This is a Guest post by Jill Konrath of Selling To Big Companies.

Thinking of steering your business into a new direction? Your biggest concern will be credibility. Companies don’t want to be your first client in a vertical market. They don’t want to waste their time showing you the ropes, training and teaching you. Despite being a good company, being inexperienced will increase the possibility of committing mistakes.

Here are a few things to remember:

1. Slowly but surely.

Study the industry that you’re joining. Do your homework and research important information such as industry terminology, rival companies, salable products and services, target clients and specific business processes and operations. Test the waters first. Don’t be too eager to move into the market.

2. Observe carefully.

Determine how they do things in relation to your business offering. Is there any difficulty in achieving certain business goals? What solutions can be suggested? What are the financial consequences of these problems?

Inform your prospective clients of the benefits and value of your products and services. Impart the business outcomes and results when using your offering.

3. Establish connections.

The more contacts you have, the easier it will be to make transactions. It is also better to establish connections between your present customers and your new ones.

4. Start with smaller opportunities first.

Smaller opportunities are easier to manage and the risks are lesser. Deliver an excellent performance on the tasks and assignments that you promised. Then start pursuing other available opportunities to expand your mark.

5. Train your employees on all of the above.

Teach your salespeople to do all these. They will fail if they don’t know how to apply these. Showing them powerpoint presentations aren’t enough. Not only do they have to learn the product/service details, they also need to be able to initiate smart business conversations with companies.

6. Equip your salespeople with easy-to-use and easy-to-understand tools.

Teach your salespeople how to leave effective phone calls, voicemails and emails. Then you can train them in setting up meetings with clients. Provide relevant papers, charts and studies that can be useful when they’re discussing your company’s products and services to prospective clients. Provide a “question matrix” that will serve as guide when making calls. Create customer-focused powerpoint presentations to be used on meetings.

7. Have faith.

Apply the suggestions above to increase your chances of success. Don’t be too eager to succeed. Plan things carefully before making business decisions.

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 Alen Majer, CEO of The Science and Art of Selling.

Your mission as a sales person should be to find companies that have immediate wants and needs. This means that something happened or is happening to them – a move, a merger, new investors, etc. You have to look for any event that might create the opportunity for you, or better said you are looking for event that can trigger the sales for you.

It could be something internal or inside the company, like a new direction from management, a merger or an acquisition, rapid growth, or maybe a new product introduction. And it could mean the company is turning “Green” and needs new and different supplies and services.

It could be external or outside the company, like the new strategies of their competition or new legislation (Sarbanes- Oxley Act). Maybe even a natural disaster, which is a well-known external trigger for many customers.

Generally speaking, trigger events have effects inside the whole company. Suddenly new needs are recognized; previous decisions need to be revisited. Very often, management becomes aware of new priorities and changes the direction of the company.

Trigger events are extremely important when we are in the search mode, looking for our next customer, and when we need to identify our sales opportunities at a particular company from our target list.

Every company has something new happening. Maybe they improved or reintroduced their products or service. There could be new faces in the boardroom or on the sales floor. A new office may have opened up in the Midwest. A new vendor or strategic partner could have been added. Even new money or investor may come into the company.

Most important for a buyer is that the provider understands the buyer’s situation, needs and business.

Every change in the business environment causes a search for new suppliers or new service providers, and your main goal is to be in front of qualified buyers when they are ready to buy.

In these situations, I would say this is almost the perfect position for every sales person. You know there is something happening with the accounts from your list of targeted accounts and you know that as it happens – perfect timing is a key of success many times. This is equally true no matter if it is with small or large companies.

An example of the above is a situation where through your trigger event research you determine that your customer is planning to switch its ordering system to one of the new software solutions. So you know there is something going to happen. Whether the company is large or small, it can be perfect timing for you to be able to provide products and services to them using that kind of ordering/sales process.

How to use that information?

When you get the information related to a trigger event, you need to adjust your approach so the benefits of your products (or services) are closely related to the trigger event, and you are able to show your customers that you can create a value for them early in the buying process.

