After all my years of selling Timeshare and training new and experienced Timeshare sales consultants for resort marketers all over the world, it still never ceases to amaze me the sheer lack of initial and ongoing sales training that the Timeshare industry offers to what I would class as the backbone of the entire industry.
Its Sales People.
The Timeshare industry has got to be the only industry in the world where you can earn more than the average surgeon and yet you only need to attend a one or two week basic sales and product training course before you are classed as a professional sales consultant and let loose on the public.
Your average Doctor on the other hand has to spend years studying and pass numerous stringent examinations, before he is let loose to practise his skills on the public.
So what has happened to the word professional in the Timeshare industry?
To learn any profession takes years of studying.
It doesn’t happen over night.
Don’t think that a career selling Timeshare is any different.
Yes you can gain basic product knowledge on a one or two week sales training course and have an idea of how to present your product to the public. But if you really want to become a professional sales person and make a lifetime career out of selling Timeshare, you need to continually study every aspect of the sales process and keep up to date with the latest closing techniques, people skills and ever changing holiday products that the Timeshare industry has to offer these days.
Even your local Doctor after passing through college and obtaining his degrees, will still attend regular seminars throughout the year to keep up to date with the latest medicines and surgical techniques that are regularly developing,
So why do I meet so many so called Professional sales people who think they already know everything, can’t be bothered to attend the latest sales techniques training seminar that their company has set up for their benefit but would rather sit in the pit and play cards!
They are always the ones who live on they’re past sales and are normally asking for a draw at the end of the month so they can pay they’re rent.
Don’t fall into that trap. Get smart, get professional and learn your trade just like any other professional would.
Don’t treat Timeshare as a summer job or a get rich quick scheme.
Treat it as a long term career, study regularly and seek to constantly improve your sales skills, and I guarantee you Timeshare will give you a very good living for as long as you want it to. And remember. The first thing a true professional learns is that you can never stop learning!
Anyway that’s me getting a pet hate of mine off my chest. Go on if you have something about the Timeshare industry that winds you up and you want to get it of your chest, leave a comment below.
We might not be able to change the industry overnight but at least you’ll feel better for voicing your opinions in public and getting them of your chest just as I have this week.
Next week I’m going to look at some skills to improve your In-house sales.
If there’s a particular sales skill or closing technique that you would like me to cover in future articles, or an objection that you are having a problem overcoming, leave a comment below or drop me an e-mail.
Remember: there is no such thing as a foolish question, only a fool who doesn’t ask questions.
See you next week.
Timeshare Rep or Timeshare Professional - Which One Are You?
TeleSales Tips – Connecting With Your Clients
There are many types of Telemarketing jobs available in the Timeshare industry from, data capturing with telephone surveys to qualifying and producing fly buy leads for the in-house sales team to sell either as first time buyers or existing owner upgrades.
One of the hardest Timeshare Telemarketing jobs in my opinion has got to be upgrading existing owners over the phone. To upgrade an existing Timeshare owner you really have to do some very effective fact finding to be able to point out to them that they really need to purchase another week or more holiday points etc, to get the most out of their vacation ownership.
If you are in a face to face sales situation and know you have your client’s attention for at least an hour or two, then happy days. They are on your resort enjoying their holiday and you only have to show them the latest deluxe apartments, the new facilities that are being added next year and remind them of how fortunate they were to have invested into Holiday Ownership when they did, then offer that special deal for existing members and you will normally have your upgrade.
But how do you do that when you are ringing your client over the phone, in the comfort of their own home and probably a planes journey away from your luxury resort?
You have to immediately gain their attention and permission to do a little fact finding to find out whether they are in a position to upgrade in the first place. This will save you countless time wasted on pitching to the wrong people and just ending up with excuses and neg-ing yourself out.
When they answer the phone forget introducing yourself with the old outdated: “Good morning/afternoon my name is ………. And I’m calling from the ABC Timeshare marketing company”
That sort of introduction just screams I’m a Timeshare telesales person and I want to sell you some more Timeshare and is normally the quickest way these days to end up with:
"I don’t have the time right now"
"I own to much timeshare already"
"It's not in the budget right now"
"I will buy when I am ready to buy"
You see you will have put your clients on a defensive right from the start with your opening statement and instead of gaining their attention and being able to start fact finding, they will be concentrating on working out the quickest way to get rid of you.
Those statements aren’t objections they are excuses to end the conversation as quickly as possible.
Instead try opening with: “Is that Mrs Smith?” “Hi it’s Alan from ABC how are you?” The key is to make it sound like you’ve already spoken two or three times before. Your client will be far more open to a light conversation with someone who appears to know them personally and will now be concentrating more on trying to remember where they know you from, rather than getting rid of you. This will buy you the time you need to start gentle fact finding and asking if they’ve booked they’re holiday for this/next year yet. Are they coming back to their resort or using the exchange system? Have they used all their holiday points for this year and will they be borrowing any from next year? If there where any improvements they would personally make to the resort or the holiday points system, what would they be etc?
You can now start to gently let them admit they would like more holidays or a larger unit or enjoy the better quality units and then offer the solution by getting them a really good deal on a second week or some more points……
You’ve now become the good old friend who helped them out once again instead of just another telesales rep and you can start asking them for referrals and stop your cold calling.
