This is a guess post by Paul Archer

Be careful of speaker phones or hands-free mobile phones as they might be giving your customer the wrong message.

This afternoon I was sitting in Starbucks enjoying a double espresso and the guy on the next table was using his mobile phone with his speaker enabled. I appreciate that mobile phones are supposed to give us all radiation poisoning if we press them to our ear, but the information he was giving his customer was terribly public. He didn’t seem to mind bless him, but I bet the customers did, if they knew.

Worse than that are conference facilities built into many landline phones. It might be more convenient for you to use this feature when contacting customers but again the same negative message is being given to your customer. Who else might be listening comes to mind. Besides speaker phones sound like you’re in a public lavatory.

A final phone tip for you. If you find yourself working from home and need to make prospecting or client based calls and the background noise just doesn’t work for you. Children making a noise, dogs barking and such…then download a sound file from the internet which mirrors a busy office noise and play it on your computer.

I use one and although my customers probably don’t mind where I am, the comforting office sound made me feel more relaxed and I perform better on the phone as a result. Try it – it works.

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 Jill Konrath

What are the main issues you face when you target new vertical markets where you don’t  have any experience in that area. Also, how do you overcome these problems?

I get asked those questions frequently. But usually it’s after the decision has already been made and the poor salespeople are struggling to gain a foothold in the new vertical market.

If you’re considering moving your company in a new business direction, here are my suggestions:

Your biggest issue will be credibility. Corporate decision makers don’t want to be your first client in a vertical market. They don’t want to have to educate you since it takes up their precious time.

Even though you’re a good company, they know that your lack of experience could lead to time-consuming and costly errors. They don’t want to risk this happening.

1. Move into the market slowly.
Don’t bet your company on success in the new vertical. Study the industry. Learn their terminology. Know their competitors. Double check for “fit”. I’ve seen way to many companies leap into new markets because they sense greater opportunity there than in their current market space.

2. Define the business case.
Uncover how they’re currently handling things related to your offering. What are the common status quo scenarios? What business objectives will they have difficulty achieving unless they change the status quo? What are the financial ramifications of these? Then define the value they’ll get from changing to your product/service.

Potential clients need to hear a strong value proposition that clearly articulates the business outcomes they’ll realize by using your offering. Use business terminology, not techie talk.

3. Create linkage.
If possible, try to create a link between your current customer base and your new one. If all your clients are schools and now you want to move to theme parks, you need to be able to clearly articulate why it’s relevant.

As an example, last week I had lunch with a good friend who spent over 20 years in marketing with a large accounting firm. She was laid off a while back. Now she wants to work with technology companies.

After analyzing both industries, combined with her experience we realized that her expertise was in helping company’s implement strategic changes in their marketing. That positioning makes sense to potential decision makers – and minimizes the “you don’t have any experience with companies like mine” objection.

4. Pursue smaller opportunities first.
This significantly reduces the decision maker’s perceived risk in moving ahead with a new player in the market. Then, make sure you do a superb job on delivering on what you promised. After that, pursue additional opportunities within the account to expand your footprint.

5. Train your salespeople on all the above.
Without this knowledge, they will flop. That I can guaranteed 100%. Ultimately these people have to make it happen. Don’t send them into the field with some worthless PowerPoints explaining your technology in excruciating detail. They need to be able to have intelligent business conversation with decision makers.

6. Create field-ready sales tools.
Focus especially on the early stages of the sales cycle. Your sales reps are going to have a tough time setting up meetings. Show them how to integrate their value proposition into phone calls, voicemails and emails.

Give them relevant white papers and case studies that are closely aligned with this new market segment. They must be able to show your company’s expertise to customers, so this is a necessity – even if you’re moving to a new market.

Create a “question matrix” that outlines what they should be looking for on calls and the questions they should ask to uncover this information. Develop customer-focused PowerPoints to use on follow-up meetings.

7. Pray!
It takes a lot of hard work to succeed in a new marketing segment. Implement the above suggestions and your chances of success increase. Rush blindly ahead and you’ll most likely waste tons of money, put your firm in financial distress, frustrate your sales force and create incredible internal animosity.

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

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

I’d like to show you a great tip when you really need to appreciate what your customer is thinking. Ideal for the consultative salesperson and sales coach.

I’ve never travelled on a rollercoaster. Honest, I know it sounds remarkable, but I’ve never had the courage to climb in the small cab and ride the heart wrenching and stomach churning experience.

Until one afternoon over Christmas when my youngest son dared me to get on the ride at Poulton’s Park. Now if you ever want to motivate me to do something, you only need to dare me. I think it’s hard wired into most
men.

