• Reading From A Script. There is nothing more boring to a prospective customer than to pick up the phone and hear the caller (after usually miss-pronouncing their name) to launch into a written script. This screams of a complete lack of professionalism, as well as making the customer feel like just another name on the list, rather than as someone special.
• “You have been selected”. This dreaded cliché sounds as phoney as it is. Think about it. Why in the world would the customer be selected by a company that has probably never done business with them before? Is it the customer’s lucky day? They usually don’t think so.
• Lack of Passion. This is related to script reading. Many callers sound like they are human zombies, just going through the motions. If there is anything to cause the customer to hang up, this is it, and this leads us to the next mistake.
• Failing to connect emotionally with the customer. If the caller sounds bored and mechanical, the listener will pick it up. After all, if the caller is not excited about the offering, why in the world should the potential customer be?
• Giving opportunity to say “no”. Anytime the caller asks the prospective customer a question, there should never be the opportunity for the customer to say “no”. For example, instead of: “Would you like to have one of our sales reps come out next week?”, the correct question should be: “Our reps will be in your area on Tuesday and Thursday. Which day is more convenient for you?”. This gives the customer a choice, and produces far superior results.
• Not targeting the calling prospects. Working off a random list should be avoided if at all possible. If the target list can be narrowed to customers who have bought similar products/services in the past, the calling campaign will be more successful.
• Not doing it. This speaks for itself. To succeed, the callers must make the calls. It is really that simple.

Avoiding these mistakes will make cold calling a profitable activity for your business.

Cold Calling Mistakes: Top Tips To Avoid is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

When you’re cold calling, your best chance of success is to be self assured, confident, and 100% well versed in what you are selling. If you’re using the word ‘maybe’ in your sales scripts, you run the risk of sounding wishy washy. It either is or isn’t. Pick one.

Don’t

In fact, any negative, when describing your product or service, is a definite no. You want to list the positive attributes – not the negative. So instead of thinking about what you don’t do, can’t offer, or won’t provide, think about what you do, can and will. Then write about those.

Hope

When you tell your client you’re ‘hoping’ for something, you’re not sure, are you? If you’re not sure, then why should they be? Never let a prospect hear that you’re not 100% behind your product, your company or your service, or it’s entirely likely you will lose the sale.

Contract

It may sound innocuous enough, but the word contract conjures up all sorts of unpleasant pictures of lawyers, being ‘tied down’ and other negative thoughts. When you’re writing a new sales script, you want to avoid those negative ideas, so make sure that any words like contract that indicate your prospect will be locked in are on your list of what to avoid when cold calling.

Cheap

We all know people want to pay less for goods and services, but the word cheap just sounds, well, cheap. Think ‘cheap and nasty’ and you have some idea of what’s going through your prospects mind when you say cheap. Stick to ‘cost effective’, ‘value for money’, or ‘highly competitive pricing.’ All of them sound better, and say the same thing, without making your prospect think of badly made, low cost goods or services.

This certainly isn’t a complete list of words to avoid when you are wondering what to avoid when cold calling, but it’s a start. As a general rule of thumb, you should avoid any word that has a negative connotation, even if you use it in a positive way. Consumers tend to hear the negative word, and form a negative connection with your brand, without even realizing it.

Always remember that it’s not only what you say, but how you say it, that determines sales success!

What to avoid when cold calling – part 2 is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

• I don’t want to bother anyone
• They probably won’t be interested
• I don’t want to be yelled at
• I don’t like reading from a script
• I don’t really know what to say
• What if they act like they may be interested, but still won’t buy?

There are probably several other objections, but these are the common ones. The bad news is that these are real – and they represent potentially huge barriers for any company’s marketing efforts. The good news is that with a different way of approaching cold calls, this can change from a feeling of dread to a feeling of enthusiasm and actual anticipation – and this is not as hard to accomplish as it may seem.

The first and most important step is to realize that you are not bothering your prospective customers/clients. By not calling and introducing your products/services to them, you are really doing them a disservice.

Think about that. If you really believe in your company’s products and services, why wouldn’t you want to tell the whole world about it? Your customers need what you are offering, and cold calling is one way to make them aware of the benefits you can offer them. This is an important first step in changing the way you think about cold calls.

The next step is to put yourself in the position of who you are calling. They have problems; you have solutions. Why in the world are you hesitant to offer to help them by making their life easier? There is no good answer to that question. Once you have identified your targeted market, and what they are concerned about, the calls will begin to flow naturally, and the phone will no longer weight 10,000 pounds.

