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.

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

Many business owners and sales managers ask me if I have a proven system or a way to identify and hire top telesales reps. They have tried everything, they tell me.  They check references, review similar work experiences, talk to ex co-workers, hold multiple job interviews, and sometimes they even spring for some high priced fancy telesales aptitude matrix tests.

Even with all that, however, many sales managers still haven’t found a way to identify who will actually perform well and work hard, versus who will merely show up, take up space and drive up costs by sending out brochures, running up phone bills, squandering leads etc.  “How can you tell?”  They ask me.

Well I’ve got good news for you.  There is one telesales technique that I’ve used successfully for years that will immediately separate who is for real and who’s not.  It doesn’t require any special tests, it can be done on the first interview, and it will always tell you what kind of sales rep you have in front of you. Here’s what you do:

During the course of the interview simply describe the service or product you’re selling, and ask them if they think they would do well selling it.  Almost all that will say, “Oh, of course!”  (Those who don’t, dismiss immediately!)

After that, tell them you want to get an idea of how they would handle some of the common objections you get with this sale, and then give them a couple of objections (one at a time, of course) and let them respond to them. That’s it! Several things happen here — all of which accurately reveal what kind of sales telesales rep you’re dealing with.  They usually have fallen into three categories:

The “A” Players — Top reps, or telesales reps who are well-trained and confident, will handle each objection with a recognizable rebuttal, and the really good ones will even ask for the sale at the end.  You will instantly know who they are.  You hire these reps right away.

The “B” Players — This group of telesales reps will also answer the objections, but their responses will be less polished.  With this group the lack of any formal training will show through, and you will be faced with the decision of whom you think can or can’t be trained.  Part of this group will be uncomfortable with the objections and you will be able to tell that they probably never will be comfortable with them. Your choice of who to hire from this group should be pretty clear.

The “C” Players — A common response from this group will be something like this:  “Well, I really don’t know your product so I really wouldn’t be able to answer these objections.” What they’re really saying, of course, is that they have no idea how to respond to an objection, they have no confidence, and the reason they are here looking for a job will be glaringly clear to both of you.  You pass on this group altogether.

Try this powerful technique during your next interview.  You will be amazed by how well it works.  Simply give them an objection, then sit back, listen and observe.

You will know instantly if you’re dealing with a real closer or someone who is just going to fill a chair.  Happy hiring!

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: www.MrInsideSales.com

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

A few weeks ago, my neighbor put in a new driveway using beautiful paving stones that dramatically improved the look of his property.

Comparing my old asphalt driveway, I quickly went over to one of the installers and asked for an estimate.  “You have to call our office,” he explained as he gave me their business card.

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This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

This year, millions of new consumers will be entering the market, taking up job positions and beginning to spend voraciously. They have a “I want it now” attitude to buying things.

They are the New Millenials – people born since 1980 – and they are soooo different. If you’re a telesalesperson or you sell anything – ideas, workloads, services, then you will benefit from these four tips to handle them.

Here’re four tips to help you with the New Millenials Continue Reading

This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

It’s my birthday coming up shortly. Don’t ask (44) and my family want to help me celebrate in style. So over our Sunday lunch my wife held a competition for everyone to come up with two ideas to celebrate Daddy’s birthday.

And Daddy was to judge the winner.

It was wonderful. On the table were 8 brilliant ideas.

But could I decide? No way, there were just too many options to choose from. I got confused, which normally doesn’t take too much – just ask my wife.

Now this lesson spreads itself nicely to telemarketing. Yes we spend time getting to know our customer’s needs, wants, desires and we come up with recommendations and choices for the customer to take. Continue Reading

This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

What have space craft got to do with teleselling?

My eldest son was asking how spacecraft travel through space without burning fuel to propel them. Yes they burn a huge amount of fuel on take off, and discard all their fuel tanks as they fly into space, but once in space, a big burn and then the fuel gets turned off. The space craft continues to travel unheeded.

Now my son asked me why. Now I’m no physicist or scientist and I hadn’t the faintest idea. But armed with the resource of the Internet we set about finding out why. And we came up with Newton’s First Law which states when an object is in motion, it stays in motion.

Now this got me thinking about teleselling. Continue Reading

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

I hear it over and over again – 80% of your competition insist on making their jobs harder because they keep making three major mistakes every time they cold call.

The good news is that there are easy ways to avoid cold calling mistakes, and I’m going to share them with you right now:

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

I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea of the sales pipeline, right?  When managers draw this on the board, you’ll notice that it looks like a funnel, with the top being big and the bottom being smaller.  The idea is they want you to go out and cold call, prospect and generate as many leads as you can and put all these leads into your pipeline. Then you, and your manager, hope and pray that some of them actually turn into deals!

That’s the basic idea and that’s how virtually every sales company I’ve ever worked with or read about run their sales departments.

And there are even ratios and numbers that they assign to measure this. Out of 10 leads they might close one deal, or out of 15 leads close one or two deals, and so on. You see there are problems with the pipeline idea. The biggest problem is that 80% of all salespeople are more focused on putting prospects into their pipeline than they are on really qualifying who goes in it.
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The following is a Guest post by regular Telesales Magic contributor Mike Brooks, AKA Mr. Inside Sales.

CHRIS SAYS: As telesales tips go, when it comes to closing sales, they don’t get much better than this! Check out Mike’s fantastic closing tip right here and then get to work closing more sales than ever before, with this simple and easy to follow technique!

I talk a lot about the techniques that separate the Top 20% of the money earners from the other 80%. As you know, this ezine is dedicated to providing you, often word for word, with the exact tools, tips and strategies that you, too, can use to become a Top 20% producer.

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This is a Guest Post from Karen Andrews of Shine Sales.

For many people, just the thought of sales evokes terror and fear. Many business owners and salespeople that I have met and worked with have experienced some type of fear relating to sales or the sales process and typically, it’s a “fear of rejection”.

When I started my sales career, I faced the similar fears but mine was around cold calling and the fear of rejection over the phone.
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