Turning Your Prospects, Leads And Enquiries Into Customers

The difference between business success and business failure lies in your ability to master the art of self-promotion, which includes overcoming your fears of getting a "no" and learning how to sell yourself and your products, services and skills with integrity!

Use the seven steps below to convert more of your leads, prospects and enquiries into sales to make your business prosper, and achieve greater consistency in your sales and cash flow:

1. Abundance versus scarcity
   
   Creating abundance begins with your thinking. You may have amazing business building strategies, yet if your mindset is one of lack (including lack of self belief), it will prevent you from applying the skills you know, leaving your business in the same financial situation or worse. For example, if you come across as being desperate for business, you will push potential business away.
   
   Having your beliefs and values aligned with abundance will enable you to develop an attraction mindset so that you can attract customers to you like a magnet! Listen to your self-talk as you meet with prospects, speak with leads and enquiries. Your self talk will give you some insights about your values and beliefs, and whether these are supporting or sabotaging your business success. If you are sabotaging your success, seek help to address this right away.
   
   
2. Watch your assumptions
   
   What are you thinking and saying to yourself as you meet with prospects? Are you thinking that they are not interested in your products, services and ideas, or are you questioning the value you offer?
   
   Research has shown that 80% of the people that walk into your store, call you on the phone, visit your website or email you have already imagined owning a product or service like yours. So you could be serving up to 80% of all prospects because if you don't, your competitors will! Imagine the impact on your bottom line if you had an 80% conversion rate! Instead, if you assume that people are not interested, this can sabotage your business success.
   
   
3. Where is your focus?
   
   What you focus on, you will create - energy flows where attention goes. How much of your focus, time and energy are you spending on the people who say "maybe" or "no" to you? Too many people in business spend too much of their time on the "maybes" and the "nos". Because their focus is caught up with getting these prospects to buy, they have very little focus left for following up the prospects that are really interested, so they miss out on their business. 
   
   Remember, spend most of your time with the prospects that are ready to buy now and have a system for following up the rest at another time, as appropriate.
   
   
4. Build the relationship
   
   Most people need more than one experience of you before they do business with you. So rather than selling your product or service at the initial meeting, instead sell your relationship with them. Build instant rapport, tailor your language to their preferred style, ask powerful questions, and really listen to how you can best help them.
   
   Regardless of the industry you are in, whether you sell your products, services or ideas, we are all in the business of selling one thing and only one thing - a relationship! When people like each other, they do business together. As a business professional, you will need to know how to successfully interact with prospects, convert them into customers, and nurture that relationship for life (or for as long as you want them to be your customer).
   
   
5. Serve the need
   
   Selling isn't about telling - it is about asking the right questions, in the right way and at the right time ... so that you can best understand the prospect's needs and how you can best serve these. Reading your prospects more effectively, assisting them in their buying decisions and really understanding what makes them tick will also help you to serve them better.
   
   Also remember that if there is no need, thank the prospect, seek referrals and find another customer. After all, there are plenty of customers out there for all of us! The only question is - do they know that you and your business exist and how you can add value to them?
   
   
6. Follow-through
   
   It is only by following-through and completing things that we achieve results. Some people in business start strategies for generating leads, while others start to follow-up and only see them through to partial completion. The highly successful business people actually focus on a select number of strategies and follow each one through to completion and, therefore, achieve amazing results. 
   
   Put off procrastination and start following through your leads, prospects and enquiries and watch your sales grow!
   
   
7. Seal the deal
   
   Fear of rejection or fear of getting a "no" is the major reason preventing people from asking for the prospect's business and closing the sale. Research shows that 90% of business people have a fear of rejection which stops them short of asking for the sale, and this alone is costing businesses millions in lost revenue each year! 
   
   Knowing exactly when to ask the prospect to buy from you is also very important. Because if you ask too early, you can come across as being too pushy, and if you ask too late, you can miss out on the sale and on serving your prospect altogether!

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