These are based on the Marketing Principle: It is better to talk to 10 people who want what you have to offer than 100 tire kickers.
In marketing, we teach our clients that it is better to Reach 10% of the Market and persuade them 100% of the way than to Reach 100% of the market and persuade them 10% of the way.
When you are in the business of selling, you better be good at figuring out as quickly as you can, these 6 things.
Here are 6 Ways to disqualify the tire kickers.
1. Are they the decision-maker? Do they have the ability to say yes?
Don’t waste your time making a presentation to an audience that can’t make the final decision.
2. Are they a member of your target audience? Every business has customers or clients that can be broken out according to the 80/20 Principle.
20% of your customers are generating 80% of your profits.
By the way, this principle holds true for your employees and your products/services you offer.
If you want to be more effective, you have to separate these and start focusing on the 20%.
Let’s say you have 3,000 active customers.
This Principle or Natural Law will show you that 600 of those are generating 80% of your profits. And ultimately, you will want to know who the 4% are that are generating 64% of your profits.
Helping you discover this 20% is the 6th element of our Essential Elements Discovery process.
See my article on this subject here: “Who should you be selling to?”
3. Do they have the money?
My two main businesses have been the automotive retail industry and real estate.
Two big ticket items. You better be good at qualifying whether your prospect can afford what you have to offer.
In the auto industry, there are “tire kickers” and there are “buyers”.
When you are strictly on commission, you better learn how to quickly and respectfully qualify your audience.
4. Is there a sense of urgency? Do they have an immediate problem that they need a solution to?
Twenty or so years ago I spent a year having Jay Abraham teach me his marketing principles. One of his pieces of advice that really stuck was “It is better to talk to 10 people who want what you have to offer than a 100 tire kickers.”
Jim Rohn had a similar approach when he said “the best advice I can offer is for you to realize that you have permission to ‘talk about what matters’ only to people who care.”
5. Do they want what you have to offer? Does your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) match what they want?
A unique selling proposition (USP) is your unique answer to these questions:
• What does your product or service do that your competitors doesn’t?
• Why should I buy from you instead of anybody else?
• What guarantee can you make that nobody else can make?
These are the things that make it easier for them to say Yes rather than No!
Effective marketing/selling gets people to raise their hand and say “I want what you have to offer.”
It’s the difference between chasing leads versus having them chasing you.
Which one sounds like more fun, easier and more lucrative?
Read my blog on this issue here: USP! What Is Your Unique Selling Proposition?
6. Do you have a solution for their problem?
Whatever you sell needs to be in harmony with the natural and existing forces in their life right now.
The sooner you learn how to disqualify the 80%, the faster you will dominate your market.
Two huge mistakes almost every business makes
1. They don’t capture the contact information on everyone they come in contact with, name, address, phone number, email address are the basics.
But if you want to excel at this, learn as much as possible about them as you can so that in your future communications, you can share things that are of interest to them.
I used to find out all of the demographic and psychographic information I could.
2. Businesses have no consistent marketing strategy for follow-up.
Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up with things that add value to their lives.
That is why, over the course of time, the more you know about who you know, the better and more trusting your relationship with them will be.
Effective marketing/selling is all about creating trusting relationships.
How badly do you want to not only DOMINATE your market within your industry but do it with less time, effort and money invested?
How badly do you want to have more personal time and more consistent cash flow and higher profits?
Remember this: It is better to reach 10% of the market and persuade them 100% of the way than to reach 100% of the market and only persuade them 10% of the way.
Stated another way: Ten sales are better than 100 “be-backs.”