This is a good way to start working on the relationship and developing the customer’s perception of your value to them. This means when you speak with the decision maker and if you know exactly what this trigger event is about, you will be able to tailor your story and the benefits of your product in a way that sounds appealing and is related to the customers’ growth trigger event.

You need to adjust your presentation in the way to recognize that event and to present your offering in the most effective way.

Questions you will ask on your calls or meetings with prospects will be targeted towards their needs and you will be able to demonstrate your understanding of business situation. That should bring you a step closer to get the deal done.

You definitely want to discover their hot buttons and why they could be on the market now for your products or services. Also, you should find out why they are qualified now, at this particular moment, and why you should be very active with this prospect.

It is actually very simple – when you show your prospects that you actually care and you have done your homework and you know about trigger events happening inside their company (new CFO, merger and acquisition, bad 3rd quarter…) you also show them that you are interested about their issues, and most importantly concerned about their wants and needs.

You will create interest in their eyes because you are different than anyone else who contacts them, who is simply trying to sell something without really understanding their needs.

When you know about different trigger events it will be much easier for you to ask questions that lead to uncover customer’s needs and buying motives, and to put them in the market even if they feel they are not buying anything now.

If you try to make a sale without necessary information about your customers, you are just shooting blanks in the air, hoping to hit something. With full information about your prospect’s situation, you will be able to sell easier, and that is the main purpose of this article (and my blog) – to help you find your next customer in a much easier way for you, and yet maintain a professional, knowledgeable approach.

All needs are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Alen Majer consults and trains entrepreneurs and salespeople how to harness their (sex) energy and use it for the success of selling. He is the founder and CEO of The Science and Art of Selling – a sales training, coaching and consulting company in Toronto, Canada; co-founder of Sales Academy – Croatia and Sales Institute of Croatia. Visit his blog at http://www.alenmajer.com.

This is a Guest post by Alen Majer, CEO of The Science and Art of Selling.

In my previous article, I was talking how If you live by price – you will die by price.

Let’s talk further about how to close the deal without discounting.

If you base your offer on your price only, there is a good chance that someone will have a lower price than you, or you can end up in the bidding war that distracts from solutions. To avoid that, base your proposal in achieving more goals for your prospects, not just to save money, because every other salesperson will say exactly the same.

A customer wants to see the value not in your product; he wants to get the value from your solution to their business problem. They must perceive unique value from you. If they cannot differentiate you from the competition, there is no reason to buy from you.

Probably you can’t differentiate much with your product, I am sure you have some unique features, but your competition has them, too. Customers today can easily substitute your product with the one from your competition and still be satisfied.

So how can you differentiate?

That’s where trigger events are coming to the game.

Trigger events can help you with recognizing needs and opening the door to have a meaningful conversation with customers who have events happening. Just to be different from the competition is not really important to your customers. What they would like to see is added value.

What creates customer value?

-    Skilled sales force

-    Sales process itself

-    Understanding their business situation today and adapting to their particular wants and needs

If you recognize your customers’ needs and create the value for them, customers will move from initial meeting to a decision much easier. Communicating the value is a traditional view of selling, but in today’s world you can’t survive if you are not creating the value for the customer. And make customers realize that they are on the market.

A salesperson needs to play a leading role to create the value for his customers. In each step of the sales process, the  sale person can create the value, but the most value can be created early in the process by helping customers define their needs.

This is true especially in consultative sales where the salesperson can create the value, recognize customer needs with trigger events and help them define their needs better and deeper. A sales professional needs to create the specialized situation and put them on the market even if they didn’t feel like that before he entered the picture.

If you are just selling your product – you are missing the point and you will die by price, as you lived by price. Customers are looking beyond the product; they are looking for the solution to their needs and your understanding of their business situation. Many times that should include help and advice, too.

Individual customers must be treated differently. What works for one customer may not work at all for another. Knowing about trigger events happening to your targeted prospect (and more different events are always better) you will have a very powerful tool to adjust your sales presentation to their needs, recovered with trigger events.

