Posts Tagged ‘Selling’

« Older Entries

Is your business card optimized for marketing performance?

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Okay I know business cards have been around for at least a hundred years.  But let’s not forget that they are still one of the most powerful marketing tools around as long as you actually use them properly. For as little as 1 cent per card, you get to deliver your message and contact information directly to someone- face-to-face.

Business cards for marketing face-to-face

Is your business card "optimized" for performance?

To get the best results, make sure your business card is easy to read and includes all the ways people can contact you – that’s not just your address and phone number but also your blog and Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts (depending on which ones you use most frequently and which ones apply most to your marketing strategy).

I’ve been handed cards printed on an in-home printer with perforated edges.  Yuck!

And I’ve seen cards that don’t say what the business actually does and how the person can benefit me.

Imagine if you were a prospect receiving your card.  Would you be compelled to call yourself? Don’t let the marketing opportunity get away from you with a cheap, poorly designed, vague business card.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in marketing, Selling, strategy | No Comments »

How to leave a voicemail while cold-calling or making follow-up calls.

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

As most of you know, I still believe in cold-calling.  That’s because it still works!

How to leave a voicemail for cold-calling or follow-up calls

The phone is still your friend.

Sure I’ve had people tell me it’s old-school. But I don’t care.  Again… it works.  It’s not as good as “warm calling”.  And it’s not as good as a referral.  But if you’ve got something good to sell and you make 100 calls in a day, I guarantee you’ll find at least one interested person at the other end of the line.  That is… if you do it right.

So, if you decide to heed my advice and make some cold-calls, you ought to think about a strategy for your voicemail messages.  Don’t be a coward that makes 100 calls, gets 100 voicemails and leaves no messages.

Instead, plan out your voicemail message carefully.  Think of it as a 15-second radio spot.

Here are three things to consider as you create your script:

1- Don’t be too “salesy”. This is your first call (or second if it’s a follow-up call).  Don’t attempt to make the sale in your voicemail message.  It simply won’t happen.

2- Be positive, energized and enthusiastic. Make sure you sound like someone who has their act together.  Rehearse your message.  Don’t wing it!  No one will want to call back a person who sounds terrified.

3- Practice by leaving yourself a message. That’s right.  Call your own voicemail and lay down your script.  Is your speech clear?  Do you sound friendly?  Do you like the person you are hearing?  If not, re-write the script, rehearse your delivery and do it again until you are satisfied.

4- Include benefit statements that focus on relieving pain. Let’s not forget pain.  Remember, you can’t sell anything to anyone who doesn’t have pain. So be sure to focus like a laser on the most frequent pain-point your prospects experience.  Then be sure to mention that your firm can fix that problem.

5- Speak clearly and include all the appropriate response information. I can’t tell you how many times I have received a call from a salesperson that sounds compelling.  But- at the end of the message- I can’t make out their return phone number.  The dopey salesperson said it too fast.  I recommend you slow down at this point of the message.  Clearly articulate the phone number they should call.   Also, you might want to include your email address.  That way, they can email you to engage or to tell you to go away.  Either response is a good one.  Remember, I like to count “no’s”.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cold-calling, Direct Marketing, Selling, strategy, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ever wonder what the heck your salespeople are doing all day long?

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Questioning your sales teamFirst off, this is not a rant about insecurity or paranoia.  Rather, I’m sad to say that many sales people will take advantage of you and your business as long as you allow them to do so.

Keep in mind… simply using the 80/20 rule you can probably figure that 80% of your most profitable sales revenue comes from 20% of your sales team.  And if that’s the case, you probably wish you could change and improve that figure.

But, if you’re like most small or mid-size business owners, you’re probably wondering what the heck your sales people are doing all day long.  You don’t want to be a babysitter.  You don’t want to spend your time going through call reports and updates.  And your sales people don’t want to spend their time creating them.

