exactly the type of response I am looking for..... I am looking at hundreds of leads (opportunities) from up to a couple of years since original inquiry have been deserted... I want to set up various schedules to suit the lead by measure of probability they will buy from us and projected timeline for the sale.. I believe in most stores, these opportunities just fall through the cracks! I need to hear all of these fantastic expert replies and compile them to comprise the most close to perfect follow up strategy I can for this company.
You rock, Brad Alexander! You should write a book...oh you did that! You should make videos...Oh you do that too! You should manage a dealership....Oops....do that already! You should write creative blogs....Wait...You've done that! Maybe you could write songs.... Done that!!!!! Perhaps you could make an overall postive impact to the auto industry from your corner of the world....You are doing that!!!!!! Who rocks? Brad Alexander rocks!!!!
Brad Alexander said:"Follow up is for losers who can't close TODAY." - The Old Car Dawg
Totally kidding! Just had to get that out. I think you have to be careful rating a customer's buying "temperature". I've seen people use Green, Yellow, Red to indicate customer readiness or Hot, Warm, Cold etc. The danger is in not giving ample attention to those we don't deem as "hot" leads. If we reduce the frequency of our follow up with any unsold traffic we will find ourselves congratulating the customer on their purchase @ another dealership. My experience has been, with follow up just as on the lot, treat them all as though they are buying today. They tell us they are 3 or 6 months from a decision when, truth be told, given proper motivation- they will buy today. We don't just lead the horse to water, we make 'em thirsty. Of course I realize they don't all buy today, in fact most don't but the second I let my guard down they are someone else's customer.
For my priority of calls I've always focused on this order: 1- Unsold traffic (from previous day) 2- Other leads (unsold customers prior to yesterday) 3- Sold customers 4- Referrals 5- My circle of influence outside the dealership. Now, if you are looking for ways to better manage those "other leads"- not yesterday's traffic but unsold folks from days gone by; the cool thing now is we have so many avenues in which to keep contact with clients. Text, e-mail, phone, snail mail, social network sites etc. The important thing is having a valid, legitimate reason for your contact. New inventory, new incentives, sales/promotions, buyer for trade OR a quick comment on something relevant to them not related to a car purchase: stuff you found out while building rapport sports, music and so on; to keep your name in front of them.
I don't know if I hit on what you were looking for, but I feel really smart about all the stuff I said! LOL. You rock Nancy.
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Permalink Reply by Pete Grimm on -
Nancy,
A the point at which a prospect is willing to identify themselves to a dealership as a prospect they become HOT prospects, all of them. They may be saying I'm not currently in the market, but they really are, or are poised to be. All these prospects need to receive daily scrutiny.
Much more important is the CRM process that the dealership creates to followup its own owners and service customers. Too often service customers are not treated as sales prospects by a dealership's CRM software. Too often "Orphan Owners" are not adopted and followed by other salespeople. Dealers need to adopt a rigorous quarterly (or even more frequently) contact system using email, mail and telephone for all of these. They are the successful dealership's PLATFORM.
There must be a system which allows service writers and salesmen to update contact information, make notes, prioritize and schedule recontacts.
This can reside in a duplicate database (so the primary dealership database cannot be corrupted or damaged bhy mischief) that is updated at least daily posting from the primary dealership database.
As long as there are fields which allow the dealership to distinguish between prospects who have never become customers (service of sales), it is also appropriate for salesmen to be able to add records (prospects - UPs - lost to competitors etc) and establish and prioritize future contact schedules with these, just as should be done with previous sales and service customers.
Very early in my car career I had the opportunity to meet a young salesman who, month after month, sold more than twice as many vehicles as his more experienced counterparts (He had only two years in the business when I met him). I asked him how he did it, and he shared his whole process with me. It was eye opening. Very quickly, and very early in his career he was able to move from taking UPs to doing business entirely by appointment. He accomplished this by creating a computer database (mind you this was 1978!) of all his friends and family, and every single UP he ever greeted, service customer he spoke to, and orphan owner he could adopt.
His philosophy was that he might occasionally lose a sale to another product, but he would never lose one to another salesman. He followed and made friends of every UP even after they bought from others. In six months many could not remember the name of the salesman who sold them their car, but they sure knew his. After a year, he has amassed about 1200 names, addresses and telephone numbers he followed religiously, by phone and letter. At that point, he began to allow himself the luxury of culling a few he really didn't like.
When I met him he typically had three appointments a day and would close, on average, more than one sale per day. By then he had gotten his wife involved, helping to set appointments and update his database (every entry had to be done by hand back then ...) He made 40-50 telephone contacts daily.
Everyone knows appointments close at double (or more) the ratio walk-in UPs do. His closing ration wasn't really any better than most salesmen's closing ratios for appointments. He simply moved into a world where everything he did was by appointment. This is what I call "the Holy Grail" of selling. Getting as many salespeople to this point should be every dealership's goal.
Cheers,
Pete
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Permalink Reply by Kurtis Smith on
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Nancy,
I saw three questions in your request that I would like to answer, but further clarification is necessary. First I like the fact that you are using processes to produce predictable results, however keep in mind that there will be expectations for measurable outcomes that you may not be able to control if the supporting personnel development processes are not in place. The reason that I am stating this is that you are correct that a closely monitored process will produce better results, however keep in mind that your process maybe perfect, but the individual executing the activity is the one that controls the outcomes thus affecting your results. Ranking your prospects on their potential to close is a great way to define data going into a CRM tool, but as you know is only a sliver when defining a strategy that will be measured to ensure that the process loop will close correctly. Does that make sense?
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Thanks so much Kurtis and yes, you make perfect sense!!! I know a system will never be perfect, but I am looking at a guages to ensure that the majority of prospects don't get dismissed just because a certain amount of time has passed...
I appreciate your feedback!
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