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 Karen Andrews

Did you know that the majority of telephone sales leads and enquiries do not get followed up more than once (which could be why your business has a low conversion rate*)?

To improve your sales or that of your telephone sales team, develop a system to regularly check where each one is at and when they were last contacted. If you hold sales meetings, doing it at the beginning or end of each month is perfect.

Here are some statistics that I’m sure you will find most interesting:

• 48% of sales people never follow-up with a prospect
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
• 12% of sales people only make 3 contacts and stop
• Only 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts
• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

To ramp up some sales in the next couple of months, go through all the leads you have received over the last 3-6 months and either you or your sales people pick up the phone and call them. You will be surprised how many people haven’t done anything, simply because no one has bothered to follow up and they have simply been too busy to do anything about it.

* Your sales conversion rate is how many enquiries you receive vs. how many you convert into customers over a specified time frame. To calculate your sales conversion rate follow this simple formula

Total No. of Sales/ Total No. of Enquiries x 100 = Sales Conversion

e.g. 100 sales / 80 enquiries x 100 = 80%

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach, Strategist and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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 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 Paul Archer.

I almost fell right into their trap. I was just a mouse click away from being sucked into the greatest scam that happens every Christmas and I’m still shaking with the nerves.

My daughter, Bethan, has been asking for a new game for her Nintendo DS called Professor Layton and The Curious Village. So when I arrived home after a gruelling car journey down the M6 in the pouring rain, she grabbed me at the front door. Please Daddy, please Daddy…pleeeeease. Bags, cases, coat, laptop in hand, I speedily agreed to her persistent request so as to get inside in the warm.

More fool I. Now being a good and principled father, onto the Internet I went in search of her game. Amazon, game.com, Tesco online, play.com…I tried them all and no one had any stock in at all with not a whisper of availability before Christmas.

I’d been done like a kipper.

Kippered by the toy company who knew full well I.d have to keep to my commitment to my daughter and buy the game and when they release more stock after Christmas, which they will. I will be consistent.

And in the meantime, whilst I.m on Amazon or play.com I.ll have to buy her something else to make it up to her having to wait until after Christmas. And thousands of other dutiful parents are doing the same thing.

The influencing technique is taken from Doctor Robert Cialdini.s principles of influence is called commitment and consistency which is really useful in selling, managing large accounts and coaching your team.

The principle boils down to the fact that humans value consistency – it’s good and principled, makes us known as honest and reliable. Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be these things?

It’s used throughout society. Weight Watchers, which I’ll be joining in the New Year, works because you publicly have to weigh yourself. In front of others – perish the thought. Political canvassers ask you to say verbally who you’ll vote for on your doorstep which they’re kissing your child.

No one ever changes their football team after they’ve told people they support them.

This principle is really useful for us as well and here’s some ideas:

• Ask your customer to fill in the application form themselves
• Use test and trial closes during your sales pitch, even after the first 5 minutes
• Help people make a small purchase early in the relationship and this will encourage them to be consistent.
• Get a commitment at the beginning of your sales meeting to give you some referrals
• When coaching just ask lots of questions to encourage them to talk and say what they’re going to do. Its   classic GROW model and it works
• In coaching make sure you allow your team member to vocalize their action plans
• Contract with team members in meetings to summarize their actions out loud and in writing

Many of these things we’ve been told before but it’s helpful sometimes to know the science behind them. And beware of ever been caught out yourself.

Did I fall for it? Well, no thankfully, as soon as I realised all the companies were out of stock so quickly and knowing that this is the number one game this Christmas, I soon put 2 and 2 together and pleaded with my daughter to accept a store voucher instead so we could get the game after Christmas. Mean old boring Daddy. After all it is credit crunch.

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 Shaun Gisbourne of the PhoneMentor Program.

Having read about how getting one new client can cost more than 8 times what it costs to retain an existing one, it struck me that whatever clients feel about the experience they receive, it’s also very likely that prospects feel it too. Unbeknown to you, clients could even be talking to your prospects about you!

It can be argued that clients will tell other people about experiences with you (bad more than good), and that among the people they tell, some will be potential prospects. That, however, is far from being the full story. The attitude that you take towards existing clients will, to a greater or lesser extent, be reflected in the way you treat new prospects too.

Think about it: Imagine you’re speaking with a prospect who reveals an issue that you’ve already had a very difficult time dealing with for one of your existing clients. As you recall that experience, the prospect will be able to detect your response; vocal, physiological or otherwise, and on the basis of that they will gain an impression of how you will likely respond when it comes to helping them resolve that issue. If your response is to sigh, shift uncomfortably in your seat, scratch your head, pull a face or attempt to change the subject, chances are the signal you’re giving is discouraging from the prospects’ viewpoint and you’ll not be entrusted to help resolve their issue. They in turn will never recommend you to others for anything.