I watched Euan first and thought I’d use the 1st, 2nd, 3rd position that we use all the time when selling. Now this clever little tip helps
you see, feel and fully understand what it’s like for someone else and in sales, is a really useful way of exploring the customer’s point of view.
1st position is where you look at things through your own eyes and as I stared at Euan on the rollercoaster all I could think of was fear, trepidation, how foolish, help! 2nd position is where you step out of your
shoes and move into the customer’s shoes and look at thinks through this person’s eyes, in other words see and feel their point of view.

So I tried this and moved into Euan’s shoes. Initially I could still feel my fear and trepidation, but I kept at it and began to see how Euan saw the ride. He was smiling and cheering, so loud I could hear him from where I was standing. As he approached the top of the loop just before he was to plunge downwards at breath-taking speed, his look was of apprehension but total excitement. He was enjoying the thrill of the ride and I started to feel what this was like for him. 3rd position is where you stand back, disassociate yourself from both viewpoints and look objectively at the situation. With customers, we get to see their views and yours in tandem. On the rollercoaster I could see Euan’s viewpoint, mine and the other passengers on the coaster. I realised that everyone seemed to be having fun and that this miserable father was seeing the rollercoaster in a very blinkered way.

And did I enjoy it? Yes I did, and I had to go on it again and again. In fact since it wasn’t too busy I went on the same ride 3 times and Euan now thinks his Dad is real cool. So next time you really want to appreciate your customer’s point of view, go from 1st position, to 2nd and then finally to 3rd position.

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

Test closes are brilliant ways of testing the water with your customers. We all use them probably without even knowing it as it’s

something you always hear top performing sales people doing.

Tell me the difference between these three

test closes:

• How do you feel so far?
• How does it look to you so far?
• What are you saying to yourself so far?
• What are you hearing so far?

They all attempt to do the same thing, in other words, test the customers’ views and thoughts so you can continue with the meeting. Classic test closing. I wonder which one you tend to use with your clients or when coaching.

And I bet one of them really hit the mark with you, or resonated with you more, or was a question you could personally relate to.

You see the four test closes are carefully scripted to appeal to your thinking style. NLP gives us visual, kinaesthetic, auditory and digital thinking styles and everyone has a preference to think predominantly in one fashion although we’re quite capable of using all of them. We just prefer one.

If you can gauge your customer’s preferred style, then change your language to suit their favourite. Do start with one of the four test closes from above because it’s easy to do so, gets you into the habit and you could start tomorrow, couldn’t you?

The best way to calibrate your customers’ preferred thinking style is to listen to their language or keep an eye on their eye movements. There’s a great article on eye movements in our knowledge bank.

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

Welcome to the most widespread objection today and its not price.

Apparently they’re starring at Glastonbury this summer. I’m talking about Status Quo the rock band whom my 71 year old father is going to see in concert later this month. That shows you how long they’ve been around.

But the status quo have recently become quite a problem for sales people and I’m no longer talking about the band – I’m referring to lethargy or not taking any action.

Apart from the Internet, it’s the status quo that is today.s newest and biggest competitor. Customers are inclined to take no action unless we allow them to see the danger of this course and maybe the cost of doing nothing.

This extra competition that we’re now up against, doesn’t allow us to use our traditional objection handling strategies as we’re not having to compare our product or service with the competitors or justify its value. Instead we have to make sure we let our customer see the problems of not taking our advice.

And we must weave this into our sales patter.

This is particularly important for financial services salespeople who sell an invisible product. There’s an old adage that life assurance is sold and never bought and this is even more prevalent today. Make your customer aware of the dangers of the status quo; ask them what might happen if they don’t protect themselves in the event of their partner’s death, the issues this might bring up in their lives.

Questions, questions, questions – that’ll help them see the perils on inaction.

Let them explore in their mind the consequences of doing nothing and treat the status quo as just another competitor that you need to avoid during your selling process.

And Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt from Status Quo can keep rocking all over the world until they’re ready to pick up their pension. I do believe Francis is 60 next birthday. Fantastic.

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

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

When I was growing up, the folk rock trio of Peter, Paul & Mary sang an anti-war protest song called, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” It’s funny how after all these years that this tune came roaring back to me as I was thinking about disappearing prospects.

Don’t you just hate it when hot prospects suddenly stop returning your call. It’s especially hard to deal with when they’d been so eager to move forward with you only weeks before.

At first, you assume their lack of responsiveness is an isolated situation that will quickly self-correct. But after repeated failed attempts to connect, you start to question your own sanity.

You could have sworn they were interested, but their current behavior indicates otherwise. And, not wanting to appear too desperate or to come across as a real pest, you’re stymied in terms of what your next steps should be.

Truth be told, they’ve disappeared into the infamous “Black Hole” – sometimes never to be seen again.

Why They Disappeared
As a seller, it’s always important to analyze what may be causing this behavior before taking action. In my experience, these are the typical reasons why prospects disappear into “The Black Hole.” Jill Konrath

• They’re totally swamped. Without a doubt, this is the most common. In virtually ever company today, people have way too much to do and not nearly enough time to get it all done. They fully intend to continue the conversation, but not right now.

