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.

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

Everyone knows that in selling or coaching, it’s extremely dangerous to make assumptions about your customer or the person you’re coaching. It’s one of those principles that.s drummed into sales people on day one of their induction sales training. But we’re all guilty of making assumptions from time to time – I know I am. Read on to see how dangerous these can be.

Over Christmas I was talking to my three children about a fearful incident when I was about their age. The story shocked them at the time and they still don’t believe it was true. But I assure you it was.

My first pet was a cute golden hamster that I named Hammy – original I know. Now we didn’t live in a big house so I shared a room with Hammy and my two brothers who I hated passionately. We were constantly caught bashing the life out of each other, as brothers do.

It came to a head one evening when Hammy, being a nocturnal creature, kept us all up with his squealing exercise wheel. It was incessant. It was excruciatingly painful. Nothing we could do would stop him or fix the squeak. And the fighting with my brothers got even worse.

He had to go. The next day Hammy found his way into the garden shed. What a relief, at last we could get some sleep. We had solved the problem but only until that fateful morning.

It was freezing and pitch black at 6am. On my way to my paper-round, I popped my head around the shed door to look up on Hammy. I stared into his cage with a torch, he was motionless. I was devastated – my only true friend was dead and it was my entire fault evicting him to the bitter, murky shed.

Ignoring my paper round, I picked him up and took him indoors. This 12 year old boy was distraught and overwhelmed by it all. So I laid him on the kitchen table and went upstairs to cry my little heart out. Gradually the house woke up and I heard a banshee like shriek from the kitchen. My Mum had found a stone cold hamster on the kitchen table. Not that I could see at the time what the problem was, after all it was dead but maybe that was the point.

“Take it out immediately” screamed mum, so I grabbed Hammy and ran outside to bury him. As I took my old friend outside I laid him down on the earth next to the shovel ready to dig his grave, but then I saw his foot twitch. I thought I was seeing things so I dried my eyes and looked again. There it went again. It had moved and it wasn’t a muscle spasm. He was alive.

I rushed indoors and plopped him on the storage heater. With careful nursing and stroking, slowly and bit by bit he came back to life and I was the happiest little boy on the planet.

Hammy went on to live a normal life. I found out years later that he had merely hibernated that cold night. I still think it was a miracle. And he was within 5 feet of a living grave. So you see that making assumptions can critically damage your health – well maybe your pet hamster. Not assuming can literally save lives.

Seriously though, the next time you find yourself about to make an assumption about the needs of a customer, because you’ve heard it all before dozens of times or you think everyone wants the price to be lower or you assume the recession will gobble you up….just remember that devoted 12 year old boy bringing back to life his pet hamster, Hammy.

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.

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 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 Karen Andrews

Did you know that the majority of telephone sales leads and enquiries do not get followed up more than once (which could be why your business has a low conversion rate*)?

To improve your sales or that of your telephone sales team, develop a system to regularly check where each one is at and when they were last contacted. If you hold sales meetings, doing it at the beginning or end of each month is perfect.

Here are some statistics that I’m sure you will find most interesting:

• 48% of sales people never follow-up with a prospect
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
• 12% of sales people only make 3 contacts and stop
• Only 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts
• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

To ramp up some sales in the next couple of months, go through all the leads you have received over the last 3-6 months and either you or your sales people pick up the phone and call them. You will be surprised how many people haven’t done anything, simply because no one has bothered to follow up and they have simply been too busy to do anything about it.

* Your sales conversion rate is how many enquiries you receive vs. how many you convert into customers over a specified time frame. To calculate your sales conversion rate follow this simple formula

Total No. of Sales/ Total No. of Enquiries x 100 = Sales Conversion

e.g. 100 sales / 80 enquiries x 100 = 80%

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach, Strategist and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

This is a guest post by Paul Archer.

I almost fell right into their trap. I was just a mouse click away from being sucked into the greatest scam that happens every Christmas and I’m still shaking with the nerves.