Whenever it has become clear that an experience with a client has proceeded less than smoothly, keeping the lines of communication open may be a challenge as both parties can become defensive, a natural and instinctive human reaction. Nevertheless, the lines of communication must be kept open, it is crucial as otherwise there can be no way forward to progress to a satisfactory conclusion for anyone. Failing to acknowledge unresolved issues and avoid working on them only makes the problem worse.

It is for these reasons and more that keeping the lines of communication open with existing clients, in the form of short surveys, pre-arranged telephone conversations and (where necessary) meetings, is so vital to successful outcomes for both you and your clients.

Assuming that clients and/or prospects are happy simply because you’ve heard nothing negative from them is very dangerous. What are you doing today to find out how your valued clients feel? What will you do to ensure that you know what they really want from you? Is your prospect waiting for you to be pro-active and prove yourself worthy of their business?

If you never call, you’ll never know…

Shaun is author of the PhoneMentor program, delivering practical resources and solutions for businesses, Subject Matter Experts and other SME’s to capitalise on their use of the telephone.

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5 Secrets to Effective Telesales Time Management

Its been a long week. However, I wanted to post this quick list of prospecting tips. Being a professional telesales person isnt easy, and after 18 astounding years in the business I am happy to say I am still learning every day! Cold calling, telesales or telemarketing – it doesnt matter what you call it – the most important thing is that you strive to get better, and never give up the opportunity to learn something new.

So, here you go, my 5 quick telesales tips to use when prospecting for new business via the telephone – feel free to turn this list into a larger one if you like, and be sure to post YOUR tips in the comments section at the end of the post!

Tip #1 - Always be prospecting. There should never be a single working day that goes by without you picking up the phone and spending a certain amount of time looking for new business.

Tip #2 - Be friends with the gatekeeper. Never argue with them. I have definitely, without a doubt, closed more sales in my career by befriending and being polite with the gatekeeper, than I have fighting with them!

Tip #3 – Make sure you are speaking with the decision maker. Regardless of what youre selling, make sure the person you pitch is the one that can sign the purchase order. Pitching anyone else other than the decision maker is simply a waste of time.

Tip #3b – If you’re calling small-to-medium sized businesses, chances are that the decision maker, regardless of what product or service you are selling, is the owner of the business – ask for him/her, and nobody else.

Tip #4 – Manage the perception of your prospects. Don’t promise something, like a price break or a free gift of some kind, unless you can actually make it happen. Its always better to under promise and over perform, remember that.

Tip #5 – Always be prospecting. Yep – I’m slamming it in here again (besides, Tip #3b was a freebie!). Again, it is so important to dedicate time to the art of prospecting. The more people you speak to the more chances you have of making a sale, and remember, a ‘no’ today doesn’t mean ‘no’ forever. Take notes, mark your follow-up’s on your calender and be sure to call back when you promise.

This is obviously not everything you need to know about how to be a great prospecting machine, but its a start and it is basically the ‘juice’, so to speak. I am now happy to open the floor to you guys, the telesales pro’s of the world to continue building on my quick list. So, on your marks, get set, GO!

For more quick, regular telesales tips, you can follow us on Twitter through username @telesalesmagic, and feel free to add myself, too @chrisducker.

This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

Like millions of others, I watched the recent FA Cup Final and was rewarded with rather a dull match full of mistakes, lost possession and very little goal mouth action. Maybe it was two tired teams trying to do their best but possibly it was two teams with well paid players that just try to do the complex things first. All those fancy step over’s and bicycle kicks as opposed to decent crosses and shots at goal.

Sometimes in sales we’re all guilty of trying to do advanced techniques and new ideas and maybe we forget the basics occasionally. There’s a saying in sales that goes: “Be Brilliant at the Basics” Then you can move onto some of the more advanced techniques. Here are 9 basic steps to increase your sales:

1. Maximise your lead generation system
Much of my new business comes from referrals and my websites. Where does your new business come from? Spending development time with those people who refer you is time well spent. If you work in a retail branch, work with the cashiers who get the leads for you. Help them with the words and phrases to use. Make them self sufficient in getting you leads.

If you get your business from professional introducers, are you spending enough time with them to generate business. Think how you can automate your new business systems.

On your websites, do you have a compelling reason for every visitor to leave their sales email address so you can add this to your database? Does your auto responder then do all the work for you?

How successful are you at asking for referrals? Rather than asking your customer if they know anyone who might benefit from your services, ask them if they suddenly had to take one year off work and had to suggest to their boss three people they knew who could take over their job, who would they be. Or if they’re a family man, ask them if they had to go away from their family for 1 year on urgent save the world business, which three people they know would take their place? Try it, these work.

