A Sure-fire Tactic For Learning To Sell Self Storage

by Kenny Pratt

When trying to learn to work in new and better ways, a simple way to keep motivation high is to rack up small wins which give you immediate positive feedback.  Success is energizing.

Rather than focus your attention on getting the entire sales process dialed in, start with just one piece and work on that.  For example you might decide that as an organization you are going to focus for a specified period of time (say a week or two) on one small part of the sales process.

It is hard to sustain motivation for learning new and better ways to do things when you can’t really see your progress.  So why not stack the deck in your favor?

Eat a Single Pea

Rather than eat an entire meal, start with a single pea.

  1. Eating a single pea seems so easy that resistance to trying fades away.
  2. When you carefully choose an area to focus on, you’ll likely get an additional boost of enthusiasm from the Hawthorne effect. (People work harder/try harder when they think someone is watching or studying their progress).
  3. Lastly,  it is easier to monitor and measure progress.  By lowering the level of complexity, the process of evaluation and monitoring can be performed on a self-review or peer-review basis.  Rather than trying to tease out and score the nuance of an entire call, managers can do self-evaluations or peer evaluations because they only need to listen for very specific behaviors.  By symbolically focusing on eating a single pea, much of the complexity intrinsic to evaluating a sales call evaporates.

Ideas for Focus Areas

Here are some ideas for areas you might choose to focus on…

  • Making an invitation to come rent
  • Highlighting a  benefit to go along with every property feature that is mentioned.
  • Asking a few good discovery questions (something other than “What size are you looking for?” and/or “When do you need the storage space?”).
  • Getting a name and phone number to facilitate follow-up.
  • Using a price stall.
  • Not quoting a discount up front (waiting until after an initial invitation to rent has been declined).
  • You are smarter than me… what do you think would work?

How do you think you can use this idea of small wins to make progress in your sales effectiveness?  How about in other areas of your business?

Photo Credit: Scott Bond

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