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"Your Resource for Power Cold Calling Techniques
- Scripts and Tips for Sales and Profit"
Discover Effective Cold Calling and
Telemarketing Sales Scripts, Tips, and Articles
Selling Your Way to Success
by Geoff Payne
Sales. I wonder when we decided to become a sales person.
I know when I was at school all I ever wanted to do was join the Navy
and see the world. My best mate wanted to be a truck driver or Fireman,
Policeman, Soldier, Banker, Doctor, Pop star, Football player and so
the list went on.
I have yet to meet anyone who knew when they were young
that they were going to be a salesman or woman. So where do we learn
our trade? Most of it will be through mentoring, reading and actually
learning ‘on the job.’ Here are a few tips to help you continue
to grow your wealth and personal happiness through your sales efforts.
1. When cold calling sell yourself and the appointment.
Do not even try to sell your product or service. Your purpose for the
call is to find out if there is a need for you product or service. If
it seems likely there is then make an appointment to introduce your
product or service to your prospect.
--> 2. You have two ears and one mouth. Selling is
about solving problems. Solving problem is easy if you listen. Rule
of thumb: listen at least twice as long as you talk.
--> 3. Your prospect is more interested in themselves
and there problems. Most really do not care too much about you and what
you have done. Give your prospect time to talk about them and you will
have ample opportunity to find out the real problems, needs and wants
and what you need to do to make your prospect desire you, your service
or product.
--> 4. At your first appointment find out if the prospect
can make a buying decision. A simple question like “is there anyone
else involved in the decision making process”? Works great If there
is, ask if they can be included in this and further meetings. Doing
this one thing at every appointment will save you hours of wasted time
selling to someone who can’t buy!
--> 5. Dig, dig, dig. Find out what the real needs
and wants are. Never ever invent one, you will have a reluctant buyer
and a difficult client for the life of the product or service. You will
also start to make a name for yourself and company as hard or pressure
sellers. This is now treated like a contagious disease in the business
world. Once tagged with this label you need to find another career or
move on.
--> 6. Ask for the order. So many times sales people
have the order and then talk them selves right out of it. Once you have
asked for the order and they say yes. SHUT UP. Stop selling. Enjoy the
feeling of success and use those positive energies in providing the
best possible after sales service you can.
--> 7. These are a few of the many ideas in a huge
toolbox of strategies, actions methods and tactics, called “selling
your way to success” Why not visit my web site www.totalmanager.net
and have a look. You will even be able to download even more in an extract
of the book for FREE!
Enjoy the day and if selling really is your destiny,
the journey will be wild, amazing and very very profitable Read, learn
and reap the rewards!
After 18 years in the Royal Navy followed by 5 years
in the police force getting into a sales role was totally accidental.
I found it hard to understand the sales jargon and the
dynamics of the sales process. The end result was that whilst I had
a natural ability to speak to people I still did not understand how
to sell. Selling your way to Success was written in an easy to understand
jargon free manner for a broad spectrum of sales people.
Is Cold Calling Dead?
by Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr.
Is cold calling dead? And if laws are being passed to
put it to rest once and for all, how do we generate business from now
on?
Opinions on the subject vary greatly depending on the
background of the individual. For example, most of the old-timers are
vigilant in preaching their belief that the only possible way to succeed
in the world of selling is to make no less than fifty calls each and
every day. On the other hand, younger salespeople tend to become frustrated
with this rather quickly and begin looking for more innovative ways
to generate business.
I was just reminded of how ingrained this cold calling
belief is. I spoke with a friend who left a sales position with a major
merchant processing bank only a few weeks after starting. The reason?
He was required to make a minimum of 400 cold calls each and every week
and to document his activity with business cards. He is highly experienced
and knows how to generate business without knocking on 400 doors per
week and decided to discuss the strategies that have worked for him
in the past with his managers. Their response? This is how we've done
it for forty years and we're not about to change.
That response, in my opinion, is the reason we're seeing
record business bankruptcies today. The world and our economy have changed
and are breaking into bold, unchartered territory. But the management
of most business organizations insists on doing things the old way,
even though the old way produces less and less results as time goes
on.
The concept of "Permission Marketing" is slowly
but surely gaining popularity as the old idea of "Interruption
Marketing" becomes less efficient and more wasteful. There are
several reasons why cold calling in particular has become less effective
as we move further into the Information Age. It destroys your status
as a business equal. It forces you to spend time with unqualified prospects
while the qualified ones are buying from your competition. It annoys
people and is increasingly considered to be rude and disrespectful.
