Extended Service:
How To Sell Extended
Service
Pt. 3 of 3
By Tom Egelhoff
 In
this final segment of selling Extended Service I'll cover how
to set up your own training program and ways to improve the performance
of your employees.
The first point to keep in mind is that anything that can
be measured can be improved. If you were going to run the 100-yard
dash in the Olympic games what would you do? Wait for the games
to roll around and then just meander on down and take your chances?
Or, would you run a single 100-yard dash and time yourself?
I would hope you would consider the latter. After you know
your base time and you know the world record and you can design
a training program to pare down the difference between the two
times. In order to be successful you'll want to set up a similar
program for your employees. Here's how to do it.
If you have been keeping records of extended service sales
for each employee then you have a base to improve on and you
are slightly ahead of the game. If not, then start keeping track
of how many extended service contracts each sales person sells
but do it without their knowledge.
This part is very important. You must have a base that reflects
their current ability level. If they are trying to empress you
too soon, without the training that will follow, then the road
to success will be that much harder. In addition they may begin
to develop some bad habits. As much as you might think that selling
extended service is an individual effort it is actually a team
effort and the training I suggest will create a positive work
environment and not an adversarial environment.
After you have a track record of each employee announce that
you will have a meeting each week for a month. You may be doing
this anyway. At this first meeting ask each salesperson to tell
you about something they wanted to buy but just didn't have the
funds.
For example it might have been a new leather jacket for $300.00.
Translate the cost of the jacket into numbers of ESP's that the
salesperson would have to sell to afford the jacket. Have them
write down the item to be posted in the break room for everyone
to see. Now each person has a goal that selling ESP's will accomplish.
Next explain that you will meet again in a week to report on
how much closer each one has moved toward their goal.
This next part is extremely important. Under no circumstances
do you reveal any ESP numbers of any salesperson publicly during
this training period. Instead meet with each salesperson individually
and review their numbers privately. What you don't want is each
salesperson competing against the others.
Competition or contests will happen down the road after they
have gained a strong level of self-confidence and are ready for
competition. Competition at this point will only create animosity
from the weaker salespeople toward the stronger. Remember what
I said earlier? You want the final result to be a team effort,
not an individual effort. What you want them to do is first compete
against their best record and see self-improvement before they
compete against others.
Now you are ready to begin the training and create a supportive
team effort. Meet with each salesperson and give them their ESP
sales figures. Let's say that Joe typically waits on an average
of 20 customers per day and averages 2 ESP per week. So if Joe
works five days a week he waits on 400 customers per month and
sells 8 ESP's.
Joe is selling ESP's to only 2% of his customers. There is
obvious room for improvement. Joe can't be asking every customer
to buy an ESP. So for the next week our goal for Joe is not to
sell more ESP's but to simply set a goal of asking every single
customer to buy one. If Joe will commit, this alone should improve
his numbers. That will be his only goal for this week.
Let's take Mary next. She waits on the same 400 customers
but sells 20 ESPs' per month. Over twice what Joe does. But although
Mary has a good sales percentage she is selling one year ESP's
rather than two or three year ESP's.
With Mary we might have two goals. One, make sure that she
also asks every single person to purchase the ESP but in addition
to make sure that she always presents the longer ESP each time
and tries to overcome at least two objections to the longer period.
I would also ask her to collect any customer objections to the
longer contracts and bring those to the next meeting for discussion
among the sales staff.
That way the team can help her develop techniques to overcome
those objections. At the same time the rest of the staff is also
learning how to handle those same objections during their own
sales. Using these techniques the entire group becomes stronger
at each meeting. They begin to rely on each other and each person
becomes a teacher.
And last but not least. Don't post who sold the most and who
sold the least. Instead report on who improved their individual
numbers and congratulate them for their improvement.
The object of this type of training is to build self-confidence
and inner strength to overcome fear of rejection by using the
entire sales staff as a support unit. As each salesperson grows
in ability so does your stores bottom line. Give it a shot. I
know from personal experience it works.
Part One
- Click Here
Part Two - Click
Here
Based in Bozeman, MT, Tom Egelhoff is the author of How To Market, Advertise & Promote Your
Business Or Service In A Small Town, and The
Small Town Advertising Handbook: How To Say More And Spend Less.
He is also a seminar and workshop presenter and trainer.
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