Grow Market Lead
It’s closing
time
BY STEVE OLSON
Improve Your Sales
Staff’s Results
Closing your team’s performance gaps
S
ixty-five percent of surveyed
franchise CEOs, presidents,
and senior development executives “believe there is a
shortage of selling skills” in today’s recruitment market, according to Franchise Update’s 2014 Annual Franchise
Development Report.
This is not good news, considering
that the 101 surveyed participants represent franchisors engaged in growing
their brands. However, there are performance solutions savvy franchisors
have embraced to improve their selling expertise. One such antidote is just
keystrokes away. This involves using
sales management technology already
in place. New brands need not worry,
as spreadsheets can accomplish the
same results until they install a sales
software system.
How to make it work
Establish your criteria for measuring
sales skills based on the performance
metrics of the six core steps of the recruiting process: 1) prequalification,
2) program review, 3) franchise disclosure review, 4) franchisee validation, 5)
discovery day, and 6) closing the deal.
Evaluate your sales team or sales
person by tracking their individual
performance within your process, measuring their skills to successfully move
prospects through the sales funnel. Track
each salesperson’s performance to determine how many of the prequalification
leads they receive submit applications
and engage in your program review.
Then, track each person’s percentages in
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leading these prospects from your program review to the FDD review. How
many go to the franchisee validation
step? And most important, how many
attend discovery day and complete the
franchise purchase?
Where do prospects tend to drop
out? Review the metrics and analyze
where the breaks are in your funnel.
Sometime you’ll discover your sales
team is performing, but your brand
is not! If your sales people noticeably
struggle to move candidates beyond
the validation step, it’s probably because frustrated franchisees are scaring
candidates away with poor reviews!
When you assess each stage for every
person on your sales team, you can determine their strengths and weaknesses.
If someone is hitting home runs at a
certain point in the process, showcase
them in your sales meetings. It provides
a teaching moment for your best performers, who can proudly share their
particular successes with the group.
“Bill, it seems everyone you present an FDD
to moves forward to the validation stage.
This far exceeds the team average. Tell us
how you initially set expectations with your
candidates, prepare for and deliver the information in a manner that makes them
feel comfortable, and then prompt them to
move to the next step.”
Two bonus sales skills tips
Ralph Ross, founder of American National Fidelity Group, was a mastermind of franchise selling. He taught
the self-learning process of recording
your sales calls so you can listen to the
playback and perfect each step of your
sales presentation. If you haven’t tried
this, do it because it works! It’s a Berlitz-type technique for faster learning,
even more so than traditional role-play.
Here were his instructions to me:
“Tape your sales calls on a recorder during
the next week. When you feel comfortable
with your performance, give me your two
best copies.” After reviewing the material, Ralph called me into his office,
where we replayed notated segments.
What you discover when you shop
yourself is that mistakes leap out that
you can instantly correct, such as talking too much and not listening enough;
not probing with open-ended questions; repeating yourself; allowing
your prospect to take control; forgetting key benefits; pushing rather than
leading the candidate; or not setting
up the next call effectively. I strongly
recommend this self-teaching process
for new and seasoned sales people. It’s
self-improvement on steroids!
Second, mystery shop your sales
team—at least every six months. Fortunately, there are many great recruiters
in our industry. But there also are sales
people who talk a big game but don’t
deliver. Most of us have heard these
excuses: “I’m not getting good leads,”
“I’m selling in a bad territory,” “There’s
too much competition in our business.”
Shopping your sales team is a required best practice. There’s too much
at stake not to. Work with your sales
performers who follow your process.
Say bye-bye to the rest. They cost you
many thousands of dollars in lost sales
and royalty income.
To sum this up, performance metrics will help you target and fix selling
challenges on your own. If you suspect
your franchise program is contributing
to your problem, consider a franchise
development expert to help solve bigger issues at hand! n
This is an excerpt from my Amazon.com
best-selling book, Grow to Greatness: How
to Build A World-Class Franchise System
Faster. For ordering information, go to www.
growtogreatness.net. I can be reached at
562-856-1909 or [email protected].