Prospecting, deriving its origin from the act of mineral exploration, is an activity that seeks to determine whether something profitable can be gained from a prospect. By identifying the right prospects beforehand, prospecting maximizes the time you will spend in cold calling, ensures that you get high quality calls, and creates a huge impact on your return of investment – in other words, your time!

Most modern-day telesales professionals do not seem to realize the impact of prospecting on their overall sales results, that’s why it is ignored by so many. By disregarding this important activity, telesales professionals miss a lot of sales opportunities by turning the art of cold calling into a hit-and-miss affair.

Prospecting has evolved into a science that never fails to produce predictable yet excellent results. If you want to make the most out of your call list, you have to follow a system that is guaranteed to work effectively.

The aim of this chapter is to provide you with an effective prospecting system to help you explore for the “gold” in your calling lists!

(1) Be Prepared

Prospecting is a challenging activity and the degree of your success will hinge on your preparation. You should fully know and understand your products and services and be ready to answer questions about their applications and uses – as well as their features and benefits, too. You should also know your target market. Being acquainted with the type of people who will buy what you’re selling helps a lot in assessing your prospects. Knowing who your competitors are as well as what strengths and weaknesses they have, is also a valuable commodity for when you’re positioning yourself in front of your prospects.

(2) Schedule your Prospecting Sessions

Prospecting should be part of your daily routine. Set aside at least one hour each day to look for prospects with the right profile. Mark it down, as one of the top priorities of the day and you will resist the tendency to put off this important activity. To help you accomplish your daily prospecting sessions without fail, incorporate it into your time management system and then do it! Every day.

(3) Maximize your Calls

If your prospecting sessions last for only one hour each, maximize your time by making as many calls as possible. This also increases your chances of making more money in the long run, obviously. Before you start making the first call, eliminate all sources of distraction and set your desk phone to Do Not Disturb; prospecting requires your full and undivided attention. Turn the computer off, shut off the iPhone and all its cool Apps, and focus, focus, focus on identifying prospects who are receptive to your message, whilst disposing of the wrong ones quickly to enable you to move onto the viable conversation.

At a certain point, you will find your rhythm and each call you make will be better than the previous one.

(4) Be Brief and Concise

Make your calls as brief as possible. Give a short introduction, highlight the features and benefits of your product or service, and understand the customer’s needs so you can give a value proposition. All these things should be accomplished within 4-5 minutes, tops! The shorter your prospecting calls, the better. Why? Because you can make more calls within your prospecting hour, obviously. Be concise and to the point and talk with efficiency. Your prospects will actually prefer it that way, too!

Remember what the objective of your prospecting call is. What are you looking to accomplish? The green light to send some information through via email, or snail mail? A day and a time to call them back for a more in depth chat, perhaps after they have checked out your website? Or maybe you’re setting face-to-face appointments to go on over to their place of business and pitch them the good, old-fashioned way!

(5) Prepare a List

We went over this a little in the last chapter. Calling data, more usually described in this rock n roll business were in as ‘Leads’, are the lifeblood of every sales professionals prospecting sessions. Look to prepare a list of names or companies that would last for about a month at any one time. This way you do this little task only once every four weeks or so, meaning you can focus on the more important things – like prospecting and selling!

Having a list like this helps you organize your prospecting sessions and keeps you focused in meeting your goals. You can get lists from the internet, list brokers, or from a local business publication. Such lists are basically free, but you’ll no doubt have to spend a great deal of time weeding out the names that are not worth your time – or, get someone else to do it for you! Start building your own cold call list database if you want to stay ahead of the competition., and update it as and when you can – but, always on a regular basis.

(6) Prospecting During Off-Peak Hours

Sometimes things don’t go very well with conventional prospecting times so try to improvise by calling during off-peak hours. Decision makers, especially the workaholic types, usually work during off-peak hours. They don’t expect calls between 8:00 am and 9:00 am, between 12noon and 1:00 pm, and between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm, so when you call within these times be prepared to talk when decision makers answer the phone – their secretaries and assistant probably wont even be in the office at these times.

