In a previous post, we talked about a powerful tool salespeople can use to open their sales calls. That was the Impact Statement. Today, we’re going to look at another tool you can use to take control of your sales calls. This is the Why Speak Statement.
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In a previous post, we introduced the concept of the Impact Statement and using that tool to focus the opening of your sales call. Remember, as stated before, no one is sitting by the phone waiting for your unsolicited call, and sometimes, not even your scheduled phone call. People are busy. They have things that they need to get done, especially if they are in any kind of decision making capacity. So once you break their preoccupation and get their attention, you have to build their interest. And for that you need an effective Impact Statement to tell your story.
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Here’s a question about sales objections I encountered a lot when we did lead generation work:
I keep running into objections before I even have a chance to introduce myself. What is the best way to overcome “I’m too busy,” “I do not have time” or “Call back in two months?”
One of the challenges we face with sales objections is knowing when we have a bona fide objection as opposed to the prospect simply trying to get rid of us.
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Salespeople pursuing a single point of contact when prospecting is like an engineer designing a system with a single point of failure. One mishap and your whole project crashes!
My director of technology once told me about an experience he had in the early creation days of our call center. He said he had called into a local manufacturing company and was hooked up with the director of sales. He had done everything right, moving the relationship towards selling a set of training programs for the company’s sales team.
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When making cold calls and opening sales calls on the phone, you need guideposts, touch points of some kind to help guide your interaction. Now, some sales trainers would say you need a script when cold calling. However, I think a cold calling script is too rigid. A sales rep must be flexible and address people where they find them mentally and attitudinally, not where the script says your prospect should be.
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This post on cold calling was originally published on Dec 19, 2016 and updated with current material on June 19, 2019.
I was reading a blog post put out by another sales trainer titled “7 Ways to Make Cold Calling Easier”. It got me wondering, where do these tips come from? Were these ideas formulated by this trainer or were his insights rehashed from basic advice you can find anywhere? Was his advice based on empirical data, or was it based on opinions from his experiences in sales? And at that moment, I had an epiphany. This wasn’t the first time I came across a basic ‘tips to cold calling’ post. And it wasn’t the first time I was turned off by an article like this.
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In a previous post, we discussed 10 quick sales prospecting ideas to boost your sales. All those ideas dealt with using social media and online properties to make yourself known to potential prospects who are searching online for what you do.
We know that most of your potential customers do their research online. And by the time they begin calling on salespeople, they’ve already decided on what they want to do. Continue reading
Contrary to popular belief, sales prospecting is not dead, and cold calling is not the boogeyman everyone has made it out to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I think picking up the phone and calling people you don’t know so you can sell them something that they don’t want is a colossal waste of time. And it generates a lot of bad blood to boot. But that doesn’t mean you should simply forego picking up the phone and communicating with people. Continue reading
In an earlier post, I reviewed one of the most common questions I get from salespeople: how do you reach the C-suite executives of a company? It reminds me that the natural impulse for new salespeople is to look for the silver bullet that will solve all their problems quickly, effectively, and efficiently. Continue reading
In my previous post I emphatically stated, prospecting is not dead! Many marketing automation companies may try to convince you otherwise, or you may have convinced yourself with all the information seemingly available at your fingertips, that you have all the data you need to make a sale.
The fact is, nothing can replace actual prospecting. It’s challenging but worth it.
Ultimately, connecting with someone involves gaining a prospect’s attention by communicating briefly about things that interest that individual. It’s in making that connection where research can help – trying to learn snippets that can help your conversation including education connections, places they’ve lived, companies they’ve worked for, etc. Just remember: don’t lose sight of the importance of back and forth communication in the connecting process.
The art of prospecting takes patience, persistence, and the understanding of prospect’s perspective. The following are critical tips for practicing successful prospecting:
Prospecting is difficult, takes time, requires a thick skin and an ability to be persistent. It’s no wonder there are companies looking to capitalize on this notion that with their product/service you won’t have to prospect anymore, because, who wants to experience all those things if you don’t have to? And yet, there is no replacement for prospecting done well. Your hard, persistent work will pay off. Read more about how to be an expert at prospecting by checking out Lance Tyson’s new book, Selling Is an Away Game: Close Business and Compete in a Complex World.