Concentrate on understanding your customers’ business issues, and show them how to solve more than one goal with your product, create a value for them and you will go home with the contract in your pocket, whatever the price is.

Let me repeat it here once more – if you don’t show the value, you will definitely not win whatever your price is. Even if you have the lowest price on the market, it does not mean much to the prospect, because they don’t see the difference between your product and ones from the competition. And many buyers are buying from someone who had crafted a compelling solution to their needs, then comes understanding of their needs, and after that, the financial part of the deal.

Your goal as sales professional is to create value through how you’re selling, not just through what you’re selling. To be a real sales professional ready for 21st century customers, here is no question- you need to change your approach, but when and how?

Alen Majer consults and trains entrepreneurs and salespeople how to harness their (sex) energy and use it for the success of selling. He is the founder and CEO of The Science and Art of Selling – a sales training, coaching and consulting company in Toronto, Canada; co-founder of Sales Academy – Croatia and Sales Institute of Croatia. Visit his blog at http://www.alenmajer.com.

The following is a Guest post by Mike Brooks, AKA Mr. Inside Sales.

Let’s face it — today’s business world is competitive.  Besides the normal objections you get (no money, price too high, need to talk to, etc.) a common objection that blows out 80% of your competition is, “I can get a better deal elsewhere.”  This frustrates a lot of sales reps and takes thousands of dollars of commission out of their pockets.

The top 20% also get this objection but are prepared for it and know how to overcome it.  Here’s what they do:

First, they recognize that if someone says that they can get a better deal elsewhere, it means one of three things:

1 — They’re wrong (in other words, they think they are getting the same thing you’re offering, but they’re not).

2 — They’re just putting you off and using this objection as a smokescreen.

3 — They really can get a better deal.

In order to find out what your prospect means, offer to help them determine if they really are getting a better deal by questioning and comparing every component of it.  Use this script:

“ __________ my customers tell me this all the time, and sometimes they genuinely can get a better deal, but a lot of times they can’t.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  I’ll go over each item you’ve been quoted by this other company, in other words we will compare apples to apples, and if everything is equal, I’ll see if I can do even better on that.  If I can, you’ll get an even better deal and if I can’t, I’ll tell you so.  Either way, you’ll win.  Now, do you have that other quote in front of you?”

Then simply go over each item to make sure everything is equal.  Often times it’s not and you can point this out.  And if it is, you still have a chance to win the deal.  If they do have a better deal, then build the value of having you as their sales rep and try to close the sale anyway.

Either way, you’ll win.

If you want to Double Your Income Selling Over the Phone, then check out Mike’s Award Winning 5-CD Series and learn the techniques and strategies of Top 20% producers.  Visit:  http://www.mrinsidesales.com/cd_page.htm

Order now and receive a FREE copy of Mike’s “The Complete Book of Phone Scripts,” which is packed with word for word scripts and techniques that you can begin using today to make more appointments and more sales – a $49 Value FREE!

This is a Guest Post by Mark Hunter.

It may sound odd to mention “phone sales tips” and “body language” in the same sentence. Do the two go together? Yes! In fact, you can even say when you add the two together, you get a third phenomenon:  Increased sales motivation. Your body language comes through loud and clear with every phone call you make.

I often tell salespeople to make sure they are standing up anytime they make an important phone call. In the instances when you do have to be sitting for a phone call, make sure you have good posture. It’s amazing how much stronger your voice will be when you’re standing up and/or maintaining good posture when you make a call. It is no surprise that when your voice is stronger, your confidence is stronger too.

Another reminder I offer is this: Make sure when you are on the phone, you are free of visual distractions. What are some common visual distractions? Email would possibly be the biggest one if you are at your computer. Other distractions include television, miscellaneous papers on your desk or anything else that can take away your focus. When you’re having a conversation with someone on the phone, it’s no different than speaking to them in person. They deserve your complete and undivided attention. If you have something else that may take away your focus, you are doing your customer a disservice. Simply move it out of site.

