OPC's - You Either Love Them Or Hate Them

If you have ever worked or are still working as a sales rep in Timeshare you will either love or hate the OPC’s (Off Premises Canvassers) or (Outside People Catchers) as I like to call them.

Either way, whether you like it or not they have always been and still remain a fundamental part to your marketing strategy when running a Timeshare cold line.

Without the OPC’s getting clients to attend a presentation on your resort you wouldn’t have any body to sell to, so before you start moaning about the latest blag or quality of the UP you have just had to tour and try to get a deal out of, lets take a closer look at the role the OPC’s play in marketing Timeshare and the qualities they possess to be able to do what they do.

Let’s look first at how the OPC’s work and the things they have to put up with on a daily basis:

It helps to be young and fairly good looking but it’s not essential. A chirpy happy go lucky attitude and the ability to accept rejection without it getting you down are far more important.

Once you have found your patch or stand you must be prepared to approach every couple that passes you by and in a split second make an instant friend. You need to be able to qualify that your clients fall into certain brackets i.e.: are they married, do they own their home or rent it and is one of them in full time employment. There will be other qualifications like ages and income brackets etc, but these you can start to get out once you have created some sort of rapport with your couple.

You are now going to talk this couple into getting into a strangers car or taxi in a foreign country where they probably don’t speak the language, not knowing where you are taking them on the promise of some sort of free gift or duty free pack in return for attending a short presentation on your resort.

And all in the matter of around five minutes!

Now forgive me for saying, but what the OPC’s manage to achieve in such a short time just doesn’t make logical sense to me.

They really have to be the best closers in the world!

They have managed to: Meet and greet, warm up, make a friend, fact find, sell the dream and create enough fear of loss to close this couple into doing whatever they want the couple to do, even down to lying about their ages if necessary, “just to get the poor kid on the street paid.”

I repeat……

They have to be the best closers in the world!

So next time you want to moan about the “Bag of Sh…t” the OPC just sent in, just stop and think about how many “No’s” the OPC had to get through to get that couple to say yes. And remember what they achieved in five minutes, you now have at least an hour and a half to achieve the same results with the help of a beautiful resort and all the company credibility to help you sell the dream and close the deal!

Next week I want to continue with some tips for OPC’s. 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 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.