This is a guest post by Paul Archer

Have you ever given your negative emotions away with your body language and wish you had stayed in control? Then you.ll be aware of your leakage. Read on to see how you can make this body language principle work well for you in selling and coaching.

Cold yet bright, London can be a great city to do business in. But eventually we all like to get home. Except I.d missed my train by a whisker. Now trains run from Paddington Station to Cheltenham every two hours so I had a long wait.

So I settled down to a long strong coffee at Starbucks and began to watch people. I love watching people, recognizing their body language, guessing what they.re thinking, don.t you just love that pastime.

In walked this young chap and he began to queue looking at the various coffees and goodies he could buy when he caught sight of the extremely good looking girl sitting in the corner sipping her latte.

What I saw was amazing – not the girl but the boy.s body language which reacted dramatically as a summer storm. His eyes widened, a big smile appeared and his stomach shrank as be pulled his stomach in and his chest out. His body language showed leakage.

I call it leakage when someone suddenly changes their body language for a reason – it really is quite spectacular when it happens and can be very useful in selling and coaching.

It.s useful to know about leakage for yourself and for your clients. Observing your client.s leakage is vital if you want to look for non verbal buying signals, which I always believe are the best ones. The body never lies but people have been known to tell them instead. Use “test” closing to check for body language leakage. “How does that sound?” or “What do you think so far?” Watch them carefully for those sudden changes. Focus on the face as that.s where we can.t hide our feelings.

Calibrate what normal looks like for them and compare with the leaked facial expressions and you can tell instantly whether they.re happy or not, or want to buy from you or not. Be aware of your own leakage as well. When you.re presenting to clients and you.re posed a tricky question, don.t give away your position by leaking your body language. Ask someone what happens to you when you are put under some pressure and learn to mask this the next time it happens. I.ve often seen this with people who are presenting in public and get a difficult moment, such as a question or their remote breaks down or they forget what to say next.

Leakage observation can also help you if you want to see how someone reacts to you. Now this chap in Starbucks would have been better off if he kept his eye on the pretty girl as her body language leaked as well. She couldn.t keep her eyes off him and her leakage was striking. If only he.d read my article and glanced at her – they might have had a great future together. But instead he left with his skinny latte in a rather rushed manner. The innocence of youth or is it body language naivety.

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

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 phone sales 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 phone sales 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 phone sales 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

This is a guest post by Jill Konrath

This is a guest post By Art Sobczak

There is no excuse for placing a “cold” call to a prospect. With the abundance of online information available about individuals and companies, and by asking questions of others within a prospect organization, you can gather useful intelligence that can help you “smarten” your calls.  This means you can quickly relate to the prospect, his/her concerns and desires, and perhaps something that is a burning issue for them right now.

You also can warm up the prospect prior to the call. If you, a staff member or marketing person can send something in advance—something that can possibly acquaint them with you, and perhaps create some interest—then by all means, do so!  IF it is targeted and relevant, it can have a significant return on investment.

My friend and fellow sales trainer Bill Lee (www.BillLeeOnline.com) suggests a good idea: Put your prospect on your mailing list long before you make your first call. Of course, this requires some work and planning on your part; but again, if you are serious about this and make Smart Calling™ a systematic habit, then it will become a ritual for you.  Bill suggests sending things that you feel the prospect might find useful (“useful” is the key term here; don’t send purely self-promotional propaganda). Send things such as:

•  News clippings

•  Magazine articles

• Copies of web pages with interesting info

•  Helpful hints pertaining to their  business

•  Your company’s newsletter (again, the more about them, the better)

And let me add to the list:

Books. Find general, current, popular business books. Include a brief note about how you thought the prospect might find this interesting, and that you will be contacting him or her soon to discuss some ideas. Sound too expensive? Of course, you wouldn’t send these out by the thousands; but let’s say a book is $15. I bet you’d have a better chance of getting in to a high-level prospect when you say to the executive assistant, “I’m the guy that sent the book.”   When this prospect becomes a client, you’ll make that $15 many times over.

Audio CDs or video DVDs. Similar to a book; be sure it is something educational, topical, and of value that will pique their interest and curiosity.