Moreover, it may now be illegal (and in several states it's been illegal
for quite some time). But, most importantly, it destroys sales peoples
attitudes.
Where is the good news in all of this? Well, the great
news is that if you begin using new, innovative, "Information Age"
methods for prospecting, you'll be miles ahead of your competitors who
are wasting their time annoying people with cold calls. In this age
of the Internet and vast communication networks, why on earth would
anyone knock on doors or make cold phone calls to look for business?
Think of the power at your fingertips: there are literally
dozens of ways to use the Web and e-mail to let the idea of Permission
Marketing do its magic. Allow customers to raise their hands and let
you know they're interested. Begin finding, implementing and reaping
the benefits of this bold, new Information Age we are in. Your competitors
will be the ones standing in bankruptcy court and explaining their "do-not-call"
violations to the government while you are happily taking orders.
Finding Sales Leads and Contacts goes Hi-Tech
Where sales people used to spend lots of time prospecting
for leads and cold calling, now they can simply log on to the Internet
and buy, sell or even trade leads and contacts at a new website.
Run a quick search on Google and you will find over 400,
000 listings under the term "sales prospecting". Most of the
listings involve list brokers, marketing companies who supply leads
and lists or actual articles on how to effectively Finding Sales Leads
and Contacts goes Hi-Tech use your time to find and generate new sales
leads.
Traditional sales prospecting involves making cold calls.
Either by telephone or dropping in on the prospective client or customer.
These are time-tested means of acquiring contacts to sell to. And they
do work.
Many sales people would tell you though, that these methods
usually require a lot of time and effort. In fact, when I worked as
a professional sales person for a direct mail advertising company, I
was spending nearly 80% of my time cold calling and qualifying leads.
The majority of this time was spent trying to determine who would actually
be making the buying decision.
Although there are numerous low tech ways of dealing
with this issue such as using direct mailing and telemarketing, up until
now there has been few ways of networking with other sales professionals
to actually exchange leads and contacts. Some networking events such
as Chamber of Commerce meetings and Professional Sales Organizations
"meet and greets" do allow a sales person to network with
other sales persons to exchange contacts information, however, the time
invested in these sorts of activities could be extensive for the results.
A new hi tech way for sales people to exchange, trade
and even buy and sell contact information has emerged on the Internet
via a website. This website is formatted as an online marketplace for
contacts. A sales professional can enter the contact information they
have for a certain company and then is credited to their account with
the right to then select 2 different contacts for their one.
This membership website gives salespersons two different
options for getting contact information. They can enter whatever contacts
they have for trade, or for a minimum membership fee; simply buy the
contact information they desire. It is apparent that the venture capital
industry sees the benefit of such a service as well.
Recently this website's principals secured two rounds
of venture capital to build and manage this site. The initial round
garnered $750,000 dollars to build the website itself. And then in a
second round of capitalization received over 5 Million dollars to ensure
the long-term operations of the site.
According to the website itself, there are already over
250,000 contacts at over 30,000 companies already available with over
2000 Vice Presidents of Marketing listed as well as over 60,000 IT Professionals.
Currently sales people who want to start using the system
can do so with a free 2-week trial. The two-week trial includes the
above-mentioned offer of 2 contacts for every contact entered. All contacts
include both telephone number and email address. To find out more about
this new hi tech service for getting contacts and sales leads please
visit, this
site
Providing quality Press Release and Article Writing as
well as distribution services through my EBay
Store.
Sales Therapy 101: Breaking Your Fear of
Cold Calling
by Ari Galper
Almost every day, visitors to my Unlock The Game™
website click on my live instant-messenger chat button, which invites
them to "Ask Ari a selling question."
And do you know what their most common question is?
Yes, you guessed it: "Is there any way I can break
through or overcome my fear of cold calling?"
Most of us have at least some resistance to cold calling,
and some people I talk with have such a paralyzing visceral and emotional
fear of cold calling that they can't even consider doing it.
In some ways, the fear of cold calling is practically
an epidemic -- but not the kind of epidemic that gets publicized on
TV or in newspapers.
It's a silent and personal one, a psychological struggle
that happens in our own hearts and minds.
The fear of cold calling is a painful, daily struggle
for many entrepreneurs and salespeople who have been trained in traditional
selling techniques.
