Just a failure until I realize this: the amount of information that you share with them and the pace that you provide is critical. You have to recognize that when you’re first working with a candidate, or a prospect, you are a lot more knowledgeable and excited about the opportunity. They, in fact, know very little about what’s going on, very little about the process, they know nothing about you, and your opportunity. So they’re not going to be too plugged in until you get them excited about your opportunity.
Again, you can’t get too excited, you can’t build up their peeking opportunities, but as you know, in the grand scheme of things, it’s going to take them a certain amount of time. The fastest or the quickest I ever closed the deal was about 30 days. The longest was about a year, but that’s another story.
Typically, your deal is going to close in somewhere between 70 and 100 days. Why? Well, because they have to review the FTD, they have to take the FTD to an attorney, they have some time, take a couple three weeks to call franchisees. They have to get funding, they may have to wait until your next training date comes along. So at the end of the day, we know from first touch to money and contracts, and actually going to training is going to be somewhere between 70 and 100 days on average.
You need to pace that, you want their peaking moments toward the end. Think about a marathon race where you want them to have so much more energy, as they’re seeing the finish line and closing out the race. If you have them peaking too early because of your excitement, and the flow of information, then you’re going to have to keep them at that excited level for the duration of 70 to 90 days.
So I encourage people to pace the amount of information again, what often happens and where the mistake is. I often gave them so much information, and then they would start to ghost me, they thought they couldn’t make a decision and their decision was that they weren’t interested.
Think about feeding a baby: you’re looking at a piece of meat, a steak or a piece of chicken, you could cook and prepare that down in front of your child, but they have no teeth in their mouth. Although it’s healthy, it’s got the right vitamins and nutrients, and overall, there’s parts of it that would be good for them but the reality is it’s too much. They can’t consume it, and it’s the same way in this process.
If you provide them with too much information too quickly, they will not be able to process it, they will shut down. They’ll either be creating fear in them or they’ll think “well, I know enough to make a decision and my decision is no.”
So the way that I began to stop failing at closing deals was that I determined a better pace and volume of information. As they are getting excited and interested, you can ramp that up. You open the flow of information and that increases their excitement and meet their peak moment. The most exciting time is at the end of the process, it’s when you’re ready to close the deal.
