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How would you expect the results to change? I would expect the results to be dramatically different. The more skilled the individual the better the results. This begs the question is the problem with the method or the individual?
Expecting is if fine--but all it is is suspicion. That's far different than knowing. The only way to know is for the salesperson to keep accurate records over a sustained period of time.
Suspecting can lead to false beliefs.
Let me give an example. One of my coaching clients had been doing three types of marketing before we got together. She cold called, she networked through an organization that had a good number of prospects for her, and she worked some of the orphan files from her company.
When we started working together she expected very definite results to be revealed about her sales business. Cold calling was by far her best marketing method and the orphan files were a total waste of time.
When we sat down and analyzed her numbers over the past year, we found that she did, in fact, get the majority of her clients from cold calling. We also found that she spent the vast majority of her time cold calling. However, her closing ration with cold calling was only in the high 20 percent range.
When we looked at her networking through the organization, we found that the number of clients she had developed was only about 11% of her total but her closing ratio was a little over 50%. She spent very little time working within this organization.
When she worked the orphan files, her closing ratio when up to almost 65%. But she spent almost no time on working orphan files because it seemed to take so long to go through the files and find viable candidates to call.
It seemed that cold calling was her best source of new clients because it "felt" that way. After all, that's where most of her clients came from.
In reality, spending more time on the boring work of going through orphan files and then working those for referrals has increased her production by over 100% this year. She still "feels" like she is wasting a lot of time. But the numbers prove otherwise. Although it takes time to shift through the files, she can uncover far more viable prospects with the orphan files than she can in the same amount of time cold calling.
Of course, she still does some cold calling and she is still involved in the organization. She has increased her participation in the organization and is seeing an increase in business there also. She is spending more time on those things that actually produce a higher close ratio--and more business, even though she suspected they weren't performing as well as cold calling.
The percentage of business she has closed this year from cold calling is down from over 75% last year to just over 20% this year. Yet, she more than doubled her production. An increasing amount is coming from referrals and from her interaction in the organization and less and less is coming from cold calling and even from the orphan files.
One of our objectives was to get the referrals kicked in because the orphan files aren't going to last forever. She probably has another 5 or 6 months of orphan files to go through then that well will have run dry. So she is positioning herself to be prepared for that.
Sometimes our suspicions aren't very accurate. -pmccord
You keep referring to successful Realtors. We're talking here about the huge mass of unsuccessful salespeople trying to figure out how to become successful. They are the ones lost in a sea of salespeople; they are the ones following the crowd; they are the ones emulating the others in the office because they believe that's what they're supposed to be doing; they are the ones using the strategies that every other Realtor that isn't successful is using.
My experience is the successful Realtors don't do what everyone else is doing.
As I've pointed out in other posts, the methods being used today still work today. But they are dying.
For instance, there have been several bills in Congress to adopt absolute No Call legislation, outlawing any cold call of any kind, as some European countries have. If that is adopted which will probably happen at some point in the future, I'd say cold calling is dead.
Many cities either have or are looking at outlawing all the cheap signs salespeople stick up on street corners and other public places.
Congress--and other countries--are trying to figure out how to catch and stop spammers--including anyone who sends any unsolicited email of any kind that is designed to market something or someone.
Many of the other basic marketing tactics are also under siege from various sectors. The basic problem is people are sick of traditional marketing. -pmccord