Prospecting during off-peak hours can be a supplemental effort to your normal prospecting time or you can switch your entire prospecting time to off-peak hours, whichever is effective. I’ve done both in my career and they have served me both well – although I admit, I did become more of a lover of the Off-Peak prospect calling missions – just enjoyed catching the ‘big boss’ off guard! You can also vary the time of your calls if you can’t reach certain prospects at a particular time. If you fail to connect to the prospect after several attempts at a particular time, try calling on other days or on any other time during the day.

(7) Be organized

As I mentioned earlier, having a list serves as a guide that helps you keep organized in your prospecting sessions, but you need a sophisticated tool if you want to keep track of all of your prospects. Aside from maintaining accurate records, an good Customer Relationship Management (CRM – eg. SalesForce.com) System allows you to schedule a follow-up as far ahead as several years after making a call even!

You might encounter prospects that still have existing contracts, for example, but if they tell you to call them as soon as their contract expires then schedule a follow-up at the right time. The advantages of using a system like this are too many to list here. Check one out – there are tons of options. I’ve listed a few good ones in the Online Resources section of this eBook.

(8) Visualize

One powerful technique that will do wonders for your prospecting is the use of visualization. Before you start your prospecting session, visualize everything that is going to take place. Visualize every detail of your call and how it will unfold. You open your call with your attention-grabbing opening statement, or introduction and your prospect excitedly listens to your proposition. The final scene shows you scheduling the appointment, or confirming an important email address. Don’t be surprised if your prospecting calls turn out exactly as you have envisioned them – the power of a positive mind should NEVER be underestimated.

Visualization also helps you relax. It clears your mind, heightens your concentration, eliminates negative thoughts and helps you think positively. All these are benefits of visualization and they equip you to withstand any anxiety or negativity that you’ll encounter on your prospecting calls. Another benefit of visualization is that it builds up your confidence. Your ability to get the prospect’s nod on your offering will be enhanced by your confidence. Prospects are likely to buy from someone who exudes a lot of confidence.

It’s like an All-Star basketball player seeing the winning basket drop through the hoop before they even take the shot. They know it. They FEEL it. Get onto YouTube and search for the 3-Point Shootout from the 1988 NBA All-Star weekend. Larry Bird needs the final shot to drop to win the title. He releases the ball and whilst its still on its way towards the hoop, he is already on his way to the center of the court to collect his prize. Seriously watch it… THAT is visualization!

(9) Never, EVER Quit!

Prospecting is like a game. You win some, you lose some. You will also have your own share of rejections, but don’t let that discourage you. Consider it as a lesson to be learned and just keep going. Never let go of a prospect too easily. Most prospects will throw objections your way, or say ‘no’ in other ways at least a few times, before they say ‘yes’. So don’t quit. Quitting will only leave you with the bitter aftertaste of knowing that you could have won the game had you stayed on and kept playing.

Your persistence will impress on the minds of your prospects and they will start the wonder about the full value of your product or service – eventually, you’ll win them over.

This is a complete, FREE chapter from the upcoming release of “Telesales Magic – Proven Tips, Tactics and Techniques to Help You Sell More on the Phone!”, the brand new eBook/AudioBook companion course by 20-year telesales veteran, Chris C. Ducker which is due for release this coming Friday 18th February, 2011.

Every company in the world is selling something. Regardless of what that product or service is, those companies need people to help sell ‘it’ to their prospects.

As economies have worsened over the last few years, many companies, some big, some small, have started to bring their seasoned sales professionals in from the road, and place them behind desks. These people now, for the first time in a long time, or perhaps for the first time ever have nothing but their sales smarts and the trusty telephone to help them get the job done.

To hit their monthly targets. To close more business. To sell more product or services. Simply put – to earn a living!

The good news is, however, that becoming a telemarketer has never been easier than it is today. The tools, techniques and tips to excel in this role are in more abundance today than ever before in the history of western civilization. That’s a stone cold fact. Videos on YouTube, audio Podcasts, a multitude of blogs and books, and other resources, such as the upcoming ‘Telesales Magic’ eBook/AudioBook companion course, from yours truly. (Plug over!)