Finally, an item I love to do when talking to clients on the phone is to have something on my desk to remind me who I am talking to, including their name and their company. There is nothing more embarrassing than to suddenly forget who you’re talking to. No matter how good you think your memory is, this will happen to you at least a couple of times.  That’s all it takes for you to realize how important it is to have the person’s name and company in writing in front of you.

Selling on the telephone is a key part of anyone’s job, whether it be using the phone to establish an initial contact or using it to stay in touch with a loyal customer. Use extraordinary phone skills each time and you will see a positive difference in your results.

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” helps individuals and companies identify better prospects, close more sales, and profitably build more long-term customer relationships. He is a consultative selling expert, specializing in custom-tailored sales programs. You can read his blog at http://thesaleshunter.com/blog.

This is a Guest post by Alen Majer, CEO of The Science and Art of Selling.

If your prospect does not see the value in your product or service, and if the only difference between you and the competitors is in pricing, you didn’t do a good job as a sales person. The main description of your position inside the company is to create the value, not just to show your price list. Teaching and educating customers is no longer enough, giving them information about your products or services is no longer necessary. They can get them by themselves, without ever talking to you or your company, and know more about your product and positioning on the market than you.

If they know so much about you, how can you try to sell them the same product without knowing their business situation or their needs?

Remember that customers are sophisticated; they either have or believe they can get product information more reliably on their own. Information is readily available through many different sources, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Internet is full of different forums, blogs, and review or research websites where they can get information about your product easily.

Customers don’t just want a specific product; most of the times they want to solve their pain point or business issues. A customer in today’s competitive sales environment does not expect to educate the sales professional about their business.  Therefore, you must already possess a solid understanding of the customer’s industry, competitors, and business direction.

Developing such a comprehensive view of the customer is a task that requires extensive researching and education to get an overall picture of the customer’s business industry. The modern sales person needs to focus on understanding the customer’s business initiatives, strategic plans, IT environment, and key customer preferences.

If you are still seeing yourself as someone who is there to educate customers, you are living in the past. The time of product-centric sales is gone. Welcome to customer-centric approach in sales.

You need to move away from the focus on presenting your products. Instead, a customer-centric approach shows that you recognize and understand your customers’ needs, which is necessary if you want to survive in a 21st Century sales environment.

Your customers are tired of salespeople who come in and are unable to address real business needs, but talk about their company and the hottest feature, or unique one that nobody else has. There are many dimensions that you are selling, and price is only one of them.

Alen Majer consults and trains entrepreneurs and salespeople how to harness their (sex) energy and use it for the success of selling. He is the founder and CEO of The Science and Art of Selling – a sales training, coaching and consulting company in Toronto, Canada; co-founder of Sales Academy – Croatia and Sales Institute of Croatia. Visit his blog at http://www.alenmajer.com.

This is a Guest post by Jill Konrath of Selling To Big Companies.

Currently, the economy is worrying a lot of people. Many sellers are extremely pressured to bring in more business. Recently,  someone contacted me, concerned with being pressured to do “whatever it takes” to get the deal.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a method for disaster – and here’s why …

When I started my sales career at Xerox, it was clear that performing poorly was not okay. Every month, the regional offices would post stack rankings of all the representatives presenting their monthly numbers and their year-to-date results.

It was not only embarrassing to be at the bottom of those stack rankings , but it also meant that you’d likely need to look for another job. We all dream of being and staying at the top. The recognition, the money and position were huge – and vastly seductive.

I am divulging this because sellers at either end of those stack rankings (including me at the time), were likely to “cheat” a little in order to get ahead and upgrade their positions. Here’s how they do it:

• Doing business in other seller’s territories.
• Giving presents under the table to enhance the deal.
• Misrepresenting product/service potential, mostly through omission.
• Making rude and insulting remarks about their competition or even their colleagues.

Each of these unacceptable behaviors (and others that I haven’t mentioned) can have serious consequences.

It eats away at your personal integrity. Cheating once will make it easier for you to do it over and over again. Over time, you’ll have “sold your soul” in order to close the deal.

