This is a Guest post by Art Sobzcak.

Guess who says the following:

“Hi, I’m just calling to check in with you.

a. Parolees out on probation, checking in with their probation officer.

b. Sales reps who call customers or prospects and can’t come up with anything more creative or interesting to say.

c. Teen-aged girls, every two hours on the weekend, calling their parents.

d. All of the above.

The answer of course, is “d.” What we will concern ourselves with is “b”, the Probation Officer call.

These calls are most often placed by reps who call regular customers on a regular basis, or when placing follow-up calls to those lukewarm prospects.

And the result usually is not very good.

No wonder. There’s nothing of interest or of value there for the listener. Are they supposed to get excited simply because you called to check in with them?

What to do? Have a reason for calling. Have something of interest. Search your notes from previous calls and make that the reason for this call. For example,

“Stacy, it’s Ken Mackeral with Fish Supply. I’m following up on our last conversation from January. At the time you mentioned that you were going to be expanding your catfish operation in May, and I wanted to share some information about what another customer of mine did to help keep his expansion costs low and increase his capacity.”

Use Your Database

Here’s a specific way to help you come up with great reasons to call, and call the right people.

Let’s look at a scenario using something that every company experiences: changes.

For example, has your personal or business bank changed names and/or ownership within the past couple of years? A friend told me his has changed. Three times. One astute bank sales rep who has been pursuing him manages to contact him after each change while the effects are fresh in his mind. Although he hasn’t moved yet, the timely calls combined with the annoyance of the changes are beginning to wear down his resistance.

Let’s look at the sales ideas and strategy at work here … the ones you can use too for a variety of situations.

1. Prospects can be particularly vulnerable after their existing vendor is acquired, merged, or undergoes some other type of change.

2. Taking advantage of it requires you to track who a prospect uses, and be able to sort your database accordingly, just like the rep mentioned above probably did.

Most contact management and CRM programs allow you to customize fields and sort accordingly. Consider assigning a field for “Current Vendor.” Then it’s a breeze to do a quick sort of all the prospects who have the competitor’s name in the field, and plan your next contact.

When calling these prospects, naturally you don’t phone with an attitude of, “So I see your vendor was just acquired. I bet things are a mess there!”

Instead, treat the call just like you would a normal follow-up. But, be prepared to ask questions designed to get them to tell you the problems and pains they might be experiencing as a result of the change.

For example,

“Mike, you’re still with AB Vendor, right? I see. With the recent acquisition, some of my other customers have noticed some changes in the promptness of getting orders delivered. If that is an issue for you, we have some options that might be worth taking a look at. What has been your experience?”

You could use this technique with any number of changes or events that customers or prospects might have interest in, that could be a great reason for calling if that situation occurred.

For example, let’s say a prospect told you that if you ever came out with a left-handed adapter for your product, they would get them in minute. You would then put LHA, or “Left-handed adapter” in your notes, and when your company introduced one, you’d simply do a sort on that code or term and have a great list to call, with a great reason for calling.

The only reason to make the Probation Officer call, (unless you actually have one) is a lack of creativity or work. Use these ideas and you’ll go further with these prospects and customers.

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 Jill Konrath of Selling To Big Companies.

The road to sales success is sprinkled with gone opportunities, awkward moments and foolish mistakes. For me, the chief difference between superb sellers and regular ones is their ability to turn these tragedies into wonderful opportunities.

As excruciating as it might be, excellent salespeople re-examine their errors to determine how they can prevent the same results in the future. Wounded but not defeated, they slowly discover what it requires to be successful.

I can relate because I have been there. I’ve had my own share of screw ups. And just the other day, some of my major mistakes came rushing back to me as I was off to conduct a training program for a local printing company.

When I exited the highway onto Como Avenue, I was instantly brought back to my days as a Xerox sales trainee when I was covering the 55414 zip code. It’s where I learned a lot of very useful lessons that are still inculcated in my mind today.

Lesson 1: How to Get Unstuck

When I finished my Xerox training program, I was assigned to follow Jim Farrell for numerous weeks to learn a lot of things. Then the day came when I was on my own.

I arrived at the office of Quality Products where I first worked. For some reason, I couldn’t get out of the car. I was frightened and thought that my sales career was done before it began.

After half an hour of being paralyzed in my car, a song from the movie, Sound of Music, popped into my head: “I have confidence.”

I began singing to myself, silently in the beginning, then louder and louder. I was mainly captivated with the refrain, “I have confidence in confidence alone, and as you can see, I have confidence in me.”

I didn’t really believe the words but they lifted me from my “stuckness.” I opened my cold call plan and practiced my opening statements again and again.

I then got out of the car and went inside the office. At the end of the day, I made 20 cold calls and found a couple of potential clients.

Over the years, I’ve encountered a lot of difficult situations that were hard to manage because I didn’t have enough knowledge and was inexperienced. I realized that it is impossible to know everything before you start. I also learned that in order to find answers, one should move and not be stagnant.

Lesson 2: How to Get to Higher Level Decision Makers

Trussbilt was one of the prospects I came across with while cold-calling. The company has been gone for a couple of years. It was replaced by the printing company where I was doing the training. The déjà vu that I felt when I went inside their offices was obvious.