Traditional sales trainers answer questions about cold
calling this way:
"All you have to do is make more phone calls."
"All you have to do is think more positive thoughts."
"Just learn to accept rejection as a normal part
of selling."
In other words, "It's your fault that you aren't
succeeding in sales."
This is like telling someone who's terrified of jumping
off a diving board,
"Don't be a wimp! Just jump!"
In my experience, very few people are able to overcome
their fears that way,
because the underlying message is that, if you force yourself to do
something
uncomfortable, "just doing it" will magically solve the problem.
But this is a response that shows no understanding at
all of the psychological
barriers that underlie the fear of cold calling.
So, how do you overcome your fear of cold calling?
In my opinion, the solution actually is simple, and is
based on understanding
three simple concepts:
1. It's Not Your Fault
We can't help thinking there's something wrong with us
if other people
keep telling us that something shouldn't be a problem, but our own
inner feelings tell us that we aren't comfortable doing it.
There's a sort of "old boys' club" sales-conditioning
mentality prevalent
in English-speaking countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia,
and New Zealand, that says, "I had to suffer to succeed in sales
success,
so you need to, too!"
This thinking comes from traditional sales programs that
continue to be
the accepted approach to selling.
What you need to understand, though, is that you may
fear cold calling
because you have probably been exposed only to traditional
selling approaches, which triggers rejection.
These approaches teach us to make cold calls this way:
introduce yourself,
explain what you do, suggest a benefit to the potential client...and
then
close your eyes and pray that they won't reply with "Sorry, not
interested"
or "Sorry, I'm busy."
If you're still using this traditional approach, you
probably hear responses
like these the moment you stop talking.
They're rejections, and what they do us make you feel
rejected -- and that's
reason enough to make you dislike, fear, and avoid cold calling.
How can cold calling be a positive experience if rejection
is the most common response you get?
2. Are Your Self-Perceptions Passive or Aggressive?
Whenever I chat with people about the fear of cold calling,
they almost
always tell me that they're afraid to make cold calls because they don't
want to be perceived as "aggressive."
This is another part of the internal battle -- they beat
themselves up for being
too passive and lacking the confidence to make the next call, but they
don't
want to call for fear of being seen as aggressive.
Here's the good news: there is a middle ground between
"aggressive" and passive."
It's a place where you can be who you are while still
being extremely effective
with cold calling, without ever experiencing rejection again.
Unlock The Game™ shows you how you can be incredibly
effective in cold calling without triggering rejection from potential
clients. Imagine the possibilities (and the income potential).
3. Learn to Let Your Language Match Your Thinking
If you can center yourself into a place where you can
let go of feeling that you
have to go on using traditional cold calling "scripts" and
behaviors, you'll find yourself spontaneously using language that you
would use in a natural conversation.
Using natural words and phrases -- speaking exactly the
way you would with someone you know, can transform cold calling into
a refreshing and productive experience.
And, as you let go of the old-school cold calling model,
in which
your product or service is your only way of generating a phone conversation
with a prospect, you'll make the most crucial transition of all: you'll
begin thinking
of approaching potential prospects not from your perspective, but from
theirs.
What do I mean by that?
Imagine what it would be like if you could hear your
prospect's thoughts about
the problems they are having -- and that your solution can solve.
Even more importantly, suppose you could also make note
of the words
and phrases they're using as they think about their problems, and that
you
could take that language and embed it in your cold calling approach.
"Yes, but how would I do that?" you might ask.
It's simple. Just ask your current clients what three
core problems
your product or service has solved for them.
When you change your thinking, you can't help changing
the language
that you use, which lets you connect in a whole new positive way
with the other person you are calling.
If you can let go of your old-school belief system and
open up to the possibility
that there is a more natural, comfortable way to cold call -- one that
doesn't
trigger rejection -- you'll be surprised by how easily you'll break
through
and overcome your fear of cold calling.
Ari Galper is the founder of Unlock The Game™, the
only selling program that completely eliminates pressure from the selling
process. His Unlock The Game™ Sales Program has helped thousands
of entrepenuers and sales professionals worldwide.
Visit Unlock
the Game to take a Free Test Drive!
12 Handy Tips for
Generating Leads through Cold-Calling
by Glenn Murray
Cold calling can be a great way to generate quality leads.
You get to speak to the gatekeepers and stakeholders, and you get a
great insight into their requirements and influences.