To help overcome the fear factor, ask yourself this: what is the worst, the very worst thing that could happen? You hear an obscenity and the phone slams down? BIG DEAL! If anything, you will learn to enjoy results like that, for the simple reason that those “No’s” are leading you to the next “Yes’s”.

As you can see, it all begins changing the way you approach cold calls. And that is totally under your control!

How To Approach Cold Calling is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Confidant cold calling is all about preparation and attitude. If you know your product, your customer and your approach, cold calling is a breeze. The first thing you need to do is to define your product. What exactly are you selling? Why would a Canadian want to purchase your product or service? What makes your product or service better than your competitors? You need to know why a Canadian would benefit from purchasing your product or service.

The next step in the cold calling process is to identify your potential customer. Conduct research to find out who exactly makes the purchase decision in that company. Be sure you reach the correct person. Canadians do expect you to be accurate and respect their positions.You can use the internet to investigate the company (Trigger Events!) or call the company itself and ask who in their company makes those purchase decisions. If possible, contact that person via email or by sending them an introductory letter and sales brochure telling them you would like to speak with them about your product. Increase the postage on your material to Canadians and in the letter or email, tell them when you will be calling them. Allow a few extra days when sending material out of the country (from US for example), then call them a couple of days after you believe they have received the initial contact information.

Have a prepared script ready when you make the initial cold call taking into account the benefits of your product to Canadians. Remember that Canadians are extremely polite and expect you to be. We buy differently. We want to be heard. So, when calling be sure to ask if it is a convenient time for them to talk to you. If it isn’t, immediately ask to re-schedule at a better time. Canadians value honest, forthright communications. Be extremely straight-forward and helpful. Remember that the initial call is not necessarily to make a sale but to begin building a relationship with the client. We need relationship, rapport, and empathy. With that attitude, sales will follow.

Oh, and by the way, we don`t live in igloos.

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More info: http://www.coldcallingforcanadians.com/

How To Cold Call Canadians is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Clammy hands?  Blank mind?  Have you become an expert at creative avoidance?  No one actually looks forward to cold calling, yet it’s a necessity for successful selling.

Happily, there are some simple cold calling techniques you can use to become much more comfortable, move past your fear and enjoy the positive results you want.

These cold calling techniques can really help:

• Acknowledge your anxiety.  Even professional athletes psych themselves up, put on their game face and focus only on desired results.
• Be prepared.  Know exactly how each prospect can benefit from doing business with you, how your company and products can improve their operations or bottom line.  Talk with current customers to learn how they’ve benefited to get ideas and examples.
• Assume prospects are interested.  Unless you’re merely opening the phone book and blindly selecting numbers to call, you’re making appropriate contacts.  They just haven’t met your company or products yet, so it’s a teaching opportunity for you.
• Anticipate objections.  You can be a hero by helping resolve problems or allaying  concerns about pricing, budget, timing, usage, etc.
• Pretend you’re speaking face-to-face.
• Speak normally.  Know the points you want to make, but let your personality show.  People buy from other people, and they prefer to do business with people they like.
• Stand up.  Your voice will sound better and you’ll be less tense.

Don’t overdo it. 

Set yourself up for success, by scheduling short cold calling sessions – say, ten calls or 15 minutes — and rewarding yourself after each session.  Rewards should be something you really like, such as calling one of your best customers to check in, reading for a few minutes (limit the time) about sales tips or market trends, even tapping into a short podcast or video.

Short sessions and frequent rewards make cold calling manageable and focus on the positive, energizing you for your next round of calls.  Get up and move around between sessions, too, because stretching improves blood flow to your body and your mind.

These cold calling techniques can improve your results.  And remember, cold calling is not a goal.  It’s the first step in a winnowing process, so naturally you’ll find some “chaff” along the way.  But with every call, you’re expanding awareness of your company’s brand and products, and you’ve introduced yourself so you’re no longer a complete stranger.  You’ve planted a seed that might some day grow into a customer.

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I’ve been nominated as one of the Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management in 2011 by Sales Lead Management Association. Voting is open until November 30; please vote for me only if you feel I am contributing to the sales community:

http://www.salesleadmgmtassn.com/50most2011/top50_vote.htm

Cold Calling Techniques is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

The process of discovery is of paramount importance in your selling career and learning to ask the correct questions is a very necessary skill to acquire. Only when you have discovered what it is that your customers require can you begin to present them with the appropriate solution. Cold-calling can become a thing of the past if you become adept at learning as much as possible about your potential customers (before you call them). With this pre-knowledge in hand, you can be way more confident when approaching your client. You’ll also be better equipped to ask the best, most pertinent types of questions that will give you the necessary information to assist you in presenting the best possible solution.