I’m not saying that you can pop a magic pill and automatically become the most awesome telesales pro in the world. Of course not. Like any industry or professional path in life, it takes dedication and a lot of hard work to become great at what you do. However, what I am saying is that it’s not as hard and as complicated to do, as it was twenty or thirty years ago.

And here’s the thing… Telesales people are generally regarded as the ‘cream of the crop’ when it comes to the sales profession. Think about it… We deserve to be known as the elite of the sales world. We wake up every day knowing full well that the large majority of the people that we call on are not going to be interested in speaking with us – at first, anyway!

That direct and obvious animosity helps us create huge ‘stiff upper lips’. Become rejection proof, persistent as hell and generally speaking, unstoppable as a sales professional.

The qualities of a solid, sincere telemarketer are steadfast in our pursuit of the sale. We follow our sales process, starting out with prospecting, and ending up with the natural conclusion to the sales process – THE CLOSE.  We brush off objections, and become hugely popular rapport builders, as well as problem solvers.

And above and beyond everything else, we thrive on the challenge. The challenge of hearing the words ‘Not interested…’.

And THAT, my friends, is why, as a professional telemarketer you will always have a job. You will always be employable. You will always have a place to work – and, most importantly, you will ALWAYS have a means to earn a living.

The only question you have to ask yourself is “How BIG of a living do I want to earn..?!!”.

See you on Wednesday, where I will be dishing out a FREE excerpt from the aforementioned upcoming ‘Telesales Magic’ eBook/AudioBook companion course!

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.

Here’s a tale that many parents will relate to and gives some thought to help next phone sales meeting.

It was rush hour and I was travelling on a packed intercity train and in the opposite seat was a young couple with a toddler who was causing all sorts of commotion. The poor young couple were very embarrassed. The carriage was stony quiet except for the toddler and everyone was staring at the young couple.

Along came the conductor to check tickets and to the rescue she came. She soon realised how uncomfortable the couple were so offered to head back to the buffet car where they had some special toddler packs containing colouring pencils and picture books.

The couple were even more self-conscious being asked a question until the elderly chap next to me said “Oh can I have one as well please?” He laughed followed by everyone else and the icy tension quickly thawed.

He had rescued the situation with some quick thinking and humour.

This made me think about phone sales meetings and the need to have one or two questions up your sleeve as rescue questions. When the situation gets tricky – maybe your customer has said something that completely throws you or your laptop crashes right in the middle of the presentation – most of us can’t think quickly enough to come out with an appropriate response so have one preprepared.

It’s here that you can use your rescue question to get you out of the tricky mess.

Here are a few ideas:

“That’s a good point – can we park that and come back later”

“Tell me about your year so far”

“What major changes are you implementing this year?”

So memorise some rescue questions just in case – you never know when they’ll come in handy.

And the toddler? Sure enough the toddler pack did the trick but only for ten minutes. I felt very sorry for the couple but reached for a 21st century gadget to get me out of bother – my iPod and drowned out the noise.

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

Commodity Buyers
These buyers know exactly what they want and how to use it. They don’t need sellers to explain the details. Commodity buyers typically value:

• Low costs. They don’t want to pay any more than necessary. To be successful with these buyers, companies need to pull as many costs as they can out of their supply chain.

• No hassles. Make it simple, simple, simple to do business with your company. Give them an 800 number, send quick quotes, or allow easy online ordering and they’re happy.

We’re all commodity buyers at times. When I order things like contact lenses and office supplies, I just want good pricing and fast service. As a seller, there’s little you can do to create value or sell “value add.” I really don’t care. It’s up to your company to make it cheaper, simpler to order, delivered to my door and with easy returns if I need to send it back.

Strategic Partners
These people are looking far beyond the scope of your products or services. They want a strategic partnership. They’re looking at how to best leverage their organization’s core competencies in combination with another company’s core competencies. These buyers value:

• Intimate and strategic relationships between multiple levels within both organizations.
• Mutual investments in joint projects.
• Merging of systems to accomplish more than either organization could do alone.

Working with Strategic Partner buyers requires a major corporate commitment and is far beyond the scope of any one seller. If your company isn’t capable or willing to do this, these buyers aren’t interested in working with you.

By yourself, you can’t create the value they need. But if your company chooses to do this, you and your firm will become absolutely invaluable.

