Lose the Sale in 10 Minutes? 4 Fixes (One Call Close)
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Summary
Avoid the costly mistakes that lose deals in the first 10 minutes
Stay in control by maintaining the right mindset and not prequalifying
Build strong rapport quickly to earn trust and influence decisions
Guide the sales process confidently without letting the customer take over
Why the First 10 Minutes Matter in One-Call Close Sales
If you do high ticket home improvement sales on a one call close it’s not unusual to be in a home for a couple of hours. Yet you can lose that sale within the first ten minutes of being in the home. In this artcile we’ll cover the 4 mistakes people make in the first ten minutes and ways I use to help avoid them even if you are running your first or ten thousandth lead.
Mistake #1: Prequalifying the Customer
The first mistake is that you may have forgotten that you are the closer and they are the closee. That’s because you let them close you. You prequalify the appointment. That means that somehow you think that you can tell that after a few minutes that’s it’s a waste of time and they won’t buy. After being in this business for 35 years and personally being in over 16,000 homes there one truth I can tell you.
You cannot tell it’s a sale until you get to the end. If anything my experience tells me this is a job of opposites. The ones I think will never buy always do and the ones I think will buy don’t. You are wasting your time and burning the lead if you think you can figure it out. When you hear things like I’m not buying anything today and if it’s more than $5.00 your wasting your time you become discouraged.
Why Customers Say They’re “Not Buying”
Translation: Closed And because you think it’s a waste of time you quick pitch or do your sales call without your full heart and soul behind it. If nothing else because of the law of opposites when I hear “I’m not going to buy anything today” I actually get excited in a good way because I know that usually turns out to be a sale.
Have you ever lied to a sales person?
Went to buy a car and told the sales person that you were just looking for next year when you really needed to get a car that day? Of course you have and your customers do the same thing. They don’t know you and are afraid that you are going to high pressure them and are starting to put their defenses up.
Give 100% on Every Sales Call
If you start to believe them then you don’t give 100%. Sales is about full speed. There is no half speed. You either make full commission or no commission. There is no half commission. The best way to avoid this is to do your job in every home you go to. Doing your job means don’t shortcut anything and give 100%.
The easiest way to not prequalify is to understand that no customer is a waste of time. They can’t close me because I know the only reason I’m their home is because they are not happy with their present situation and don’t have a valid solution or I wouldn’t be there. Period. It is not a whim or just because it’s a free estimate.
I know they are serious by the fact that I’m there. Also I know I’m prequalifying if anytime during the sales call that I start to think I’m wasting my time. I know I’m in trouble and need to adjust my mindset. Not prequalifying alone will make you more money because you will never waste your time by not giving 100%. Remember the first part of triumph is try.
If this is hitting home and you want my more check out my free One-Call Close mini-course. First link in the description and pinned comment.
Mistake #2: Having the Wrong Mindset
The second mistake that can happen in the first ten minutes can actually happen before you even get into the home. You are not in the right frame of mind. Your attitude sucks. You’ve become weak. You may actually hope it’s going to be a no show or glad when it is.
The customers are mean and you are mean back. You start to lump all of your customers together. Omg It’s one of these……You start to think they are all part of the same family and your life is just like one big giant no sale blur of customers. One thing that helps me is like a mindfulness of sales. Stop thinking of anything but the one you are with. If you think about the past no sales it messes with your head.
If you start thinking ahead about how you have to sell 3 in a row to catch up it messes with your head. Learn to be in the moment and only concentrate on helping the one you are with. Then change your focus from having to make a sale to just having fun and seeing how you can help your customer. A good way I handle this is that I don’t go in the home with the attitude that I am going to sell anything but that I am simply there just to find out what their problem is and to give them an education on what we do. The most important thing is that I have fun and don’t forget why I love this job so much. That everyday I get to meet new people in their homes. It’s never boring. This frame of mind will also help you from seeming too desperate. The more they feel you want them to buy the less they want to and the more they feel that you don’t care whether they buy or not the more they will buy. Another way to help your attitude is to keep feeding you mind with good food.
