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 Paul Archer

If you’re like most sales people at the moment you might be having to work much harder to get the business in to achieve your targets. There are more steps now to sales, longer processes and additional people to see to reach the results we want.

As a result we’re finding our time management under scrutiny more than ever before and we may need to tighten up on this vital skill if we want to succeed during this recession. I’ve also heard of salespeople and sales coaches losing their valuable support teams as companies make cutbacks which creates even more work to do in the same time available.

Here’s a really neat life changing tip that’ll make a difference to the way you handle your time.

It’s called reducing your collection points.

I’m referring to the places where communication and information enters your life. The more we have, the less productive we are. Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

Email inboxes, postal letter boxes, mobile phone voicemails, office landline voicemails, home phone voicemails, paper in-tray, kitchen table, desk, car seat, car glove compartment, top pocket, text message inbox, briefcase, paper diary, conscious memory, partner.s memory, faxes, to do lists, second mobile voice mail.…..and so on.

And I’m sure you can add some more.

The time management secret is to reduce the number you have so information isn’t scattered everywhere and pulls us all over the place just collecting this information let alone dealing with it.

Read on and I.ll tell you how I reduced my collection points from 22 to just 4. Boy was it hard work but an incredible time saver.

Here are my 4 and the assorted collection points they replaced.

Paper pending file

This has become the home for all paper that enters my life before the paper is processed. My family have been instructed to deposit all post in here addressed to me and not the kitchen table. Receipts, ideas that I’ve jotted down on paper, article ideas, mind-maps, train tickets, parking tickets, phone messages taken for me. They all find their way into this file. And the best bit which I learnt years ago is to have it out of view i.e. in your filing draw, not in a plastic tray on my desk. And I also have a mobile paper in-tray that fits into my briefcase when on the move.

Microsoft Outlook Category

None

Possibly like you , I use Outlook extensively and use the task list feature which is an essential time saver. I’ve categorized each task to help time management but have one called “Category None”. Quite simply when I type in something into tasks it appears in this category which acts as a holding bay.

So the Category None becomes a collection point for loads of things that used to get written down on pieces of paper, in paper diaries, on the back of newspapers, on paper to do lists, Paul’s memory, top pocket of my jacket. And because I carry around a Smartphone which synchronises to Outlook, I can type these in where ever I am and then forget about them until I next synchronise.

Mobile voice mail

Untouched and I’ve also diverted the home phone to my mobile when we’re not in as I’ve finally got over this unnecessary yearning to

keep home separated from work. We live and work in the 21st Century – home and work have combined into one.

My mobile messages come through as text messages so I don’t even have to dial 901 to see if I have any messages.

Email inbox

Pretty much untouched except so much more finds its way to this valuable collection point. I have a PA service which directs phone land line messages to my email inbox. I have a fax to email service which transforms incoming faxes into emails (really useful this one). I even have my brainwaves, ideas, to do’s that I can’t write down, turn up in my email inbox when I’m on the move.

I do this using a brilliant free service called www.dial2do.co.uk which operates here in the UK. All you do is phone a number and speak into the phone whatever it is you need to remember. They then cleverly turn this into text and email you. I have the number set up as a voice speed dial on my mobile phone so even if I am in the car I can still note down my ideas. And the best news is that I can then forget it, concentrate on my driving because I know that my email inbox will get the idea delivered when I next log on to email.

There’s nothing worse than trying to remember lots of things in your head.

So you can see that I’ve cut down all my collection points into just 4. This means I don’t spend huge amounts of time just checking collection points, trying to remember things, worrying about paper getting lost, dialing 901 or 1571 on various phones, sieving through the kitchen table for important post, panicking about the amount of paper I have to deal with.

And now to achieve my sales targets, the fun part.

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.

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

Commodity Buyers
These buyers know exactly what they want and how to use it. They don’t need sellers to explain the details. Commodity buyers typically value:

• Low costs. They don’t want to pay any more than necessary. To be successful with these buyers, companies need to pull as many costs as they can out of their supply chain.

• No hassles. Make it simple, simple, simple to do business with your company. Give them an 800 number, send quick quotes, or allow easy online ordering and they’re happy.

We’re all commodity buyers at times. When I order things like contact lenses and office supplies, I just want good pricing and fast service. As a seller, there’s little you can do to create value or sell “value add.” I really don’t care. It’s up to your company to make it cheaper, simpler to order, delivered to my door and with easy returns if I need to send it back.

Strategic Partners
These people are looking far beyond the scope of your products or services. They want a strategic partnership. They’re looking at how to best leverage their organization’s core competencies in combination with another company’s core competencies. These buyers value:

• Intimate and strategic relationships between multiple levels within both organizations.
• Mutual investments in joint projects.
• Merging of systems to accomplish more than either organization could do alone.

Working with Strategic Partner buyers requires a major corporate commitment and is far beyond the scope of any one seller. If your company isn’t capable or willing to do this, these buyers aren’t interested in working with you.

By yourself, you can’t create the value they need. But if your company chooses to do this, you and your firm will become absolutely invaluable.

“I Need to Make a Sound Decision” Buyer
These buyers are either spending a lot of money on a decision or they don’t know everything there is to know about what they’re buying. Typically their decision process is complex, involves multiple people and takes place over an extended period of time.
If corporate decision makers are seriously considering your product or service, they assume it meets their basic requirements and that your organization is reputable. Having a decent offering gets you in the game, but does not typically provide enough value to win the business.

In fact, with these these buyers, the seller creates the value by what they personally bring to the relationship. These buyers value sellers who:

• Help them understand their problems in greater depth.
• Add additional insights into the challenges they face.
• Share relevant information regarding “best practices.”
• Develop unique, innovative approaches to resolving their business issues.
• Keep them up-to-date on trends in the industry and how others are addressing them.
• Help them find ways around the obstacles they’re encountering, and
• Propose new ways to do more with the same investment.

Becoming an Invaluable Resource
What makes a seller invaluable? The ability to contribute so much more with each and every customer interaction – so much so that they can’t imagine doing business without you.

Let me give you an example. Say your company handles direct mailing programs, a fairly non-differentiated service offering.

Here are some ways that you, as the seller could become invaluable to your customers. You could:

• Share ideas about other company’s direct mail programs – what works, what doesn’t.
• Help them find ways to increase the results of their existing direct mail programs.
• Show them how to reduce the overall costs of the program while maintaining its effectiveness and integrity.
• Let them know what their competitors are doing.
• Develop ways to increase the quality of their database.

If you keep thinking, you can come up with even more ways to become invaluable such as:

• Working collaboratively with related vendors (i.e. agencies, telemarketing firms) to smooth out the hand-offs.
• Helping them establish important criteria for their vendor selection process that they currently may not be aware of.
• Proposing ideas for new programs to help them achieve their desired marketing results.
• Acting as an advocate within your own organization on issues impacting the customer.
• Suggesting ways to improve the work flow between all companies and internal departments working on the project.

To become invaluable, you must bring more to the relationship than just your standard product or service. What you want to create is a situation where corporate decision makers can’t live without your ideas, insights, and knowledge.

Becoming invaluable doesn’t just “happen.” You need to invest in yourself. Learn more about your customer’s business. Figure out how to help them improve it. Be an idea generator. Become an expert in your field. It takes a real commitment on your part.

Only the best make that commitment. But it truly sets them apart from everyone else and literally makes them invaluable.

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