“I Need to Make a Sound Decision” Buyer
These buyers are either spending a lot of money on a decision or they don’t know everything there is to know about what they’re buying. Typically their decision process is complex, involves multiple people and takes place over an extended period of time.
If corporate decision makers are seriously considering your product or service, they assume it meets their basic requirements and that your organization is reputable. Having a decent offering gets you in the game, but does not typically provide enough value to win the business.

In fact, with these these buyers, the seller creates the value by what they personally bring to the relationship. These buyers value sellers who:

• Help them understand their problems in greater depth.
• Add additional insights into the challenges they face.
• Share relevant information regarding “best practices.”
• Develop unique, innovative approaches to resolving their business issues.
• Keep them up-to-date on trends in the industry and how others are addressing them.
• Help them find ways around the obstacles they’re encountering, and
• Propose new ways to do more with the same investment.

Becoming an Invaluable Resource
What makes a seller invaluable? The ability to contribute so much more with each and every customer interaction – so much so that they can’t imagine doing business without you.

Let me give you an example. Say your company handles direct mailing programs, a fairly non-differentiated service offering.

Here are some ways that you, as the seller could become invaluable to your customers. You could:

• Share ideas about other company’s direct mail programs – what works, what doesn’t.
• Help them find ways to increase the results of their existing direct mail programs.
• Show them how to reduce the overall costs of the program while maintaining its effectiveness and integrity.
• Let them know what their competitors are doing.
• Develop ways to increase the quality of their database.

If you keep thinking, you can come up with even more ways to become invaluable such as:

• Working collaboratively with related vendors (i.e. agencies, telemarketing firms) to smooth out the hand-offs.
• Helping them establish important criteria for their vendor selection process that they currently may not be aware of.
• Proposing ideas for new programs to help them achieve their desired marketing results.
• Acting as an advocate within your own organization on issues impacting the customer.
• Suggesting ways to improve the work flow between all companies and internal departments working on the project.

To become invaluable, you must bring more to the relationship than just your standard product or service. What you want to create is a situation where corporate decision makers can’t live without your ideas, insights, and knowledge.

Becoming invaluable doesn’t just “happen.” You need to invest in yourself. Learn more about your customer’s business. Figure out how to help them improve it. Be an idea generator. Become an expert in your field. It takes a real commitment on your part.

Only the best make that commitment. But it truly sets them apart from everyone else and literally makes them invaluable.

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.

Do you ever have to deliver presentations and include a question and answer session? Read on to discover the golden rules to make this

part of your talk shine.

I was at a conference recently and the speaker, who had done a pretty good job with his presentation, was about to take questions from the 50 plus audience. It was time for the dreaded Q&A Session. And you could tell this speaker wasn’t looking forward to it as his body language closed down and his voice demonstrated fear and trepidation.

As always, audiences want speakers to do well. It’s a human DNA thing. No one wants a speaker to bomb. And I was hoping this speaker would follow the golden rules of Q&As and do a good job.

Let me remind you the golden rules.

Question and answer sessions are excellent audience participation techniques which work really well with larger groups where spontaneous questions just don’t work. I mean for groups of 20 plus. They allow the speaker to demonstrate their knowledge orwisdom, they encourage audience involvement and they help the presentation to be linked to the needs and problems of the audience.

So you should run Q&As.

But you simply mustn’t leave them to the last moment. That’s a recipe for a damp squid close. Ending on a Q&A can be risky because you don’t know how many questions you’re going to get and it could all end rather meekly. No, you should plan to run a Q&A session about two thirds into the presentation, when content has been delivered and the audienceinspired and educated.

If you must leave the Q&A to the end, plan a finish to your talk – your call to action or summary or “bang” as I call it – but have your Q&A before this planned close. That way if you get few questions, then you just launch into your planned finish, to end on a high. If you’re worried about getting few questions, prime some audience members beforehand.

Alternatively display your mobile number on the big screen and get people to text you questions as the presentation is delivered. This works very well for younger audiences where mobile phones are their third limb. If you really want to be really clever, use an audience polling system using mobile phones. When this works it’s very smart and ignites audiences who love to hear what others think.

