10 Steps To Sales Success For Selling To Seniors – Steps 2 and 3
In our last blog entry, we talked about step 1 to outbound sales calls success for selling to seniors, creating the proper enviroment. Today, we’re going to talk about steps 2 and 3 for selling to the mature market. Again, today’s topics are nothing new. In fact, several different sales training programs utilize these very same techniques. Two sites I highly recommend every sales team visit is Traci Bild’s site and Selling and Persuasion Techniques, written by the incomparable Dr. Robert Caldini. Traci is one of the industry’s premier sales trainers and much of what we write about has been learned by applying her techniques from her book 7 Steps To Successful Selling and then making adjustments as we learn from our clients’ experiences. In addition to joining the Tuesday Morning Sales Club, I recommend purchasing anything Traci publishes. She is a genius. The secret is knowing how to apply these techniques to what you are doing each and every day … selling senior housing.
Step 2: Let Your Smile Shine Thru
For most retirees, the decision to call us did not come lightly. After all, moving to an active 55+ retirement community, continuing care retirement community (CCRC), assisted living facility, or skilled nursing home is a life altering decision. When people call us, they are scared. Usually, despite what they might be telling us, that call has been stirred by negative circumstances in their life (failing health, the death of a spouse, or loneliness). It’s our job as a sales team to lift them up and reassure them that they made a good decision to call us. The first task in accomplishing this sales goal is for our voice to exude courtesy, warmth, enthusiasm and knowledge.
If this is an incoming call, the correct way to answer is, “Hi! This is FIRST NAME. Thank you for calling COMMUNITY NAME! How can I help you?
If this is an outbound call, we’ll be taking a much different tack on our opening communication, but more on that later.
• Exude a warm, friendly attitude topped off with generous dose of enthusiasm and knowledge.
• Conveying energy and a can-do-attitude is the key to success. If we show excitement towards our jobs and the community we are selling, our customers can’t help but be excited. Remember, enthusiasm is contagious!
• Speak clearly, loudly and at a pace that they can comprehend (remember, like me, much of this audience has lost a good part of their hearing).
Step 3: Engagement
The key to senior housing sales success is placing outbound phone calls. Lots of them! At a minimum, you should be making 20 outbound calls a day (except on event days).
The top senior housing sales people in the country convert 1 of every two calls they place. How? By following a process. Remember, these people — the prospects —contacted us. They have a need.
Opening step for outbound calls
“Hi, is John in? (Pause, wait for “yes.”) Hi John, this is Tom Mann calling. (Pause, wait for “yes?”)
Most people say “Hi, is John Smith in? This is Tom Mann from the Heritage of Green Hills. How are you today?” And the prospect will say something like, “I’m fine” or “Hi, Tom, unfortunately, I can’t talk right now.” Why? Because they instantly recognize you as a sales person.
When we know we’re dealing with a salesperson our guard instantly goes up. In fact, most people HATE sales calls. Why? Well, first off, you are interrupting my day with your call. Second, I know you want my money. And my money is something I and our prospects guard with a zeal … and they are thinking, “Please, I have stuff to do. I don’t have time for this right now” and they might even be polite and talk with you a little, but they want to get off the phone. This conversation is destined for failure.
When you start a conversation this way, you might not even get to discuss the real reason you called…to talk about how your community can help them. So avoid that trap that pretty much ALL sales professionals get in to — which is naming your community. Instead, we would like you to use this very successful and proven opening step.
Here is how simple it is.
Ring, ring. “Hello is John in?” PAUSE, WAIT FOR REPLY
“Yes, this is he.”
“Hi John, this is Tom Mann calling.” And pause.
Polite and personalble, and I’m sure you are wondering “OK, when are we going to tell them who we are with?” And we will, just not yet. Because if you do, you can kiss the likelihood of this call being a success goodbye. This is a relationship business. If you open with this technique, you will form the personal connection.
