You Must Ask!
This true story goes back quite a few years but highlights the critical importance of asking for the order. My wife and I were full time in the Network Marketing industry and we used to hold business seminars in a local Ottawa hotel once a week. This goes so far back we were still using overhead projectors with transparencies and I bet some folks reading this have no idea what I am even talking about…LOL! We worked with our team to help them get ‘guests’ (prospects) out to the seminar where accomplished and successful distributors would present the company, products and opportunity.
These presentations were well organized and although not scripted they followed a well-defined agenda. We usually took a 10 to 15 minute break after the 45 minute seminar and then came back and did a 30 minute ‘quick start training’ that guests were welcome to attend. The reason for the break was to give the guests time to ask questions and decide if they were interested in learning more or even joining the business.
As much as we could we tried to ‘close’ the guests from the front of the room but the reality is that was the job of the host of the guest. Like all sales there was always the rare situation where the guest saw the value of the business and without any prompting decided to join the program but this was the exception and not the rule.
Most of the members of our team had full time careers from every walk of life, represented all age groups and came from all nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. What they typically all had in common was they had never been in sales. They were excited about the opportunity for themselves and were simply sharing it with family and friends. To help them be more successful we did a lot of training and coaching on what to do after the meeting – watch this one minute video to see more!
Back to the beginning of this story. We had one person on our team who shall remain anonymous. He attended every training and worked hard to have one guest to each seminar and over time he built a tidy little supplemental income. I kid you not – he was almost robotic in how he did it but he did it. He would turn to his guests and ask the questions exactly as he had been taught. No emotion, no inflection, no hype – he would simply ask ‘So what did you like best about what you saw and heard?’ and then he would go from there or get help if needed. To this day you would never know he was in sales.
Lessons Learned
- Always take advantage of training and remember the old adage that repetition is the mother of skill. Take the same training as many times as you can; if you only take one tip or technique or new idea away from each training that you apply to your professional selling it can have a massive long term impact on your success. Remember some of the best learning comes from the questions other folks ask and how those questions are answered and discussed! Don’t be a ‘one and done’ type person or even worse a ‘know it all’ that ignores training opportunities.
- Unless you are already getting spectacular results and simply cannot sell more or for more (in other words you bank account is so full it will not accept any more deposits) you should be continually trying to change and improve. Follow the training word for word and then adapt and adjust as you see fit later. All successful franchises and network marketing companies have a system – work the system and you win but try to do your own thing and you probably either lose or win small!
- You Must Ask! Ask what? Ask for the order, ask for them to join the business, ask for the next meeting, ask for something but you MUST ASK! How you ask is important but what you ask is more important. With training (yeah I know back to that again) and experience you will learn to ask better questions and deal with the answers, concerns and objections better. When I was in the Army in command roles I used to tell my staff and soldiers “If you do not ask I cannot say No”. I told them I am not a mind reader and cannot know what you want so ask. If you do not ask it is a No but by asking you may get a Yes..
Have a great week! Be sure to read my other Blog posts and if you have any ideas or stories to share feel free to email me at wayne@takeactionsalesacademy.com Also if you would take a couple minutes and take my survey I would appreciate it. I am simply trying to learn more about my site visitors. Cheers!!
Have a great week but before you go be sure to check out my online courses at https://www.takeactionsalesacademy.com
Also get my Daily 2 Minute Leadership and Sales Thought videos on my Facebook Group ‘Raise Your Sales IQ’ at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/399906394125860/about/
