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

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

For anyone who has had building work done, you know what the aftermath looks like. Ours is no different – outside of the new conference room, it looks like the Somme battlefield on steroids. Builder’s rubble in every nook and cranny, old bricks, cement, plasterboard, tangled metal. A sight for sore eyes it is.

But following a 2 hour blizzard, the mess had all disappeared. The field looks brand new as though construction had never happened. It looks beautiful with the white snow glistening in the sunshine.

And it struck me then that in life, we all have set-backs which beat us backwards and these issues can affect us all. Some dwell on them – some move on. We need a way to cover them up and move on otherwise our self motivation will take a battering. We could do with snow to cover them up for us.

Whether you’re in sales or sales coaching, we have to be self motivated to succeed in what we do. Yes, we can be motivated externally with targets, rewards, success and recognition but these don’t happen continuously so we have to have inner self motivation to pull off our goals.

We all have knock-backs, we all make mistakes. The trick is to learn from them. Extract what you learnt so you don’t repeat it, jot it down somewhere. I have a pocket diary where I jot down all my learnings and ideas when they crop up. If I make a mistake, I note down what I learnt from it and then try to wipe out the memory so I can move forward.

Now that’s the hard part.

So when we make a mistake, remove what you learnt, note it down, cover up the mistake with a snow blizzard, pick yourself up and move on. Don’t let previous mistakes bug you as this serves no value. That way your self motivation will carry on unhindered.

And if you do drift back to the mistake, imagine a beautiful white snow blizzard rolling in from the east which will cover up any blemishes on the landscape with minutes. But be quick as snow will melt to reveal the builder’s rubble once again.

Looking outside now, the snow’s gone reminds me to order a skip, and spend a weekend getting rid of the rubbish permanently. And with the warm weather on us, I bet Claire is just waiting to ask me too. Can’t wait!

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

This is a guest post by Mike Brooks, www.MrInsideSales.com

I don’t know about you, but my email open rate is going the way of voicemails – rarely listened to, and quickly deleted.  What I’ve found, however, is that there are some techniques that can give you the best chance of getting your emails read and even responded to, but you have to be very specific in the way you construct them.

Follow these six email secrets the next time you write and send an email, and you’ll be on your way to the kind of response you used to get – and the kind that will lead to more business:

Email Secret #1:  Use the prospect’s first name in the subject line.

Think about it: what is everyone’s favorite word?  Their first name!  Have you ever been in public before and heard someone call out your name?  You automatically turned around and were receptive and ready to respond until you saw they were calling someone they knew.

You can get your prospect’s attention the same way by putting their name in the subject line of your emails.  To start with, doing so will distinguish your email from the hundreds of others your prospect gets, and because we are all drawn to our own name, it will draw your prospect’s eyes to your email like a magnet.  This is the very best way to get their attention and a great way to get them to read more.

Email Secret #2:  Customize the first few lines of your email as much as possible.  Many people preview their emails by reading the first few sentences in their email program before deciding to read the whole thing, so concentrate on writing a short and value laden opening that is addressed right to them.  Something like:

“Hi Barbara, Mike Brooks here with HMS software.  I’ve got some ideas about your networking issues for your new office that’s opening in Houston next month.  I think you’ll find it useful if we talk.”

Again, keep it short, customize it to what you know they’re interested in and provide immediate, specific value to them.

Email Secret #3:  Keep your email short and easy to read!  Nothing will turn your prospect off more than long, information packed paragraphs.

Their eyes will glaze over and they will hit the delete key faster than it took you to hit the send key!

Don’t let any of your paragraphs be more than three sentences, and if possible, make them just two sentences.  Recap the major ideas in short phrases, and make sure to engage your prospect by asking questions.  An example would be:

“Hi John, I was wondering if you were still having trouble recouping all the available cash from your current collection program?  If so, you’ll want to speak with me about our new itemized IT solution.

I’ve got some time next Tuesday or would later in the week work for you?

Please let me know either way.  You can see more info here (your website address).

If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up with a call next week.”

Email Secret #4:  Ask for a return response – whether they are interested or not.  This is a great way to end your email and a good way to get a response.  Just think about how nice it will be to finally take someone off your list who isn’t going to do business with you, and also how great it will be to find someone who is!

Simply thank them in advance for their consideration and let them know that you’re looking forward to their response on this – either a yes or a no.

Email Secret #5:  Promise to follow up by phone if they don’t respond.

Let them know that you understand they are busy, and that if you don’t hear from them, then you’ll follow up with a call in a day or two.

This really increases your response rate and you can be happy when you get a “not interested” response.  These prospects just disqualified themselves and saved you a lot of time and energy!

On the other hand, there will be others who don’t respond and they become your follow up leads.

