This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Do you dive in head first into business speak with customers or coachees? Here’s a simple reminder for us all.

I hear suit telephone sales are up so are fountain pen sales. It’s all the extra business meetings we’re having. British Airways is even offering free business class flights to anywhere in the world to small business owners looking to export abroad.

It seems that in these tough times, we’re all out drumming up business with face to face meetings. And that’s a good thing. It’s heightened our awareness to go back to the basics of selling.

And with the pressure on we’re getting straight down to business talk and this couldn’t be more dangerous. This is a big mistake when you’ve never met someone before. No, we ought to be holding back on business talk even in these pressured times and become even more interested in them, become curious about them as a person. People like to do business with people they both like and trust. OK you may not be fantastic buddies but you like and respect each other and only then will business result.

Do you know when you are with a friend, you get along really well and you become like them, you match their personality, their mood, their pace, their body language, eye contact…everything. But when you are with someone who wouldn’t be a great friend and is not like you, naturally you are not going to become like them are you?

In telephone sales though, you need to become a little bit like them so as to build trust and some likeness. For example, anyone who knows me can see that I’m quite bubbly and excitable and energetic, I like to be positive. My wife thinks I’m quite loud!

So if  I meet someone who is the opposite then I need to purposely become like their personality a little. I need to slow down, monotone my voice a little, speak like them, give them the same amount of eye contact as they give me.

I call it personality matching and it works. That way we will build a rapport, begin to trust each other and get on. Then we can start talking about business.

Mirror mirror on the wall…who is the fairest of them all? Not you, but the person you’re talking with, so let’s spend some of our attention on them and begin to match their personality before diving head first into business speak.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer.

On the train one spring morning to London I met three very interesting ladies who made me think about financial advisers or, in fact,
any phone sales people who want to differentiate themselves from their competition, so let me hare with you why.

These ladies are from Indonesia and live and work in Gloucester. They were dressed immaculately and were chatting and being excited about their trip to London. Being the day before Easter, the train was packed with day trippers looking forward to a day in
London and I expected these ladies to bedoing the same.

“No, we.re going to the Embassy to vote forour President”.
“Oh” I looked surprised.
“Yes”, the lady opposite me explained. “We could vote by post but we prefer to make a day of it, do some shopping, attend a show,
and enjoy each others company as well as vote”.

And that got me thinking about financial advisers and their competition. You see competition for financial advisers is not other
financial advisers, it’s the internet. But some see it as competition, some don’t. Those that fear the internet and see their products that they sell as a commodity.

And that’s dangerous. The internet sells commodities really well and will be more and more effective at this over the next few years.
If you see yourself as a phone sales person of a commodity such as a life assurance, health insurance, pensions and such then you are
doomed. Doomed to be discarded in favour of the internet that’ll sell this much better than you, and cheaper too.

Now my ladies on the train could have voted by post but preferred to enjoy the attractions of London – shopping, seeing a show.
In the same way a client meeting a financial adviser will enjoy what they have to offer. Professional advice, consultation, listening to
their goals and problems and then advisingthem from a plethora of products which ones would help them achieve their goals or solve
their problems.

Many people will prefer to buy these products quickly and painlessly on the internet, but equally many will prefer the longer advice
version.

So be crystal clear as to what you sell. Commodities or advice. And then ensure your clients know exactly how you work right
upfront to overcome the internet objection that will rear its ugly head later. And remember you.re in business to understand
your clients first and foremost. Your job is not to sell products but to understand your client.s position, so invest in your skills this
year and next to do this even better that you are right now.

Maybe the internet can give advice in the future but it will not be automated, this can’t be one. This is what will happen in the future.
Your hologram will be transported to the client via the internet, saving you physically travelling to them.

The technology is there right now to do this,but it costs a small fortune. The internet can transport holograms – pop stars and
politicians are doing it now. Robbie Williams was beamed to a concert recently, Prince Charles was beamed to a conference last
year, and CEOs of major corporations are using this technology to hold important summits without leaving their homes.