See you next week
If there’s a particular sales skill or closing technique that you would like me to cover in future articles, or an objection that you are having a problem overcoming, leave a comment below or drop me an e-mail.
Remember: there is no such thing as a foolish question, only a fool who doesn’t ask questions.
Are You Closing Deals, Or Closing Doors?
This week I would like to start by thanking Tina and Alice for their e-mails last week. It’s always good to get feed back from you the reader.
I sometimes sit at my laptop till two or three in the morning writing these sales training tips and quite often wonder if anybody really reads them, so when I do get some feedback it inspires me to continue each week in the believe that, if each of you can learn just one more sales skill reading this site. And that helps you to close one more deal and achieve one more sale this month. Then the whole reason for me writing this Sales Training Blog will have all been worth it.
Last week I had the privilege of training a new sales team for a resort marketer that is opening up a brand new cold line this week.
The sales team consisted of a mixture of experienced sales reps and non experienced sales reps.
Some had already been selling timeshare for many years, some were moving from telemarketing over to direct face to face sales for the first time and some had virtually no sales experience at all.
A fairly mixed bunch to say the least.
Whilst planning the weeks training I was reminded of a few things.
The longer you are in sales, the more knowledge you will gain, the harder you make the job!
Sometimes you can read so many sales books on the art of closing deals and overcoming objections that it becomes a battle of wills and the ultimate goal of the salesperson is to force his opponent (the client) into a corner where he has no other option but to buy your product, or run out of the door screaming that he felt too pressurised and needed more time to think about it.
It doesn’t matter as long as you can boast to your fellow sales reps afterwards how you won the battle and forced your client to make a decision on the day even if it was “No!”
I remember way back in my early days being told once to imagine the sales process as like walking your clients down a long corridor. The corridor is full of doors that your clients will try to escape through and it was my job to close all the doors along the way so that the only door left open for the client to walk through was the buying door.
I never realised how wrong that analogy was back then and thought like most new people that the sales profession was a hard job and only the tough survived and made any real money.
What a relief it was when I discovered that the key to achieving more sales wasn’t about forcing your clients to do something they didn’t really want to do. It was all about helping your clients to get what they really wanted. I discovered that all I needed to do was find out through some very thorough fact finding what it was my clients really wanted, provide it within the price range they were willing to pay for it and hey presto, I had another deal.
I stopped working hard at closing my clients into making a decision on the day and started listening to what they wanted instead and guess what? My sales doubled, my closing percentage was higher than it had ever been and I was earning twice the commissions for half the work.
So the moral of this week’s lesson is: Work smart not hard. Get back to basics and start listening to what the clients want to buy instead of trying to close them into buying what you want them to buy and I promise you you’ll start closing more deals with only half the effort. Who knows you might even start to enjoy the job again.
If you there’s a particular sales skill or closing technique that you would like me to cover in future articles, or an objection that you are having a problem overcoming, leave me a comment below or drop me an e-mail.
Remember: there is no such thing as a foolish question, only a fool who doesn’t ask questions.
See you next week.
How To Spot The Decision Maker
There is always one person in a marriage or partnership that is the dominant partner and normally will also control the finances. If you can work out which one of your clients is the decision maker you can be pretty sure that one also controls the finances and can then make sure you are directing all your important closing questions towards the person that will give you the final yes or no at the end of your sales presentation.
As a professional closer, you have to be able to establish early on in your sales presentation which is the decision maker in the husband wife team or you will have wasted your time and lost the respect of both your clients by directing the presentation towards the wrong person.
There are several ways you can spot who the decision maker is.
Here are a few basic guidelines:
As a general rule, the person who does the most talking asks the most questions and shows the most interest in your product will be the dominant partner although this is not always true. Remember you could be presenting your product to a family where an older son might be trying to impress his father and show his intelligence by asking lots of questions about the product, company etc.
In this situation you need to be far more aware of how the rest of the family are reacting and who they all look at the most. The sub-dominant members of the family including the over verbal son will consciously and subconsciously look to the leader for guidance and reassurance.
There are also a couple of tricks you can use to get your customers to identify the leader for you.
Direct all your important closing questions towards one member of the partnership or group. If that person is the decision maker, then he or she will answer you directly and with confidence. If that person isn’t the decision maker, they will feel uncomfortable answering you and will look toward the stronger partner for them to answer you. From that point on you will know who will give you the final buying decision.
When you are presenting your product to more than one couple or larger groups it can be a bit more difficult to work out who is the leader. You can jokingly ask them,
“Okay I give up, which one of you is the boss here”
It might sound silly but believe me, for a split second everyone will look at the leader of the group to see if he or she reveals themselves. (There is always a leader) You have to pay special attention at this point and be extra careful to watch all their eyes or you might miss the clue.
Once you have established who the decision maker is and who controls the finances, go to work and start closing them. The sub-dominant partner will follow the leader and not want to disagree with them at the end when they decide to buy.
On a final note. I’m the boss in my house and I have my wife’s permission to say that!
See you next week.