By knowing your client, you’ll know what kind of questions to ask. Instead of coming across as a salesperson who is simply taking a swing at getting the sale, you present yourself as knowledgeable and as having an understanding of your client’s business. This already puts you in a far more superior position than those salespeople who will go in blindly.

Take the time to learn about your client; listen to his needs; and ask the best questions. This will help to fast-track your sales career as you continue to perfect your sales skills.

Sales Tip #31: ask more questions is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xcuv3uzWgU

Video: Daily Sales Tip #21 is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

The only thing you can accomplish is to lose a precious time chasing prospects who are not interested for your product, or they are not a fit for your products or services at all.

Many unsuccessful sales people spend their time with customers who are not even close to sales process and to buying, but poorly trained sales person still contact them regularly simply because they are in pipeline and they need to fill their day somehow. Talking to that kind of prospects is just a waste of your and their time.

When you are selling you need to differentiate and trigger events will make this possible. You will have tools to create the opportunity for you, and not just in the visible market where customers are actively looking for provider or supplier, but also in the invisible market – you put them in the market, you are making customers realize that they are on the market now. Without trigger events you can’t force customers to meet with you because you will be just one of many sales guys knocking on their door.

Here are two examples of trigger events:

• Your research shows some trigger events like hiring new 15-20 sales reps or changes in upper management levels: this clearly sends out messages that the company is in need of new office furniture or new computers with software, or maybe a new benefits plan for employees.
• Thousands of corporate turnarounds occur every year. You may have read about a few of them in your local newspaper, but that’s not enough. There are companies in a turnaround phase that affect sales in your area all the time. I suggest keeping abreast of the New York Times or other newspapers like that in your region. Their business page carries a number of turnaround events throughout the company along with web sites by the large accounting firms and graduate business colleges such as Wharton. Turnaround time means change time: new people, new products, new services, and new sales potential for you.

Customers will be positively shocked with your due diligence and fact-finding mission you accomplished with them. When you contact your prospects and on the first conversation you leave them with impression you know their situation very well — you care to help, and you can add value to them, trust me when I say you are much closer to signing a deal than anybody else.

After discovering trigger events, the next steps are to develop the customer’s perception of your unique value. What can you do for them? How your solution can actually create value to them?

Trigger events will give you the clue about the timing too.

More about Trigger Events here:

Selling in 21st Century

Hit or miss doesn’t work in selling

Get the book “Trigger Events”

Differentiate Prospects from Suspects is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Selling is therefore a process in which you need to follow certain steps, one at a time, to reach your final goal – the sale itself. Your sales process will also depend on your efforts invested in research and understanding your customer base, together with your energy and enthusiasm about your product.

Sometimes you can skip some steps if the customer is giving you signals to move further, faster. Otherwise, it solely depends on you and your readiness to be prepared before contacting the prospect.

If we simplify the whole sales process we can agree that there are four major steps in sales:

1. opening/qualifying
2. information gathering
3. presentation of your proposal, and
4. closing.

Opening phase is usually a result of a cold call to someone who has not yet heard of you or thought about working with you.

Information gathering is a second step when sales person is asking customers what they do, how they do it, and why they do it that way. Then he/she ask how his company can help them do it better. Usually second step means getting the meeting or presentation opportunity.

Proposal is next step when sales person is giving the presentation based on the gathered information, and giving the recommendation or meaningful solution to solve their pains, issues, or needs.

When customer decides to buy that is a fourth step in sales process and the only step that actually counts – closing the deal. This means they see the value in your solution and you assisted to buyer to make a decision based on information you provided.

When you don’t close the deal you did not completed your process. It is very similar to playing baseball when you get to the third base but never reach home and score; in sales this means you have gone through three steps but on the end you didn’t engaged buyer enough to see the value in your solution.

You didn’t address their needs that will trigger a buy to happen (Trigger Events, anyone?). You have wasted your time and your customer’s time, and there is hardly any chance of getting back to that customer to try to sell again.

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The Four Major Steps in Sales is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer

Class 1. The simplest business sale is one in which the customer is so anxious to buy at a specified price that he comes to the salesperson and voluntarily offers her the proper amount of money for the products. As an illustration, take the ticket seller in the box office of a theatre. A line of customers is waiting. Each customer is ready to pay for his ticket as soon as it is given to him. There is only one requirement of the salesperson here – the requirement of accuracy in handling a transaction the details of which are simple and usually so well known by the buyer as to require no selling talk whatever.

Class 2. The customer is not anxious as in the previous case, but is perfectly willing to buy at a given price of any salesperson who may happen to ask for his business. Take as an illustration another kind of ticket seller. Suppose a concert is to be given and a number of people are engaged in contacting potential clients for the sale of tickets. Mr. Smith, a prospective customer, is perfectly willing to buy a ticket to the concert from the first person who asks him.