Greeting cards. A very persistent sales pro sent me personalized greeting cards every month for 16 months (that right—16!) while I continually evaded his phone calls. I finally agreed to take some time to listen to the automated system he was using for sending out the personalized cards. I was sorry I had waited so long to discuss it with him, and now endorse and use the program. I suggest you look at it as well; See complete details on the program  at www.BusinessByPhone.com/soc.htm

The best time to send the items is after you have already asked some questions of others in the decision maker’s department, what I term “social engineering.”  This allows you to tailor what you send to the prospect’s interests, and then enlist his or her assistant in helping you get it to the buyer. And when you do call, you still want to follow all of the steps in the Smart Calling™ system. Do NOT—I plead with you— do not start out your call with, “I sent you a letter, did you get it?”

Emailing Before a Call
Emails before a Smart Call™ can warm them up, if structured well. I recently received an email that did catch my attention. It started out with,

“Art, thought you might be interested in hearing about how another sales trainer like you was able to get new customers and maintain them at a high lifetime value.”

Then he went on to share a success story, mentioned some of my services and how they were similar, and shared some testimonials. He said he would call me. That message earned my time because it was personalized, not just in name, but in content. He did his homework. He also built credibility by using a testimonial with an example of someone like me. Very nice.

This can work also with a hard copy letter. Again, the key is using Smart information, and not trying to sell in the document.

Sending Unusual Items Prior to a Call
Donnie Deutsch, host of the CNBC show, The Big Idea, tells the story of when he was building his ad agency, and he wanted the account of a regional car dealer. To get to the person who was in charge of awarding the contract, he shipped an assortment of individual car parts every half-hour for a 12-hour period to the guy’s house. Each part was accompanied with a different message, like, “We’ll Give You Bright Ideas” (a headlight); “We’ll Protect Your Rear End” (fender); “We’ll Steer You in the Right Direction”  (steering wheel).  In total, Deutsch sent 24 of these packages. He got the account.

There is no doubt that sending unconventional items to buyers can get their attention. I put these things into the “gimmick” category. Just like a trick play in football, they make for a sexy story, and they are fun when they work; but you likely won’t build a career on them. Here are just some of items I have seen and heard about.

Packages of coffee and a mug. “I’d like to have a cup of coffee with you to discuss some ideas about??

Shoes, or blow-up feet. “I’m trying to get my foot in the door.”

Lumpy mail. Direct mail marketers know that a three-dimensional envelope gets opened before standard direct mail. You are limited only by your imagination. Oriental Trading Company sells all kinds of fun things. www.OrientalTrading.com.

A sales rep with Troy XCD Inc., Angie Medina said that in order to really differentiate herself, she sends a crumpled up catalog or brochure in an envelope and attaches a note saying, “Don’t throw this away again!”

At a marketing seminar I once attended, one of the participants shared the method he has used to seize the attention of high level decision makers. I thought that I had heard most of the gimmick-related techniques of sending odd objects to decision makers; but this one beat them all. This sales person purchases cheap, $20 disposable cell phones (the kind you can get at WalMart). He then sends them to his highly-targeted top level decision makers along with a note that says, “I believe we can help you increase your profits. I will call you at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday the 16th. Please listen for my call.” Then he calls the cell number! He claims that it is so unique, that it works almost every time.

Again, if you are having a difficult time getting through to a buyer—someone you feel you must have as a customer—and have exhausted all of your other avenues, you have nothing to lose by trying an unconventional approach.

(Art Sobczak works with thousands of sales reps each year helping them get more business by phone. His new book, “Smart Calling” shows salespeople how to eliminate the fear, failure and rejection from cold calling. To learn more about the book and get the free report, “The Top 10 Dumb Cold Calling Mistakes that Ensure Rejection” go to www.SmartCalling.com.)

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 in telephone sales 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

It may seem far-fetched to have posture and phone sales training go together, but they do complement each other very well. Putting those two terms together gives you another term: higher sales.

Bringing back to mind your telephone sales training, you get a vivid picture of steps you had to practice to hone your phone sales skills, your cute trainer and his phone sales tips, of how you touched base on topics in phone sales courses, and other things basic to selling over the phone. I’m guessing though that the clearest picture among those mentioned is your cute trainer and his phone sales tips, which includes smiling and being in proper posture as you take calls, and his execution of those tips thereafter.