If you want the latest technology for meetings you will want to visit Corbin Ball’s site who is an expert in this area.

http://www.corbinball.com

When taking questions, follow this template:

• Repeat

• Respond

• Review

Hopefully you have a roving microphone, so everyone can hear the question. But it’s always good practice to repeat the question to make sure everyone can hear it. There’s nothing more frustrating than a question from the audience that others can’t hear. You lose interest.

Repeating also gives you valuable thinking time whilst you formulate the answer in your head. Respond, of course, although if the question is totally irrelevant, it’s quite OK to park it and suggest you have a one to one later. You might upset the questioner but you’ll please everyone else in the audience.

Respond quickly and succinctly. Don’t ramble on and on. This is a game of tennis with a both players involved in an exciting rally. Question, answer, next question, answer, next question and so on. Give the audience value by getting through a lot of questions if you can.

Finally review the answer. Ask the questioner, “was that useful” or “has that helped you”. And then move on to the next question. A little tip here if the questioner is hostile in any way – trying to catch you out or demonstrate their own expertise which some do, then don’t do the review. When you’ve answered the question say something like “I think we have another question over here” and move on.

A final Q&A tip for you is to focus your eye contact on the whole audience with about 30% of your attention on the questioner. This helps to keep the audience engaged. It also prevents you getting tied in with continuous questions from one person which is equally wearisome for the whole audience.

Keep to your timing that you allocated to the Q&A, thank the audience for their questions and move onto the grand finale that you prepared. And you’ve made the dreaded Q&A an integral part of your presentation.

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 Karen Andrews

A sales pipeline is simply a forecast that you or your salespeople prepare monthly which lists the customers that are likely to buy in a given time frame, the value of the sale and when it is likely to close. It is an essential tool for business owners and sales managers to identify where you are and where you need to be in order to meet budget.

Even if the forecast is well below where you need it to be, at least you are aware of it and can take steps to improve it and stay on track. Don’t wait until the 2nd or 3rd week of the month when you realise that sales are slow to come in and you need more because it’s usually too late.

Typically, I usually ask for a forecast at the beginning of the month and then again on the 15th of the month to see how we are tracking.

The important thing to remember is to use a ‘weighting’. You may $500,000 in your pipeline but it’s very unlikely that you will be successful in winning 100% of them so the forecast will be inaccurate. A weighting is simply a % that you apply terms of the likelihood of winning the sale. Here is an example of how to calculate:

Using this example, the salesperson needs to add more sales into their pipeline to ensure they reach their sales target of $100,000.

As a guide to the Probability you could use

Initial Communication – 10%
First Meeting/Presentation – 20%
Proposal Given – 60%
Negotiation/Verbal Commitment – 80%
Closed – 100%

Most CRM/Database packages (I use ACT or Salesforce.com) include Sales Pipeline management but it can be as simply as listing them on an Excel spreadsheet. Here are a couple of examples from Excel to get you started

Solutions Sales:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-s/templates/TC011457101033.aspx

Product Sales:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC011457181033.aspx

Karen Andrews is Director of Shine Sales Solutions, and a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert who  works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring..

This is a Guest post by Art Sobzcak.

“Show me the money Jerry!”
Rod Tidwell, character in “Jerry MaGuire”

Once into his questioning, the sales rep asked, “So you’re finding that the last stage of the manufacturing process is a challenge.”

Prospect: “Well, yeah, we’re having to do a few repetitive tasks to get it done.”

Rep: “We have software that can make that job easier and it’s only $5,000.”

Prospect: “$5000 just for making that part easier. That’s crazy.”

So what happened here?

The sales rep uncovered a problem. However, he was so eager to talk about how his product solves that problem, he failed to continue walking the prospect down the path to realizing what the problem was costing him. He didn’t see the problem as being painful enough in the short- or long term.

For most business-to-business transactions, it’s all about the money. The return on investment.

