On My Mind: The Injurious Sales Cycle?

Thoughts from Coach Rob Shore about the art, science and lifestyle of wholesaling, for wholesalers and their leaders.

Episode #5:The Injurious Sales Cycle?

What’s on your mind? Email me at rob[at]wholesalermasterminds.com

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Transcription:

Welcome to another episode of On My Mind, that occasional series when I gotta tell you what’s rattling around my brain and ask you what’s rattling around yours.

I’m thinking about this whole notion of sales cycles, longer sales cycles versus shorter sales cycles, and wondering is a longer sales cycle actually beneficial because it’s far less transactional?

So, I’m speaking to a coaching client who works with an organization that places a high priority on nailing business on the first appointment, which, as you might imagine, places a certain amount of pressure on you in the first appointment.

We talked about this whole notion of what happens to your skills when you’re so focused on getting business out of that first appointment.

Do you listen as good or as well as you should?

Are you jumping through your sequence of probing questions because you just gotta get to the next question because you gotta get to your product presentation because you gotta try to land a piece of business in that appointment?

What happens if you are not focused on that?

What happens if you allow yourself to be focused on, yes, of course, getting the business, that’ll always be important, that’s why we have jobs, but what happens if you’re also focused on relaxing more in the appointment such that you would…allow the appointment to breathe.

I don’t know how else to say it.

If you’re a wholesaler who’s been doing this a long period of time, you know that if you can let the appointment breathe a little bit, if you don’t appear to be in such an urgent rush, if you’re not chomping at the bit for the piece of business, you come off as a more relaxed if you a wholesaler, not negligent wholesaler, more relaxed wholesaler.

We were talking about this continuum, my client and I.

One end of the continuum, just say the left end of the continuum, is the wholesaler that’s straight off the desk. That’s the wholesaler that feels compelled in every meeting to dump the contents of their briefcase and their brain on the advisor’s desk and sort through something, anything that will help the advisor be compelled, make the advisor be compelled to write business.

At the far other end of the continuum, at the far right of the continuum, is the wholesaler that perhaps has been around the block for a very long time and also has had relationships in the field for a long time and is confident in their ability because their resume speaks for their success.

They’re more relaxed in the appointment and they don’t feel like they have to close that piece of business today.

What they have to do is move the sales process forward.

What they have to do is try to engage the advisor in such a way that the advisor welcomes them back in the office to extend the conversation, which will eventually lead to business.

I interviewed millionaire wholesalers some years ago. One of the traits a millionaire wholesaler said over and over again is, oftentimes, in the first appointment, they didn’t even bring up product because they were just trying to build foundation and build relationships and find out where need was and then formulated a plan.

What do you think about this whole idea of sales cycles?

More importantly, what do you think of this idea about firms that put requirements on wholesalers to slam business close, slam business shut on the first appointment.

That’s what’s on my mind. What’s on yours? Send me an email, Rob[at]WholesalerMasterminds.com.