The Tak Team Blog

As a trainer, you will be able to see a single change in a single person, out of perhaps a hundred tries, as a success. That is a good percentage. Obviously, the more successes the merrier, and the smaller the number of tries, the more critical becomes the necessity to increase the possibility and probability of success.

How can you achieve this you ask? An important thing to remember is that no matter how he appears or what he says, your safest assumption always will be that the trainee is subjective. They will interpret you, what you are trying to communicate, and most of the things that occur in the interchange primarily in terms of their own experience, language, understanding, etc. Remember, too, that this is just as true of you. You must constantly and consciously remind yourself to be objective.

Another problem is that many trainers tend to over-isolate specific interchanges between themselves and other people and ignore these very similarities. As a result, they frequently use the wrong words or language or speak in a tone which is inappropriate to the training situation. They think they have to avoid the use of language which is unfamiliar to the audience, thus possibly oversimplifying what they say.

By keeping these two simple things in mind your success rate will definitely increase.

Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium

CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.

You have a telephone in one hand and a well-rehearsed script in the other. You’re ready to begin teleprospecting.

You’ve planned the delivery of your message so well that you’ve anticipated your listener’s objections and can fire quick responses. Finally, you pass the infamous gatekeeper and have your chance to talk to Mr. Big. You feel so close to making that sale…

Then reality kicks in: Mr. Big gets annoyed, and before you know it, it’s all over. No appointment, no sale.

Time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and try again, you think.

But aren’t you sick of this cycle by now? Aren’t you tired of calling numerous people to gain only a handful of appointments (if you’re lucky)?

YOU can yield more appointments with fewer calls by just adding a few steps to your teleprospecting process!

Step 1: Get over yourself

The prospect you are trying to contact is not waiting for your call, so stop acting like it’s a privilege to speak with you.

Realize that you are interrupting your prospect’s very busy day. They could be doing other things besides listening to a salesperson try to sell them something that they already have or think they don’t need.

When interrupting a prospect, make it worth their while. Don’t feed them the same carefully crafted script they hear from every other salesperson. Your prospects don’t want to be sold anything. They do, however, want solutions to their business problems, and want to be more productive and more profitable. If your message doesn’t meet their need, they won’t want to hear it.

The best and easiest way to show your prospect that you have solutions is to talk about them, not you. Focusing on their company will show them that it is probably in their best interest to set up an appointment with you.

Step 2: Identify your target

You can’t expect great results by using the same garbage on every company on your list, and it’s impossible to offer solutions to a company you know nothing about.

You must individually identify each prospect:

What is their business?

What is their current situation?

Who is the real decision maker?

What are their likely buying motives?

You can find the answers to these questions by speaking with the gatekeeper, a program administrator, or, if all else fails, someone from their sales staff (salespeople are born to talk and will tell you everything you need to know!).

The more you know about your prospect, the better chance you will have at talking about their company intelligently and thinking of original, personalized solutions. This will increase your chances of staying on the phone longer, making that appointment, and eventually making the sale.

Step 3: Engage the prospect

After some preliminary research about the company and the decision maker, your next step is to find way to effectively get their attention.

If you’re able to speak with the prospect over the phone, try asking them interesting questions about their business, their company, their needs, anything that keeps them engaged in the conversation. Again, the only way to engage your prospect is to talk about them and things that relate to them.

Don’t forget that there are several ways into an office: fax machine, snail mail, e-mail, telephone. Don’t just settle with one method! If a phone conversation isn’t possible, leave voicemails that will capture their attention! Use all the mediums available to you in different and engaging ways that complement each other and prompt your prospect to get in touch with you.

Be persistent! Continuously give these engaging pieces to the decision maker, while also following up with them over the phone. Don’t give up! Your next call may be the one that gets through and leads to the appointment!

Step 4: Sell the appointment

If you’re only trying to get an appointment with the decision maker, then don’t sell anything but the appointment!

After your prospect answers the phone, you only have about five seconds to get your message heard before the prospect stops listening, gets annoyed, hangs up, or says they aren’t interested.

Skip all that garbage about you and your company and get to the real reason of why you are calling. Use the brief time you have to tell them why you are calling and why it matters to them. If they want more information, they will ask. And when they do, they are showing you their interest in what you have to offer. This is the perfect time to try to close for the appointment!

Learning how to use these steps to get an appointment will also help you relate to your prospect during the actual appointment. You won’t feel tempted to rely on a disappointing sales script if you get to know the prospect and learn how to effectively engage them. Using these steps early in the process will save you time later, when you are face to face with your prospect and trying to make the sale.

