Learning from Mistakes
I recently blogged about the need to remain green - to be open-minded and prepared to listen when someone more experienced offers advice. After all, one of the reasons you buy a franchise is to avoid the mistakes made by others. None the less, it seems to be human nature to defend one's position rather than admit to doing something the wrong way or accept that there might be a better way of doing it.
I tried to bear this in mind when my franchisor spent some time with me recently. He visited potential clients with me, looked at my presentations, checked my sales techniques, reviewed my business to date and advised me accordingly. I tried not to put up defensive walls or take his comments as an accusation of failure, but to accept them as an offer to help me do better. The advice was given professionally and genuinely - after all my franchisor has been in the business for many years and been very successful, so why would I look a gift horse in the mouth?
The key problem that my franchisor identified was that my sales cycle is too slow: it takes me too long from identifying a potential client to getting a meeting. Of course, getting a meeting is no guarantee of closing the deal, but once you are face-to-face with a potential client it is much easier to demonstrate what you are offering and convince the client to engage your services.
For me, getting the meeting is the most challenging part of the sales process. I'm not an experienced salesperson and I am uncomfortable with cold calling, so my approach is to send a letter of introduction, simple and punchy, to a prospective client and then follow up with a phone call a few days later. In the majority of cases when I call, the potential client has read the letter, so the ice is broken and we can enter into a conversation.
This all takes time, so when I get a refusal it is all lost time. My franchisor, on the other hand, has no problem with cold calling. He identifies his target, gets them on the phone and then either gets a meeting or a refusal. His sales cycle is fairly quick and allows him to move to the next target if not successful. Herein lies the dilemma for me! The quick turn-around is efficient, however I don't believe that cold calling is as effective as using an ice breaker, whatever that may be, and I'm much more comfortable contacting prospective clients once I know the ice has been broken.
Having said that, I do find myself in a cold calling situation at times when my letter was not received and I haven't found the situation too difficult to handle. So while I'm not about to approach my prospective clients with a cold call, my franchisor's comments and advice have focussed me on making my sales process quicker and more efficient and I am now ensuring that this process takes precedence over everything else - no distractions! After all, when all is said and done, without sales I don't have a business.
So if you want to grow, pack up your pride and be prepared to listen, really listen to your franchisor.
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