2. Qualify Your Customer
Maximising your time is important in sales, so the faster you can determine if you’ve got a potential customer the better. Spending time with people that really don’t have a problem to solve or who can’t see the problem however much you try, might not be the best use of our time. We should have a workable technique in determining whether our customer is worth spending time with. Try getting the people who obtain the leads for you to pre-qualify the customer first with some simple questions that you can give them to ask.

Determine who the “Decision Maker” is early on. Hand out your business card between two people and see who instinctively grabs the card. Ask the question, “Now you don’t need to make any decisions today so you can relax but just in case you feel you might want to go to the next step, will you be in a position to do so?” Watch their reaction and where they look. Quite hypnotic that one too.

3. Gain Trust
Most customers buy from you when the price gives them value, the benefits suit their needs but sometimes they buy less tangible things. Right now we have a builder doing some work for us. I buy trust, respect and integrity from Norman as well as his ability to do the work. He’s not the quickest builder or the cheapest. Your customer is just as apt to buy for emotional reasons as practical ones, so you need to show them you are most like them, you’re sincere, you keep your word, and are honest.

Remember to under promise and over deliver. That way you’ll never let anyone down.

4. Define Your Unique Selling Position (USP)
Your product or service provides your customer with a specific benefit or group of benefits. Obvious that. Make sure it isn’t the same as your competition. But with thousands of others like you on the market, it can be very difficult to distinguish yourself from the competition. Why does your company stand out? Why do you stand out from the crowd? What value do you offer your customer?

If you’re a middle man, then you’ll need to know exactly what value you give, otherwise with technology accelerating as it does, in a few years’ time you’ll be redundant. Let them know the difference.

5. Listen
Most salespeople are guilty of “overselling”, and often miss the sentence from the customer that says, “You’re right. We’ll take it.” Listen to your customer as he answers questions, and even listen to his tone and inflections of speech. Watch their body language. Uncover the problem, and then provide the solution and stop talking.

If the benefits that you present to your customer don’t “tick their boxes” then you haven’t listened enough. It’s that simple.

6. Stay Focused
Too many salespeople spend all their time putting out fires instead of making sales. Spend at least 80 – 90% of your time trying to produce revenue. The sales window of 9am – 5pm is small, so plan your selling time accordingly. Schedule non-sales generating duties outside this time. Doing paperwork and admin is essential, of course, but not during prime selling time. Try to block your time to do tasks. 1 hour doing phone calls followed by two hours of meetings is good use of time.

7. Ask good questions
And I don’t mean open as opposed to closed questions. That is just so 20th Century! Good salespeople ask lots of questions but don’t interrogate. Try asking questions without using too many words because they ensure you don’t interrogate.

Try just repeating the last couple of words from their last sentence and raise your tone as you do so. Try just not saying anything but nod subtly. Try using brief assertions which are little words or gestures to get more from the customer. “Uh hur”, “I see”, “keep going”, “this is interesting…”

8. Learn From Success
Many salespeople have success in one industry with one type of client, and then don’t focus on getting more of the same type. If you’ve been successful selling to doctors and publishers, call on other doctors and publishers and refer to the successes you’ve had. You’ll then get to know their challenges and needs as an industry. Customers will trust you more if they know you have previous experience with others in their field. You also spend less time establishing your credibility with them.

In a branch setting, if Briony is good with the middle age customers, then feed all the middle aged people to Briony. Likewise if Jim is good with the young dynamic types, then let Jim sell to them.

9. Tame the email junky in you.
Now I’m the worst culprit here. Computers on line constantly, Blackberries, push email, Smartphones all allow us to receive email all of the time. And for some of us checking email is as addictive as drugs. I love getting email and will try and check for email at every moment possible and then deal with them as they appear.

This is just so not the right idea and since Easter I’ve been weaning myself of the drug of email by checking once in the morning, then at lunchtime and then towards the end of the working day. During these times I can respond to the email or deal with it, but I don’t then check mail again until my next timeslot. This has been very difficult but is paying me dividends.

Summary
By all means spruce up your selling skills, learn new ideas and refine your ability with the latest thinking but if we forget the basics, we could be in big trouble.

And then maybe the FA Cup Final would have been a little more interesting to watch. Here’s to the next season.

Paul Archer is an international speaker, trainer, author and coach based in the UK.  He specialises in rapport selling and rapport sales management and can ignite his audiences large or small.  Find out more about Paul by visiting his website www.paularcher.co.uk

If you like this post, you might find our telesales tips helpful:

Telesales Urban Myth #1 – Ignore No’s, You Can Always Deal With Them at the End!

Telesales Urban Myth #2: – You’re Quite Chatty, You Should Be In Sales!

Telesales Urban Myth #3: Smother them in Love and Be Nice Nice Nice!

Telesales Urban Myth #4: “You’re a Good Salesperson” is Not a Compliment!

