E238: How to Eliminate 'Maybe' Deals and Focus on Customers that Will Actually Make You Money

Today we're going to deep dive into how you can have less maybe, I'm not sure, perhaps later on deals, but focus instead on customers that are actually going to close and make you money. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. Great thing about today's episode is we have one, only one question that we need to be asking our customers that in every single, every single customer that I have rolled this out with has moved the dial in reducing the number of maybe deals, those deals that drag on. I'm not sure. I need to speak to my partner. I don't quite have the money now. I'm waiting for some funds to come in. I'll do it once winter's over. You know, those type of deals I'm talking about. We're going to go through one question that has significantly moved the dial for all of my customers that I have rolled this with. So this is going to be really punchy today. So you need to listen in straight away from the start. And I'm going to run you through how we ran this with a real estate broker, right? Who I actually see as very much being in that trade and industrial type of segment because they're dealing with homeowners, they're dealing with business owners, right? And they're having to get deals done in a very competitive landscape. So what does that question look like? Well, I don't want to hold it too long, but the question that this operator, they're based out of Melbourne and that they rolled out earlier in this year, and I must say I've rolled out with dozens and dozens of our customers, was that in their qualifying, at their lead generation, when they had their very first conversation with their customer, as well as when they got out to their first face-to-face meeting with the customer— so they asked it twice— was to run through the question that quite simply determined whether they were ready to buy or they were just looking. So that question would go something like, "Hey, thanks very much for taking a moment to talk with me on the phone. The most important thing for me to ask you is, is this something you're looking at doing now?" Or are you still trying to determine if it's for you? Is this something that you're going to go ahead with now, or are you not sure if it's the right option for you or your family or your business? Is this something that you are ready, set, go on, you want to get moving as fast as you can, or you need to gather more information before you decide if you're actually going to do it? Now there's 3 ways. They won't work for everyone. You've got to be able to ask this in your own way. But the key question here is to say, okay, I'm buying, right? It's just who I'm going to use. Or no, I'm not actually sure if I want solar. I'm not actually sure if I need a new roof. I'm not sure if I need a new pool filtration system. I'm not sure if I want to paint the whole house, if I need to rewire my electrical, right? If I want an interior designer involved, if I want new concrete, whatever it is, right? But by finding out straight away if the customer's ready to go or they still need education, it allows us to adjust our sales process with them immediately. For those customers that are ready to go, well, it's infinitely easier because we start then prioritize them. We start to then ask some questions around what's most important in the deal, who's involved in the deal, when they want to do it by, and we can go full throttle ahead with that customer. However, for most businesses that I work with, there is always a percentage of customers that are still browsing. They're not actually sure if they want to do it. So the best thing that we can do for them is to actually help educate them. And if we were to go down the path around, okay, what do you need? Who's making the decision? When are you getting it done by? And all those questions that land with someone that's ready to go, well, we're going to risk scaring that person off, or more likely we slow them down. So if we can differentiate immediately when we're first talking with our customers, if they're ready to go or they're just looking, it allows us to not only prioritize them. So it means that we get more fast yeses or fast nos. But it also means that we can then take those customers that aren't and put them into that nurturing sequence, if you like, right? We can start to prioritize educating them, asking them what they need, right? Creating some workflows that will help them along their journey. And for good businesses now, good trade businesses, right? You need to be able to set up nurturing campaigns. If you're not doing it, it's something you need to let me know about and I can give you some ideas. But really impactfully is that those customers who are ready to buy, we run them full steam ahead in our sales process. Those customers that aren't, we have a terrific opportunity to position ourselves as the people they're gonna trust. Because instead of trying to sell them then, we actually help them understand what they need to know before they can make a decision. And my favorite follow-on question for people who are still in the browsing stage is, okay, what are the things you need to understand before you can even consider who you're going to use? What are the key things that we need to go through that you don't yet understand? What are the key things that you're worried about? Is there something I can do to help you learn a bit more about what we do? Is there something I can send you that will help you understand exactly what you want to get done? However you ask this question, we get the opportunity to position ourselves as that person that's there to help. And if we're positioning ourselves as that person that's there to help, then we're building that relationship. And by building a relationship, certainly in the thousands of salespeople I've worked with instances, when they're building those relationships, they get far more yeses. So I love this question because number one, it's allowing you to double down on those customers that are ready to go now. But number two, those that aren't, it's allowing you to recognize them, educate them, and not put them into your funnel where you are pushing for an answer now, but instead recognize that a few things need to happen. They need to step through a few hoops or they need to make a few decisions before they can then get ready to pick you. And by doing that, you're not getting the maybes, I'm not sure, I need to talk to my husband, but you're getting the, hey, these are the things that would really help me. And then when the time's right, you get to dive in and say, all right, are you ready to start talking about what this might look like? And that's when you can move into the normal sales process and go full steam ahead. So only one question today, but that one question, I think, or certainly not I think, that one question I have seen make tangible differences. And I was on a call with this a terrific real estate broking professional this morning when they said this is one of the biggest changes they have made to their sales process among many. And they were certainly glowing of the program that we have, but among many changes that they've made, this was one of the biggest impacts. Because I can tell you, this was someone who was spending way too much time quoting and not winning enough deals. And he had way too many going into the maybe buckets, which meant he had a growing pipeline, but nothing spitting out the other end. He was frustrated. He was getting quite stressed. His leaders were frustrated. And he was stuck working quite long hours, which meant that he just wasn't getting the results from it. So for him, he was able to jump into our program and get those results. But for you, what I'd recommend you do at a minimum is jump into the free quoting quiz that I speak about many of our podcasts because it's going to pinpoint exactly the area where you're not winning more jobs and show you what you need to do to quickly grow your sales by that 20 to 25% mark. It's a free quiz link. I get back to every single quiz that comes through and it takes you less than a minute to do. So jump in, give that a go. But in the meantime, please keep thinking about how you can be 1% better each and every day, because it does make all the difference. Bye for now.