The minute your co-workers discover that you bend the rules to get ahead, this influences their ability to trust you. Professionally, you’ll become more isolated because they avoid  talking and sharing things with you.

Once your prospects sense or realize your self-serving behaviors, they may refuse to do business with you.  Unsatisfied customers will tell their friends and your reputation as an unethical seller or business will spread.  You’ll actually lose work in the long run.

If you’re tempted to be even the slightest bit unethical, don’t do it. Instead, do what’s right. You can live with yourself much better. And, it’s good for business.

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 Jill Konrath of Selling To Big Companies.

Kevin Writes: I have a long-standing client. One noteworthy group asked us for a meeting to converse about a project and we geared up a moderately complex Statement of Work in just two business days.

We sent it, followed up with an e-mail several days later, followed up with one telesales call each week the following two weeks, and with another e-mail the next week. Ultimately, having hear nothing from the folks we were working with, I elevated to higher ups.

As you can imagine, I got a reply from my Director contact, and of course, ire and frustration from the unresponsive project folks.  Was I wrong to elevate? The logic of the project folks (my prospect) is that if we weren’t hearing from them, we should continue contacting them.

Now, where is it written that only telesales people or sellers have to exhibit professionalism, not the client?

—————————

My thoughts: The game has varied in the corporate world today. However, honestly, it is not that they are bad individuals. They are literally expected to do too much in too little time.

They are running so lean and mean that it is impossible for them to keep their head above water. I have preferred to have compassion for them. Personally, I would have hate to be in an environment like that.

However, that doesn’t mean that we need to change what we do. With each project you do, ensure you have full communications going at all times with multiple people in the organization.

Let the prospects know that you are communicating with the executives. Be completely  transparent about it-  it’s how you work.  That way, it won’t seem like you’re going around them.

What would you suggest?

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

The following is a Guest post by Mike Brooks, AKA Mr. Inside Sales

I don’t know about you, but I’m shocked every time I listen to a voicemail message left for me by telesales reps, prospects and even clients. They are filled with ‘um’s’ and ‘ah’s’, they ramble on and on, they leave no compelling reason for me to call back, and they almost always leave their number so fast that I have to listen to it two, three, sometimes four times to make it out! It’s no wonder so many voice mail messages get deleted and never called back!

If ever there was a situation that begged to be scripted, it’s your voicemail message. Isn’t this the time you want to sound your best, be perceived as a professional, and prepare the most polished message you can? Of course it is. Here are seven sample voice mail messages you can start using today to separate yourself from the other 95% of voice mails that get ignored, deleted and never returned.

The first two are voicemails for prospects you haven’t spoken with yet, the next three are for when you’re calling a prospect or client back, and the last two are for situations when your prospect or client isn’t calling you back:

Sample Voicemail Message #1:

Note: The best voicemail message you can leave is one with a specific purpose that addresses the needs of your prospect or client, and offers them a solution that is worth them taking the time to call you back to learn more about. Here is the classic template – adjust and adapt it to fit your product or service. In this and all examples, leave your phone number SLOWLY:

“Hi __________, this is ___________ with (your company). I’m calling about your new office that’s opening in Houston next month, and I wanted to provide you with some ideas that may help with your networking issues.
We work with a lot of companies in the area, and I think you’ll find it useful if we talk.

You can reach me by calling area code (800) 222-0568. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568, and ask for _________. I look forward speaking with you and thanks in advance for returning my call.”

Sample Voicemail Message #2:

“Hi _________, this is _______ _______ with (your company). You and I haven’t spoken yet, but I’ve been doing some research on your company and I think you’re a great fit for (our networking solutions – your products here). We can provide you with (BREIF list of one or two benefits) and I know you’ll be happy if we spend just a couple of minutes discussing how this can help you.

When you get this message, please call me back at (800) 222-0568. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568 and ask for _________. I look forward to speaking with you, and I guarantee you’ll be glad you returned this call.”

