Become a Home Based Travel Agent

A Sales Game Plan – Part 4 – Qualifying by Uncovering Needs
By Cory Andrichuk

Hi everyone… This is the fourth in a series of six articles that will help you establish a successful Sales Game Plan to grow your business.   My intention is to bring you personal, specific, and creative steps to grow your sales into better profits and I want to emphasize how important it is to ensure you have an overall business plan in place before trying to improve your salesmanship! 

Let’s review the three ideas from my previous articles.  First, sales success always starts with a positive and healthy mindset which is all about gathering personal information to effectively develop a friendship…a relationship, helping people from the heart, listening with the intention to understand, providing ideas to meet people’s needs and wants, solving their problems, and generally just helping them buy.  The next step is prospecting which is all about working smarter rather than harder to find and get in front of your potential customers.  The third part is establishing rapport where you ensure your target audience is comfortable with you, your brand, and the potential message you are going to deliver. 

OK… now we are ready to introduce Part 4 – Qualifying by uncovering someone’s needs!  Qualifying your prospects and customers is the art of asking open-ended questions that get the prospect or customer talking about travel and provide you with a wealth of information about their travel needs.  It is a major ingredient, if not one of the top ingredients in sales and helps your efforts to earn a relationship and make a sale! When you combine an open-ended question with a positive mindset  plus  rapport and trust, you can expect some amazing results.  Without qualifying your prospect and/or customers, you simply become another travel agent quoting on price!  (Which brings us back to the original article Part 1 Setting the Stage and asking yourself why are you doing what you do?) 

So… why do we qualify and ask open-ended questions?  Here’s why:                                                                      

     ·         to determine the prospect’s readiness to buy,
·         to present ourselves as sales  professionals, and                   
·         to position our BRAND as a friendly, helpful, distinct, travel advisor that is in business to help people  buy travel and cruise dream vacations…

By asking the right open-ended questions, at the right time, you are better able to control the conversation, and establish your brand as the true travel sales professional.  Most consumers THINK they know what they want from a holiday, but rarely know what they NEED…. I sincerely believe they are coming to you for advice, consulting, expertise, and product-knowledge…. AND SO… all you really need to do is to HELP YOUR PROSPECTS/ CUSTOMERS BUY by asking the right questions in a natural process (everyone needs to find their own process through trial and error) that feels comfortable to you!  The person who asks questions sits in the DRIVER’S seat – the person who answers is the PASSENGER seat along for the ride.   

How do we start qualifying?   Start with listening.  Listening is arguably the most important aspect of the selling process and weakest part of most professional sales people.  There are two basic rules to follow when listening:

• Listen with the intent to understand what the other person is saying, not what you want to say.  Also, listen for what the other person doesn’t say.  Repeat back to them what you think they said and wait for confirmation.

• Listen with the intent to offer intelligent responses.

 I am including some key travel sales qualifying questions that have worked for me.  They have provided me with knowledge and information about my customer and helped create a relaxing, yet professional atmosphere:    

Cory’s Key Travel Sales Qualifying Questions:

• Tell me about your last vacation?  What did you like? Dislike?

• Where did you stay?  What did you do?  What did you like? Dislike?

• What kind of food do you like to eat on vacation? 

• Who usually books your travel and/or cruise vacation?  Why?

• Do you have a price from the other travel agency?  Online?  Cruise consultant?  If so, what price have you been quoted?

• If I can get you that price, or better, and then offer if to you, would you be prepared to book with me?

In my opinion, customers don’t often know what they want and need.  It’s up to you to find out!  Your Sales Game Plan starts by making a choice to incorporate a positive sales attitude, prospecting with purpose, developing a relationship and establishing rapport, and then asking qualifying open-ended questions to the right person at the right time!  Following this process with patience and practicing the parts I have identified, as much as you can, will provide you with more quality opportunities to earn quality relationships that will eventually lead you to quality sales!

Check-in next month for Part 5, whereby we will discuss how to how to present YOU as the Feature and Benefit and to then help you overcome any objection faced in a sales scenario! 

Good selling to you this month