Email Secret #6:  Proof read your emails before you hit the send key.

Because your prospect can’t see you, they only have your writing sample to judge you on, and if it’s filled with misspellings and poor grammar, what kind of impression do you think this makes?

It only takes a minute to proof read your emails, and I’ll tell you now I’m always glad I did.  I almost always make them better, and when I hit the send key I know I’ve sent out the best message possible.  Doing so allows me to make the best impression, and this once again separates me from my competition.

So there you have the six secrets to writing effective emails.  Believe me, following them will give you the best chance of getting through to decision makers and getting responses that will give you an understanding of where you stand.  That’s a whole lot better than chasing and wondering, isn’t it?

If you found this article helpful, then you will love Mike’s: “The Complete Book of Phone Scripts,” which is packed with word for word scripts and techniques that you can begin using today to make more appointments and more sales.  You can read about it by clicking here:

http://www.mrinsidesales.com/scripts.htm

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: http://www.MrInsideSales.com

This is a Guest Post by Mark Hunter.

Have you ever been in a selling situation when you were not able to close the sale? Of course you have. Every salesperson has. If you are unable to close the sale, you must ensure you close on something.  This is true if you sell primarily face-to-face, and it is true if you sell primarily over the phone.

First of all, don’t skip on doing the leg work of making sure you have uncovered the customer’s true needs and wants.  Keep good records, because even if you can’t close the sale right now, you may still be able to make a connection with the customer in the future based on either new product lines you have or the customer’s ancillary needs that occur to you after the call.

If you cannot close the actual sale, one of the key areas where you can “close” is to establish yourself as an expert and trusted advisor.  When you do this, you build the customer’s confidence in you.  Make sure your voice tone conveys that even if the customer doesn’t buy from you right now, you still are available as a resource in the future.  Do not allow the customer’s rejection of your offer at that moment to impact your voice tone and enthusiasm at all.

With your words and your tone, express to the customer that you are available for any questions they may have, even questions general to your industry.  In addition, do not hesitate to alert the customer to information that will benefit them, even if such information doesn’t mean a sale for you.

Establish yourself as a trusted advisor upon whom the customer can rely, and you will be more likely to secure sales from that customer when they are ready to buy.

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.

This is a Guest Post by Mark Hunter.

I’m not talking about the dial tone. I’m talking about the tone of voice your prospect is using. More specifically, I’m talking about what to do when you hear a change in their tone of voice.  We communicate with our voice, but it goes way beyond just the words we say and the volume with which we speak.  The real telling signs are in the tone of the voice, particularly pitch.

Listen carefully to the next person with whom you talk, and you’ll detect slight variations in the tone. What you are listening for is when the tone or pitch goes up and when it goes down. When this happens – when there has been a change – the person to whom you are listening is reaching a conclusion of some type.  Typically, a customer’s tone/pitch will go up slightly when they become excited or enthused, and it will go down when they’re resigned or view something negatively. Often, this change of tone is also accompanied by a change in the speed with which they speak. An increase in the words per minute signals excitement and a slow down signals calmness.

The trick with all of this is to know how to use it to your advantage. A customer’s change in tone, pitch or rate of speech is not as important as how you respond to it.  When a customer’s pitch/tone goes up, you should immediately ask them a question that gets them to build on what is making them excited. Then, immediately follow with a question to close the sale.  If, on the other hand, the customer’s pitch goes down, you should ask them a question that pertains to the biggest need they’ve expressed to date. If they have not expressed any need to you thus far, then ask them a question that would draw out what you believe is the biggest need or pain they’re facing.   Follow that question with another question that gets them to build even more on what they just told you. The key is to draw out as much as possible the need they’re facing. In doing so, you’ll be in a better position to close the sale.

Another key way you can use the tone/pitch is to help validate what the other person has just told you.  It’s very easy for a person to say something that is not the truth from a vocabulary standpoint. However, it is incredibly difficult to mask their tone/pitch.  Again, this can be a clear sign when someone is talking to you as to whether or not what they’re telling you is factual or merely something to help end the call.

This is the reason I tell anyone who is spending any degree of time on the phone to use a headset that covers both ears. Using an ordinary phone will not give you the listening advantage you need to discern the slight differences in a person’s voice. These slight differences are exactly what can help you dramatically distinguish what the customer is really saying. Ultimately, you will be better equipped to close more sales.

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.

This is a Guest post by Art Sobzcak.

When I review opening statements for seminar attendees, clients at in-house training sessions, or for buyers of my Opening Statement Teleseminar on CD, I hear lots of openings that need assistance. Most of them, actually. And don’t even get me started about the openings that I hear when sales reps call me to sell. Many of these openings are destined to create resistance.

