Move Over 10in1

The logic behind why some salespeople fight the TRAX system when they first see it.

Why some salespeople occasionally fight TRAX and monitoring/measuring their sales activity.

The Five Reasons Are:

1. It’s a natural inclination in this country to resist anything resembling Big Brother or the thought of someone looking over your shoulder. There are very strong laws and covenants that prevent our government or anyone in the private sector from doing this. Our society is based on freedom and individual liberties that protect us from government, or anyone else invading our privacy without just and undeniable cause. Fortunately TRAX does not get personal in any way.

2. Another reason is that many salespeople are totally unfamiliar with computers and frankly are not interested in learning about them.

3. Probably the most prominent reason is that it is a natural reaction to not want others to see what may be a deficit or fault in one’s business performance compared to their peers.

4. The perception is that they are already operating at maximum efficiency and that TRAX will only add to their already “perceived” extensive workload.

5. You have a salesperson that is taking advantage of the system and when you find out how badly they are hurting your company your head will spin. They know that you will discover that they are talking with more than twice as many customers as the average salesperson in your company and they have a RPU (revenue per up) far below everyone else even though they might be one of your top dollar volume writers . They are skating and chasing away more customers than you can imagine because they do not have the interpersonal skills to develop a long-term relationship lasting more than 45 minutes.

Reason #1 regarding the owner learning closing ratios is an interesting one. TRAX in no way invades any individual’s personal liberties. It simply measures each individual’s sales activity and compares it to the rest of the company. Some salespeople feel that the customers they work with are their customers they work many hours with them so that they belong to them and not necessarily the company. The real question is who risked their personal credit when they went to the bank to start the business. Who signs the checks for rent, advertising, and inventory? Those are your (the owner’s) customers and you have every right to know what happened with every one of them. How many did not buy and if they did not purchase from you, why not?

How much do you spend on rent, advertising and inventory? The fact is that your most valuable resource is the customer who visits your company and does not purchase. This hot prospect is by far your least expensive and most lucrative untapped gold mine.

Reason #2 is the lack of experience with using a computer. The psychologists say it takes about 21 days to turn a skill into a habit. This goes the same for good habits and also bad habits. The learning curve and creation of this habit occurs actually much faster because TRAX forces each salesperson to use it because this is the only way they are going to be able to speak with another customer. The learning curve for the average salesperson is about 5-10 minutes and the total indoctrination is about three days. This is the time it takes for a salesperson to be comfortable and have going to the TRAX UpBoard be totally automatic and natural, where they don’t even think about it. Any worthwhile learned skill will require an initial effort. TRAX is just much easier than anyone thinks when he or she first sees it.

Reason #3 discussed was the fear that others will see their numbers and there is an inherent resistance to this. Many times this is simply a fear of the unknown. Most are not sure about you the owner and what kind of reaction you are going to have if you learn that closing ratios are substantially lower than believed. Some honestly think that you may immediately fire all of them if you really knew what was going on. When they learn that this is a tool designed to help make everyone more successful and profitable most quickly warm up to the idea.

When they see how fast and easy it is to use and that it is like giving each one of them their own personal secretary that creates personal letters for all unsold and sold customers and reminds them each morning of daily activity they quickly become addicted to TRAX and develop the habit of using it with every prospective customer they come in contact with.

Reason #4 and the perception the typical salesperson has on the sales floor. The big problem is that if you ask most salespeople what they think their personal closing ratio is, many will inform you that it is over 70%. (They honestly think that they close more than 7 out of 10 prospective customers they speak with). My good friend John F. Lawhon says the reason for this is because they subconsciously do not count what they perceive are not good prospects, or real customers. These customers in their minds are time wasters, tire kickers, mooches and numerous other descriptive terms which I will not elaborate on here. They will be delighted to inform you that if the customer who spent a lot of money and did not take a lot of their time was a “good customer”. If they used a lot of their time and did not spend much money they were a “bad customer”. If a sale was not made they are “not a customer” at all. This is a tire kicker or time waster who has no intention of ever buying because (if I can’t sell them, no one can) and they should not be counted as real customers. We believe that if the customer risked their life in an automobile to get to you they are very good prospects and are probably going to buy something from someone. Many retail sales trainers say the average customer will shop at an average of six retail stores before they buy. If this is only half true you must have a reliable solid follow-up program for your salespeople.

Reason #5 this person needs to be trained properly or let go as fast as you can get them out the door. This person may have been with you for years and is a good writer yet is killing your long term success because most of the customers they work with will never ever return to your showroom.

Let me ask you. If you were a salesperson and you honestly believed that your closing ratio was around 60% there would not be much room for improvement, would there? Any new follow-up program would be a total waste and would only cost you time and money. How can anyone improve near perfection?

After six years of intense research in the area of studying closing ratios in thousands of different retail environments I have discovered a harsh reality. The average salespersons conversion ratio hovers around 15%, with many below 10%.

The first time anyone sees this information they are in denial. Many of these salespeople have been on the sales floor over 30 years and there is no way a fancy electronic infrared gizmo or automated up system is going to make them look bad. The first reaction with some is one of indignant resentment then one of fear. Many of them earn very good money and they don’t want to upset the apple cart.

With the traffic counter when they see the numbers consistently coming in with less than 15% ratios many say there is no way it can be correct. I had a large dealer with 15 salespeople who were getting up to 100 customers per hour on weekends. The dealer thought the traffic counter had to be defective and he was going to prove it. He hired 2 teenagers to take turns counting traffic that entered his store. They used legal pads and kept track of the number of customers who entered and also a separate list of non-customer activity per hour. The TRAX system was accurate within 2%. We think there was a 2% difference because the girls had to go to the restroom and we didn’t.

The amazing fact is that once you establish the true and accurate conversion ratio for your company then the reality of the potential you have can be realized.

I had another friend of mine I have known for over 20 years ask me to install a system. Before we installed I asked what they thought there closing ratio was. They said it was between 35 and 40%. This showroom at the time had an average of 9 salespeople and was generating over $600,000 per month in sales.

We set up the system and discovered they were getting between 20-30 new customers per hour on the weekend and their overall closing ratio was 6.09%.

My good friend called me and said, Dave, it’s simple math…I just realized that if we can get our salespeople to figure out how to sell just 3 more customers per hundred we would increase our gross sales by a whopping 50%. He currently has 15 salespeople and is averaging between $1,000,000 and $1,200,000 in sales per month. If you do the math each salesperson is making more money.

Take advantage of the tools and automation available to you and dramatically improve your closing ratios and your profits.

Thank you for the opportunity to work with you. We enjoy being associated with you and appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Dave Mink

P.S. The biggest benefit that TRAX provides the company is that it identifies understaffing issues quickly. Most salespeople don’t want to see you hire new salespeople because they believe that if you hire a new person you are taking sales from them and money out of their pocket. They honestly believe the pie is only so big and that they are closing every single person that will purchase and sales will not increase with more salespeople. TRAX accurately determines if you are understaffed and proves to your veteran people that both you and they are loosing money. It helps identify how many people you really need and typically promotes the attitude from the existing salespeople to help new people and groom them into keepers.

After you have had the system running for at least a couple weeks we will perform the following diagnostic and determine what specific strengths and weaknesses your company has regarding TRAX. We believe that with a passing grade you will see substantially more sales improvement than the $5,000 per salesperson per month guarantee we typically promise.

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