But at the moment it’s too expensive for everyone.

In 5 years time we’ll all be using the same technology but it will still be you that is giving the financial advice the client needs who
prefers to get from you rather than buying the commodity over the internet.

So beware that you don’t slip into commodity selling.

And my Indonesian ladies, they were really looking forward to their mini break in London. Poor me – I was on business.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

In Part I: We focused why asking the “How Can I?” question is the key to getting unstuck and achieving your objectives. Part II continues with more examples.

Creating an Entirely New Revenue Stream

Several years ago, I lost my two bread-and-butter clients when the investment community demanded better financial results. Both these firms immediately suspended all “extraneous” projects – which included all my work with them.

While in the process of rebuilding my business, I did some free consulting for a small magazine serving the entrepreneurial community. I became enamored with the vitality of these firms as well as their contribution to the economy.

But the failure rate was sky high. Good businesses being run by well-intentioned people were closing down because the founders didn’t understand how to sell. It about drove me crazy.

For months, I kept asking myself, “How can I share my expertise with these people and make some money doing it?”

It was a real conundrum. Entrepreneurs don’t have deep pockets. When they hire consultants, they want to squeeze as much advice from them in the shortest possible time. In short, despite the apparent need, I couldn’t figure out how to make a living.

But I kept the question open, choosing not to say ‘no’ yet. Instead, I kept researching and asking the question repeatedly – in multiple variations.

One day, the answer came to me: I’d create a website called Selling to Big Companies where I could give away lots of good sales advice for free. Plus, I could offer some premium content such as ebooks, emanuals and teleseminars. While doing this, I could still serve my corporate clients.

I knew I’d finally hit on a viable business model, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Trust the Questions

Over the years, I’ve come to trust this “How can I” strategy implicitly. Whenever I pose these questions to myself, the answers always come.

They’re better ideas than I could have ever thought of myself. While that sounds strange to say, it’s really true.

Right now, I trust the question again with the Sales SheBang – my online resource, conference and community for women in sales. I’m asking myself questions such as:

• How can I attract savvy saleswomen to the 2008 Sales Shebang Conference ?
• How can I fund this project so that I can make it bigger & better?
• How can I make it an incredible value for the women who come?

The good news is that the ideas are already streaming in. The bad news is that I appear to be a bottleneck in my own system. Too much is on my plate right now, so I’m adding resources to help out. In truth, it’s really not a bad problem to have.

But it all starts with that “How Can I…?” question. Without a doubt, it’s the best strategy in the whole world for reaching your unreachable goals.

Invite others to help you answer your questions. Track down a top salesperson and ask for their insights: How can I be more successful? How can I close more business?

Ask an entrepreneur: How can I create the company of my dreams? How can I get more done in the same amount of time?

The answers are already out there. You just need to ask the questions!

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com ]]> http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/part-2-tips-on-what-to-do-when-youre-totally-stuck/feed/ 0 http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/how-to-overcome-call-reluctance/ http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/how-to-overcome-call-reluctance/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:35:41 +0000 Chris Ducker http://www.telesalesmagic.com/?p=2338

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

A few readers wrote to me just before Christmas asking for help. Both were struggling to get in front of new prospects to sell their services and products. Both had excellent propositions but found call reluctance to be as problem and prospects unwillingness to speak with them preferring to “weather the storm” and batten down the hatches.

Have you experienced this as well?

I think we all have to some degree and unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll recognise that we are going through a downturn. Now I don’t sign up for the “business is better that it’s ever been, I’m busier than ever, what recession?” brigade; these people seem to be just massaging their egos when they print this stuff.

The plain fact is – we have to prospect more than ever before. Working harder and smarter at getting to speak with new customers, will help us succeed in this economy.

I think we’ve all got the phone sales skills but maybe haven’t had to use them so much over the last five to six years since there’s been plenty of business to go around.

So now’s the time to smarten up our prospecting tools, or client acquisition tools as this is now known as.

Here are some quick phone sales tips to help you.

