By Debbie Depp
Three decades ago, long before high tech drove the sales process, a man named Joe Girard used a decidedly low-tech method to put thousands of customers in the driver's seat. Literally.
Each evening Joe and his wife pulled out a shoebox of index cards, sat down at the kitchen table and wrote personal monthly greetings to each customer of the Chevrolet dealership where Joe worked as a sales rep.
This process paid off. Joe's appointment book was filled six weeks in advance, his income soared into the six-figure range (remember, this is in the 1960's!) and he's still listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the 'World's Greatest Sales Rep' for having sold the most retail cars and trucks in the world.
Joe Girard's method, detailed in his book, "How to Sell Anything to Anybody," is what we call 'Demand Creation,' creating top-of-mind awareness by contacting customers regularly throughout the year.
Those monthly postcards delivered Joe Girard to the top of the stack in the customers' minds. When their car broke down or it was time for a trade-in, they didn't have to think about where to go. They knew where to go and who to look for.
Though Girard's work was labor intensive (no doubt he and his wife were well familiar with writer's cramp) it was effective. These days, successful sales organizations don't have to suffer writer's cramp. They use the electronic version of Girard's shoebox -- the 'Business Development Center' (BDC).
The BDC is a process for generating qualified leads, setting appointments for sales teams and accelerating and managing the sales cycle. The BDC separates selling from non-selling activities, moving those unproductive tasks to a lower cost resource.
With the BDC, you:
- Create a well-defined and documented process
- Automate the sales process
- Consistently deliver your unique selling proposition in a systematic approach
- Manage the sales cycle and improve forecasting
- Become systems-dependent, not people-dependent
These days, you need to balance high tech with high touch to get higher sales. A 'touch' is any kind of customer contact -- a letter, e-mail, fax, visit, phone call, etc.
Studies show it takes 6.7 touches before a customer will buy. Yet, the typical salesperson devotes just 29 percent of his or her time to customers or prospects. The rest is spent tending to paperwork and other non-sales activities. In fact, the No. 1 reason for sales failure is the failure to be there when the customer is ready to buy.
The average business purchase decision involves three to five people, which means the rep has to make 20 to 30 touches per account. Multiply that by the number of accounts each sales rep is chasing, and the numbers (and hours) quickly add up.
Studies show that 90 percent of all salespeople give up after the fourth contact with a customer. Yet 80 percent of all sales are closed after that crucial fifth contact.
These reps are not only sacrificing sales, they're losing customers. And it's a lot less expensive to sell to the customer you have today than the one you're trying to get tomorrow. In fact, it costs 10 to 12 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.
In sales, we often talk about the 'window of opportunity.' Customers and prospects go through a process of change; and it's through this series of 6.7 touches that they move into that window of opportunity.
The best way to ensure your salespeople are there when that window opens is to engineer a process to capture mindshare. Touch customers before, during and after they're ready to buy, because if you don't, they'll buy from somebody else.
Your 'electronic shoebox' won't make common sense obsolete. Managers still need good instincts and the ability to manage the details.
When you reengineer your sales process to emphasize top-of-mind awareness, you enable your sales reps to combine the art, science and discipline of selling.
- The art of selling requires providing the information in the right form
- The science of selling is being there at the right time to provide it
- The discipline of selling is to do it persistently and consistently
And like Joe Girard your electronic shoebox will put your sales reps in the driver's seat, and who knows? Their next stop may be the Guinness Book of Records.
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