Yet you probably spend a lot of time scratching your head wondering why the guy or gal that looks busiest sells the least.  And when you ask them to do things that should help them improve their sales, do they say they are too busy?

So what’s up with all the “activity” with weak results?

Well, I hate to break it to ‘ya but most of the (seemingly) super-busy salespeople that accompany low sales are simply NOT busy.  They are either fakin’ it or they truly think they are busy but they are spending tons of time doing things that don’t result in sales.  I recently spoke to a salesman who was proud to show me all the appointments he had set for just one day.  Six!  Wow!  And he planned to drive back and forth…  here and there…  all over town to see all these people.  But he had no focus.  None of the prospects were truly vetted and none were qualified.  He had no plan.  And they had no pain.

Sorry folks.  Driving is not selling!

So here are 3 ways to give yourself a completely transparent view of your sales force:

1- Give them cell phones with GPS tracking- I know… it’s “big brother”.  But I’ll bet you a million dollars that a good number (sadly) of your sales force is working a lot less hours than you thought and even spending time at bars or health clubs. NOTE: I only recommend this for sub-par producers.  Otherwise you’ll drive away your good talent.
2- Make them input their activities into a CRM system- If you don’t have a CRM for data, get one YESTERDAY!  Then make sure your team enters all their leads, prospects, accounts, contacts, and opportunities into it using tags.  These systems are very inexpensive and they pay for themselves since they help you manage your sales team with crystal clear accuracy as long as you make your sales team input the data.
3- Sit where they sit and ride where they ride- I like to have my sales people right nearby.  I like to hear what they are saying.  I like them to know that I am accessible to them to help move a prospect further down the funnel or to close a deal.  What’s more important than sales?  Oh yeah… cash flow is pretty important.  But I digress.  If you can’t sit near them and ride with them, then you should spend as much time with them as possible.  That’s the only way to truly know what’s going on.

And if all else fails, just look at the numbers.  Numbers don’t lie.  Get rid of sales people who can’t hit their numbers.  Don’t get dragged down by emotion.  That’s not being fair to your business.   And the rest of your staff- the ones who are truly working hard- know who the slackers are and they’ll only think less of you if you don’t get rid of the salespeople who are taking you for a ride.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Selling, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The joy of cold calling- 2 reasons to LOVE doing it! Plus some wisdom from Rocky Balboa

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

Here are two reasons you should absolutely love cold-calling.  One is mine.  The other is a reason I recently heard from a salesman I interviewed on Friday.

1- Progress is happiness:

When I was starting out- selling printing services back in the early 90′s- I made about 100 calls a day.  What kept me going?  I figured out really quick that, each day, I could set about 1 to 2 appointments and find about 5-10 other “interested” prospects with some sort of pain or problem that I could solve.  Of course those 5-10 would need nurturing and follow-up calls to set appointments.

Also, I knew that (on average) a sale would result from 1 out of 5 appointments.

So, if I made 100 calls a day and added 5-10 interested prospects to my funnel each day, I was always making progress.  Sales would happen inevitably.

Sure there were days when I’d hit a skid and no appointments were set.  And then there were days when it seemed like appointments were falling out of the sky- like rain.  But over time the averages always worked out.  If I kept moving forward… if I kept making the calls, I would always progress yet another step closer to the ultimate goal- another sale.

Thus, there was never a reason to hate cold calling because even rejection meant “failing forward”.  “Fail fast and fail frequently”, someone once told me.  Rejection was progress.  Each rejection brought me one step closer to my objective.   If I made 5 calls in the morning and each one was a rejection, I knew I only had about 95 left before I’d set an appointment.  Five more rejections meant I only had 90 remaining.   “Yahoo! I’m getting closer”, I thought with each consecutive rejection.

