263 Q&A- Dealing with Rejection; Better Conversion, or More Leads?

You are listening to the art of sales. Everyone sells every day. And this is your source for conversational, real world sales and prospecting methods. That you are comfortable using and that get results. You'll help people buy instead of pushing them into being sold. Here's your host Art Subject. In this episode I'm going to address a couple of questions that were submitted to me. And by the way, if you have questions you'd like me to consider, feel free to send them to me at artSARTS at business. Buyphone, businessbyphone.com. Alright, so this one comes from Reggie. Reggie said Art in listening to some of your recent podcasts and also reading some of your online information. I noticed a quote that you have used and that is, don't associate failure and negative feelings with getting a no. Save those feelings for not knowing where you stand with someone, then you find that it happens less. I wonder if you might expound on this. My Achilles heel, however, lies in the thoughts I associate with receiving a no from prospective clients. Alright, Reggie, first, thanks for the question. There is no getting around the fact that we're going to get nos if we're making calls, right? That's the nature of the game, of course, just like baseball hitters are going to make out. Basketball players are going to miss shots. Stuff happens, but it's all about how we react to it. And that's the difference between feeling rejected or feeling of accomplishment. And the quote there that you mentioned refers to just that, associating a positive feeling with a decision, whether that be yes or no. So if you did everything you could have done on a call, ask for a commitment, and then received a no, that's a win in a sense. What would be worse would be not asking for a sale or commitment. Then putting someone in your follow-up file, I call that rescheduling the brush off and then wasting time with them again. So we should associate major pain with that. And then by getting a no, which is a decision, you can then effectively move on to the next prospect or customer. So therefore, look at a decision, yes or no, as a victory. Of course, we want to do whatever we can to maximize the number of yeses. All right, next, this comes from Perry, and Perry said, good day. Thank you for the fantastic advice that you present. I highly recommend you to my friends and associates. Well, thank you for that, Perry. So Perry says, I'm wondering if you might have an opinion regarding my situation. My wife and I run a professional dog training business. I handle 99% of our sales inquiries, which come by phone, generated through ads and a website and a word of mouth. Over the last month, I converted 85% of those calls into clients. 27 of them were word of mouth and 18 were from ads and eight were not interested. I'm always trying to get better with my phone skills and helping potential clients, but is it realistic to expect higher closure rates? Or maybe I should put more effort into increasing the number of inquiries we get. Have a dog gone a good day. I see what you did there, Perry. All right, so thanks for the note and congrats on that closing rate. Wow. Now, I always feel that we all can improve our skills and I would never stop trying to get better if I were you. Now, with that said, since that seems like a pretty good and profitable closing rate right now, personally, if this were me, I would go out and I'd buy more inquiries. So let's do some sales math, figure out what your cost per sale is right now and what your lifetime value of a customer is and how much profit there is in a typical customer over their lifetime of buying from you. It's lifetime value of a customer. My guess is that you could probably invest a lot more in more inquiries and probably have a lower closing rate since all the inquiries might not be as good as what you're getting now, but you'd still make a nice profit. One of my longtime marketing mentors, the great Dan Kennedy has said and I'm paraphrasing here, he who can afford to spend the most on advertising profitably will always come out on top. So, and in addition to that, Perry, keep in mind that your word of mouth will go up with the more customers you get as well. So there's a compounding effect there. Alright, so hey, thanks for those questions. And again, if you have something that you'd like me to address, send it to me at rts at businessbyphone.com rts at businessbyphone.com. Also speaking of that email, let me ask you for something else. I don't ask for this a whole lot, but I would love to get more five star ratings and reviews on Apple podcast because that really does help more people find us. So you'd be helping more people. I appreciate it, but they're really going to appreciate and benefit from it as well. And after you do, send me an email letting me know that you did leave that five star rating and review. And I'm going to send you, I'm going to email you a little thank you. That's right. I'm not beyond bribing you for five star ratings and reviews, as long as they're sincere, of course. Alright, hey, you know what time it is. That's right, it's time for the quote of the day. And by the way, I had an email today from somebody wanting to know what are the lyrics to the quote of the day jingle. And I've mentioned this before, but let me share it with you again. So, and I know it might be a little hard to understand, but I think the guy did a good job when he wrote that jingle for me. So the words are your attitude will be high in every way. You will never fear what they say. It's the art of sales, quote of the day. And the quote of the day comes from Jim Rohn. And Jim said, if you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Hey, thank you so much for investing your valuable sales time with me today. Until next time, go out and make it your best sales day ever. I'm our sub-check. And. Thank you.