Stage 5: Run a test sales campaign
Hopefully you will get a few calls, emails or website visits from the test marketing campaign. You now need to enter the feared and hated world of sales.
Sales has a bad reputation. In some cases deserved as people convince customers to pay for something they really don’t want, or that will never live up to the promises made. However, keep in mind that we have all been delighted at some point at having found just what we are looking for. So – some sales experiences are excellent. While this is again a massive topic, I would start with the following simplified stages. These assume that you are talking to the customer. You can add your own style to this . . .
- Get some basic customer details (Name, phone number) so that you can call back if you are interrupted and check that they are responding to the test campaign. Check whether they have 5 minutes or 15 minutes to tailor the call.
- Understand what the customer wants. What is absolutely key is to understand whether they are experts (in which case they probably don’t need your advice) or whether you are the expert. Really good sales will adapt the conversation to this. Uncover what are called hidden wants – ie. Things the customer does not realise they want, for example, my surfing fathers might forget that their partners might want to learn to surf or be pampered, shame on them. If you can, establish what the customer expects to pay so that you can steer the conversation sooner rather than later.
- When you have understood what the customer wants, hopefully you have a match with what you can supply. Closing the sale is about getting customer commitment. You will find sales people arguing on how, when and how often to close the sale. All I would say is that it must have a commitment and you should decide how many times you try to close before you give up. Most sales people would agree that you need to attempt to close more than once before you give up.
- Throughout the sales call gather data on the customer. Some of it will be hard data, but the soft data (likes and dislikes) is at least as important. Record as much as is feasible for later use.
- On the assumption that you have closed the sales – take payment and start to fulfil the booking!
Example: I receive a few calls, talk through my sales script and test how much customers are willing to pay. The main stumbling block is price. However, we take a couple of bookings and proceed.
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