And I know there are tons of people who might comment on this post saying you should do this or that to improve your batting average.  But that’s not what this post is about.  It’s about the numbers game.  We’ll get to style in another post.   A client told me that progress is happiness.  So, now I say… let’s keep in mind that if cold-calling is a numbers game, then every cold call, every rejection, and every failure is a step forward.  Each one is progress.  Each one takes you closer to finding the person who is in pain and truly needs your help.  If you don’t make the calls, you’ll never find them.

2- Monetize your calls:

I love this one.  So I interviewed this guy who showed me how he broke down his cold-calls to monetize them.  If he ended up selling 1 out of 100 (for instance)… and if each sale was $10,000 (giving him a $1,000 commission).  Then each call was actually worth $10 ($10 x 100 = $1,000).  Ten rejections actually made him $100.  Neat!

Rocky Balboa.

And finally- what does Rocky think about all this?  In the very last Rocky movie, Sylvester Stallone created one of my favorite inspirational speeches.  Here it is:

The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that! I’m always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You’re my son and you’re my blood. You’re the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain’t gonna have a life. Don’t forget to visit your mother.“

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cold-calling, Lead Generation/Nurturing, Philosophy/motivation, Selling, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Raise your hand if your marketing and sales teams don’t seem to dance well together.

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Marketing and sales efforts working together?

NOT! Right?

How about this….  Are your marketing and sales teams even talking to each other?

We’ve heard it all.

Sales says: Marketing doesn’t understand what’s happening on the front lines.

And marketing says: Sales won’t follow up on leads and can’t close deals.

Sound familiar?  Tying marketing and sales together is the key to delivering a return on your investment. I’d like to say there are lots of books and articles written on this subject.  But there aren’t.  It’s sort of the missing link of ROI.

Solution: Hire a marketing firm that truly understand sales.  And hire a sales consulting firm that truly understands marketing.

Otherwise, here are a few points to consider in order to get your sales and marketing teams to work together.

  1. Start with an objective.
  2. Make sure marketing vets the objective with sales (they’ll know whether it’s realistic or not).
  3. Listen to the sales team.  They are at the front lines.  Never discount their input.
  4. Now you can develop a marketing strategy.
  5. And then you MUST show it to the sales team.
  6. Revise it and show it to some prospects and/or clients.
  7. Once you get buy-in from the prospects and/or clients AND the sales team…. it’s time to dance!

Too often we see a lack of communication and (sometimes) outright animosity between marketing and sales.  You can’t dance with someone who steps on your toes, fumbles around or has bad breath.  So, learn to work together and take a breath mint.

Or, reach out to us at MarketSmart.  We tie it all together and deliver a return on your investment.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in marketing, Philosophy/motivation, Selling | No Comments »

When in doubt… ask a question.

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

The most powerful tool a salesperson possesses is a question.

Sure, enthusiasm and creativity will get you pretty far.  Some people can sell ice to Eskimos with an amazing personality, trustworthiness and gregariousness.  But the rest of us may not have the 1-in-a-million-tony-robbins-charisma that makes selling oh-so-easy.  The rest of us need to rely on the basics.

And you just can’t get any more basic than this:

  • The purpose of asking questions is to find “pain”.
  • You can’t sell anything to anyone who doesn’t have some sort of pain.
  • So… Ask questions.
  • Then…  Ask more questions.
  • Even when you don’t know what else to do… ask yet another question.
  • And, here’s the best one….   When your client or prospect asks you a question, you should ask a question right back! For example, your client may ask, “How big is your firm?”  And you should reply, “That’s a great question Mr./Ms. Prospect… why do you ask?”

Let’s face it, you don’t know why they asked that question.  What are they trying to learn?  How can your answer help move them further through the buying process?  What if they wanted to know how many employees you had? What if they were wondering how many locations you had?  Are they nearby?  Do you have so many employees that they’d get lost in the shuffle?  Do you have too few that you could not possibly support their needs?

There’s only one way to determine the right way to answer their question.  And that’s… you guessed it… with a question!