My daughter, Bethan, has been asking for a new game for her Nintendo DS called Professor Layton and The Curious Village. So when I arrived home after a gruelling car journey down the M6 in the pouring rain, she grabbed me at the front door. Please Daddy, please Daddy…pleeeeease. Bags, cases, coat, laptop in hand, I speedily agreed to her persistent request so as to get inside in the warm.

More fool I. Now being a good and principled father, onto the Internet I went in search of her game. Amazon, game.com, Tesco online, play.com…I tried them all and no one had any stock in at all with not a whisper of availability before Christmas.

I’d been done like a kipper.

Kippered by the toy company who knew full well I.d have to keep to my commitment to my daughter and buy the game and when they release more stock after Christmas, which they will. I will be consistent.

And in the meantime, whilst I.m on Amazon or play.com I.ll have to buy her something else to make it up to her having to wait until after Christmas. And thousands of other dutiful parents are doing the same thing.

The influencing technique is taken from Doctor Robert Cialdini.s principles of influence is called commitment and consistency which is really useful in selling, managing large accounts and coaching your team.

The principle boils down to the fact that humans value consistency – it’s good and principled, makes us known as honest and reliable. Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be these things?

It’s used throughout society. Weight Watchers, which I’ll be joining in the New Year, works because you publicly have to weigh yourself. In front of others – perish the thought. Political canvassers ask you to say verbally who you’ll vote for on your doorstep which they’re kissing your child.

No one ever changes their football team after they’ve told people they support them.

This principle is really useful for us as well and here’s some ideas:

• Ask your customer to fill in the application form themselves
• Use test and trial closes during your sales pitch, even after the first 5 minutes
• Help people make a small purchase early in the relationship and this will encourage them to be consistent.
• Get a commitment at the beginning of your sales meeting to give you some referrals
• When coaching just ask lots of questions to encourage them to talk and say what they’re going to do. Its   classic GROW model and it works
• In coaching make sure you allow your team member to vocalize their action plans
• Contract with team members in meetings to summarize their actions out loud and in writing

Many of these things we’ve been told before but it’s helpful sometimes to know the science behind them. And beware of ever been caught out yourself.

Did I fall for it? Well, no thankfully, as soon as I realised all the companies were out of stock so quickly and knowing that this is the number one game this Christmas, I soon put 2 and 2 together and pleaded with my daughter to accept a store voucher instead so we could get the game after Christmas. Mean old boring Daddy. After all it is credit crunch.

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

All this week has been ‘Mike Brooks’ week on Telesales Magic! Here’s the final of the five articles that Mr. Inside Sales put together for our readers. Its a quickie, but a goodie, on the art of overcoming the dreaded ‘Smokescreen’ objection. No doubt you’ll be seeing more of Mike in the future here at Telesales Magic! Enjoy…

Have you ever answered an objection from a prospect only to be given another one that was completely unrelated to the first one? And then after you battled your way through that one, you got another, then another?

If you’ve been in sales any length of time then I’m sure you have. And if you still don’t know how to handle and even avoid that, then I know you’re hating life – until now! That’s because I’m going to teach you a simple technique that will enable you to avoid that common trap 80% of your competition fall into.  And here’s what you do:

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Its been a long week. However, I wanted to post this quick list of prospecting tips. Being a professional telesales person isnt easy, and after 18 astounding years in the business I am happy to say I am still learning every day! Cold calling, telesales or telemarketing – it doesnt matter what you call it – the most important thing is that you strive to get better, and never give up the opportunity to learn something new.

So, here you go, my 5 quick telesales tips to use when prospecting for new business via the telephone – feel free to turn this list into a larger one if you like, and be sure to post YOUR tips in the comments section at the end of the post!

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This is a guest post by regular contributor Paul Archer, of Archer Training in the UK.

TIP #1 – The Phonetic Alphabet
I recall my children learning the phonetic alphabet at school and I remember reading stories to my daughter all about Annie Apple and Naughty Nick and his lost nails.

Great fun and a useful tip when getting people’s names from the gatekeeper is to write the difficult ones down phonetically rather than literally.  Type this into your CRM system so when you get to talk to them, you’re able to say their name perfectly. Spell it as it is said, is the key.
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