This is a guest post by Paul Archer

A few readers wrote to me just before Christmas asking for help. Both were struggling to get in front of new prospects to sell their services and products. Both had excellent propositions but found call reluctance to be as problem and prospects unwillingness to speak with them preferring to “weather the storm” and batten down the hatches.

Have you experienced this as well?

I think we all have to some degree and unless you’ve had your head in the sand, you’ll recognise that we are going through a downturn. Now I don’t sign up for the “business is better that it’s ever been, I’m busier than ever, what recession?” brigade; these people seem to be just massaging their egos when they print this stuff.

The plain fact is – we have to prospect more than ever before. Working harder and smarter at getting to speak with new customers, will help us succeed in this economy.

I think we’ve all got the skills but maybe haven’t had to use them so much over the last five to six years since there’s been plenty of business to go around.

So now’s the time to smarten up our prospecting tools, or client acquisition tools as this is now known as.

Here are some quick tips to help you.

• Examine your product and service and be crystal clear as to what problem it solves. Problems in recessions are all about saving costs and increasing revenue, getting invoices paid on time, preventing suppliers going bust and such like. Try to think like your customers and be totally clear as to what problems your product solves

• What is your customer segment? Be as precise as you can as to which type of customer has the problems that your product or service solves and then focus on these customers.

• Decide on your marketing to reach these customers. There are many routes to market that you can choose but the quickest and most decisive is still telephoning them to make an appointment to see them.

• Get over any call reluctance.

• Dedicate specific blocks of time in your diary to make calls to prospects.

• Aim simply for a face to face appointment nothing else. Don’t get into conversations, send out literature etc. These never work, although we think the do at the time, are easy to do, quite gratifying but divert your attention to the job of making appointments.

• Be up front with your prospect on the phone about the problem that your product solves and ask for an appointment.

• Don’t ask “if it’s convenient to call” you’ll lose sales if you do this. Instead say “if it’s convenient to speak right now I’d like to…” Subtle difference. And if you feel brave enough, don’t even ask, just launch into your opening.

• Learn how to politely persevere on objections twice and then leave the prospect alone. Keep coming back to the objective of asking for an appointment.

• Sticky tape the phone to your wrist and don’t put it down. Use the 60 second rule. This ensures you get onto the next call within 60 seconds, no longer.

• Spend a maximum of 60 minutes making appointment calls.

• Reward yourself when you.re done as making appointments is stressful, there’s no way around it. Yes alpha male macho types will tell you they enjoy it but you look at the burnout rate of call centre direct sales people.

It’s hard, full of rejection and people saying no, occasional rudeness and extremely easy to put off to-do another job.

We all need more prospects right now and making appointments via phone is the quickest and most effective method of doing so. Dig out all those customers that have connections to your company, old names and phone numbers. Those people who you never had the time to contact. Maybe buy some lists or leads and start to make those calls with the specific intention of making an appointment.

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

As a consultant specializing in the hand-off of new products (or services) from Marketing to Sales, it was clear to me that my services were desperately needed.

Please realize though, that at this point my targeted account didn’t know they needed me. No one in their business had ever heard of me. And, not one penny in their already tight budget had been allocated for the type of work I do.

But I knew that the lackluster financial performance of this eBusiness could no longer be hidden in the profits of the manufacturing giant. Wall Street would demand results soon. Short-term results. Immediate results. And I knew I could make a difference.

After a plethora of unsuccessful attempts, I finally reached the president. This is basically what I said:

“I’ve been following your business. I know it’s imperative for
your company to have strong financial results immediately.
You’re counting on your new products to achieve your objectives
… and I can help shorten time-to-profitability.”

Following a brief 5-minute conversation, the president told me to call a key marketer on Monday, giving him a chance to talk to her first. Essentially, it was a done deal. The outcome – a highly profitable engagement with the firm.

Why am I telling you this? Because business opportunities for your firm are everywhere. In fact, they’re staring you right in the face every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio or television.

The Ripple Effect of “Triggering Events”
But most sellers don’t use the news because they’ve never connected these “triggering events” with the potential for business.

For example, any time two organizations collide due to a merger or acquisition, this triggers a whole slew of problems of can lead to great sales opportunities. Long-term suppliers no longer “own” the account and the door is open for the astute seller.

Here are just a few of the areas where your opportunities might abound when firms merge:

•  Sales & Marketing: Rebranding, new collateral, revision of go-to-market strategies, product launch, PR support, advertising campaign, sales training, channel conflict, compensation discrepancies, SFA/CRM systems integration, new technology.