It’s pretty simple: you will always sell more when you help the prospect or customer understand the cost of the problem or potential problem, and then the payoff of the solution and/or the result of taking action

Dollarize the Situation

In his great book, “How to Become a Rainmaker,” Jeffrey Fox calls it “Dollarizing.” He says, “Rainmakers don’t sell fasteners or valves or washing machines or double-paned windows or tax audits or irrigation systems or training programs or golf clubs. Rainmakers sell money! The sell reduced downtime, fewer repairs, better gas mileage, higher deposit interest, increased output, decreased energy usage, more wheat per acre, more yardage per swing.”

When you analyze it, we buy thins because the price we pay for something is perceived as being less than dollar value we attach to the result. Our job, then, is to be sure they realize that the value of the result is high and the price is low.

The classic book, “SPIN Selling” uses the term, “Implication Questions.” It’s taking a problem that a buyer perceives to be small (or nonexistent in some cases) and building it up in a problem large enough to justify action.

Using the earlier example and dollarizing with implication questions we could get a different result.

Prospect: “Well, yeah, we’re having to do a few repetitive tasks to get it done.”

Rep: “What do you have to do?”

Prospect: “In the final stage, one of the operators has to go back and re-input the command codes to keep the line moving.”

Rep: “Please explain.”

Prospect: “He has to leave his main station, move over to the other console, input the codes he already put in, and then go back to his position.”

Rep: “How often is that happening?”

Prospect: “Geesh, over a hundred times a day?”

Rep: “Isn’t that slowing up the line and cutting down production?”

Without belaboring this, you can see where the rep is going with this, and ultimately would get the prospect to tell him exactly how much lost production is costing the company every day! Extrapolating that out over the course of a year might mean hundreds of thousands in lost profits. Now then, wouldn’t that $5000 software be a no-brainer?

Monetize and Quantify

Whenever you uncover a problem, a pain, or a desire, attach numbers and dollars to it. For example,

“How much is that costing?”

“How many?”

“How often does it happen”?

“What are the other expenses involved?”

There are hundreds of questions that could apply. Matter of fact, you should define them for yourself.

Your Action Item

Pull out a legal pad. At the top of the first page, describe a result of your product or service, such as, “High quality plastic, meaning fewer returns due to defects.” Then, list all the possible costs of returns due to defects for a customer, such as customer service phone time to take the call, cost of replacement part, all shipping costs, return of defective part, possible lost sales because of poor quality, and more. Finally, develop questions designed to get your prospects and customers talking about the problem. Take if further and brainstorm for their possible answers, then your next questions to keep them talking, and attaching costs to the problem, and the payoff for a solution. Rinse and repeat. Start new pages for each of your results.

Just think of what lost sales might be costing you now, and how much more you could make by doing this.

Art Sobczak has helped sales pros say the right things by phone for over 27 years.  Get a free ebook of tips at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com, and see more free sales and prospecting tips, hear recorded calls, and watch videos at http://www.TelesalesBlog.com

This is a Guest post by Art Sobczak.

“I leave voice mail messages all day long for prospects,” the salesperson bemoaned. “Why don’t people call me back?”

I didn’t need to listen to his calls to give an answer. The same reasons apply to all telesales people leaving voice mails. Pick any three (or more) of the following reasons:

• The message is too long. Grab their attention within 10 seconds or you’re “sixed” (or whatever their delete key is.) Picture someone picking up their voice mails in a busy, noisy airport; they don’t have time to listen to your life story.

• It’s not about them. They don’t care about you, your products, or that you’re their new “account manager.” And really, why should they?  They’re just like Toby Keith in his song, “I Want to Talk About Me.”

• You sound salesy. Mention that you have a new product, a service, that you want them to advertise with you, or that you want to meet with them, and you evoke the same resistance as when the retail store sales rep says, “May I help you?”  Face it: most people run the other way when a salesperson approaches them.

• Most people don’t return voice mails from telesales reps. News alert: They’re swimming upstream as fast as they can just to stay up with their daily piles of work. Very few say, “Oh, good. Another call from a telesales rep. Move that to the top of the to-do list.”

• You only called once. Even if someone returns the occasional voicemail, who do they call? Probably not the one-time caller. A buyer I interviewed told me that he never returns calls, and the only sales reps who have the remotest chance of even getting through his screener next time are those he recognizes as having left several interesting voice mails.