• Examine your product and service and be crystal clear as to what problem it solves. Problems in recessions are all about saving costs and increasing revenue, getting invoices paid on time, preventing suppliers going bust and such like. Try to think like your customers and be totally clear as to what problems your product solves

• What is your customer segment? Be as precise as you can as to which type of customer has the problems that your product or service solves and then focus on these customers.

• Decide on your marketing to reach these customers. There are many routes to market that you can choose but the quickest and most decisive is still telephoning them to make an appointment to see them.

• Get over any phone sales call reluctance.

• Dedicate specific blocks of time in your diary to make calls to prospects.

• Aim simply for a face to face appointment nothing else. Don’t get into conversations, send out literature etc. These never work, although we think the do at the time, are easy to do, quite gratifying but divert your attention to the job of making appointments.

• Be up front with your prospect on the phone about the problem that your product solves and ask for an appointment.

• Don’t ask “if it’s convenient to call” you’ll lose sales if you do this. Instead say “if it’s convenient to speak right now I’d like to…” Subtle difference. And if you feel brave enough, don’t even ask, just launch into your opening.

• Learn how to politely persevere on objections twice and then leave the prospect alone. Keep coming back to the objective of asking for an appointment.

• Sticky tape the phone to your wrist and don’t put it down. Use the 60 second rule. This ensures you get onto the next call within 60 seconds, no longer.

• Spend a maximum of 60 minutes making appointment calls.

• Reward yourself when you.re done as making appointments is stressful, there’s no way around it. Yes alpha male macho types will tell you they enjoy it but you look at the burnout rate of call centre direct sales people.

It’s hard, full of rejection and people saying no, occasional rudeness and extremely easy to put off to-do another job.

We all need more prospects right now and making appointments via phone is the quickest and most effective method of doing so. Dig out all those customers that have connections to your company, old names and phone numbers. Those people who you never had the time to contact. Maybe buy some lists or leads and start to make those calls with the specific intention of making an appointment.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

Every once in a while, I read something that a so-called sales expert says that really ticks me off. The other night it happened again. I was doing a quick scan of the latest issue of a popular magazine when suddenly I came across a whole slew of idiocy in just one article.

Here’s just a taste of this lunacy …

• “In sales, the results are in the rejections.”
• “Every time a contact results in a rejection, your salespeople can view the rejection as making money.”
• “The secret is for each salesperson to realize how much rejection is necessary for success.’”
• “Sales managers must coach their teams to embrace rejection.”

This is the stupidest advice you could ever get. Think about it. Can you ever imagine yourself saying this:

“Hallelujah! I’ve made 66 calls today and actually connected with 24 people. But of that number, 23 of them were total failures. Those decision makers blew me off as fast as they could. But one person asked me to sent a brochure, so it was really a great day. With all those rejections, I’m well on my way to success.”

Let me tell you why it’s even stupider than you might think.

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

In the movie Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise is in the midst of his proposal to Dorothy, she stops him with, “You had me at hello.” Every seller dreams of hearing those exact same words when they approach corporate decision makers.

Unfortunately, the opposite usually occurs. Instead of capturing their prospect’s attention, most sellers create resistance with their opening remarks and blow the opportunity.

Why do bad things like that happen to good people?
In short, weak value propositions.

If you’re running into trouble cracking into corporate accounts, most likely the root cause is your failure to clearly articulate the business outcomes that customers realize from using your products, services or solutions.

A couple weeks ago, I did a new exercise while training a group of sellers. In small groups, they rated common value propositions that sellers could use when prospecting for new customers.

Using a 1-10 (tops) scale, they evaluated value propositions such as these on their effectiveness in initiating change from the status quo:

__     We offer one-stop shopping for all your (fill in the blank) needs.
__     We’re the industry leader in (fill in the blank) and have been
recognized for our exceptional (fill in the blank).
__     We specialize in ( fill in the blank) and work with well-known
clients such as Microsoft, Best Buy and Kraft.

After serious discussion amongst the sellers, these value propositions received scores between 4-6. Their rationale? They were nice benefit statements about the company, but not quite as punchy as they could have been.