Proper posture or smiling when speaking over the phone may seem trivial, phone sales tips you may do without. But practicing them can make all the difference when selling over the phone. Important calls are better handled when standing up. Should you opt to sit down, make sure that you maintain a good posture; seating ergonomics will surely benefit you in the long run.

Practicing proper posture or standing up when making an important call makes your voice stronger, clearer, and firmer, hence making your statements more believable and sincere. That in turn will have your clients take you seriously; communication with them will then be easier.

Here is another tip to add to what you have learned from your phone sales training: Free yourself of visual distractions when selling over the phone. Nonwork-related websites open on your computer and your mobile phone buzzing with personal messages may pose as distractions. Speaking to someone over the phone may require more focus than speaking to someone who is right in front of you. It may take more effort to give your complete and undivided attention. Clearing your computer and desk with unnecessary things will help you focus on the conversation with your client.

Aside from clearing your desk of unnecessary objects is to place in it necessary tools; that is, you have a notepad or MS Word ready for you take down notes with. Jot down the name of your client, of his company, and other information. It is advisable that you don’t rely on your memory too much; those notes may just be the handiest thing you have.

With your sales prospecting techniques and phone sales training, the phone sales tips you learned, the phone sales skills you developed, and the phone sales courses discussed to you, you are sure to perform better and gain more when selling over the phone.



This is a Guest Post from Peter O’Donoghue of  Sales DNA.

If you didn’t read my  last blog post then it might be a good idea to head over here and find out why the following voicemail will get you 50% call backs from your targeted prospects.

As a reminder, the voicemail is:

“Hi John, It’s Joe Bloggs from ACME INC. I was in a meeting this morning and your name came up. I have a couple of quick questions that only you can answer. Can you give me a call back on 0000000000”

So what happens when the prospect hears the voicemail?

Firstly, they are intrigued and curious. Why are they calling me? Why did my name come up in a meeting? What questions can there be that only I can answer? These internal questions and inner dialogue will compel the other person to want to call you back to find out just what is going on.

Secondly, they call. What do you think the first thing they want to know is?

“Why were you talking about me?”

What would you say?

The main thing is that you have a natural and probable answer that will act as a bridge to the thing that you really want from the call – a conversation.

Here are a few ideas:

“Hi John, thanks for calling back. Yes, we had an internal meeting today.”

That’s it. It’s not complicated or underhand and can lead to a natural bridge to your value statement.  A complete example can go like this:

“Hi John, thanks for calling back. Yes, we had an internal meeting today, where we completed phase 1 of a project with ABC Corp. In six months, we reduced their staff churn from 29% down to 19% and we are on track to save them over 500,000 this year. We wanted to help other companies in that industry and as a top 3 player, we immediately thought of you. How is staff churn affecting your business at present?”

OK, let’s break it down to some component parts:

1)      The fact that it is an internal meeting is delivered smoothly and confidently with no apologies. It makes sense and it’s natural.

2)      You have ‘name dropped’ a company that is in their line of business and probably a competitor.

3)      You have proven value in business terms – percentages and money.

4)      There is a little ‘ego-stroke’ – “as a top 3 player.”

5)      It ends in an assumed question “How is staff churn affecting…” It either is or it isn’t and if you have done your homework well then you will know that it probably is. It is open and bridges straight into a conversation.

Now you might be thinking that this might be deceiving and the other person is likely to go:

“Hey wait a minute. You tricked me into calling you!”

I guarantee you it isn’t and they won’t. It naturally flows and as long as you make your reason sound natural, focused on them and relevant, the other person will be more than happy to engage in a conversation with you.

For more golden nuggets like this sign up for my free sales newsletter using the links below…

Peter O’Donoghue is the Director of Sales DNA who help Business To Business Sales Professionals increase sales profitability with Sales Training and Telesales Training.  Sales DNA work with clients in Europe and Worldwide through their Online Sales Training.  Visit his blog at  www.salesdnaltd.com/blog.