What's Your Lose Number?

What's Your Lose Number?

By

Eric M. Twiggs

“Yes is the destination, NO is how you get there” Richard Fenton

In his book “Go For No”, Richard Fenton tells the story of a Chicago Insurance Company struggling to sell policies.   The typical agent was only selling 2 per month and the executive board was getting desperate.   The CEO decided to call in a well-known sales consultant to help them improve. 

 After spending thirty minutes reviewing reports and talking with the agents, the consultant communicated the following message to the leadership team: “Your people aren’t making enough sales calls!”

Sensing their disbelief, the sales guru asked them to participate in an experiment.  Each agent would spend the day in a randomly assigned territory selling door to door to new prospects. 

When the potential customer answered the door, the rep was only allowed to say: “You don’t want to buy life insurance today, do you?”   At the end of the day, they met back at the office to report their results.   

In spite of their sales pitch, every agent sold at least 1 policy.    Each rep visited 60 prospects and was rejected an average of 59 times, most with doors slammed in their faces!  Their day was a complete failure right?  Guess again.   The consultant used these findings to prove each seller needed to experience 59 daily failures to achieve their goal of 1 sale per day! 

This lose number completely changed the company.  Policy sales improved from 2 per month per agent to each rep selling 1 per day!

Bryan Stasch has taught you about your WIN number.   To win in sales, you need a lose number as well!

What’s your lose number?  Stay with me and you will learn my three step plan to figure out how much you need to lose in order to win.  We will use the exit appointment and fleet sales as the example.  

1.       Establish a Measurement Tool

You can’t manage what you don’t measure.  So before you can calculate your lose number, you need a reliable measurement tool.  Most shops use the daily estimate tracker to record information on each customer.  For exit appointments, they mark a Y in the appropriate column for every customer that said yes and an N for those who declined. Any documented patron who doesn’t have a Y or N in this column, is someone who was never offered an appointment.   

Having the tracking system gives you the opportunity to inspect what you expect, and positions you to hold your service writers accountable. 

Many shops have someone who’s designated with responsibility over fleet sales.  Using a tracking log to measure who they have visited, when they were there, and what the outcome was, will keep your fleet salesperson on track with your expectations.

 The insurance company story teaches us that sales is a numbers game.   The tracking log is a great tool to put those numbers on paper. 

2.       Set a Goal

Attempting to improve your sales without having a goal in sight, is like shooting baskets in the dark. You work up a sweat, but can’t tell if you’re winning or losing.  The solution is to identify and communicate specific goals for the number of exit appointments and fleet customers you expect each week. 

   

        

The target should be a number aggressive enough to make the advisor stretch, but achievable based on recent trends.  Asking someone who’s only been scheduling 4 appointments a week to now schedule 16 would be overwhelming. Setting a goal to improve from 4 to 8 would be a stretch, but achievable at the same time.    

       

        

3.       Know Your Conversion Rate

Now that you have a measurement tool, and have set achievable goals, you’re one step closer to calculating your lose number.  The final step is to know your current conversion rate.  For every 10 customers you ask to schedule an appointment, how many say yes?  How many weekly fleet cold calls result in a new sale?   

Based on my research of ATI clients, the average exit appointment conversion rate is around 50% and the typical fleet conversion rate is 30%   In other words, 5 out of every 10 customers says yes and 3 out of every 10 fleet attempts results in a sale.   To compare your results, divide your total number of successes into the total number of attempts for the last 4 weeks. 

Here is where your lose number comes in:  If your goal is to schedule 5 appointments per week, with a 50% conversion rate, you need to lose at least 5 times to hit your goal. (5 divided by 50% minus 5) On the fleet side, if your goal is 3 new fleets and your conversion rate is 30%, you need to hear the word NO a minimum of 7 times a week to succeed. (3 divided by 30% minus 3). 

Imagine what your fleet results would look like if you kept making calls until you achieved 7 no’s even though you hit your goal of 3 early in the week!

Summary

Establishing a measurement tool, setting a goal, and knowing your conversation rate, will allow you to set an accurate lose number for whatever you are selling.   Focusing on the NO’s is the insurance you will need for future success! 

      

         Eric M. Twiggs

        The Accountability Coach

         www.autotraining.net

          

 PS.  I have a Fleet tracking log you can use as a measurement tool to keep your fleet sales manager accountable and to track your lose number.  Email etwiggs@autotraining.net and I will send it