Monthly Archives: February 2015

What would you do with 10,000 sales leads? Part 2

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In part 1 of this post, I asked the question “What would you do with 10,000 sales leads?” In part 2, I will provide you with more of my suggestions.

6). Do some research. Prior to making a cold call, do some quick research on your prospect. You don’t have to be a professional research associate. Just take a few minutes to read the prospect’s profile on LinkedIn or some other site. What is his title? What are his responsibilities? Can you find a hook, e.g., did he work for a company that is now your client? Or, did you find an article that his company is having a problem that your service can solve?

7). Develop a cold calling script. As a rule, I’m not a big fan of using scripts. However, when you are new to an industry, it’s always helpful to have a script handy when making first-time calls. Eventually, you will develop your own natural voice, and throw the script away.

Below is a list where you can find sample cold calling scripts –

www.profitbuilders.com
blog.close.io
cdn2.hubspot.net

8). Develop a voice mail script. What type of message are you going to leave if you don’t reach the prospect? The last thing you want to do is embarrass yourself by leaving a fumbling or long message that screams out “please delete me.” You need to know in advance what you are going to say. Everyone has their own variations. Just use your natural voice, but sound confident and strong at the same time.

Below is a list where you can find sample voice mail scripts –

www.salesgravy.com
blogs.salesforce.com
sales.about.com

9). What is your goal? Why are you calling prospects? In the case of our young salesperson, his goal was to set appointments for his company’s consultants. Once the appointment was set, the consultants would do the heavy lifting. You may have a different goal. Maybe you want the prospect to trial your service for 30 days. Maybe you want the prospect to watch a demo. Maybe you want to qualify the prospect to determine if he needs your service. Regardless of the reason, have a goal in mind. You don’t want to fall into what’s known in the industry as the “busy fool syndrome,”  i.e., doing a lot of make-work and activities that don’t lead to any concrete results.

For example, I once worked for a company that had a very strict outbound call policy – you were required to make at least 50 calls a day. However, there was one salesperson who almost consistently didn’t meet his call quota, but he always generated more sales than the rest of the sales team. His secret? He did some research before making calls and he had a set goal in mind for each call he made. (Despite his success, he has still fired anyway for not meeting his daily call quota).

Do you want to be a busy fool or a successful salesperson? Have a goal in mind.

making sales calls10) Start making phone calls. OK, you have a client profile in place. You have reviewed your prospect list and will begin targeting who you consider being the best prospects that meet your client profile. You have cold call and voice mail scripts in place. You know what your goal is. You also know that you need to do some quick research before making each call.

Now comes the fun part – making phone calls.

I can write several posts on how to make cold calls (which I will later). But for this post, let me give you a quick and dirty approach.

First, the best time to reach prospects is early in the morning and after work. This way you will bypass the gatekeeper. Sure, you can leave voice mail messages, but your ultimate goal is to talk to a live person.

Second, there is a big debate in the sales community on how many attempts you make, but depending on the industry you are in, and the types of services you are selling, I would make at least 6 attempts – but spread those attempts out over a period of time. Don’t be a pest and call every day. That’s rude and unprofessional. And when I mention attempts, I’m also including sending emails and sending direct marketing material.

Third, don’t just rely on phone calls. Send emails too. Keep the emails short and to the point. Offer some value. Maybe attach a case study, white paper or an interesting article that is related to your prospect.

Fourth, in some cases, send some printed material, and include swag – may be a magnet, a pen, a mouse pad or something with your company’s name and contact information.

Fifth, after making several attempts, if you are not getting anywhere, put them on your back burner call backlist, and circle back in a month or six months (depending on the size of your prospect).

It would also be a good idea to have your employer or someone senior listen in to some of your calls and voicemails. They can offer you some valuable advice and pointers to help you.

In part 3 of this post, I will make suggestions on social media strategies.

What would you do with 10,000 sales leads? Part 1

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What would you do if you received 10,000 sales leads to call?

That’s exactly what happened to a young salesman who started working for an environmental consulting firm in Maryland a few months ago. He was the only salesperson – and probably the first one ever hired – by the firm. In the past, the firm probably relied mostly on referrals, word-of-mouth, and bids to obtain business. Now, the firm decided to become more proactive and mount a cold calling campaign to obtain more customers.

making cold calls in salesAfter making several cold calls for a few weeks, the salesman became frustrated. He wasn’t reaching anyone and his prospects were not returning his phone calls. Furthermore, it appears based on his company’s website, that they didn’t offer any marketing content to share with others, and had no social media presence. With that in mind, the salesman decided to post his problem on a LinkedIn sales discussion group and requested our help.

What would you do in his situation?

Here are my suggestions –

1). Develop a client profile. Before making any cold calls, examine your existing customers. Why are they buying from you? Why do they like your services? Do you see any patterns in the types of customers using your services? Do your customers fall into specific categories, e.g., small, mid-size or large companies? Do you see a pattern in the geographic locations, e.g., more Northeastern vs. fewer Southern-based customers? What are the positions of the people who are using your services? Are they C-Level or lower?

2). Talk to your top customers. Make a list of about 10 to 20 of your largest and best customers and talk to them. Why do they like your services? What recommendations would they provide on how to persuade prospects to order from you? What attracted them to your company? This doesn’t have to be a long process. Maybe 30 minutes per customer tops. Your goal is to gather ammunition that you can use when making cold calls. For example, if a prospect doesn’t want to order from you, you may say “well, some of our top customers had similar problems like yours, but once they began to using our services, they really appreciated what we could do for them.” Also, if you don’t already have these, now would be a good time to gather some testimonials that you can display on your website. And finally, by talking to your top customers, it will give you a better understanding of your industry and how your company helps its clients.

