Persistence Pays Off – Numbers Don’t Lie

You don’t have to be in the top 1% to be considered at the top of your game. You just have to be in the topmost 8% when it comes to… persistence. That’s right. The most-persistent 8% of salespeople end up with 60% of the closed deals. Let’s see how.

1. 44% of all sales professionals will give up after the first No. It’s staggering in our industry how many people don’t ask for the sale even once.
2. 22% of all sales professionals give up after the second No.
3. 14% give up after the third No.
4. 12% of all sales professionals give up after the fourth No. If you add those up, that means 92% of all sales professionals have given up after the fourth No.
5. 60% of all customers say No at least four times, before saying Yes.

Let me say that again. 60% of all customers say No at least four times. That only means one thing. If you’ve walked away too soon or misunderstood the customer’s real answer, you’ve left money on the table. If you got discouraged or were unable to hold their interest to build rapport and tell your story, you’ve likely taken a No to mean No, instead of a Not Yet, and you’ve given up.

92% of all sales professionals have given up after the fourth no, yet 60% of all sales occur after that point in time.

Questions Are the Answers

These questions need to be embedded in our presentation – “Will you trust me? What do you say we set this up for install? Why don’t we go ahead and take care of the paperwork?” All of those Yeses come after they’ve been asked for the order four times. And these questions are exactly that – asks.

If you can keep the conversation going without seeming pushy, while respecting the prospect’s home, respecting them at the table and simply talking through all the points that you’ve already addressed during the sales process, then your sales, your close rates, your revenue per lead, your average ticket will all go through the roof.

It’s Statistically Proven

The problem is if we skip some of the anchor questions, if we skip some of our stories, if we don’t do a great job of illustrating our points, then we have no way to keep the conversation moving forward long enough to hear the Yes that keeps us fed. If you skip laying the foundation, your presentation will sink. If the homeowner brings up three bids or price or “I need to think about it” and we haven’t closed the doors in the sales hallway, then our answers will sound hollow and we begin to sound like a pushy salesperson.

But if we’ve addressed all of those issues before the homeowner asks, when it’s our turn to move the sale forward, objections are much easier to overcome with the simple, “Do you remember earlier when you agreed that price wasn’t the most important aspect of a new system?” Or any of the other questions we’ve gotten them to say Yes to earlier. Then when we remind them of those agreements, the homeowner will stay with you 10, 20, 30 minutes after you’ve given the price.

They will stay with you even after they’ve said, “I got to think about it” or “I got a couple of guys coming tomorrow.” At that point you can remain consistent but be persistent. You can go in and do your job and keep that conversation going and guess what?

About the fourth time you ask, the homeowner is more inclined to say, “You know, let’s just do it. You guys are gonna do a great job.” And then they might say, “I believe you guys will come back and take care of me if the system has a problem or if that room doesn’t get cool, right?” “Yes sir, absolutely. We will keep working and will move heaven and earth until we get you going.” Or if you have a buy-back guarantee that’s where you’d reiterate that.

My point is that you have to work the entire process without skipping steps. Otherwise speed bumps will turn into roadblocks. So what is it you need? A solid presentation and persistence to get your well-deserved Yes.

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