Yesterday I received a call from the gym where I work out every day. I didn’t recognize the number and I was on another call, so I let it go to voicemail. Once I listened to the voicemail, I realized that they were just trying to sell me one of their new membership packages, and I was glad I didn’t pick up.
This is a HUGE company with multiple locations and it’s sad that they have such a quality product, but such a poor sales approach. I like it there. I have no reason to name their company here, but I am going to tell you what they did wrong, how they could have gotten more money out of me, and even made me happier along the way.
I’m going to share three of their failures, and three important secrets that will make all the difference in your success when you are pitching new and existing customers.
To be honest, a lot of companies large and small have a sales pitch that sucks.
Why The Sales Pitch From My Gym Sucked:
1. The message was too long.
If you are going to leave a voicemail, that’s fine. I’ve actually had great success with leaving voicemails while cold calling new and existing clients. It just needs to be short and peak their interest enough to get them to call back. You won’t close a deal with a voicemail.
2. The saleswoman called my son a SHE.
Now I don’t expect everyone to know what gender my son’s name is. However, assuming one way or the other just made them look bad. They could have said “your child” or not said anything at all. Again, the message was too long and it sounded impersonal, so this didn’t help.
3. She immediately began with the price.
Starting with the price doesn’t always hurt, but not when you start with the price you want to sell the customer on.
How Do You Fix A Bad Pitch?
First off, don’t keep doing the same thing unless you are getting killer results. If you are closing more than 40 percent, you can stop reading this! You are wasting your time.
If you don’t feel like you’re getting the results you need, then I’m going to give you three secrets that you can apply to your pitch. With these three techniques, you’ll be able to be more confident, close more deals, and also make your customer feel good about their purchase.
1. Get your propaganda right!
I know that the word propaganda is usually associated with political or war time activities, but let’s reframe it here and imagine that you are about to deliver the absolute best solution out there for your prospective clients and existing customers. If you are really delivering a world class product or service, then more people need to know about it.
My gym just plopped a signboard in the hallway and then called me with a way-too-much information voicemail. That’s a failure in propaganda; a failure in marketing that then led to a failure in sales. Get your propaganda right by doing the following:
- “Leak” information out early and slowly. People love finding out about something before they’re supposed to, so give away the best perks of your new product or service to the people with the biggest mouth (or reach) and let them start the rumors for you.
- Ask your best customers and biggest fans to join a “Beta testing” group to try out your new products and services ahead of anyone else. This will help you work out the bugs in your product and will make them into your biggest champions.
- Before publishing prices, talk about the long term savings and benefits of the new products or service levels.
While those are only a few suggestions, I think you get the idea. Spreading good rumors about your upcoming products and services will go a long way when it comes time to actually launch and sell to the rest of the group.
2. Give your customers options.
Even today, although I have glanced at the signboard in the hallway and received a regurgitated phone sales script, I’m not entirely certain if there is a single upgrade option for my gym or if there are multiple options. There should be multiple options. Customers want customization.
As I read about the incredible growth that Netflix is experiencing this year, I was struck by their statement (I am paraphrasing), “We have 30 million different versions of Netflix.”
That is a big lesson for any business owner to take to heart. The more that you can actually personalize your service, or at least give the feeling of personalization in your customer interactions, the more sales success you’ll have.
Be sure to offer at least three different levels of your product with different options and price points. If you do this, and then apply the next secret tool I am sharing with you today, you’ll see sales and profits rise.
Give your customers options, and make it personal. They deserve it.
3. Sell top to bottom.
Anytime you are releasing a new product or service, you need to be mindful of the psychology of sales. In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the author Robert talks about the difference between trying to get a consumer to move up the product line or down the product line when it comes to prices. According to his research, studies show over and over that when you start by listing off your lowest priced item and work your way up, customers will buy at a lower price point and also feel more disgruntled about the salesperson and sales process.
When you start with your top line item, and work your way down from there, customers buy at a higher price point AND they have a very positive feeling about their salesperson and buying experience in general.
While that may be counter-intuitive to the average sales person or business owner, I can tell you from personal experience that starting at the top and working down yields MUCH better results and truly does leave the customer feeling better about the whole interaction.
If the salesperson from my gym had given me options (in person or in a live call, not a voicemail), then I would have felt better about my options and may have even bought the upgraded membership.
This is a simple and easy-to-apply secret that will raise your bottom line sales number higher than ever before. If you are the primary salesperson, then promise to make that change immediately. If you lead a team of salespeople, then change protocol today and be sure to enforce it! You’ll be glad you did.
Apply It:
Now that I’ve shared these secrets with you, it’s your job to apply them. Take time and teach someone else about these tools as well. When you apply it and teach it to someone else, it will stick with you and become a way of life.
What do you think? Have you found a great sales pitch that works? Have you had a terrible pitch given to you?
Share your stories in the comments below.
Give us a call at 312-857-8373 today or contact us, and we’ll be happy to help you find a sales pitch that works!
[wufoo username=”zigzap” formhash=”z7w5s5″ autoresize=”true” height=”” header=”show” ssl=”true”]
