Were you worried about $4 gas? How about your 10% sales close rate?

If I could find a way to get the part of your mind that was concerned about $4.25 at the pump to make the same connection to your 10% close rate, I could make you rich.  Fact is you shouldn’t just be concerned about a sub-50% close rate, you should be seeing red alarm bells going off.  $4 hits you in the wallet; what about the nine (or eight, or seven, or five) prospects that didn’t buy from you?  Four-dollar gas costs you and extra $100 a month; nine prospects not buying costs you $20,000.  Losing $20,000 a month is the equivalent of paying $320 a gallon for gas.

So why did those prospects not buy and what can you do about it?  There are two key reasons.  I discussed the first reason in a previous post … here is the second (of two) reasons.

REASON #2 of 2:

Those prospects don’t buy because you didn’t dollarize.

People make money to spend it – but companies make money to keep it.  Companies don’t buy products for entertainment value or to keep up with the neighbors.  Companies buy things so they can make more money.  If you haven’t shown the prospect how they are going to make money with your service, they are going to have a very difficult time separating themselves from their money.

To dollarize is to put things in dollars and cents.  Businesses speak in dollars and cents.  They speak in return on investment and profit and loss.  Businesses don’t speak in value; they have a hard time putting dollar figures around things like “you’ll have more time on your hands” or “you’ll have a faster network.”  Put it in dollars and cents and raise your close percentage.

KEY POINT:  If you only talk about the expense (otherwise known as price), your customer will never see you as a novel way to make more money – to be profitable.  Stop selling people on how much money they lose by buying from you; start dollarizing.

Four-dollar gas is no fun, but it is nothing like prospects walking away without buying.  Prospects buy when they are sick and you can heal them; show them how and you win.  Let me dollarize it for you:  take the average revenue from a new customer times the number that don’t buy each month … add the loaded cost of your sales rep times the percent of prospects that don’t buy:  that is your dollarized loss.  Convinced you need to work on your close rate?  Good, I can assure you these two principles work – my clients have a close rate much closer to 85%.