Phone Skills 101: The Art of Closing

If you've been in sales for any reasonable amount of time, you probably have been told repeatedly that closing is the most important skill that you will need to learn to be a successful sales person. And it's 100% true. Sure, knowing your product, your customer and being able to present a solution with a clear value proposition are just as equally important, but the art of closing a deal is truly the quintessential sales skill.


When selling on the phone, there should always be a concise goal that every rep understands how to attain. Many times, managers are to vague in their direction and without clear performance metrics. Beyond total sales, what other performance metrics are being tracked? Number of phone calls, presentations, appointments? These all help define your closing & sales strategy.

Knowing the first 4 steps of the standard 5-step selling process: (1)Sell myself, (2)sell my company, (3)sell my product, (4)sell my price, is essential to the closing step. Building a clear value proposition (what's in it for the customer) that is easily understood by your prospective client will ensure more of your prospects are converted into sales instead of lost opportunities.  


Understanding, practicing and clearly articulating these steps make closing a little less daunting and more natural. Once you have the first 4 steps down, now it's time to seal the deal. 


Multiple Types of "Closes"
There are different closes for different scenarios, situations, products, etc. So understanding where you stand with the client will help you determine the type of close to use. For example, if a customer asked if a product came with a certain feature, using the porcupine close is a great way to close the deal: "If the product came with this feature, would you be ready to take delivery tomorrow?"


Guiding the Prospect with Trial Closes
Closing is not a separate event in the presentation, but integrated throughout the process. Every "yes" obtained is a minor close that helps build value and leads to the ultimate "Yes" when asked for the order. Explain a benefit and feature, then ask, "do you see how this will benefit you (your company)?" In sales, "selling 'aint telling", meaning if you're doing most of the talking, you're not really building value. Ask questions, listen, then ask more questions designed to elicit a yes answer.


Close Ended Questions
It's not enough to just ask questions, the questions should be designed to produce 1, 2 or even 3 possible answers that you want to hear. If setting an appointment, asking "would today or tomorrow be better for you?" would be an appropriate closed-ended question. Open ended questions like "when can you come in", "what do you think?" allow the customer control the call and sales process, making it much more difficult to get YOUR desired result. Example of closed ended questions: Today or tomorrow? Black or White? Yes or No?


In Summary
Having a planned closing process as part of the total presentation will help you convert more of your deals into wins and generate more bottom line revenues. 

Remember, closing means:

• No vagueness or talking too much
• Speak with confidence and energy
• Asking close ended questions that elicit a yes
• Clearly articulate your value proposition, rates, terms and conditions
• Know your objections and rebuttals
• Ask for the order
• Finalize the details:  delivery date, time, etc. 

Happy selling!

3 Simple Steps to Improve Appointment Show Rates

Using these 3 simple steps, your dealership will see a vast improvement in appointment show rates.

by Don Queen, CEO
Dealer Force

Step 1. Don't set an appointment more than 5 day's out

So the customer is interested an appointment, now it's time to close (closed ended questions only!)..."Can you make it in today or would tomorrow be better for you?" Always try to get them in sooner rather than later, it's part of selling the sense of urgency for the offer (we'll discuss the 'Intangibles' of the phone call in our next blog). If they state they aren't available until next week (or more than 5+ days), it's a good idea to set a scheduled call back when you can book a solid date. Our agents book dozens of appointment daily from their scheduled call backs, don't be scared to call back!

As a general rule, only set an appointment if the customer can come in within the next 5 days. Any further out than that, the likelihood of a show diminishes greatly. Simply set a scheduled call back for a more convenient time, then set a firm date and time within the next 5 days.

Step 2. Re-confirm the appointment, on the call

So you booked the appointment, now what? While still on the phone call and after all contact/appointment data has been properly logged, simply re-confirm the date and time works form them.

I like to use this line in our scripts to help create a sense of connection and responsibility for making the appointment: "Lastly Mike, I want to confirm one... more... time... the date and time definitely works for you, I'm accountable for appointments that don't show so I can count on you to be there, right?"

Subconsciously and consciously, the agent is painting a picture that says: "I'm not twisting your arm here, right? I'll get in trouble if you don't show!" This simple line helps solidify a quality appointment that will show.

Step 3. Confirm the appointment via text, e-mail message & phone call

With the world more mobile than ever, most people today use text, cell phones and email as their primary means of communication. Confirming the appointment becomes almost as important as setting the appointment in the first place. Sending a timely reminder message helps keep your appointment at the top of their list for that day.

We use a straightforward confirmation process:

• When initially booked, send an email & text confirmation.
• If a morning appointment, call the afternoon or evening before
• If an afternoon/evening appointment, call the morning of
• Send another reminder text & e-mail 2-4 hours prior
• If need be, place another confirmation call 2 hours prior (if 6+ hrs between initial call & appt)

Most dealer-centric CRM systems come integrated with email and text functionality, so initiating a solid confirmation process should be fairly seamless for most operations. 

