The next day, during day two of classroom training, an administrative person told the trainer that they had received several requests to have someone go back to the neighborhood they knocked in yesterday. The prospects found the flyer on their door, read it, and wanted more information. The percentage of callbacks on the makeshift flyers far exceeded the number of callbacks on the professional door hangers.
So the trainer decided they’d do the same thing that evening and use the simple hand-twisted, crumpled flyer for that evening’s door-knocking. Once again they received a higher percentage of calls than normal.
When the trainer told me what happened, and I told marketing, they were not happy. They couldn’t imagine such an amateurish flyer being used in the first place, and that it worked better than their beautifully done, professional work bordered on insulting. From my standpoint—that is, the sales department’s standpoint—I didn’t care that the flyer wasn’t professional and created by marketing. What mattered to me was that it worked. Our goal wasn’t to impress people with what our marketing department could produce; the important factor was getting sales, and further, it was clear that the amateurish flyer delivered better results. We continued to use it from that day forward, and the results continued to be great as compared to any other leave-behind we had previously tried.
Why did the unprofessional flyer work? Our only guess was that it looked like a note someone left for the homeowner instead of an obvious sales flyer.
Referrals
No discussion on lead development is complete without going into the benefits derived from referrals. There is a saying I once heard that went something like this:
“Drop me in a city where I know no one, and after I make my first few sales I will never need or want company-provided leads again.”
The point is simple. If as a salesperson you learn how to develop referrals from every sale you make, the exponential result will be a pyramid-like growth in leads that will produce all the sales, and subsequently even more leads than you will ever need. Most professional salespeople know this, and believe it. Interview almost any sales pro and he’ll tell you that a high percentage of his sales come from referrals. The quantity of referrals one gets depends on the number of referrals the sales pro asks for, and how often and under what circumstances he asks for referrals.
For example, some salespeople rarely ask for referrals. They simply rely on their customers to offer to refer, during or after the sale, the salesperson or company to their friends or relatives. Call it passive referral gathering.
Other salespeople only ask for referrals after a sale is made and sufficient time has passed for them to feel comfortable that the customer has had time to evaluate the product she purchased in order to suggest that friends or relatives do the same. The question that comes to my mind is how long is “sufficient time”? Who decides?
Some salespeople feel confident enough to ask for referrals immediately after making the sale, just after signing the paperwork. This group, however, only asks if the prospect buys.
Far fewer salespeople feel strongly enough about what they do and the benefit customers derive from the product to ask for referrals on every presentation, regardless if the prospect buys.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that the latter salesperson, the one who asks for referrals after every presentation, regardless of the outcome, will ultimately get more referrals. It is a mathematical certainty. Considering the average close percentage of one out of three presentations, the salesperson who asks after every presentation is asking for referrals three times more often than the one who asks only after a closed sale.
And, of course he’ll get more referrals than the salesperson who only asks after some time has passed after the sale closes.
Many of the salespeople who don’t ask at all become victims of procrastination. Even the best-intentioned customer may plan to refer the company, but may just simply never get around to it.
“Ask more, get more” is a simple motto to internalize. The more often you ask the better your chances are of getting referrals, which result in sales, which result in more referrals, which results in more sales …
The next question then is how many referrals should one ask for? My simple answer is, more than you think. Okay, I lost you.
Let’s say you have built enough confidence in yourself, your product, the benefits, and your company, to convince you that you must ask for referrals, at minimum, at the point of sale. How many referrals do you want? I have found that if you ask for three referrals, which, by the way, is the average number salespeople tell me they ask for, you’ll average getting 1.5 referrals per sale, or approximately half.
So if you want three, you should ask for six. If you want five, ask for ten. Why shouldn’t you ask for ten? Who came up with the limit of three? I think it was magicians who determined that if you ask someone to pick a number between one and ten, the highest percentage of people would pick three. When someone says they are going to shop around, they often say they are going to get three estimates. The government requires three estimates when looking for a product that isn’t let out on a bid notice; always the magic number three.
So break that mold; ask for ten. I did, and I usually got six or more leads. Why? Because of how I asked for them, and the way I prepared the prospect prior to asking. For example, after getting their autograph on my sales agreement, and while completing other required paperwork, I would ask the wife to get her personal phone directory, because we would need it before we were through tonight. I didn’t ask if it was possible or say “Could you …?” I simply told her we’d need it. Once she had it in front of her it became far easier for her to give me names.
Another tip is to only ask for the names at first.
Salesperson: “What is the first name that comes to mind, Mrs. Jones?”
Mrs. Jones: “My sister Jennifer Rogers.”
The salesperson writes that name down.
Salesperson: “What is the next name?”
Mrs. Jones: “My next-door neighbor, Marge Johnson.”
Salesperson: “And next?”
The goal is to keep asking next until she stops you. If you told her you needed ten in the beginning and gave her a reason why, keep asking at least until you get to ten, but I’d still say “Next” after the tenth name. She might give you eleven, twelve, etc.
After getting all the names, then you ask for their phone numbers and addresses. If you ask for all that information with each name, she’ll likely tire of the process sooner. However, once she’s given you all the names, she’s almost obligated to give you the balance of the information.
It’s clear how asking for leads exponentially decreases your need for company leads:
Four sales = sixteen leads = sixteen presentations = seven or more sales (depending on your close average) = twenty-eight leads = twenty-eight presentations = twelve sales = forty-eight leads and so on.
Just imagine if you could average six, or eight, or ten leads per sale. Then multiply all that by three if you ask for leads after every presentation. Wow!
“Drop me in a city where I know no one, and after I make my first few sales I will never need or want company-provided leads again.”
Bird Dogs