In football (or soccer, depending where you live) one of the former favorite game tactics used to be “kick & rush”. You can describe it with getting the ball as quickly as possible in front in the opponent’s end zone, using long kicks, quickly passing the midfield, to strike a goal within minutes or rather…
The Secret Sauce of Cold Calling
Having worked with many Sales Professionals in various industries, I often wonder what makes a Sales Professional a great Sales Professional – especially when it comes to prospecting over the telephone.
Natural confidence. Confidence in yourself – confidence in your offering – confidence in the projected value for the prospect – leads to confidence in your voice and words, which leads to a call between two equal partners – You and the Decision Maker.
People want to buy from people who are on the same level. If you are perceived begging, being too humble or using too many adjectives, you will be perceived inferior to the person who is taking your call.
Own Your Plan – Or Get Owned By Your Competition
Hey Dude, you might have the best product in the world and you still are not selling? In Monday Morning Sales Meetings you look around you and see other beaming with glory about THEIR sales last week? The worst, deep inside you know that you are are below your OWN expectations?
One of the biggest reasons why people struggle to reach their business dream is that they have none. They don’t know where they want to be, except that it should be more. They go with the flow, the daily groove, without a plan or strategy for their own professional life.
Need More Needs? Finding People Who Are Willing To Buy.
I am solid believer that I can sell anything to anybody, if this someone only has a need of what I am selling. The hardest part of the sale is to find someone who has the need I can satisfy. Businesses are run by humans and their instincts. Profit and status like shareholder value or market share, are the key ingredients of almost all buying decisions.
Master the core needs, and you master the sale.
Cold Calling; Use Your Mobile To Last Longer!
When you spend all day calling people how much time you spend on gate keepers? How often do you have to explain yourself at their first line of defense (the reception)? When calling with blocked or withheld number, you give the impression of calling from a call center. There is a reason you don‘t show the number, as you are afraid to be recognized as a sales person. You announce being a sales person.
Important people use mobile phones for business reasons. A telesales executive usually does not. You could be any client or business partner.
Successful Selling To Small Business Owners & SME [u]
Small businesses differ from larger corporations. Not just the size of their business differs, also the way they make purchasing decisions.
Small businesses really have only two levels of management within their organization: The owner and their trusted advisers: Members of the family and friends. To sell to entrepreneurs you must consider their circumstances, their thinking, and mostly their values in doing business. Become part of their ecosystem to participate in getting business from them in return.
It‘s A Cruel – Cruel Summer – For Cold Calling
It‘s not that you can‘t speak to decision makers during summer time. You may find it harder to find them (you do look for direct dials and mobile phone numbers, aren‘t you?). Use the summer time to learn more about your prospects‘s situation. Who would be benefit from your product. How would that translate to benefits to them? How would that translate to a need for the decision maker? And some big picture stuff: Does it help increasing profits or profitability?
Knowledge equals creditability. You are no longer perceived as „just“ a sales person.
Cold Calling Charisma – be superior, sound superior!
just knowing the words you say on the telephone when prospecting new clients may not be enough to succeed. Tone & voice are more important than anything in your pitch. The portrayed vision of yourself is not compelling enough, to get your message across.
Pass the Gatekeeper on a Cold Call – PART II
The key element and certainly necessary to get ahead in the sales process, is to reach the decision maker. Strategies to pass the Gatekeeper. In this article we talk about an alternative approach.
Pass The Gatekeeper on a Cold Call – PART I
The key element and certainly necessary to get ahead in the sales process, is to reach the decision maker. A decision maker is a person who can say yes, even though everyone else said no. A decision maker can overrule anybody. That‘s the person you should be aiming for.
Depending on the size and structure of the company, these decision makers are very senior executives. It does not need to be the CEO, as it clearly depends on the value and size of the proposal.
In 99% of all senior executives, true decision maker has an assistant or secretary. If they don‘t, it is safe to suggest to re-evaluate that you are really speaking to the decision maker. While assistants are a clear indicator that we are about to speak to someone who is in a higher command of the prospects‘s company, it is also a pain and a barrier.
The Easy Sale; Address Matching Prospects
Success and failure often lie close together, and most often depend on your decision where to spend our most precious resource – time. We can either chase prospects, working up the food chain, to the decision making level – or start at the top right away, filtering through to the lower (operational) level in time. I have been to my first “Exchange” Events in Brussels, and what can I say? Is there a better way to approach “hard-to-reach” decision makers?
The Biggest Challenge In Modern Prospecting: Selling Against The Status Quo
The status quo describes the situation when the prospect is happy with what he has. The prospect is happy with the current supplier; the company is happy with what they have got. They see no reason to change a running system.
In this situation you don‘t compete against a competitor, but against the status quo. Where prospects see no need to have a „need“ in the first place, it is difficult to argue the benefit.
So how do you deal with that?
Sales Prevention And Purchasing Objection – YOU!
What is the true reason for prospects who object to the purchase in the very end? Price is the very most objection – and also the most false objection ever in sales. It‘s just too easy to say „there is no budget left“ or „the price is too high“.
In reality this is the sign of the following:
* The perceived value of the offered product or service doesn‘t match your price.
* The risk of purchase is too high; unsure if needs will be satisfied with purchase.
Perceived value of your offering is in direct connection to the perceived risk of the purchase. Price is not an issue. Perceived value and perceived risk are. Price is a symptom.
