While sitting in your truck munching on your lunch or bouncing down the road to your next stop, I’m sure the Beatles song “Long and Winding Road” has been on your radio. The Beatles released their super-hit last album Let it Be in May of 1970 and I’ll bet they had no idea that the song “Long and Winding Road” could be the theme song for mobile jobbers everywhere. Just like a family road trip, you would like to drive from home to your destination directly, but rest stops, fuel stops, sightseeing, eating, and getting lost makes the trip seem like a long and winding road.
I know you have walked out of a vehicle repair facility from time to time and wondered, "Am I really a tool salesperson or am I a brochure delivery service, a broken tool replacer, a skip chaser, a marriage counselor, a commercial visitor with the weather or sports report or — even worse — a non-sale closer?" You started in the door to a sales call with a good plan and came out with nothing, and sometimes it seems like there is almost nothing you can do about it.
Fortunately, there is a lot you can do about it. So don’t give up the ship — or in your case, the mobile store.
A typical sales scenario
A sales career would be pretty easy, but boring, if all you had to do was walk in the customer's door, say hello, give your presentation, ask for the order and have the customer say yes. Depending on how you look at the challenge of sales, fortunately or unfortunately this quick and easy sales scenario seldom, if ever, happens.
In the real world what often happens is you walk in the shop door with a planned sales presentation for your customers, you drop off the latest promotional brochure at each workstation and then everything that could go wrong does go wrong from the get-go.
The entire shop is upset about some new rule the workers don’t like or some hot-topic union issue and no one wants to hear about your cool new tools. So, with each of your personal calls within the shop you must hear about that person's take on the latest grievance. Or, it seems like every one of your technicians is dealing with some major subject they must unload on you before you can get through with your selling business. The list of subjects can go on forever: kids, spouse, money, health, sports, weather, broken tools, lousy boss, government, religion, etc.
Additionally, customers have a knack for changing the subject during a demonstration, wanting to tell you their latest life story, or answering a phone call during your demo. Essentially, a presentation almost never goes on a straight line from, "Hello" to the demonstration, to questions, to agreement, and to a sale. Every sales call can turn into a “Long and Winding Road” to reach a final yes or no conclusion.
Here’s a diagram of how you would like your sales call to go.
1. Hello 2. Product Demonstration 3. Q & A Session 4. Close 5. Customer says yes 6. $$$
In reality, here’s a winding road diagram of how sales calls really go. The green line is what you planned for the presentation discussion and the red line is how the discussion goes, winding all-around topics such as money problems, sports talks, broken tools, and more money problems.
These uncontrollable situations and interruptions happen every day and the better you deal with them the better your sales results will be.
Since you walked in the door with a sales plan in mind for your various customers it is important for you to keep those plans as you visit each customer.
You probably know each individual customer well enough to know who is going to complain the most about whatever is going on in the shop and who will not even mention it. Prepare yourself to take control of the discussion quickly and keep it on track.
Get back on track
Like we have discussed in previous columns it is almost always best for you to own the objections and in this case if you bring up the current all-shop gripe you can control the discussions. Try this:
“I understand many of the techs are upset about the new policy and I sure hope things calm down about it shortly so let’s talk about something more pleasant like cool new tools?”
The customer may simply agree with you and move on or may complain a bit, but they now know you are aware of the issue and hopefully will not harp on it for long. Just don’t ask them how they view the issue since that will throw gasoline on their current fire.
Presenting to the customer who takes every opportunity to get your demonstration off track can be a big challenge for any salesperson so don’t feel alone on this.
During your presentation when you mention the great grip on your screwdriver and the customer switches the conversation to the quarterback losing his grip on the football last Sunday what should you do?
Initially you will need to let the customer go on for a bit without interruption and as soon as he stops for a second or two simply go back into your demonstration. Never ask a question about their topic, never give an opinion on the topic simply listen for a bit and move on. If the customer asks you a question about the topic they are on, answer it quickly and shortly and while you are in control of the conversation go right back to your presentation.
Since this customer may or may not be focusing and understanding what you are saying it is even more important than ever to trial close often and get an answer of understanding and agreement before you move on to the next point.
Certainly, there are some subjects you can’t just sluff off which are emotional for the customer but leading them on and adding your opinions can just get the conversation more off track and can potentially become too emotional for you to move on.
You will also find it very helpful to do a quick trial close review with this customer before you go for the final close, so you and they are sure where their head is on this product.
Go back over each important product benefit quickly and remind the prospect that they liked each one.
Each of our customers is different and each must buy their tools from someone, so it might as well be you! Hang in there when the presentation gets off track.
When things go awry keep your focus, keep your cool, keep bringing the conversation back to the demonstration, refrain from asking questions or giving opinions about the off-topic subject. Trial close often, review the benefits before the final close and as always, ask for the order.
Now go sell something.