• Priorities changed. This can happen overnight. Changing market conditions, bad 3rd quarter results, and new leadership are just a few of the possible root causes. But when this happens, it’s darn near impossible to regain your momentum in the short term.

• Lack of urgency. Sometimes sellers confuse a prospect’s interest level with a desire to take action today. As such, they share all the glorious details about their offering instead of building a business case for immediate change.

• Column fodder. Occasionally prospects just need comparative bids/pricing to justify their decision to go with another company.

• They know everything. When prospects feel they have all the information they need, there’s literally no reason to talk with you any further.

Different reasons call for different actions. Some you can prevent by doing things differently in your customer interactions. Always be open to this possibility since prevention is your best cure. Others you have no control over.

In any case, you need answers! Is it “yeah” or “nay”? Are they still interested or not? Should you keep pursing them or find new prospects?

We’ll explore what you can do  in Part II: Where Did All The Prospects Go

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 ]]> http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/part-1-where-did-all-the-prospects-go/feed/ 0 http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/top-5-tips-for-newbie-sellers/ http://www.telesalesmagic.com/prospecting/top-5-tips-for-newbie-sellers/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:15:49 +0000 Chris Ducker http://www.telesalesmagic.com/?p=2291

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

I was recently asked, “If you were mentoring a new salesperson, what would be your top five sales tips and how did you learn those?”

Good question! It really got me thinking. There are so many things I’d like to tell a new seller. But what are the most important? What things could I recommend that would have the highest impact on success?

After serious deliberation, here are my thoughts …

1. Focus on making a difference.

Nobody cares about your product, service or solution. That’s the hardest thing for sellers to realize. All they care about is the difference you can make for their organization.

For example, today I sell sales training. If I’d call a VP of Sales and mention that, they’ll tell me their not interested. However, once I changed my focus to the tangible outcomes they’d get from using my sales training, the door opened wide. After all, they were extremely interested in shortening their sales cycle, reducing the ramp up time for new hire sales reps and driving revenue growth.

2. Slow down to speed up your sales.

This was one of the hardest things for me to learn. When I first started selling, I was so eager to be successful. I tried to wow my prospects with my great product knowledge. I closed often and early. But the more I tried to rush things, the more resistant to moving forward my prospects became. They’d throw out obstacles and objections that I couldn’t overcome. When I learned to slow down, parcel information out over multiple meetings, and simply advance the sales process one step at a time, suddenly my sales increased.

When you’re scared about not getting the business, your prospects can intuitively sense your fear. One of the major symptoms is rushing the sales process.

3. Pay the price of admission. Do precall research!

To get into big companies, you can’t make a 100 cold calls saying the same thing to everyone. Several years ago corporate decision makers stopped answering their phones and rolled all calls to voicemail. They delete most message within seconds because they sound like salespeople making their pitch.

I discovered that the only way to capture the attention of these corporate decision makers was to create a very personalized message based on in-depth research in their firm. Once I started doing this, I started setting up meetings.

4. Create an account entry campaign.

It takes 7-10 contacts to crack into a corporate accounts these days. Most sellers give up after 3-5 attempts. If you want to set up a meeting with a corporate decision maker, plan multiple touches from the onset. It takes a while to break through their busy-ness and register on their Richter Scale, but it can be done.

You can use multiple formats in your campaign too: voicemail, email, direct mail, invitations to teleseminars, and more.

5. Analyze your sales approach from your customer’s shoes.

It’s not important what you say. The only thing that matters is what your customer’s hear. For example, when I was trying to reach a decision maker a while back, I decided to leave the message on my own voicemail first to see how I sounded. When I listened to my message, I was appalled. I sounded pathetic! So I worked on scripting my message and kept calling myself over and over till I finally created something I would respond to if I were the prospect.

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.

On holiday in France last year we spent many an evening in the local cafes sucking up the atmosphere enjoying everything that is France. Next to us on one evening was a charming British couple and, as you do, we got chatting. The chap talked about life back at home and mentioned excitedly about coaching his local mini rugby team.

Now that’s exactly what I do on a Sunday morning so I began to tell him, with equal enthusiasm, all about my coaching. I told him all about it, never stopped, talked over him and dominated the conversation.

That’s not empathy and rapport building…I blew it.

They didn’t stay in the café very long making their excuses and disappeared into the night. Afterwards I realized what I’d done and knew that if I’d listened to him and allowed him to talk openly about his hobby…we would have got on better. Instead I just got talking about the same subject.

It’s easy to do this when the other person mentions something that you can say a lot about as well. Sometimes we all fall into this trap. I know, I did.

This is useful in sales, coaching and any communication situation where you need rapport and a trust before you can do your job.

Do people a favour and just let them talk.

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