Prospecting for Listings– ‘The Battle’
Successfully prospecting on the phone requires three components: good leads, a quick method of calling and good sales skills.
A power dialer is not the only key ingredient to a successful sales effort on the phone. If it was, anybody, with any level of sales skills, could easily make a six-figure income calling on Expireds, FSBO’s and Just Listed/Just Solds. You and I both know, this is not the case.
The Battle
We can easily draw parallels from prospecting on the phone to battle on the battlefield. In battle, you would not just run onto the field guns blazing, right? No – if you value your life, you would get the proper training, come up with a plan of action, and educate yourself on your opponent and their strategies before engaging them. You would also make sure that you had the tools necessary to defeat your enemy – superior weapons and the right ammunition. Even the best plan of action will not succeed if you are not prepared or have the correct tools at your disposal to support your training.
This is exactly why having a power dialer does not guarantee your success. There are other things you need to have in order to win the battle and close the sale. If you have a power dialer, you have the machine gun. Now you need good leads, the ammunition for the machine gun. If your leads are not accurate or the phone numbers are no good, what sense does it make to shoot at the enemy? Get yourself a good lead provider that does their due diligence in getting you Expired listings with good numbers and accurate owner data. Find yourself a source of Just Listed/Just Sold leads; these are great ammunition for a power dialer due to the fact that they are plentiful and provide you with an untapped source for listings.
So, now you have a loaded gun that is lethal. Great! Now what? My advice would be to make sure you know how to aim and shoot it. Also, you will want to make sure you know when to start firing and how to position yourself so that you are not shot – this takes knowledge, skill and training. Your competition is knowledgeable and trained, so you better be as well, or else you will be lying on the battlefield wondering what just happened.
The best investment you can make is not in your leads or machine gun, it is in YOU! You create your own success and, therefore, your destiny. If you want to be successful, you need to be involved in ongoing training and take learning seriously. If you think you know everything already, then your battle is already lost. Some good advice if you take selling real estate seriously is to get a coach. You wouldn’t go in to battle alone right? Engage mastermind groups and learn from your peers. Our most successful users are those who belong to a coaching organization and who frequent mastermind groups to find out how others are being successful. Ongoing training is necessary because the bulk of the things we learn are forgotten. Practice does not make perfect; it makes permanent! Role-play the skills your coach teaches you with your peers and you will become a machine. You will not have to think about what to say on the phone; you will be programmed and it will come to you naturally.
It might be wise to ask this question of yourself: do you want to go at selling on the phone with a BB gun full of plastic BB’s and no idea how to shoot it? Or do you want to attack phone sales after weeks of boot camp and specialized training, armed with an M-16 full of armor-piercing bullets? It is up to you…
We’ve got the machine gun.
-David England, Sales Manager
www.mojosells.com
