Why didn’t you make three to five sales in the last week? Immediately upon seeing this question, you start coming up with excuses. Maybe you were “too busy” this week, or you are in a “tough market.” Certainly we all have busy lives and some markets are tougher than others. However, when agents call me with the “I can’t get a sale” problem, I am amazed how quickly I can identify the root problem. Invariably, the agents didn’t get three to five sales in the last week primarily because of a combination of two problems.
(1) They didn’t meet enough prospects.
(2) They didn’t say the right things. Let’s just face the facts! As an agent, you are in sales; you get paid to talk. The good news is that once you come to grips with these facts, you can fix the problem!!! If the problem is what you are saying, you can say something different! If the problem is your market, your “busy life,” your spouse, or your mother-in-law, there isn’t much I can tell you to help. But none of those is the problem, and you know it. The problem is either you are not talking to enough people or if you are talking to a lot of people, what you are saying is holding you back.
Let’s rule out the other easily fixable problem of not meeting enough new business owners. Take the number of sales you want to have each week and multiply it by seven. If you did not meet that many new business owners in the last seven days, you have a very low chance of achieving your goal over the long haul. I think you could be successful by tracking this one number.
If you want to make three sales per week, just get a piece of paper and a pen and make a mark on your paper every time you meet a business owner face to face for the first time. Put twenty-one marks (3 sales x 7) on that paper every single week. Then you have the chance to succeed, provided you are saying the right things.
Recently I felt I should have made a sale to a gas station owner who I met, but I convinced myself I had a bad day and the owner was a jerk, etc. etc. In reality, I said the wrong words; that is what cost me the sale.
James Shepherd
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