So is voice mail a lost cause for sales reps?

On the contrary, it’s a great tool to separate you from the majority of reps making mistakes. Here’s what to do:

• Learn about them first. Be a detective. Glean info wherever possible. Go to their website. Enter the company name and prospect’s name into search engines. Use LinkedIn and other Sales 2.0 methodologies. Read trade publications, your local Business Journal, and the ones in your territory. Then use that information in your message as it relates to how you might be able to help them get or avoid something.

• Talk to others in the company. Anyone and everyone. Continue your info-gathering. Identify yourself and company and say, “I hope you can help me. I’m going to speak with Ms. Byer, and I want to be sure that what I have would be appropriate.” Then ask questions.

• Be prepared. Voice mail is not new technology. It shouldn’t be a surprise that you will be asked to speak after the tone. So why not be dead-on prepared for what you’ll say?  (Just notice how many messages you get that begin with, “Uhhh.”) There’s no excuse to not be smooth and confident.

• Use a “possible results” statement. This is the grabber. Mention what you might be able to do for them. Personalization increases their interest level: “I understand you’re now looking at ways to increase the number of long-term leases at your Highland Park property. We specialize in some unique marketing methods that help property managers minimize vacancies…”

• Use a multi-media approach. Don’t rely on voice mail to carry the entire load. Back up your message with an email, a fax, a letter, or a message that you ask the screener to write on the pink message pad and give to the boss. And don’t overlook the lowest tech, but highest touch approach: handwritten letters.

• Say YOU’LL call back. You need to control the communication. It’s your responsibility to reach them. Tell them you’ll call back Thursday morning. Then DO it. But do give them options to reach you, leaving your phone number and email just in case they want to contact you.

• Use a “last resort.” At some point of repeated futility, depending upon their future potential and the size of your prospect pool, you need to punt and leave a final, firmer message. What is that point?  If you sell office supplies, everyone could be a prospect, so the magic number at which you let go would be smaller than for someone selling train locomotives to railroads. What to say?

“… I’ve tried several times to contact you about how we might be able to help cut your cost of customer acquisition by 20% like we have for B.O. Industries. If I don’t hear back from you I’m going to assume this is not something you’d like to discuss at this time …”

This often elicits a response (I’ve even heard apologies) from people who are interested and simply were too busy to reply.

While most sales reps are ensuring they never get through because of their voice mails, you can set yourself apart and pave the way for a productive conversation. Avoid these mistakes, use these ideas, and the sound of the tone will be like the music of a cash register!

Art Sobczak has helped sales pros say the right things by phone for over 27 years.  Get a free ebook of tips at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com, and see more free sales and prospecting tips, hear recorded calls, and watch videos at http://www.TelesalesBlog.com.

This is a Guest Post by Mark Hunter.

Do you really believe in what you are selling? This seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many salespeople I meet who do not really believe. They do not believe in their product or service, and they certainly don’t believe what they have to offer will meet their customers’ needs.

What does this have to do with phone calls? When it comes to making phone calls, the voice reveals a lot.  And I mean A LOT.  Actually, this isn’t just true when making phone calls; it’s true in all our verbal interactions.  As humans, we have a great ability to perceive when the content of what someone says doesn’t match the tone or other characteristics of their voice. (Sarcasm and false flattery are two examples, but I’m sure you could think of more). Unfortunately, as adept as we are at noticing this in others, we are not always proficient at recognizing it in ourselves.

So, when you are making phone calls and you do not REALLY believe in what you are selling, your lack of confidence and hesitancy will come through.  Your customer will have an eagle eye for this sort of thing.  Or an eagle “ear” as the case may be.

So before you even start making phone calls, whether they be cold calls or follow-up calls or “how the heck are you doing” calls, be sure you do a gut check and ask yourself: “Do I really believe in what I am selling?” Success and motivation rings for the person who believes.  It falls painfully silent and non-existent for the salesperson who does NOT believe.

Only you can answer this question for yourself.  Words to the wise:  If you do not believe, then spare yourself, your company and your customers some grief by searching for a product you really do believe in.  When you find it, make your calls with confidence.  Your prospects and customers will “hear” it in your voice.

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.