Sample Voicemail Message #3:

“Hi _________, this is ________ ________ with (your company). Briefly _________, I need to speak with you about how you’re handling your sales tracking (Or your kind of product or fulfillment), because I have something that can (solve their unique problem). Our clients include (list some companies they are familiar with), and I know this would work for you as well. Believe me it’ll be worth a 5 minute phone call to find out why.

Please do me a favor when you get this message and call me back at (800) 222-0568. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568 and ask for _________. I look forward speaking with you and I guarantee you’ll be glad you returned this call.”

The next two examples are for voicemails left for prospects (or clients) you’re getting back to:

Sample Voicemail Message #1:

“Hi _________, this is ________ _________ getting back with you at (your company). I’m looking forward to speaking with you because we just (give an update here – you have a new special, new product update, added a new client they would know about), and I know that based on (their specific need you uncovered during the last call) this is going to make it even easier for you to (give the benefit you both discussed). I’m excited to share this with you.

Do me a favor when you get this message and please give me call a back at
(800) 222-0568, ext. 618. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568, and I’m at ext. 618. I look forward speaking with you!”

Sample Voicemail Message #2:

“Hi ________, this is _______ ________ getting back with you about (your demo, quote, etc.). Briefly, I’ve been doing some more research on how we may be able to save you even more (or make you even more – whatever your product or service can do for them), especially in regards to your (list a specific need they told you about during the initial call), and I’m excited to share that (or discuss that) with you.

I’ll be in my office the rest of today, so do me a favor when you get this message and please give me call a back at (800) 222-0568, ext. 618. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568, and I’m at ext. 618. I look forward speaking with you.”

And for the prospects or clients that seem to be dodging you or just not calling you back:

Sample Voicemail Message #1:

“Hi _________, this is _______ ________ again with (your company). For some reason we haven’t been able to connect since I sent you (your demo, proposal, etc.), and believe me, I’ve been sales long enough to know what that probably means. I’m assuming you’ve either found another solution or this has been put on the back burner for now. Either way, that’s fine.

Do me a favor though please. So I’m not bothering you anymore, could you please give me a quick call and just give me an update so I know what direction you’re moving in? If I’m not available, just leave me a voice mail. Again, either way, it will be good to know what’s going on.

Thanks in advance for that, and I’ll look for your call. You can reach me at (800) 222-0568, ext. 618. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568, and I’m at ext. 618. Thanks again, ________.”

Sample Voicemail Message #2:

“Hi _________ this is _______ ________ again with (your company). I’m sorry we haven’t been able to get back together on this – if you’re like me I’m sure you’re being pulled in many different directions and are real busy. Do me a favor, though, and when you get this message, just call me back and leave me a voice mail with what you’ve decided to do about (your proposal or demo or quote). If you’re still interested in it, great, but even if you’ve decided not to move forward with it, that’s fine as well.
Either way it will be nice for me to know.

Thanks in advance for that, and I’ll look for your call. You can reach me at (800) 222-0568, ext. 618. That number again is area code (800) 222-0568, and I’m at ext. 618. Thanks again, ________.”

There you have it – voicemail messages for most of the situations you’ll find yourself in. Once again, by using these scripted, proven messages you’ll be giving yourself the best chance to hear back from your prospects and clients. And remember, even if their answer is no that’s a lot better than chasing unqualified prospects who are never going to buy.

Mike Brooks, Mr. Inside Sales, works with business owners and inside sales reps nationwide teaching them the skills, strategies and techniques of top 20% performance. If you’re looking to catapult your sales, or create a sales team that actually makes their monthly revenues, then learn how by visiting: http://www.MrInsideSales.com

The following is a Guest post by Mike Brooks, AKA Mr. Inside Sales.

Most telesales reps hate getting objections.  Their hearts sink into their stomachs, their palms start to sweat, and they start wondering how they’re going to pay the rent.  Sound familiar?

When telesales reps ask me how they should handle objections, they are often surprised by my answer.  I tell them they should never answer objections.  When they look at me like I’m crazy, I explain:

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