3). Talk to your employer. What advice can your employer offer you to help you make better cold calls? What are some of the common problems or pain points faced by prospects in their industry?

4). Know your industry. Sure, you may be new to the industry. You may not know all of the buzz words or technical phrases yet. Well, start learning. Ask your employer for advice on which industry publications and blogs you should follow and read on a regular basis. You don’t have to be an expert in the industry – but just know enough so that you don’t embarrass yourself when speaking to a prospect. Also, while studying your industry, make note of any potential prospects to contact later.

5). Review your prospect list. Now that you have a good understanding of your existing clients and industry, review your prospect list. Check off the prospects that you feel have the highest potential for ordering from you.

In part 2 of this post, I will continue listing my suggestions.

 

How to conduct sales meetings, Part 4

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In the previous posts, I shared with you 4 videos from experts offering their advice on how to conduct sales meetings. Below are my tips to help you conduct better sales meetings –

1). Have a clear agenda. As already discussed in the previous posts, everyone should know in advance what the meeting is about. Stick to the plan. If people have an issue to discuss outside the agenda, encourage them to meet privately with the sales manager.

2). Fridays are normally the best time to hold sales meetings. Why? Depending on the industry you are in, Fridays tend to be the slowest sales day of the week. Fridays are also a good time to quickly review the week, and prepare for the following week. I knew one manager who purposely scheduled meetings on Friday afternoons so that his sales staff would not leave early for the weekend. In one video, it was suggested having three meetings a week. Frankly, depending on your industry, I don’t think this is necessary and could be overkill.

sales meeting3). Try to keep the meetings no more than 30 minutes long. Longer meetings tend to make people daydream, get bored and tired. It also eats into your prime time sales calling time. Let’s face it – you only have so many hours in the day. Unless you have clients all over the world (and I’ve been in the situation a couple of times), where you could literary work 24/7 and always have prospects to call, your time is very limited. Use it wisely.

4). Do you really need to meet every week? Can you hold the meetings biweekly? Or, as suggested in one video, schedule meetings only when necessary.

5). Will the meetings help the sales process? Will the meeting help salespeople do their jobs better? If the answer to both questions is no, then stop having the meetings or develop a better agenda.

As the old saying goes, time is money. Meetings take up a lot of time. Think carefully about what you do and say before scheduling a meeting.

photo credit: IAEA Imagebank via photopin cc

How to conduct sales meetings, Part 3

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In part 2 of the post, I provided two videos discussing how to conduct sales meetings. Below are two more videos from YouTube from other experts who offer their advice.

Jon Petz from Boring Meetings Suck recommends that meetings need to have focus and results. Here is his video below –

 

SalesDNA, an Australian company, recommends holding three meetings a week – one at the beginning of the week, a mid-week meeting along with one-on-ones, and a debrief meeting at the end of the week.

Here is the video –

 

How to conduct sales meetings, Part 2

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In part 1, I discussed some of the problems we encounter with sales meetings. In parts 2 and 3 of this post, I will share with you some YouTube videos from experts on how to conduct effective meetings.

Below is a good video summarizing the right way to conduct meetings from Kuza Biashara, a company based in Kenya. Among other things, the company recommends having an agenda and to hold meetings only when necessary.

Here is the video –

Brian Tracy, one of the masters of selling, offered one good suggestion in his video below that I liked. He recommends that if someone arrives late for a meeting, you don’t waste everyone else’s time by recapping what was already discussed at the beginning of a meeting. Instead, you continue to move forward and try to end on time. Eventually, latecomers will get the message. (And I should add, you can always take that person aside later and fill them in on the details they missed).

Here is his video below –

How to conduct Sales Meetings, Part 1

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You arrive early for work. You are eager to make sales calls. But before you dial your first client of the day, someone turns to you and says “Don’t forget – we have a sales meeting in a few minutes!”

Your heart stops for a second. All of a sudden you realize that your entire morning is going to be shot to hell. All those clients you hoped to call that morning will probably be contacted by your competitors. And while you’re sitting in the meeting, drinking coffee, and trying to stay awake, your competitors are laughing all the way to the bank.

The sales meeting. It’s one of those rituals we all encounter in our careers. But do those meetings really have to be so bad? Can’t we make them more productive so that you can do what you were hired to do – get sales.

sales meetingOf all the companies that I’ve ever worked for over the years, only a handful of employers offered productive and thoughtful meetings. The meetings were only 30 minutes long and would be held around 8:30 a.m. or earlier. You had a clear idea of what the meetings were about. Everyone respected each other’s time. Most salespeople got to the point. Why? Because they wanted to quickly return to their desks to make money.

However, those companies were the exception rather than the rule. Most meetings that I have attended have little or no agendas, turn into bitch sessions with salespeople complaining about another department, or about each other. While some people may look at sales meetings as a welcome break from doing sales, I usually look at them as an interruption to my selling process.

I’ve attended some meetings that ran so long I almost wanted to slit my wrists. I’ve heard stories over the years how some sales managers would come up with creative ways of reducing the length of meetings. For example, there would be no chairs in the meeting room. Everyone was forced to stand. Coffee or smartphones were not allowed. They would adhere to a very strict agenda. While not related to sales, I heard of a restaurant manager who had a creative way of reducing his weekly meetings with his staff. He would hold the meetings in the walk-in freezer. The meetings didn’t last very long.

While attending a quarterly meeting of my local food co-op, the board actually hired a meeting coordinator who acted as a referee. If someone got off-topic or got into a shouting match (which happens often), she would step in, enforce the meeting rules and the agenda, and move the meeting along.

In the next few posts, I will provide videos from YouTube on how to conduct sales meetings. I will then provide you with my own tips and advice.