Since my book, Selling to Big Companies, was required reading prior to the session, I assumed these sellers would ace this exercise. Not so! In fact, they were way off.

The truth is that all the above value propositions really deserve a score of one. Not four. Not six. Just a measly score of one.

“C’mon, Jill,” you might be saying. “How can that be? They’re not horrible statements. They’re nice.”

Yes, they are nice. I’ll give you that. But they’re grossly ineffective and that’s why they rated so poorly.

Capturing the Decision Maker’s Attention
While those commonly used value propositions listed above might be important at some point in the decision process, they’re totally and utterly worthless when prospecting.

When it comes to capturing a decision maker’s attention, here’s what you need to think about:

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

The next time you have a customer who is objecting to your price for your product or service, here’s a little quotation that’ll remind you how business works.

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money and that is all, but when you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing that you have bought isn’t capable of doing the thing which it was bought to do.”

“The common law of business balance prohibits you from paying a little and receiving a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder it would be as well to add something for the risk you run, and if you can so that you can afford to buy something better.”

John Ruskin 1819 – 1900

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

Earlier today I got an email from a seller who’d just read my article on naked selling. He shared with me how he does it – which I thought was a great idea too.

Then it hit me. Most of you haven’t read it yet. So I’m bringing it back. Enjoy!

——-

My daughter went to a small college in Northern Iowa that’s famous for two two things: an excellent music program and … (drum roll) … Coed Naked Soccer. Every year some students manage to sneak a game in despite the administration’s warning of dire consequences if they’re caught.

What does that have to do with sales?

This past week, I talked with two sellers who are having extraordinary success right now. Their business is skyrocketing. Pricing is virtually a non-issue.

And all this happened once they started going into sales calls totally, stark-raving naked.

At least that’s how they felt when they stopped bringing their brochures into meetings with prospective buyers. Armed with only a notebook and pen, they had nothing to hide behind.

They couldn’t direct the prospect’s attention to the marketing collateral. They couldn’t point out hot new features. They couldn’t show the exciting new technologies. They couldn’t display their incredible portfolio of work.

Instead, they sat there naked – totally vulnerable – with their prospect staring at them. Waiting. Watching.

Without the brochure, they were forced to focus on the prospect’s business. They asked questions about how it was going. They explored the challenges and the issues the prospect was concerned about. They discussed the prospect’s goals, ideas and expectations.

And, because they were naked, with no brochures to fall back on even if they wanted to, they ended up having totally client-focused conversations.

The prospects loved it. They felt valued and understood. They felt like the reps cared and were concerned. They asked for the rep’s advice and even wanted specific recommendations.

Despite this final temptation to pull out a brochure, these reps suggested a second meeting as the next step. They got it – and shortly thereafter ended up with bigger contracts than even they could have imagined at the beginning.

If you’re one of those salespeople who relies heavily on your marketing collateral or samples, try shedding them for awhile.

Go naked into your sales calls. Have a discussion – not a pitch. It won’t be long before you too start seeing the difference it makes!

P.S. Here’s Fred Barker’s suggestion. He’s the guy that wrote me earlier today:

Having great disdain for going into a meeting completely naked, I now take my note pad plus a company pen and extra pad for the person with whom I’m meeting. My prospects use the notepad to take notes, which keeps our company name and logo in front of them.

Sounds like a great idea to me!

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, helps sellers crack into corporate accounts, shorten sales cycles and win big contracts. She’s a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences. For timely and provocative sales advice, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com

This is a guest post by Paul Archer

I’m sure you’re making more prospecting calls at the moment, just like everyone else, so I’m guessing that you’re coming across barriers in getting to talk to your prospective customers.

If that barrier is a “Personal Assistant who’s trained to stop you in your tracks, here’s a neat little tip that just might get you put through.

A UCLA survey showed that on the telephone a massive 84% of the message and meaning

is derived purely from your voice. This is a well known fact and was substantiated by Albert Mehrabian in the 1970′s.

I’m suggesting that you sound important so you can get through the gatekeeper.