Sure, you added some steps to the process, but you’ve significantly cut down on the time and frustration of calling number after number in hopes to get one appointment. With these steps, you’ll get twice as many appointments calling half as many people and have what it takes to later make the sale!

Tom Richard is the author of a weekly ezine on selling skills. To subscribe to this free ezine, send a blank email to subscribe@tomrichard.com

Have you ever hit a level of revenue that you just couldn’t seem to break through?

If you have, then you know how frustrating it can feel

You may even spike above this ceiling periodically. But, like water seeking its own level, your revenue results seek a sub-par level.

I once walked into a situation much like this. I assumed the position of Vice President in a relatively young company. I was immediately tasked with making the changes needed to solve the revenue problem.

The company, after nearly 2 years of business-to-business selling of their service, had met only 40% of their revenue expectations.

Finance told me they were “behind” projections and needed to catch up. And the executive team wanted to know how long it would take. And the CEO said we didn’t have much time.

In this case, corporate had created a unique and valuable position in the marketplace. They had a sustainable competitive advantage. The service application worked, the product was needed and their offering was dramatically different from its competitors. Their Strategic Positioning was in place and healthy.

So why the invisible ceiling?

Sales leadership had failed to understand their meaningful business metrics. This was the primary reason, as it is in most cases. They had not isolated the essential competencies and components. Therefore, their people couldn’t self-compete to reach and maintain revenue goals.

They failed to develop practices and processes that allow an individual to identify, train to and measure their own competencies and performance metrics.

In other words, they attempted to shortcut the “Blocking and Tackling” process to routinely meet revenue goals.

When you hit a revenue “ceiling,” you have to go into diagnostic mode.

Ask the critical questions:

Which one of your Key Performance Indicators is causing you to fall short?

There may be several, but only one is the main culprit. As an example, the company I mentioned was fundamentally fine in turning first appointments into proposals. And they were maintaining an “average” closing ratio. Their sales cycle was within acceptable benchmarks.

Both competencies had room for improvement, but they were not the “smoking gun” at the scene of the crime. So what was the one culprit in this case?

What if I told you they were only generating 2 new appointments per week per sales rep?

Their average revenue per sale at this level of activity, when related to other competency and performance numbers, produces a 40% return.

Anyone can understand that something has to change operationally to grow the revenue. And what one item jumps off the page? In this case, as in many others, activity is the path of least resistance. They just needed to be taught how to generate routine opportunities in the least amount of time.

Everyone settles to his or her own level of “result”.

That may be OK, but only if your comfort zone is consistently at or above the company’s expectations. And when it’s not, “Houston, we have a problem.”

These kinds of problems cause a shortfall of revenue and unnecessary employee turnover, both of which carry “hard-dollar” consequences. I attribute it to having a “comfort zone” that is not all that comfortable.

So, there you are. You’re having a hard time figuring out where it hurts. So you take an aspirin and hope it goes away.

Seek to understand how to break through this undefined ceiling. View your job as a business, your business, and evaluate it. Use the kind of diagnostic lens entrepreneurial business people use to scrutinize their enterprises.

Now, you can develop your own systems and processes, if you want. But maybe you’d rather not try to re-invent the wheel.

In which case, invest in mine.

Either way, the first step in busting through an invisible revenue ceiling is to identify and measure your essential core competencies. Then, develop powerful training systems to improve those competencies.

And you’ll outperform your “comfort zone,” your peers and your competitors.

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting C-level business appointments.
Jeff has been featured in numerous National publications such as Business First, Dartnell’s SELL!NG , Chief Learning Officer and Training Magazine with reference to Blended Learning Systems and improving sales teams Key Performance Indicators.

He travels the country conducting live X2 ‘Boot Camps’ and Train-the-trainer sessions helping sales organizations get more reps to Quota in less time, shorten new-hire ‘Ramp-to-Quota’ and eliminate Turnover costs due to low sales activity.
Jeff can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com.
To view a complimentary suite of sales training ROI calculators and determine your sales team’s Key Performance Indicators in line with your sales objectives visit http://convertmoresales.com/roi_calculators.php.

In graduate school, along with college teaching, I held down some part-time tele-sales jobs, enabling me to eat well, drive a sports car, and have a lot more fun than a lot of my academic peers.

One telemarketing place was owned by a couple of bodybuilders.