But cold calling is an art-form. It can be daunting,
it’s always a lot of work, and you always need to make a good impression.
So you need to do it right. Following are some tips which will help
you do just that.
1) Record everything
Always write down all details of every phone call. Write
down any names and titles you learn. Not just the name of the person
you’re trying to contact. The receptionist's name can be vital
to remember as they're often gatekeepers. Write down when you called,
and when you said you'd call back.
2) Use a database or spreadsheet to record everything
You’ll never manage by hand, and Excel spreadsheets
aren’t user friendly in the long term. If you’re prepared
to invest in a real CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, that’s
a great idea. If not, you there is a cheaper alternative. I created
my own database using Microsoft Access. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/contacts
and jobs.mdb to download a 208KB working copy for FREE. You’ll
need Microsoft Access 2000 to run it. I’m no database expert, so
it’s not a work of art. It’ll certainly get you started though.
(TIP: When using the database, press Ctrl + ; to enter today’s
date.)
3) Always call back when you said you would
Don’t let them down. They may not even remember
that you committed to calling back. But if they do, and you don’t
meet your commitment, you’ll lose valuable credibility and respect.
And wherever possible, work to their schedule. You're here to help them,
not make things harder.
TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If you’re an advertising copywriter
or website copywriter, ask to speak to the Marketing Manager (or if
the person who answers the phone says they don't have a marketing manager,
ask for "the person who looks after your advertising & website"
- all businesses have that person - it's generally one of the owners).
4) Always try to get on with the gatekeepers
Receptionists and personal assistants have great influence,
and quite often do more of the real work and decision making than the
person you’re trying to contact! Make friends with them and you’ve
got a foot in the door. (But don’t waste their time or crawl –
they get a lot of that!)
5) Keep it short ‘n sweet
When you do get to speak with someone, keep it short
'n sweet unless they want to talk a lot. The purpose of the phone call
is to get their attention, let them know you're there, get their name
and contact details, and assess whether they have any requirement for
your services. (TIP FOR COPYWRITERS: If you’re an advertising copywriter
or website copywriter, you might have called about brochure writing
and then find out they need web writing.)
6) DON’T HARD SELL!!!
Don’t pressure people or make it hard for them to
get off the phone. Tell them what you do and that you'd like to send
them an email with a link to your website with samples and testimonials
(or with an attachment containing samples), then leave them to it.
7) Follow up with an email
If you have permission, always send a follow-up email
– and do so immediately. Be specific in your subject line. (TIP
FOR COPYWRITERS: If you’re an advertising copywriter or website
copywriter, use the words "advertising copywriting" or “website
copywriting” in the subject. Most people don't get many emails
with this in the subject line, so it'll be distinctive and probably
won’t be snuffed by their spam filter if they have one.) Address
the email to them (e.g. "Hi Joe"), keep the email short 'n
sweet. Include only the essential info, make it easy to read and conversational,
and bold the important words or phrases as they'll probably only skim
it. Include a link to your website, reference the day and date you talked
on the phone (and thank them for that time), mention any names you learnt
(e.g. receptionist's name, especially if the receptionist gave you an
email address but you didn't actually get to speak to the decision maker),
tell them that you'd like to follow up in a few weeks (assuming the
conversation indicated that this would be a good idea).
8) Follow up with another call
If the lead looks promising, make sure you follow up.
And when you do, always mention the day and date of the original call,
as well as the fact that you sent an email. Give a quick summary of
who you are and what you do, and say that you're just calling to make
sure they got the email. Most of the time, you’ll find the lead
will talk to you about your services, if only to remind themselves of
what you do!
9) Don’t expect to make too many calls
On a really good day, I've made 80 cold calls. Most days,
though, you should be very pleased to average around 40. You’ll
spend a lot of time playing telephone tag.
10) Don’t leave message
Unless you absolutely have to (or you’ve just about
given up on the lead), don’t leave messages. Most people have trouble
returning phone calls from people they know and like; returning phone
calls from someone who’s trying to sell them something isn’t
high on their list of priorities.
11) Don’t expect to qualify too many leads
Depending on your business, if you get one good lead
a day, you're probably doing very well.
12) Don’t expect immediate conversion
Unfortunately, most leads take a long time to come to
fruition (up to 2 years). So you have to be prepared to be patient.
Good luck and happy calling!
* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and heads
copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612
4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit Divine
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