Are You Closing Your Prospects Effectively?

Are you afraid of the word "selling"? You're not alone. Most people are not aware that there are steps to closing. They think if someone is a good sales person, it's because they the gift of gab. In fact, a sales person with a good closing ratio has had to develop the necessary skills.

Once you learn the components required to make a sale, you'll wonder why you made all the fuss in the beginning.

Most of you engaged in a home business have probably been taught that there is a 4-part formula to making a sale. You might have been learning the following formula on how to spend your time with a prospect:

1. Ten percent of your time should be spent being rapport.

2. Spend 20% of your time on qualifying prospects.

3. Spend 30% of your time presenting.

4. Spend 40% of your time is spent on answering questions or closing.

Believe it or not, you've been learning the 4-part formula of mistakes. These are the mistakes most commonly made by amateurs. Most people in home businesses are following this formula because they don't know a better way.

Here's another, more successful way, to look at the 4-part formula:

1. Spend 40% of your time with prospects building trust.

2. Thirty percent of your time should be spent on listening and identifying your prospects' needs.

3. Spend 20% of your time presenting a solution to your prospects needs.

4. Spend 10% of your time closing.

When you are talking to your prospects, 70% of your time is spent on building trust and finding out what they need or what their problems are. 20% is spent on finding a solution to their problems. So, instead of just 10%, as described in the earlier model, 90% is spent on your prospects.

Poor sales people talk whereas good sales people listen to their prospects. So listen more than you talk. Building rapport with your prospects is part of your job. They need to trust you before they will buy your product or join your organization.

In order to get to know your prospects, you must ask questions. Have a positive attitude when you talk to you prospects. You must find out what their problems are so that you can solve it for them.

Eighty percent of sales people do not ask enough questions. Even if you think you're asking enough questions, you need to ask more questions than you think.

Whether you obtained your leads or prospects from a lead buyer or from your website, you can always start by introducing yourself. For example, "Hi my name is Mree. You visited my website. Do you have any questions?"

If the prospect is shopping for a home business, they may have visited many, many websites. So it doesn't really matter if they remember visiting your website or not. Just give them a few highlights to jog their memory.

After you run through the main points of interest from your website, ask if this is something they would be interested in learning more about. Obviously, if they say no, there is no need to continue the conversation. Just politely get off the phone.

BUT, if they'd like to learn more, here are good questions to ask:

1. How much do you want to make?

2. Are you working right now?

3. What do you do for a living?

4. Do you have children?

5. How serious are you about starting your own home business?

6. Do you have any capital set aside to start your home business?

Listen carefully as they answer your questions. This will help give you clues on how to help solve their problem. You haven't made a sale if you can't solve their problem.

Send them back to your website if they need additional information. For example, travel products are usually very visual. In this case, sending prospects to your online presentation can be part of your close.

One BIG thing to remember when you are talking to prospects is that you MUST know your product inside out in order to answer questions and give solutions to their problems.

Answering ALL their questions will position you as a leader. When this is achieved, your prospect will start to trust you and really listen to what you have to offer.

Prospects will only buy your product or join your organization when they feel they know you and trust you.

So spend more time getting to know your prospects and you'll surely see a difference in your closing ratio.