Episode 23 - Qualifying Over the Phone and In-Person Meetings

Transcript

Woman: This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Jason McClain: Welcome to “Evolutionary Sales”. I'm your host, Jason McClain. I'm your guide in the 21st century marketplace.

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I've always been told that you're a client’s client and you're calling to make an appointment is you and not qualify yourself over the phone. One of the sessions I was into seem to contradict this and I want to find out this was just in the selling of a service market or was it also in the selling of product market and what you found about this? Could be they're looking at dealership prices manufactured dealership prices, but mainly, you want to forget about selling on price and you want to sell an experience.

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Now, I've got another great, for the listeners, questions for you today, but I want to remind of is that the show format is going to be changing soon. Not only will the show format be changing and it will be a shorter show, probably around eight minutes [xx] that will serve you in not only having just a more fast paced life but you can also integrate more of the information. It won't be as dense and that will allow you to actually learn more of it, retain more of it. This will benefit you.

Also, the older episodes, we’ll be rotating off and the actual sales system will be no longer free within a few weeks. So you want to make sure that you're aware of that, and that you download that stuff, share it, back it up, tell all your friends about it while it's still available. But now, let's get to this question of application from Toby in the United Kingdom. Toby writes, “I've been listening to your shows now and I must say that the content you cover in depth is fantastic. It's giving me many ideas and ways that I can prove myself skills and smarten up my business. Like you say, you've been going over the same session again and again and you pick up new things that you haven’t tuned in to before.”

Thank you, Toby, I appreciate those kind words. Toby’s question is he works as a Mercedes Benz car salesman or sales consultant. The meat of his question is that “As a salesman of a product and not a service, I've always been told that you're calling a client and you're calling to make an appointment is you and not qualify your sale over the phone. One of the sessions that I was into seem to contradict this and I want to find out this was just in the selling of a service market or was it also in the selling of product market and what you found about this? Was this something a 21st century salesman or did I just read it wrong?”

Well, to be honest, Toby, I'm not sure. What I will say I have to listen to all the episodes again. What I will say is that I almost always try to get people in my office if I'm looking to sell a product or a service. You can sell products easier over the phone or online but the other thing I would say is given the ear to Mercedes Benz dealership, are you really selling a product? Aren’t you selling an experience? Aren’t you actually selling a service? Mercedes Benz is not just a car, is it?

At the same time, I would make sure that you get them in there and that you may set an appointment with them and qualify them. You probably already calling qualified clients. I imagine you have some financial information on them on your list. So yes, you absolutely want to make sure that you set an appointment and you do not want to sell over the phone. It's not going to be effective selling a large ticket item like that. They want a relationship with you, so I'm not sure if I contradict what I've said before or if it's a question of misapplication or if I just wasn't clear. But what I will say is first of all, you definitely want to get them in there, you definitely want to get them in front of you particularly with such a large ticket item so they can get a sense of you, so they can trust you and your dealership.

Additionally there, you want to make sure that they are qualified and that they're not wasting your time or your other sales consultants’ time once they get in there. I hope that  answers your question, if not, please do email me again at Jason@PersonalLifeMedia.

Toby has a second question, but first we're going to take a short break to support our sponsors. I'm Jason McClain, your host and your guide in the 21st century marketplace and we'll be right back.

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Jason McClain: Welcome back. I'm Jason McClain, your host and your guide in the 21st century marketplace. Before the break, we were talking about Toby’s question about whether to sell over the phone, and now we're going to talk about his second question. So the second point is, “My main reason for the email, I'm faced with the day-to-day premise on price through the information overload the people can get from the Internet nowadays. Many years ago, this used to be with import cars and I would always ask the question, “Do you want a UK car or would you prefer and import?” preframing as you call it. This will invite the client to ask why and I could sell the benefits of a UK car and put down in the mind of that person purchasing an important vehicle. This can be at any stage of the inquiry and the minute the client [xx] in the door, the last points before opening a relationship. Is there anything you could suggest that I could do about this when a vehicle prices are printed in black and white and information’s available on the Web that everyone for a [sp] discount. By the way, this will even apply to main dealers like myself. I've seen enterprise printed as a supply dealer [sp] is a main dealer retail outlet.

Well, the first thing I would say is, is the information accurate? So when I walk in there, are they looking at dealer prices? In other words, wholesale or they're looking at retail prices? The other thing I would say is, really, you need to forget about selling on price because somebody who walks in a Mercedes dealership, first of all they're buying that kind of car because they're looking for a certain experience and you want to sell them the experience. You want to get them in the car. You want to sell them on the experience of having you as somebody caretaking them through their process and you want them to smell and touch and feel the road and feel the seats and listen to the sound system. You want them to have all those modalities possibly impacted as well as feeling connected to you as somebody who’s assisting them.

If the information is accurate, well, that’s just part of the 21st century marketplace. If they walk in there and their prices are accurate and you, guys, have a margin because of certain reasons that does not make sense to the client, I don’t call it information overload. I call them “hyper-informed” and that’s a good thing, that’s a good thing. You want them to be informed. You want to hear all their concerns. You want to sell them with them even knowing, even knowing that they're hyper-informed, even knowing that they’ve got all these information.

The way you do that is, first of all, make sure to have all the accurate information. The numbers on the Internet may not be current, they may not include certain cost that the dealership has, could be that they're looking at manufacture-to-dealership prices. But mainly, you want to forget about selling on price and you want to sell on experience. I know it's not a straightforward situation in your business but that’s the way I would approach it.

Thanks for the questions, Toby, and thanks again for the kind words. Keep those questions coming, I love them. They benefit all of us, the thousands and thousands of you who are listening. Once again, I'm Jason McClain, your host and your guide in the 21st century marketplace. If you have questions about this show or any other show on the Personal Life Media Network, please visit PersonalLifeMedia.com. For transcripts of this show or any other shows in the Personal Life Media Network, please visit PersonalLifeMedia.com. If you have any questions about this podcast, “Evolutionary Sales”, feel free to email me directly at [email protected] and there's two L’s in PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Hope you're having a great day, hope you're enjoying this new approach in the 21st century marketplace and I look forward to supporting you in thriving [sp] even more.

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