5 Minutes Is A Lifetime In Sales
In 1999 in the UEFA Champions-League, Bayern Munich lost in the final by one goal against Manchester United. All fans around the world who have watched that game went through some heavy emotions. On both sides. Munich was leading with one goal until the end of the game after 90 minutes, fans in Germany already celebrating. Free beer in pubs were handed out and champagne already opened in some of the more posh bars. However, in injury overtime, Manchester scored 2 goals in just 2 minutes, emerging as the winner of the match; winning the Champions-League final.
The coach of the team, Sir Alex Ferguson, has achieved something every sales director or CEO must achieve within their teams.
Dare To Be Different – Personal & Memorable Service
The difficulty in today’s sales world is that so many products are too similar to have an outstanding and unmatched USP, to have an unrivaled market position. The truth is, we buy many products according to brand name. Big corporates, with their appearance of corporate identity, are uniform. They have also established rules and policies, which makes the person performing the service replaceable and exchangeable.
What is the prospect really buying? YOU!
The Leads Are Weak??? You Are Weak!
The problem of today’s sales professionals is that leads are are mostly regarded as weak, as they haven’t turned into a deal (just yet). The Question: Are the leads really weak, or are we weak sales professionals?
An ex-colleague of mine used to jump up and down all day, demanding “I need more leads!”, but seldom did he really generate business from them. Why? The secret lies in the devil’s detail: Because we don’t engage properly.
In favor of all odds, your powerpoint doesn’t sell!
In favor of all odds, you decide to show your impressive powerpoint presentation at your next sales meeting. Yawn…. Wake me up when it is over.
Let’s get one thing straight up front, if your company orders you to show a powerpoint presentation, than why not just showing the last thank you slide, and skipping the rest? You are doing your audience a favor. Or maybe you are not secure enough doing without it?
eh? Let me explain with an example:
Remember when you were buying a new car, what had been the winning argument? Did you take it for a spin, showing off to your friends and family? Did you think how great you would look driving it? How it would boost your image? Did you think that you can spend the money you are now investing to service your old car in something more fun, like extra vacation?
Impress me, don’t bore me! Be Original!
The objective of every sales professional is to sell. In today’s economy finding people willing to buy is harder then ever. If you rely on pre-arranged appointments, you often stumble into sales meetings with your usual sales kit. But can you really impress? It’s not just the message you bring across, are you memorable?
Musketeer Management, One For All – All For One
Alexandre Dumas the author of the original “Three Musketeers” described how friendship among a team might fulfill wonders, even when the odds are against them. Professional friendship within an organization can do the same, if their manager encourages team activities, and rules out unfair behavior from the beginning.
However, many team managers will let selfish behavior pass, as long as it brings new business. Selfish behavior will isolate individuals and seeds mistrust among the team, which leads to an unfair competition and accelerates further unfair behavior. In this environment revenue won’t be stable, as it will propel first, before it crushes – when people decide to leave.
Winter Wonders: How LowTech Britain Is Losing Competitiveness
The great country of Great Britain is probably the only country in Europe, in where it’s people call continental Europe just “Europe”, forgetting that the UK itself is part of the continent. Understandable, the differences between the island and “the others” seem large. London’s airports closed down for several days this winter, causing great difficulties for all travelers.
Imagine the situation from a different point of view: A privately run hotel chain with lots of hotels in a city hasn’t bought enough oil for their heating system. This is the third winter in the row they lacked preparation. As a result of running out of fuel, the management decides to turn off the heating and hot water for a couple of days. What will happen to the business?
Sell Like A Rock Star; Be Humble Like A Beggar!
When 20% of the sales professionals generate 80% of the revenue, you are left with a lot of nice people with great character, but lower numbers. Is sales success making people more aggressive, arrogant, cocky and big headed, or is it the other way around? Are nice and humble people less successful in sales, or do frequent reality checks make you mellow?
A wise man once said: „You can‘t teach happiness, nor attitude“. But you can hire happy sales professionals with great attitude, who are committed to personal- as well as team success alike.
Stop Selling Targets – Deliver On Your Promises!
People are not hitting sales targets. Targets which are not achievable in the first place. Is it that sales people are weak? Or are targets and quotas set to meet official company goals, which do not reflect reality?
As a sales manager, are you giving your sales team the support they need to help them hitting targets? Or are you repeating the same corporate approved song all over? What do you really do when sales is getting tough? How do you communicate with your team, and further more, what do you do to change the situation? What do you do to encourage and keep up the level of motivation?
Your Wake Up Call, Fail To Prepare And Prepare To Fail
Very often great sales professionals get promoted to be managers or team leaders because of their achievements based on their performance in sales. But are these freshly appointed managers also great managers? In 8 out of 10 cases they fail and will bring down the entire performance of the sales team. The worst, the newly appointed manager will be blamed by the appointing director, to cover his or her own failure. Most of the times this finger pointing game will result in great sales people‘s leaving, taking business and clients with them.
Fail to prepare and prepare to fail.
Any Given Salesday – It’s all about the inches
In business, just like football, it’s all about motivation and the will to go the extra mile, mostly the extra inches, the centimeters, which are needed determine the outcome – success or failure.
I recently watched again the movie “Any Given Sunday”, starring Al Pacino, who is giving a sensational speech in the locker room. I am sure all of you have watched it, and all of you felt the motivation to go out and to rattle the cage.
What are the extra inches within the team we call business organization? A bunch of colleagues, all playing the game for themselves? Just like in football, you can win as a team, or you can die as individuals.