I am not TR Mann Consulting, I’m Tom Mann, so I am never going to call someone up and go, “Hi, this is Tom Mann with TR Mann Consulting, how are you today?” If I did, that person KNOWS it’s a sales call. Instead, I’m going to say “Hi, John, this is Tom Mann calling. And they are going to go, “Hi Tom” if they know me. And if they don’t know me, they’ll reply, “Hi, Tom?” and then they’ll wait for me to tell them what the call is about. Or, they go, ”How can I help you?”
It’s very important that you address the prospect by first name only. Don’t say, “Hi, is Mr. John Smith in?” Yes, I know you were trained to be polite and that Miss Manners would like you to address people this way. Unfortunately, Miss Manners can’t help you sell. Even after we train people, this is a hard habit to break. I don’t even think sales people even realize they are doing it. But what friend do you know, that calls you up and asks, “Hi, is Tom Mann in?” So you’re going to go, “Hi, is John in?” Pause and wait for “yes.” “Hi John, this is Tom Mann calling.” Research shows us that the word “calling” instigates a “yes?” response … but you have to pause, so that they can say “yes?” The team at The Tuesday Morning Sales Club believes that communication is about two people engaging. You speak, I speak. In a poor sales environment the sales person typically does 85% of the talking. That is not communication. You must use your ears as well as your mouth. Learn to listen. So your new parameters are:
A. Address them by first name. If it’s a couple and you only have one of their first names, address them only by last name, “Hi, is Mr. Smith in?” NOT “Hi, Mr. John Smith.” (Note: when meeting in person, it’s OK to refer to them by Mr. or Mrs. and then their last name as is a common sign of respect in the South, ie., Mr. John.)
B. Then you are going to introduce yourself by both your first and last name and you are going to use that magical word “calling” directly after your name. Followed by a pause. When you pause, they are going to say “yes” 99% of the time. Now, don’t worry if you don’t get the “yes,” there are two other things they’ll do.
They’ll say “oh, Hi Tom, how are you?” When they do that that means they recognize you. That’s a positive and that’s what we want, a positive response.
The other thing they might do is pause.
“Hi, John, this is Tom Mann calling.” (If they don’t respond after a long pause, start back up, “if you recall…” then you go on to step 4.
The other thing they might say is “who?” In that case, just restate your name. “Tom Mann.” They will respond with a, “yes?” This just means they can’t remember or place your name, so they are trying to figure out who you are. That’s a good thing, now instead of trying to figure out how to get off the phone, you have them engaged. They’re thinking … thinking … thinking… “Tom, who?” That is what we want. We want them engaged.
So your call should go like this:
“Hi, is John in?” (Pause)
“Yes, this is he.
“Hi John, this is Tom Mann calling.” (Pause)
“Yes?”
“If you recall, you requested an information kit from the Heritage of Green Hills.” (Pause)
“Oh, yes I did.
You have now prepared your customer for step 4, which we’ll write about next time. In the meantime, share the passion you have for this incredible life-changing product! Also, I invite you to join our Tuesday Morning Sales Club.
Interesting side note: “Calling” is not the only magic word. Dr. Caldini in his book The Principals of Influence, discusses the power of another magical word:
What single word increases compliance from 60% to 93%, simply by adding it to a request?
That single word is . . . “because”
“This parallel form of human automaticity is aptly demonstrated in an experiment by social psychologist Ellen Langer and her co-workers (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978). A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.
Langer demonstrated this unsurprising fact by asking a small favor or people waiting in line to use a library copying machine: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” The effectiveness of this request plus-reasons was nearly total: 94 percent of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
Compare this success rate to the results when she make the request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Under those circumstances only 60 percent of those asked complied.
At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the two request was the additional information provided by the words because I’m in a rush. However, a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case.
It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, because, that made the difference. Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word because and then, adding nothing new, merely restate the obvious: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?” The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agree, even though no real reason, no new information was added to justify their compliance.”
Additional note: I’ll be presenting the 10 Steps To Sales Success For Selling To Seniors in full at the National Active Retirement Community (NARA) 11th Annual Business Conference in Columbia, SC October 20-22.
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