I am very picky about openings. That’s because we have so little time to create interest. Yet, most openings flat out elicit resistance, or don’t move towards interest fast enough, therefore giving the listener time to let the resistance build.

And the little things can do it. A couple of words here or there. Perhaps a question that doesn’t belong…too many unnecessary words that ramble like a congressman on C-SPAN late at night.

Sad part is, some of the things I hear are actually taught by sales “gurus” in seminars, books, tapes, e-books …whatever. I have to wonder if some of these experts have ever actually been on the phone.

I’ve decided to not be shy about dispelling some of the myths and bad suggestions being perpetuated out there—things that are causing salespeople to run into brick walls. I’ve been a bit hesitant to focus on this stuff too much, since occasionally I’ll get an email saying, “Don’t write about negative things. Don’t tell us about what to avoid. Tell us what to do.”

Well, I feel that one of the best ways to improve is to first cut out the mistakes. Let’s take this one: Finally getting a decision maker on the phone and then starting a prospecting call with,

“Hi, I’m Pat Seller with ABC Company. Are you the person there who would handle the decisions regarding your____?” Or, “…and I understand you are the person there who…”

I can hear the reactions now from some readers: “So what’s wrong with that?”

Here’s what’s wrong: You might as well start off the call with,

“I’m selling something. Are you the person I should be pitching it to?”

And again, I know that most of you see the problem with that, but yet someone might still be asking,
OK, we ARE trying to sell something and we want to be sure that this is the person we should be talking to, right?”

Right. But that IS NOT the way to do it. Here’s why:

• people would rather not talk to salespeople they don’t know. It’s natural, like the way we typically avoid the salespeople in retail stores who stalk after us and ask, “May I help you?” People like to buy, but don’t want to be sold. This announces your sales intentions, triggering the defensive posture.

• you have about five seconds to move a person into a positive, receptive frame of mind on a prospecting call. If you’re not doing that, they’re creeping into a negative frame of mind, moving into the mode of “How do I get rid of this salesperson?” Again the question about  “Are you the person…?” solidifies that before you have even begun to create interest.

• you should already KNOW that they are the decision maker for what you sell, BEFORE you ever hear their voice. That comes with good preparation and asking questions of other people within the organization. Even if you don’t know for sure, after delivering your opening—without this question— if you’re not in the right spot, they’ll let you know. And if you are in the right place, you haven’t jeopardized the success of what you want to accomplish: getting them into a positive frame of mind, and moving them to the questions.

OK, so what should you do? When the decision maker answers, go directly into your opening:

“Hi Pat, I’m ___with _____. We work with ____,  helping them ___. I understand that you’re now in the process of ____, and there’s a possibility we may have an option that could help you to ____. I’d like to ask a few questions to see if we should talk further.”

That’s very generic, and I always suggest that you tailor and customize your opening with information you collect before the call, and on the phone by speaking with others in their company so that you touch on results they would have interest in. And you can see that after that opening example, if you indeed were not in the right spot, they’d let you know.

Plus, if you still want to ask, “Am I in the right spot for what I just explained?”, you could do it after you’ve piqued their curiosity, since you’ve presented a possible benefit.

Sure, we need to find out if they are a decision maker. We just do not ask THEM in the opening.

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 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.

This is a Guest Post by Mark Hunter.

Many times when I’m working with inside salespeople, I hear the common complaint how they don’t feel they’re at their best until later in the day. The first few people to whom they talk on the telephone wind up being disastrous calls. What makes this painful is these same salespeople are usually the ones who are not making their numbers. These are the same salespeople who spend way too much of their time – and the time of their fellow salespeople – complaining about how screwed up things are.

Rather than wasting the first several calls on customers you know are going to answer, take the first 10 minutes of each day calling people you know won’t be there. In other words, their voice mail will pick up. In fact, go one step farther and make the first call to yourself – yes, yourself. Here is why: By calling yourself first, you have the opportunity to engage your mouth, to get your brain working and to warm up. Consider it similar to the way an athlete warms up before a game.

Make the first call to yourself as if you were a prospect and leave a voice mail. But don’t just leave a quick voice mail to yourself. Go ahead and share with yourself one key benefit as to why you should buy from yourself. By leaving the message to yourself, you’ll get a chance to hear yourself later when you get the message. More importantly, you’ll start warming yourself up by sharing a benefit of what makes you different.

After you have left yourself a message, then call 2- 3 people who you know will not answer their phone. Leave your normal voice mail message.

Using voice mail as a way to warm up will help you be more focused and engaged when you do talk to somebody live. It will prevent you from stumbling through your first several live calls. Only after you’ve had several live conversations and you’re fully engaged should you then even think about sitting down.  Yes, that’s another tip: Standing up when making a phone call will always increase the strength of your voice and help you be focused. It gets your energy going!

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.