Reject Rejection and Other Jewels – Simply Sales with Scott

Timeless Sales Wisdom for Travel Advisors Ready to Turn Leads into Loyal Clients

 

Contributed By: Scott Koepf, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)– Cruise Planners

 

I search out and read every book I can find on Marketing and Sales so I can share some tips and suggestions to help you grow your business. The number of books (not to mention videos, podcasts and articles) on Marketing are in the thousands with more content coming out every day. However, it amazes me how few books there are specifically on sales. Sales and Marketing tend to get lumped together in many discussions, but they are markedly different. While there are many definitions of each, the one I use is quite simple: 

 

Marketing is becoming A choice

and

Sales is becoming THE choice

 

Marketing and Sales are quite distinct and take different skill sets. I certainly recommend to all travel advisors to read, watch and learn about marketing as everything in our business starts with a customer. Unless you are in a large enough agency where individuals are just doing marketing or just doing selling, you will need to master both. Successful marketing is great but if you are not proficient at sales, marketing will end up being an expensive waste of time.

 

Unfortunately, there are not that many books focused on just selling skills, especially in the travel business. Exceptional marketing may deliver a large quantity of leads but turning a leads into lifetime clients is the only true gauge of success. Great sales skills are not industry specific, so I suggest spending time everyday mastering the art of sales from the few who teach it well. One of the few teachers of selling was Tom Hopkins and here are a few of his ideas with my commentary to help improve your ability to turn leads into bookings:

 

 

1. We are motivated by money, security, achievement, recognition, acceptance, self – acceptance and love of family. Set your education and then your sales goals to keep you energetic and excited to achieve what you want in these areas.
2. The pain of change is forgotten upon realization of the benefits of change. Or another way to say this is that to improve anything you need to change and change will cause pain! However, go back to number 1 and realize that what motivates you will be worth the pain which will be forgotten when your goals are achieved.
3. Sales are made on emotions then backed by facts, not visa versa. This is the basis of relationship selling and why the most important thing to focus on when selling is not the product but trust. Get to know your clients and let them get to know you, presenting facts can be left to the internet so do what only you can do – connect with people.
4. The most important tool of sales is your mouth and the second is your telephone. Sure we are a digital society and text and email and social media will all play a roll in both marketing and sales. However, relationships and bookings will almost always require phone calls so do all you can to get your prosects and clients on the phone. Phone skills may be one of the greatest assets in improving sales.
5. Reject rejection – ‘No’ is not a stop sign but just a speed bump that means you need to slow down and determine a different approach. Make sure you have built trust first and then addressed any concerns. The second meaning of this is important too as sometimes you may do everything right and still not close the sale. If you did all you could in a professional manner and you get a final ‘no’, then reject that as a rejection of you as you will never get to a 100% close rate. Don’t beat yourself up and go back to number 1!
6. Know your Numbers -I am sure you agree that you will never get to a 100% close rate on the leads you generate, but do you know what that percentage is? It is called your CRP – Closing Rate Percentage and you should diligently track it. Once you know that number then you know how many leads you need to get to your sales goal (If you have a CRP of 20% and want to sell 100 vacations then you need 500 leads). Travel is sexy but business is numbers – know yours!

 

 

Mr. Hopkins ideas are not new and my commentary on those ideas are not revolutionary, but sales is all about human relations and even in the digital and Artificial Intelligence age we live in, that has not and will not change!