Taking these 3 simple steps will help you improve your show rate on appointments, in most cases by upwards to 15%. Good luck and happy selling! 

Finding BDC Success: The 3 Core Essentials

A Business Development Center (BDC) at it's heart, is about one-to-one interaction: People talking to people, connecting & interacting - sales, in all its stages and forms, is still a people business. So for a BDC to truly be successful - to add significant bottom line profits without significantly adding overhead - these 3 key essentials should be part of any new or existing BDC operation .

Key # 1: The BDC Agent

Finding the right agents really starts with defining an agent profile: Articulate, good reading and math skills, enthusiastic, great phone voice, reliable, ability to multi-task, energy, etc. Knowing the traits you want in an agent is vitally important to recruiting the right people. You'll reduce the time spent interviewing unqualified candidates and streamline the entire recruiting process, including agent 'time-to-readiness'.

Recruiting, initial training, ongoing training & quality control also play an important role in developing your agent base. Productivity can be directly linked to how prepared agents are BEFORE they get on the phones and the ongoing feedback received from their calls and overall performance. Creating an ongoing training and quality control process will help your agents understand how to handle objections & rebuttals and close more appointments (which is & should be their primary goal).

Key # 2: Management (and their full buy-in)

Equally important to the success of any BDC, is a management team that has fully bought-in to the integration of a BDC operation (whether in-house or outsourced/offsite). Assigning the right budget, supervisors and processes takes planning, money and time. From operations to administrative support, a BDC requires a management team that understand the functional components of a BDC and the relationship between the agent, dealership and customer. Recruiting, training and quality control processes in place? Check! Performance measurements (KPI), compensation plans, scripts, software and Internet in place? Check!

Key # 3: Technology

With the vast number of lead generation sources available, it's easier than ever to generate a high volume of sales leads for your BDC. Having the right technology to handle the volume is essential. Gone are the day's when a room full of agents manually dialed hand written lists (although many dealers still employ this method). Predictive dialing technology allows for thousands of daily dial attempts and allows for instant response to new leads by integrating with dealer ILM, CRM or other lead databases. Agents no longer have to listen to answering machines and busy signals and on average, will spend 80% of every hour on a live call.

While this is just a summary snapshot, with each of these 3 keys in place & fully operating, a BDC will provide the dealership with:

• Improved lead conversion rates
• Improved market penetration and share
• Higher level of customer service quality
• Profits!

There is obviously much more that goes into a BDC operation, but rarely will a BDC function at a high level without the '3 Core Essentials'.

The (Very Well Known) Secret to More Showroom Traffic: The Phone

Every day, thousands of dealerships across the country struggle with the same issue: "How do I get more people to walk into my showroom???"

Increasingly, dealerships are finding it harder to get traditional advertising and marketing to produce successful results. More money is being spent to generate more leads that convert into fewer UP's on your showroom floor. Does the problem lie in the advertising? The sales rep? Inventory? Competition?

The simplistic answer is that it's a combination of all those things. What many in the business will point to however, is that the benefits of the Internet also include some new challenges, primarily in the form of increased competition. Any dealer in your market can now not only get massive exposure, but they can compete on a car-by-car basis well before the customers ever steps out of their door.

So how are the dealerships that are continuously busy staying busy? How are they beating out the competition? How are they converting more leads into showroom traffic?

The answer is very simple: The phone.

The majority of dealerships that are successfully answering the above mentioned challenges are using the phone to pro-actively reach out to their leads. Revenue growth requires a strong dealership sales cycle, and the best way to add both revenues & profit is to spend the same or less while selling more. Improving your lead conversion rate does just that.

Current Response Rates:
Telephone (8.21%) once again ranks highest, ahead of oversized mail (1.44%), letter-sized direct mail (1.28%), postcard (1.12%) and catalog (0.94%). The median conversion rate for email is 0.03%, while the mean conversion rate is 0.21%. Conversion rates for paid search and display ads are 0.22% and 0.04%, respectively.

Utilizing a Business Development Center (BDC) to make pro-active contact with new and unsold leads is proven to result in higher lead conversion rates. A phone call helps build excitement, create a sense of urgency. A one-one conversation also helps built rapport, overcome objections and sell the appointment.

With a BDC, the dealership benefits from:

• Dedicated phone professionals
• Consistency in the handling of new leads and follow up with unsold leads/past customers
• Ability to handle any lead source and any volume
• A lead-to-buyer cycle that converts more leads into showroom traffic 

Whether you decide to implement a full fledged in-house BDC, a partial BDC or outsource it all together, a BDC and the phone calls they generate is a powerful source of new business, if done correctly. 

In our next article, we'll discuss:

• The 3 key essentials of a successful BDC