The salesperson must have knowledge or activity, in addition to meeting the requirement of accuracy as in the first case. For instance, suppose a young student selling tickets for a concert is anxious to sell more than his competitors, but perhaps is not conveniently situated so that he can personally visit as many prospective buyers as others can. He picks up a phone and calls up twenty or thirty people, securing their pledges to buy tickets of him. Thus by directing mental activity, he achieves more than his competitors who use mere physical activity visiting customers in person.

In this second class, the requirements are:

1. Accuracy, as in Class 1, and
2. Energy

In both cases the so called salespeople are merely order-takers.  (Read my previous article Are you an Order Taker or an Order Maker?)

Class 3. Sales of Class 1 and Class 2 are so simple in their requirements that they need no special attention here. In the first class, the customer is anxious to buy. In the second class he is willing to buy. In Class 3, however, we have an entirely different situation — the customer is neither willing nor unwilling to buy, the matter never having been brought to his attention. Often such customers can use the products or services offered and will buy if the right impression is made. They do not have to be convinced of the value of the products through features and benefits, and the salesperson may so impress such customers with his personality that he can secure the order easily.

For instance, take the same simple illustration of the concert tickets. Two people with these tickets for sale reach the customer at exactly the same time. The customer has not considered the matter yet, but needs no further discussion to bring him to a favorable conclusion. Neither one of the sales people has to argue about the value of the tickets. It is merely a question of which one can make the best impression upon the customer.

A forceful personality is an important requirement of the successful salesperson. While it is desirable for one to have a good proposition, a well-known company, and skill in presentation, there are many cases in which these things do not count so much as personality alone. Personality gives strength to the salesperson’s presentation and inspires in the customer confidence in the company for which the salesperson works. This ought not, however, to discourage anyone from the pursuit of selling products, for there is nothing vague or mystical about a convincing personality; nothing that can’t be acquired through effort and study. Remember – you can improve your personality and make it more effective for the career in selling.

If you have any doubt that this can be accomplished, please consider the following statements before yielding to your doubts:

1. Personality depends upon the development of the physical, intellectual, inspirational, and moral qualities.
2. All these can be improved.
3. The word physical does not refer merely to the height, weight, or strength of a person. It embraces also his general state of vigor and his personal appearance, both of which can be improved by following the common laws of health and cleanliness.
4. By “the improvement of the intellectual person,” reference is made especially to the salesperson’s mastery of the details of his own business, which can be secured through study.
5. The inspirational qualities are those by means of which one inspires himself to greater effort and gathers inspiration from others.
6. The moral elements of personality in the salesperson are the ones that inspire confidence, and these can be acquired by clean living and right thinking.

The requirements of Class 3 are :

1. Accuracy
2. Energy
3. Strong Personality

Class 4. While his personality may gain for the salesperson a meeting with a buyer, there are certain points beyond which mere personality can’t go. Here the salesperson must use, in addition to the requirements already mentioned, a skill in presentation which is based upon his knowledge of the products or services and his ability to convey this knowledge of the products to the mind of the buyer.

The requirements of Class 4 are:

1. Accuracy
2. Energy
3. Strong Personality
4. Presentation

Class 5. This is the hardest class of sale when the customer is absolutely unwilling to buy. After all the powers of energy, personality, and presentation have been brought into play, a final skill is required of the salesperson to enable him to accomplish one of these most difficult sales. This is the art of persuasion.

Suppose you have presented your points with a customer until she is thoroughly convinced of the value of the products, but for some unknown reason she does not buy. In many cases, you must exercise your power of persuasion. Undoubtedly, when buying a shirt or a tie, you have had that peculiar mental impression that you were convinced of the value of the products, but had not yet been persuaded to buy them. This is the frame of mind in which you will find a great many of your customers and the art of persuading without appearing to gush or plead is one of the things you must learn.

The Conclusion

In Class 1 the customer is anxious to buy. The sale is very easy. The only requirement is accuracy.

In Class 2 the customer is willing to buy, but not easily accessible. The sale is easy, but not so easy as before. The requirements are accuracy and energy.

In Class 3, the customer is indifferent. The sale is neither easy nor hard. It requires accuracy, energy, and personality.

In Class 4, the customer is unconvinced. The sale is hard. The requirements are accuracy, energy, personality, and presentation.

In Class 5, the customer is unwilling. The sale is very hard. The requirements are accuracy, energy, personality, presentation, and persuasion.

5 Classes of Sales is a post from: The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Mayer