Your mind is like a garden and if you don’t do anything what happens to a garden naturally. . Weeds grow. Put positive information in your mental garden by listening to audible books, reading. Practice Cani. Constant and never ending improvement by learning every day. Feel how positive you get just knowing you are getting better every day and as you do that you will feel yourself getting stronger until you eventually become unstoppable. Attitude is one of the most important things you need to be able to maintain to be consistently good in this business. That’s why if anyone is not selling I always say it’s one of two things. Basics or attitude.
Mistake #3: Failing to Build Rapport
The third mistake is that you don’t get good rapport before you do anything. You don’t understand the importance or don’t have the skills yet to rapport anyone. Rapport is the ultimate way to get control. People you have great rapport with like friends you can get to lend you money. People you have no rapport with won’t even say hi.
How to Build Real Rapport
Rapport building skills are more than just being a good bs’er or schmoozing people. It’s about being able to find commonalities not just surface level like hobbies but deeper like pacing their speech patterns. If they talk fast and are louder then I talk the same way but if they are more reserved and the speech patterns are slower then I can be more deliberate and slow the pace of my speech. The more that you are like them the more they like you because …well you are like them. Sometimes rapport takes you 5 minutes sometimes 15 minutes but you have to be able to have the skill to rapport everyone. The variety of people we see from old to young, blue collar to white collar, poor to rich means you have to have a high skill set here.
Know When You Have Rapport
I used to think rapport was about making the customer comfortable but really the key is to make yourself comfortable and the customer will follow you. Haven’t you noticed when you feel uptight what is the customer usually like? And when you feel relaxed and comfortable what is the customer like? So how do I know when I have rapport. When I feel comfortable. You can learn rapport techniques just like learning a foreign language. It takes work but it’s skill you develop not naturally have.
Mistake #4: Letting the Customer Take Control
The fourth mistake and a lot of times it is the result of the previous mistakes like not having the right frame of mind and not having rapport is that you let the customer take control of the situation. If you are using some type of structured sales presentation which is necessary to make sure you cover all the points needed in a one call close you have to be in control more than any other type of sales.
That’s because you are taking them down an educational path if you do it right. You can’t just let them wander all over the place and you fill in the holes as you go.
How to Maintain Control in the Home
A great sales person has control and is steering the information and it still takes them 2 hours to get the sale. If you aren’t in control it will take you even longer and the information delivered isn’t as powerful in making the sale. If you are in the home for 3 hours and someone else does it in 2 hours and covers the same points the longer sales call is more diluted. It is not as concentrated and therefore not as effective. The good part is that you don’t have to take control. You are in control when you walk through the door. The only way they get control is when you give it to them. You give it to them when you let them take you out of sequence such as giving them the price range first or letting them dictate the order of information flow. You can stop them from taking control by clearly knowing what you are going to do. When you do your confidence is felt by the customer and they are more likely to let you steer and control them. If you don’t seem to know what you are doing they are less likely to follow your lead. One important thing to understand is that sometimes I get control by giving control. Because I am giving them the control I am still in control. For example once I get in the home I get rapport the next step would be to do some type of information survey or needs analysis.
How to Regain Control Without Resistance
Sometimes I walk in the home and they are wild and dragging me to the furnace and tell me all this stuff about what they want. I give them a little control to almost let them get it out of their system and listen to what they’re saying but once they take a breath. I say “wow you obviously done your research and have a lot of good ideas but do you mind if just ask you a couple more questions that I have so we can do this even faster. Ok…can we use your kitchen table as I have to do a little writing…ok” then I am back in sequence.
You have to know where you are and not let this go too far because if they start asking questions about the company in the warm up and you answer all of them…then they ask you about the product and you answer them. Before you know it you have gotten too far out of sequence and when you start to do anything they won’t let you “ oh you don’t need to go through anything else I got all of my questions answered and I just need the price ?! 😊
Final Thoughts on Winning the First 10 Minutes
So never prequalify and give 100% in every call, rapport anything that breathes, make sure your attitude is always great, and learn to keep control and you will be on your way to get everything you want and deserve.
Next Steps to Improve Your Closing
Check out these articles on closing. If you want the complete step-by-step system, see my course The Art of Selling Home Improvements—backed by my double-your-money-back guarantee.
Happy Selling!