At that time, I was working with a very expressive woman named Tinsey, who told me that she was the one in charge of the copier decision. Right after our meeting, I read a book that said that salespeople should work only with the top dogs and not their underlings.

My contact was an administrative assistant. I realized I had to remedy the situation at once. I got Mr. Big on the phone and set up a time to meet. Then I prepared well to make sure that I did a wonderful job.

Sadly, I never had the opportunity to take advantage of this opening. Tinsey came to the lobby to accompany her boss’s guest to his office. When she saw me, she demanded to know why I was there.

I told her “I’m here to see Mr. Big.” I was not confident if the approach I had taken was correct. Tinsey then yelled at me like I have never been yelled at before.

I was shocked, scared and became light-headed. I then fainted in the middle of the lobby.

I never did business with Tinsey or Trussbilt. But I did learn that when you are working with someone, it’s never proper to go around them without them knowing. They will get angry. It’s a normal human reaction.

Today, to make sure that I get to work with whomever I want in an account, I always tell this to potential clients: “When I’m working with clients, I need to talk with the VP of Sales, Regional Sales or Marketing Directors.” This avoids problems that can spoil your sales efforts.

Lesson 3: How to Cut the Crap and Net it Out

The Kaplan Company was just down the street and around the corner from Trussbilt. When I walked inside, there were about 30 seats filled with women who were preoccupied with order entry and handling customer service issues.

I informed the Front Desk Personnel that I wanted to talk to the person who made copier decisions. After checking with the boss, she accompanied me into his office. He told me to sit down and said that I had 5 minutes to talk.

“If you’re busy, I’ll go.” I said, trying to be courteous.

He said, “Nope. You have 5 minutes to tell me why I should buy your product. Your 5 minutes starts now.”

I mumbled, trying really hard to engage him. I told him that I needed more time to explain but he wasn’t interested. After 5 minutes, he stood up and told me, “Your time is up. You may leave now.”

That annoyed me. I told him he was impolite and obnoxious. Then I stormed out of his office and shouted, “I’ll never sell you a Xerox machine. You don’t deserve to do business with Xerox.”

I know it’s is difficult to imagine, but I really did lose my patience. And I’m pretty sure he never wanted to work with Xerox again. But he had a point. I couldn’t state clearly and concisely why he should hear me out.

I wanted to establish a connection and warm up the call. That made me feel better. He was a preoccupied person who chose his time judiciously. I didn’t respect his needs. After that cold-calling tragedy, I learned to net it out. That lesson is even more important today than it was years ago.

The School of Hard Knocks can be very cruel. If you’re making sales calls, you know how difficult it can be. Every time you’re knocked down, you have to make a choice about how to respond. Are you getting up again? Will you learn from the experience?

The most difficult thing in the world is to look at your own involvement in the situation, yet that’s where the maximum growth is for you and ultimately, the key to your long-term sales success.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It was 8 in the morning. Dublin was sublime. The early morning mist was drifting over the River Liffey and there I was, sitting in a client meeting, awaiting the boss to arrive. In she walked, or should I say glided. An entrance which exuded confidence, humility, accomplishment. A glide across the room which was practised and fluent. She oozed success with every movement.

How do some people do this? What secret do they have to make that perfect first impression? Read on to discover the Seven Secrets of Physical Success. Continue Reading

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

Whenever the subject of telemarketing scripts comes up, people usually have definite opinions – they either love them or hate them.

Those who wouldn’t be caught dead using telemarketing scripts like to point to those pesky telemarketers will call at night that sound stilted and computer like.  “I hang right up on them,” they say.  “I’d never read the script.  It’s totally unprofessional.”

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

Looking at your business from a sales perspective and most importantly understanding your business from a client perspective, is one of the most important first steps in sales.

Most people hate being sold to but love the feeling of buying; so the clearer you can explain how your business helps and “what is in it for them” the easier it makes prospective customers to make a buying decision.
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This is a Guest Post by Mike Brooks, AKA Mr Inside Sales!

In sales, the ability to truly listen is what separates the Top 20% of producers from the bottom 80%. Now when I say “listen,” I mean much more than just hearing what a prospect is saying. Many sales reps hear their prospects, but because they are unprepared to handle various objections or questions, they are usually too busy thinking up what they are going to say next to truly hear what their prospects are saying. And that’s where the top 20% excel.

The most important thing you can do to begin making more sales is to start listening to your prospects. Once you do, you’ll know exactly what to say – and what not to say – to get the sale. Here are three things you can begin doing today to become a better listener:

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This is a Guest Post from Mike Brooks, AKA Mr. Inside Sales.

We all know the importance of building rapport over the phone.  Let’s face it, people tend to do business with people they like, know or trust.  What you may not know, though, is that talking about the latest sports scores or schmoozing about vacation spots is not an effective way to build rapport and often just lengthens the call, dilutes your message, and gets you no closer to the deal than you were before you wasted all that time.

If you want to truly connect to your prospect and build the kind of rapport that will actually influence and lead to a closed deal, then you need to learn how build what I call, “Relevant Rapport.”  Relevant rapport means taking the time to talk about the issues your prospect is going through or what they’re trying to solve, and then expanding on these relevant issues and letting them know you understand exactly what they’re trying to accomplish and explaining how you are uniquely qualified to help them.

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