The Four Ws of Prospecting

I just thought of a new, improved prospecting model for us to use to ensure that we are taking advantage of all opportunities to make sales to our customer database. As we are doing our calls and letters to customers, we must have in mind a purpose for those calls and letters. The purpose is always ultimately to make sales, but here is what has to happen in order to get sales out of your calls and letters.

Sales

Prospecting

Letters, types of

• 1-2-3 letters of the Three Letter System (for new people or referrals)
• “Thank you for coming in” letter if they are already an established customer
• “Thank you for coming in with your friend” or mother, brother, etc. letter
• “Thank you for your purchase” letter or card
• “Thank you for your referral” letter or card
• Letter requesting birthdays, anniversaries and significant others names
• “Thank you for the data you sent” (birthdays, anniversaries, significant others name) letter
• “Thank you for replying to my call or letter” letter
• “I tried to call you today but you did not answer” letter
• “I tried to call to confirm you for event but you were not in” letter
• “Thank you for confirming for the event” letter
• “Why (have you not bought)?” letter
• “Taking you off the mailing list” letter
• “What are you interested in?” letter
• “Did you ever get X?” letter
• “Let me introduce myself” letter (for people taking over other salespeople’s files)

I made this list in one minute of thinking about letters. You can probably think of more.

Calls, types of

1. Returning call of new or existing customer (this is a call made to reply to a customer’s call or letter to us)
2. Prospecting call: This is the MAIN type of call we make. It is a call we make on our own vs. returning a call as above.
   1. Just to say ‘hi’ to good customer with whom you have a great relationship
   2. To get birthdays, anniversaries, significant other’s name
   3. To ask, “What you going to buy for Significant Other” on birthday, anniversary, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, graduation, etc. when the date is a month or less away
   4. To see how the item they bought worked out, for example: “How do you/she/him like it?” or later on, “come to get it cleaned (if a jewelry piece) or serviced (if it is a watch).”
   5. To ask for referrals
   6. To introduce yourself (for new salespeople)
   7. “Did you ever get X?” call

Prospecting models to use while calling and writing letters

OLD MODEL AT LHFJ

In the past, we have used a prospecting model of, “What can I sell you and when?” This model worked primarily to sell “personal purchase” items. Its secondary purpose was to find occasions and potential sales for gifts to give to other people as opposed to the “personal purchase.” So we have been prospecting for 1) personal purchases and for 2) gift purchases in that order.

NEW PROSPECTING MODEL

Our new prospecting model will give us both of the above but we will now reverse the importance and concentrate more on #2 as primary and #1 as secondary. The theory behind this change is that most customers should have more occasions to buy for others than for themselves. The obvious exception is the “collector” who buys often for themselves. However, even they have others for whom they will buy gifts. The underlying idea of concentrating on prospecting for sales of gifts to give to other people is that a collector will buy for himself anyway. If you get the collector in here to buy gifts, he will end up buying for himself (or herself) too.

“Who can I sell you something (what) for, when and why?” Don’t get stuck on the sentence above as you would not necessarily ask it that exact way but all four pieces of data are important.

Who: The person’s name and the relationship (girlfriend, wife, dad, secretary, etc.)

Why: The event itself (anniversary, birthday, graduation, etc.)

When: The date of the event

What: The possible item

If you are finding out the “Four Ws”, you are locating opportunities to make sales and you are providing services to your customer. The services are the reminder itself and making it easy to buy a gift. Most men really appreciate both! You are saving them time and worry.

This new system vastly broadens the old question of, “What can I sell you and when?” because this question can be asked repeatedly throughout the year to discover many events and potential gift recipients.

Customer in the store

When the customer is in the store, you can simply ask this question right after you made a sale or even when you didn’t sell them. You CAN ask either way: “By the way, I’d like to send you a reminder just before your wife’s / fiancé’s / girlfriend’s birthday. What is her name? When is your anniversary? Do you buy gifts for your mom for her birthday or for Christmas? What is her name?” This line of questioning should generate one or even a dozen events for which you can now promote to the customer with the intention of making a sale.

It should go without saying that if your customer came in to buy a gift for someone else in the first place, you sell them something but you also find out Who, Why and When so you can sell them something again next year! If you make a note of what they bought for whom, you can sell them a matching piece for the next event.

If they are engaged and especially if they are buying the engagement ring or wedding rings from you, get the wedding date and follow up to see if they actually got married and now you have an anniversary date to use in the future.

As an additional selling procedure, let’s presume that the customer says, “I would like to get my wife a really nice emerald ring but her birthday is 6 months away.” You can say, “WOW we just got a great vintage one in and I bet Leo will let me give you a great deal if you buy it now!” “Oh, you say you are broke now? Then maybe Leo will let you put it on layaway and I can still get you a deal…” And go for it. If you don’t have something for them now but the item comes in a month later that they were looking for LET THEM KNOW. All this leads to more sales but you need the four Ws to get this going.

And don’t forget to add what they said they wanted to their WISH LIST in Business Mind so you can follow up later.

Phone calls to customers

If you are making calls then you ask the same type of questions on the phone. Call a customer and say something like, “Hello, This is X from Leo Hamel Fine Jewelers. I would like you to get the benefits of our reminder service. We will send you a reminder card a few weeks before your anniversary, or any birthdays that you need to remember. We will often send out valuable discount cards at the same time. Let’s start with your anniversary. What is your wife’s name? Oh, you don’t have one. How about your girl / boyfriend? Fiancé? Mom? Secretary?”

Letters to customers

Do not just write and ask silly questions like, “How’s the watch battery doing?” Ask real questions that you make up from reading their file and get to the point of getting a name (who), a date (when), a why (the event) and a possible what. The why, the name and the date are the important items to get NOW. The what you can figure out later but you should try to get an idea now.

Enter and follow up on the events

Get the name of the person, their relationship and the date and enter it into the customer’s file in Business Mind, on the Special tab, under Special Dates. A month before the event, call or write to remind them and start the process of getting them to buy something as a gift for that event.

Your job is to make it easy for them to find the perfect gift in the right price range for the recipient. You should call to remind them again a week before the event if you don’t speak to them by phone the first time you call. Be aggressive when following up on the event, because they asked you to remind them!

Summary

FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, ALL CALLS AND LETTERS ARE DONE WITH THESE QUESTIONS IN MIND: “When can I sell you what for whom and why?” This is an outline. Put these ideas into your own words and if you find a “line” that works well, let me know so I can include it in the policy to help others. Any comments or suggestions on the above would be appreciated, as this is a new idea and system. I am sure I didn’t think of everything. Ask for these four Ws, get them, follow up on them and your sales will go up!