• Information Technology: Planning, prioritization of projects, massive system integration issues in just about every conceivable area, new technology acquisition.

•  Human Resources: Teambuilding, compensation issues, legal problems, downsizing/outplacement assistance, evaluating personnel, employee benefits coordination.

Once you know what to look for, opportunities for your products or services become readily apparent. They just need to be acted on.

Capitalize on “Triggering Events”
Follow the news about companies in your targeted market segment closely. Keep your eye out for any changes because they could create business for you. Once a change hits your radar screen, extend your research immediately, collecting as much information as you can before you contact someone in the company.

The key to your sales success lies in your ability to align your product or service offering with their key business needs related to the “triggering event.”

When you connect with corporate decision makers, remember that they could give a rip about the process you use, your leading-edge product line or one-stop shopping. But they care desperately about business results, eliminating problems and achieving their desired outcomes.

So pay attention to the news. Right now some companies desperately need your products, knowledge or expertise because of what’s happening in their business. Use the news as a trigger to identify who they might be, research them and then make that phone call.

That’s the quickest way I know to create new opportunities, shorten your sales cycle and grow your business.

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.

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

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

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.

Here’s a sublimely simple way your company can take a small step to ride out the economic downturn. It hit me on Saturday whilst clothes shopping for my daughter.

The shop was empty. Just a few sales assistants wandering around looking trendy and checking the racks of fashion clothes. I guess it was the snow, the fact that it was 10am on Saturday and a retail slowdown that caused the shop to be empty.

I was shopping with Claire and my 8 year old daughter Bethan, for clothes and girls seem to take that job so very seriously, I can never understand why. At the checkout the girl behind the counter took the items. She was very pleasant, smiled fully and got on with the job, which I was keen to finish now having spent 19 minutes in the shop. Believe me; a man’s legs go wobbly after 20 minutes in a clothes shop, so I was keen to see the door.

“Do you want to enter a free competition?” she asked, and pointed to the brochure. As my wife paid for Bethan’s top, I read the brochure. Strewth I thought, now this is one fab competition. Totally free, as she said. But the first prize was £50,000 cash and the second prize a totally luscious Mercedes.

Wow I thought. This is a seriously good competition surely it would be easy to sell to customers. For a start she shouldn’t have said “Do you want to enter a free competition”. No, that’s a closed question asked so unenthusiastically too. She should have used a “yes tag” here. “You’d like to win £50,000 cash wouldn’t you?” and if she’d checked my name on the Maestro Card she would have been able to call me Mr Archer.

I was just about to give her a sales one to one training session to my wife’s horror…but then stopped myself.

The polite girl on the counter hadn’t ever been trained in sales and how many other customer facing staff have never had any basic sales training. Those fashionable types wandering around the retail floor, the people taking calls from customers that morning, the people at the checkouts, the staff that take orders from their online division, the people who take payments over the phone… the list goes on. They’ve never had even the basics of sales training.

As I left the store looking forward to watching England take on Italy in the rugby, a little bit of me thought…isn’t that a shame. Any company that gives every customer facing team member some basic sales tips, will certainly have a competitive advantage in this challenging economy.

So come on everyone who can change this. Give your guys just a few sales tips to help them sell us all through this temporary downturn.

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

Of course, you don’t mean to do that! But the truth is that it often happens without you even thinking out it.

Case in point: You’ve just learned all about your new product or service offering. Tons of details. All its selling points. You’re so excited & can’t wait to share what you’ve learned with your prospects.

And when you finally get into a meeting, what comes out?

“We’ve just introduced a new complete system (methodology/process) that’s guaranteed to provide fully integrated communications for all your technology and non-technology needs as well as provide significant return on your investment with an ROI of only 9 months.”

Blather! I know you’re thinking you sound impressive, but from a prospect’s perspective it’s downright intimidating. Their eyes slowly glaze over and before long, you’ve lost them.

To be a successful communicator, you need to talk like a normal human being.

Here’s an interesting tidbit that supports this premise: A language monitoring serviced analyzed the recent VP debate. Palin spoke at a 9.5 grade level, while Biden spoke at an 7.8 grade level. (Full article here.)

Both candidates are focused on connecting with voters, not impressing them. I have no doubt that they could have easily spoken at a much higher grade level – which would have meant bigger words, longer sentences and more complex sentence construction.

However, they chose not to do that. They wanted to relate to us.

If we’re focused on impressing prospects with our vast knowledge, we’ll lose them. They’ll feel stupid. They won’t open up. They won’t ask questions.

And we won’t get the business!

Question for you: Have you ever caught yourself trying to impress customers? What happened? Were you able to recover?

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