Important people have deeper voices and say things in shorter sentences. Their tone of voice falls at the end of each sentence to accentuate their importance and they leave lots of pauses.

And most people when faced with someone who sounds ever so important will put you through without hesitation. Try it, it works and is also fun.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

When I hung up the phone, I was in a state of shock. I’d just agreed to do something that was vital to my business growth, yet totally unreasonable to accomplish in only 90 days. To top it off – I had no extra time in my already over-flowing schedule.

It all started when leadership coach Caitlin Miller invited me to participate in the Breakthrough Game. When it came time to identify my goal, she insisted that I select one that was the “other side of possible.”

So, with a great deal of angst and a bit of excitement, I committed to increase my database by 50% in three months.

Was I crazy? Perhaps. But trying to pull this off in such a short timeframe was a challenge I couldn’t resist.

The Failure of Incrementalism

Most of us are used to dealing with incremental goals. Our quota goes up 15% each year. We decide that we’d like to earn 10% more money.
We’d want to increase our closing ratio by 5%.

These small increases keep us thinking and acting small. We commit to making one extra call each day. We focus on working harder. Perhaps we even think about working smarter.

But the reality of it is, incremental goals feel like a burden. They don’t inspire us to greater heights. Mostly, they just wear us down as we face a never-ending cycle of doing more, more, more.

The Real Secret to Success

When we set unreachable goals that require us to stretch beyond what we think we’re capable of achieving, we’re forced to consider new options.

Take my situation: It took me seven years to build by database to its current size. Now I needed to increase it by 50% in a totally unrealistic timeframe. Clearly, my normal modus operandi wouldn’t work.

New strategies were needed – ones that I’d never considered before. I had to think differently about this challenge.

I started by asking new questions:

• How could I double my database virtually overnight?
• Where could I find a critical mass of people who’d want to receive my newsletter?
• What partnerships could I put together?
• What resources did I have at my disposal?
• If I had all the money in the world, what would I do?
• What would Steve Jobs do if he were given this challenge?

You see, your brain cannot resist an unanswered question. It goes to work connecting ideas and tidbits of information to create new options for you. It operates on hyper-alert as it goes about the day, searching for possible solutions from what it observes, reads or hears.

New ideas start to pop up- ones you may never have considered before.
Some will be good. Others will be lousy or off-the-wall, but they may be just what you need to spark the next great idea.

The Clock Starts Ticking

When you give yourself an unreachable goal with an unrealistic deadline, you also need to plot out a plan. Personally, I divided my 90 days into three one-month segments.

In the first 30 days, I focused on exploring the challenge. I actively searched for ideas that I could implement. I challenged myself to find solutions that wouldn’t push me to the brink, were easy to implement and low cost.

I spent the next 30 days, creating some lead generation tools as well as modifying my website. And, the final 30 days were allotted for implementation.

Did I achieve my goal? Not quite. I only grew my database by 25% in those 90 days, but that in itself was an unachievable goals. I was totally elated with these results – especially since I abandoned the project in the final three weeks in order to meet my publisher’s deadline for my newest book, SNAP Selling.

I Double Dare You

Now that I’ve told you my story, it’s your turn. What kind of unreachable goal can you set for yourself in the upcoming 90 days?

It has to be something that you’d really like to achieve – and, as Caitlin Miller says, “is on the other side of possible.” You have to feel a little bit scared to tackle it, but it excites you too.

How about increasing your hot prospects by 50% in the next three months? Perhaps it’s landing five new appointments with big companies in your area? Maybe it’s pulling together an educational event for your prospects and getting 35 people to attend?

Think about it! I double dare you to take this challenge. And 90 days from now, I’d like to hear what you accomplished!

Jill Konrath, sales strategist and bestselling author of Selling to Big Companies and SNAP Selling, is a frequent speaker at annual sales meetings, kick-off events and professional conferences.

For more articles like this, visit www.SellingtoBigCompanies.com. Sign up for the newsletter and get a BONUS Sales Call Planning Guide.