This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

Signpost at the Beginning of the Telesales Call
This month I’ve been doing tons of coaching with call center people who take calls from the public about their insurance policies.

Some of the callers are really good and some not so, naturally.  They all vary in their  cold calling skills. But one thing that the good ones all do is signpost the beginning of the call.

The importance of signposting whether you are phoning out on a sales call or taking incoming calls, hit me when I got to listen to one call handled by a particularly sound call handler.  The customer had experienced a major calamity.  A water pipe had burst and completely flooded her front room.  Now this lady carefully explained that she had never before claimed on her insurance and had no idea what to expect.

She was very apprehensive. So immediately my call handling friend began to signpost her to relax her and to ensure she knew what was going to happen next on the phone.

The lady was told that the call would probably last about 8 minutes, and they could both complete the claim form over the telephone with little fuss. There was no need for paper, as my friend would complete the form on the computer so there would be quite a few questions.  Was she sitting comfortably?

Sometimes we assume the customer knows exactly what will happen on the call because we’ve dealt with hundreds if not thousands.  But this was the customer’s first call and the signposting helped relax her and sort out her claim. Never assume.

Signposting through Silences
A good friend of mine has a terrific voice so good in fact that we call him Golden Tonsils.  He often gets work from TV companies and theatre companies to do voice over work or he gets to narrate plays.

Now his work is directly connected to handling people on the telephone. Let me explain further…

When you’re talking face to face with someone, we can cope with the odd silent moment.  Its obvious when someone looks away to think about what we’ve just been talking about, or looks down to complete a section on a form, or just takes notes as we talk.

On the phone, however, silent moments, are just …silent and devoid of all human interaction. Good phone handlers use the signposting technique to explain why the silent moment has occurred or use it to pre-warn when a silent moment will happen during the call.

“It may go quiet for a little bit as I need to complete the details section of the page, I won’t keep you too long”.

In fact good call handlers almost narrate the phone call as it occurs, letting the customer know exactly what’s happening at each step of the way.

Just like my friend with the golden tonsils.

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.paularcher.com, where you’ll also find his own sales blog, too!

Selling by phone is tough. Persuading a potential consumer to buy a product over the phone is not a simple task. Your customer doesn’t know you personally and they can’t see your face physically either, so there are really no guarantees for them to know whether what you are telling them is the accurate truth, or just sugar-coated fibs. You must be able to build rapport and acquire your client’s trust in just a short span of time. Which is where telemarketing and cold calling techniques come into play.

To handle this effectively, preparation ahead of time is the key. If you are working as a telesales person, it is crucial for you to be prepared in order to successfully sell your product. Follow the tips below to know why it is important to be prepared in the telesales game of life…

1. Remember that you are there to provide clients information about what you are selling. It is likely that they will ask questions about your product so it is important to be prepared and learn every detail with what your product can do. You have NO RIGHT getting on the phone if you do not know every single little detail about what you are selling. Period.

2. Trust in what you are selling. Know how your product or service will benefit your customers and sell the hell out of these benefits. People have problems. They need solutions. Present the benefits, and help your prospect to ‘feel’ the need to buy from you. Remember, people will genuinely believe their own ideas and concepts before anyone else’s, so work hard on your present of benefits – it will help close the sale or you.

3. Know who your company’s competitors are. This is really important because you will only know if your product or the service you are giving is outstanding by comparing it with your competitor’s product and services. This goes back to being prepared, as with most things on a successful telephone sales call.

4. Prepare (there’s that word again!!!) an interesting, factual and concise telesales script. If you’re involved in B2B telesales, like most people reading this article, then realize and understand that the majority of the decision makers you’re talking too are busy people. Because of that, cut out the crap and leave nothing but the juicy stuff. Don’t just talk for the sake of talking – no need. Get focused and get concise – people will appreciate it.

5. Last, but not least, knowing what objections you’ll be coming up against and be ready with your rebuttals to counter them. This is something that a lot of newbies to the telesales role don’t do, and they probably lose good quality customers and the sales that go with them, because of this fact. I used to systematically test new pitches on ‘weak’ prospects, before calling the big boys. This way you get the chance to have lots and lots of objections thrown at you. And because of this you can record them and create solid rebuttals to overcome them.

Try this out on your next campaign and see if it works for you. It did, and still does, for me.

So, lets get some feedback from our growing list of readers. What do YOU guys do to prepare properly for your telesales calls?

If you like this post, you might also like these other telesales tips:

Telesales Urban Myth #1 – Ignore No’s, You Can Always Deal With Them at the End!

Softening Your Telemarketing & Telesales Questioning Techniques

3 Great Tips to Partner Gatekeepers on Your Telesales Calls

UK Telesales News – Charity Calls ‘Not the Same’ as Telemarketing

Referrals – The Lifeline of All Good Telemarketing Professionals!