So let’s do it again.  You say, “That’s a great question Mr./Ms. Prospect… why do you ask?”  And he/she replies, “Because our last vendor had way too few customer service reps on our account.  We couldn’t get through to them.  Response times were terrible!”

Ahh!!!  Now you found the pain and can talk about your firm’s features and benefits that fit in a way that solves the problem and relieves the pain.

Understood?  I figured I’d end this post with a question.    :-)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Cold-calling, Selling | No Comments »

3 easy recommendations for improving your batting average with cold (or warm) calls.

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Don’t “wing-it!”

That’s what most sales people do.  They wing-it.  They know they need to make some sales calls to follow-up on leads.  So they grab their list and they call- hoping for the best.

Don’t do that!

Here are 3 things you should do in order to make successful telephone sales calls.

1- Determine your objective: I believe your objective should be one or more of the following.

  • To qualify a lead or prospect (determine if they are the decision-maker and if they have any chance of buying your product or service)
  • Carry them further down the decision-making path
  • Uncover pain and determine needs
  • Set an appointment
  • Close a sale
  • Or, determine when is the next time you need to contact them again

2- Create a decision tree: A decision tree is a very useful diagram of all the possibilities you might expect to occur during your call.  If you draw it out with boxes, arrows and words, you will be better prepared to handle every situation that might occur during the call.  And when the prospect throws you a curve ball, then you need to add it to your decision tree for the next call.  Think about what answers and questions you should have in your “response arsenal”.  Drill ‘em with your co-workers.  Test ‘em out.  Try new ones.

The idea is to constantly improve your decision tree until it’s rock solid.  Then you’ll be prepared for every call you make.  And that preparation will make you more confident.  Prospects can “hear” confidence.  It exudes over telephone lines.  Seriously!  A decision tree will improve your telephone skills exponentially.

3- Record what happened: In carrying prospects down the path to make a decision about you and your company, you must build rapport and a relationship.  The best way to do that is to have a great memory (or at least appear to have a great memory).

Prospects want to feel important.  They don’t want to feel like just another piece of meat.  And besides, most prospects get tons of calls… but only once.  Rarely do they ever hear from the same caller again.

By jotting down some notes about your past conversation, you’ll be able to speak relevantly.  You could say, “Hi Jim.  Last time we spoke you had a cold.  Are you all better?  Great!  I’m just following up to see….”  Really!  That works!  Take the time to jot down notes and use the information in your next call.

Try all that and let me know how you do!

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Cold-calling, Selling | No Comments »

How to avoid screwing up your leads!

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Ok.  I know someone will tell me that I should be more professional and should have titled this post something gentle like “Ways to improve lead conversion.”  But this concept needs an attention-getter.

Too many times my firm has been tasked with generating leads only to see them get pushed to the corner without proper attention.  To me a lead is gold.  It’s an opportunity to build a new relationship with a new prospect.  For one of my clients, a new client could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions of dollars) in revenue over the potential multi-year duration of the relationship.  So what could be more important than jumping on new leads?

Nothing!

In fact, did you know that 13% of all inquiries buy in the category they inquired about within the first 90 days?  And 19% buy within 180 days.  Overall, 45% of all inquiries will buy within 12 months.  If you attend to your leads, you should be able to sell a good percentage of that 45%.  And for most businesses, that means tons of repeat business, growth and profits.

So here’s how to avoid screwing up.

1- Make sure everyone (telemarketing, customer service, fulfillment, the receptionist and especially the sales staff) knows about the lead generation effort.

2- Discuss what you expect to occur once a lead comes in.  Will letters be written?  Mailed?  Will brochures be mailed?  Will sales people call to qualify the leads?  Emails be sent?  How should the receptionist treat the newcomers?  To whom will she transfer the calls?

3- Execute the plan!  Why go through so much trouble and expense to generate leads only to drop the ball once the prospect has raised his or her had screaming “I might want to buy from you!!”?

