What does it actually cost you for an acquisition? Can you segment out each of your sources and get a close estimate on what each class of rental costs?  You may find some of your most expensive types of customers to acquire are your shortest stays. Maybe they are your longest stays? How can you drive that cost lower? How do you find more of the customers that are less expensive? How you can capture some of the rental opportunities that you’re not catching. Talking about the costs associated with opening new accounts makes your staff think like sales people.

One of the sales topics I like to talk about is the idea of “concerns and assurances”. Do you know what I’m talking about? Are you familiar with the terms “objections” and “rebuttals”? These are ways of talking about the reasons people do not buy and the things we can do or say to overcome a reason for not buying.  Do you like the terms Objection and Rebuttal. They don’t really sound that great. It sounds like something that happens in a court room when there is a biter dispute over facts. It sounds rude to give a rebuttal to your prospect. It sounds very adversarial.  I realize you often have to fight to win a customer, but I don’t think you should be fighting with the potential customer. Making a decision to buy is not an act of submission to the sales person. Besides, I don’t think our prospects come in and say, “I object to the size of that unit you are offering me. I will not take that size!” That’s not what they do, isn’t that right? What they do is they say to themselves, “Well, I’m not sure about this. I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure about something else.” They have concerns about making a good decision.

So if our salespeople are great at assuring our potential clients that they are making a good choice when they rent with us, then you’ve made the sale and you’ve made great strides in creating your selling culture.

Your selling culture succeeds when its main focus is helping people find that it is comfortable to decide to buy from you.

 

Submitted by: Tron Jorhdeim — Memeber of National Speaker Association and Director of Operation at PhoneSmart an offsite Sales Force

 

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