Investment Sales Success: Are You Creating a Buying Atmosphere?

Long-term investment sales success requires a buying atmosphere. In a buying atmosphere: you both know why you’re meeting, you both feel comfortable and share open communication, and you’re both focused on one thing; the best outcome for the customer. It takes pre-work to create the most productive buying atmosphere. n nSetting appointments with complete strangers to get to know each other isn’t a good plan for investment sales success. You only want to set appointments with people who are interested in learning how you can help them. When you set appointments under this premise you both know why you’re meeting, and what you’re trying to accomplish. It takes pre-work on your part to get to that point. Your pre-work involves: identifying your market, knowing what they are actively looking for, implementing a marketing lead generation plan that get’s your best prospects contacting you, and providing the people you appoint with an opportunity to know you or know something about you before you meet. nnIf you and/or your potential customer don’t feel at ease with each other you can expect no investment sales success. You both need to feel comfortable and share open communication. All too often you’re comfortable, but the potential customer isn’t ready to really open up to you. There are several reasons for that: you didn’t do a good job on your pre-work of helping the potential customer to feel like they almost know you, you’re moving faster than the potential customer is ready to go, and you don’t have a full understanding of what the potential customer really wants because you haven’t allowed them to tell you. nnYour investment sales success will increase in direct proportion to the potential customer’s belief that you’re working together in their best interests. Your potential customer must have confidence that you’re both focused on their best outcome. The instant you move into presentation/ sales mode is the instant your potential customer begins to disengage because it no longer feels like two people working together sharing the same information to come to the same understanding. nnYes, everyone needs what you have to offer, but everyone isn’t ready to do something about it now. In your zealous effort to achieve investment sales success combined with your strong belief that you can help everyone, you sometimes overlook that not everyone sees things the way you do. The critical thing for you to remember is it’s more important for you to see things the way the potential customer sees them than it is for them to see things your way. n