4- Review what you did.  Did everything go smoothly?  Did the brochures get out?  Did the sales team make the calls?  Send out emails?  Set appointments?  Make sales?!?

5- Results?  How many leads turned into appointments?  How many appointments turned into proposals?  How many proposals turned into sales?  How many sales yielded repeat sales?  Measure it so you can improve everything next time.

Now back to my headline…

I’ve seen so many lead generation effort fall flat on the follow-up.  I know you’re probably thinking that’s nuts.  But time and time again, organizations get overwhelmed with day-to-day problems that it becomes hard to focus on the fresh meat.  Don’t let your next marketing campaign suffer a similar fate.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Lead Generation/Nurturing, Selling | No Comments »

The 80/20 rule!!!

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I can’t tell you how many times I see people, sales people, marketers and companies forget about the 80/20 rule.  Could it be that they never heard of it?  Come on everyone!  It’s the 80/20 rule!  It’s the best and easiest way to generate more, good, profitable business FAST.

First a history lesson.  The 80/20 rule was really called the Pareto Principle.  In 1906 Pareto figured out that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the people.  And the concept quickly caught on as a general rule of thumb for business.

Recently MarketSmart was tasked with figuring out how to jumpstart sales for one of our newest clients.  Of course, they wanted sales fast.  …Before we even had a chance to write their comprehensive marketing and sales strategy.

So what did we recommend?  Go with the 80/20 rule!

We just got their data this morning and sure enough $3.7 Million dollars out of $4.65 Million was generated by 20% of their clients.  Go figure!  So we wrote a quick sales plan for them to focus on those clients immediately.  “Go to the well!” we told them.

The rest of the plan (which I wrote this morning) emphasized the following:

  1. Focus on the 20% who deliver 80% of your business (I call these people and clients “superstars”)
  2. THEN look at the next rung (“the players”) to see if you can move any of them up to superstar status
  3. Next look at “bench warmers” and customers who disengaged for one reason or another
  4. And finally, generate new leads

This strategy and plan should help you get focused quick too.  Happy selling!!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Data Management, Direct Marketing, Multi-channel marketing, Selling | No Comments »

The number one thing to do in order to close a sale.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Shut up!

Really.

I’ll never forget one of the harshest lessons I ever learned in business. I was 22 years old selling advertising space for a large newspaper in the D.C. area. I really wanted to be an advertising copywriter or designer. Either position would have been fine.  But there was a terrible recession going on and the local ad agencies simply weren’t hiring.  So I figured I’d sell ad space instead. And to do it successfully I decided to sketch ads and write copy for local retailers while giving them offer ideas and marketing counsel.

I sold a lot of advertising that way. And I guess I got cocky. Drawing up ads for prospects worked pretty well and helped close deals. It was a great way to get people excited about the possibilities.  They could envision the ad easily.  We’d collaborate and imagine the impending success for each ad.

Then one day I ran into a buzz saw. I found a prospect who was analytical. He was more concerned with numbers than ideas. But that wasn’t the problem. I recognized that and changed my tactics.  Instead of designing an ad and suggesting coupons, I scribbled out numbers reflecting possibilities for a return on his investment.

He was just about ready to say “go”. I knew it.  We went through the numbers.  It made sense.  It was sold.  Right?

Wrong!

As he was contemplating his decision, I got impatient.  The clock was ticking.  The room was silent.  I couldn’t stand it.  So I jumped in and started talking….Selling!  Yuck!

He slowly looked up at me with an angry glare and barked, “Would you shut up! I’m thinking! Didn’t anyone ever teach you to shut up when you’re closing a deal?”

Stunned.  I was stunned.

Next he picked up the papers, shoved them into my chest and ushered me out the door.

Try as I might, I could never get him to see me again. In the end I think that was his loss because I was truly just trying to help make his life better.  But the lesson stuck with me.

When you’re trying to close a deal. Shut up! Or get thrown out!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Selling, Uncategorized | No Comments »

« Older Entries