Looking at them, you just felt they were going to deter most misconduct that telemarketers would think of getting into.

I’m not saying all tele-managers should be able to bench press more than three hundred pounds.

But you do need to be tough, because tele-sales people, especially those you’ll find in major urban areas, will test your mettle, time and again.

Specifically:

(1) Managers or supervisors need to “own” the space in which their people are selling, walking down aisles, standing next to desks, dispensing coaching tips here and there as much as is necessary. Weak managers won’t spend enough face time in the selling environment. They’ll be cowering in corner offices, every chance they get.

(2) Managers need to compel compliance with rules and regulations. Do you remember Arnold in the movie, “Kindergarten Cop”? He blew a whistle to get the attention of his distracted little ones. You need to do something similar.

(3) It’s a pain to have to correct people when they stray from selling scripts, but no pain means no gain! EVERY SINGLE TIME PEOPLE STRAY THEY MUST BE GUIDED BACK TO THE PATH. This takes strength, commitment, fortitude, and yes, toughness to do, day in and day out.

(4) Managers need to fire people, fast. There is no such thing in a successful unit as giving people a month or two to prove themselves. A day or two is about right.

(5) Managers need to be vocal, outgoing leaders and motivators. Sales meetings need to take place frequently, and they should be upbeat, energetic exercises.

This job isn’t for the laid-back individual who wants to “retire on active duty.” It’s only for the tough, believe me!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone®, You Can Sell Anything By Telephone! and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

Every businessperson wants to sell his products and services to as many people
as possible. This is the primary aim for which they all work. However, not everyone
is successful in this task. Many a times people feel that they are making every
possible effort to sell their product but without much success.

This has been analysed by behavioural scientists and they have concluded that
there are five primary reasons because of which people refrain from buying goods
or services.

Let’s look at these reasons and ways to overcome them, which can be adopted
in your marketing strategy to increase sales.

1. Monetary Factor - In a way, any product
that you buy is a gamble. Many people feel that by buying a particular product,
they are taking a monetary gamble and if the product does not hold true then they
could end up loosing their money.
You can however, provide them security from this issue by offering some kind of
guarantee on the product. This guarantee could be in any form. You can offer them
various options such as cash back guarantee, free trial, or chance to exchange
their product free of cost. You can also try to lower the price so that it is
no longer a big monetary risk. Showing other peoples testimonials about your product
could also work wonders.

2. Functional Factor - When buying anything
that they have not used before, most people are apprehensive that the product
would not work properly or may be defective etc. As a result, they might avoid
buying products, which they feel are complicated.
You can however change their mindset by giving a full-fledged demonstration before
they buy the product. You can also give them an on-site training once they have
bought the product.

3. Social Factor - Society also plays a very
important role in the way people think.. All of us have a question at the back
of our minds, all the time “What will people think?” Many a times, it
happens that people want to buy a product, but are held back because of public
opinion.
You can however, give them a push by getting testimonials for your product from
the high standing members of society. This will make the people feel more confident
about their choice making them think that if it is good enough for so and so then
it is also good for me.

4. Psychological Factor - People at times
are not ready to indulge and pamper themselves. As a result, they many a times
refuse to buy a product because they feel guilty in doing so. Most of them think
that perhaps the money could be well spent on something else.
What you need to do is to make them realise that it is quite okay to indulge,
and spend on themselves once in awhile. They have full right to do so as they
work hard all round the year.

5. Physical Factor - Believe it or not there
are products in the market, which make people think that they may cause bodily
harm to them if they buy and use these products. If people feel that the product
in question is dangerous to use and can have adverse physical repercussion then
they will definitely avoid buying such products.

In such a scenario, first of all, you should make sure that your product
is safe to use and is not dangerous for anyone. Next, the task is to inform the
people about the safety of your product. For this, you can also get your product
certified, for its safety, from any creditable agency. Include demonstrations
and testimonials from known personalities to verify its safety.

Overall, your approach should be to make people buy your products through legal
and fair means. At any stage, you should not try to cheat your customers.

The idea is to help the customers in their decision to buy your products by answering
any questions that they may have. This would be a worthwhile exercise because
you would be helping those who may really want to buy your products but have a
few apprehensions. In fact, it is your duty to guide them in the right direction.

Customer is all-important and so are there concerns. Therefore, there requirements
should be kept in mind even when you start designing your product. If you keep
the above points, in mind while designing your product then you can be sure
that half the battle is won.

This article was written by Craig Dawber of smarket-associates.com
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