Yellow Pages Antarctica

Have you ever gone into a newsagent, picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages for a while, read the index, read some of the pages in the magazine?

From my research your answer will almost certainly be yes, at some time. So let me ask you why did you stand there reading the magazine instead of just saying to yourself, ‘I’ve read this magazine before, I think I’ll buy it?’

The answer is, because you wanted to know you would get value for your money. You wanted to know more about what content might benefit or interest you in your life. And you really wanted to know if the magazine was worth your $5 or so!

After all $5 is $5. You don’t want to risk throwing it away, do you? So instead you stand there reading for a while, as long as you need to (without feeling guilty or locking eyes with the shop owner), to see if you can establish enough VALUE for your money.

Could it be that you feel an APREHENSION about spending your money? Of course you do, you ‘feel’ a risk anytime you part with money. And apprehension is an emotion.

Let me give you another example of why there is always an emotion present in a customer in a sales scenario…

Have you ever told a lie to a sales person? Of course you haven’t, is your first reactive answer. But think about this, have you ever entered a shop and been asked if you need help then replied with ‘no thanks, I’m just looking?’

That’s the knee jerk reaction to the most common question in sales, ‘can I help you’.

Now, have you ever thought soon after replying with that knee jerk reaction that you wish you hadn’t of said that?

If so then you’ve just told a lie. And why do you tell small, little, white lies? Could it be that’s you’re afraid of sales people… because they might pressure you into making a rash decision you regret later on?

Its funny… but they say sales people tell lies to customers. Maybe we learn how to lie as sales people by telling lies to sales people when we’re the customers!

Don’t get serious on me here. This is just poking fun at human nature, but the lesson is… there is emotion present in customers when they talk to sales people.

Here’s one final example…

When we’re customers and we look for a service or product selling business from say, Yellow Pages, what’s one of the first questions we commonly ask when we call the business?

Often a question we ask is ‘how much does it cost?’

The reason I’ve noticed that people ask that question is that it’s the only intelligent question they know how to ask! That’s because as customer who are quite lacking in knowledge on what we are buying. So instead of telling the sales person ‘I don’t know anything about your product or service’, so we can totally rely on their recommendations and ‘trust’ them, we instead pretend that price is important by asking them that question.

If the sales person is smart, they will realise the customer wants information, not a price, so they can make an informed decision about suitability of their own emotion needs and benefits.

What’s happening here is that we don’t like anyone to think we’re dumb. We fear asking a question about a product or service we don’t normally buy, in case we ask something that makes us feel stupid!

Instead we play the ‘price game’.

By now I would think you’re starting to agree that emotion always plays a part of any sales scenario. There is evidence all around us in society that says money always travels hand in hand with emotion. Where we risk losing it, we have apprehension, even with $5 next time you go to the newsagency to read a magazine!

Tim Stokes has studied emotional needs of people applied to sales and marketing more than most people you will find in the world.

To find out more about Tim’s philosophy on selling check out his other article called, “How to Build Rapport in 7 Seconds”.

Using the knowledge of understanding people’s emotions in sales training Tim has created fantastic profit increases in months, even weeks or days, with every business he has ever worked with!

To find out more about Tim’s amazing sales and marketing skills go to his website at http://www.bbms.com.au

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Cold calling … even the name is enough to strike fear into the heart of many a small business owner! What image comes into your mind? Sitting in a lonely damp office, surrounded by paper, 2 day old coffee cups and a stack of outstanding work. In other words, something not very nice!

Why do we hate cold calling so much? Why does the very thought of it send shivers down some people’s spine? Firstly, what were we taught at school and by our parents? Don’t talk to strangers! No wonder picking up the phone and speaking to someone you have never met causes such mental problems.

What about every small business owner’s fear - the fear of rejection. That’s enough to find any reason not to pick up the phone. Here’s another one - lack of self confidence and the nagging doubt that you won’t live up to the expectations you put in your prospect’s mind.

I think that’s enough! Perhaps all very good reasons why you may find it hard to pick up the phone but, at the end of the day, to be really successful in business, it’s a necessary evil. Yes, you can convince yourself that you are too busy servicing your existing customers and looking after their every need, but unless you get out and bring in new business, one day you may find yourself with a tired and sold-out customer base.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can do it. All it needs is careful planning and a structured approach. If you can see the error of your ways and understand the impact this lack of action is having on your business, I’ll show you how you can become a successful cold caller. You have got it made if you follow this structure:
Identify, Preparation, Just Do It! and Review.

Let’s consider each of these steps in turn.

Identify

The first step is to identify who you are going to cold call. How do you go about building up a list? Here are some ideas:

• Ask your customers who they think you should be talking to; who could benefit from your product? Referrals from happy clients can be very powerful when speaking to your prospective customers. It tells them that if their colleague was happy to pass on their name then that’s a good recommendation

• Go through your old database and identify companies that no longer deal with you. Unless you really messed up first time round, they may appreciate a call

• Read all your local newspapers and magazines. Is there a story which would be a great excuse to call them up? “I read about your award in the newspaper and …”

• Use networking events and any other social gatherings to make new contacts

• E-mail everyone in your mailing list and tell them that you are on the look out for new leads!

• Train your brain to spot new opportunities

It doesn’t matter how outlandish your first draft list seems, stick the name down and get thinking about where the others are going to come from.

Preparation

Having got your initial list, the first task in the preparation stage is to tidy it up. Take another look at it and pick the top 5 which are likely to end in success. Why do this? Because to be motivated to carry on with something, there is nothing like success. Failure will not spur you on, but success will. So go for the ones which are likely to yield positive results. With practice, you will be able to tackle the more challenging ones later on!

Next, set yourself an objective. What do you want to achieve out of your phone call? An appointment, an agreement to send a sample, a sale? Being realistic, the best you can hope for is an appointment. Be clear on what your aim is. This will help you focus on the outcome during the rest of your preparation.

The most crucial part of the preparation stage is your research. Find out whatever you can about both the company and person you are going to call. What exactly do they sell? Who are they buying from at the moment? How many employees do they have? Do you know of any problems which you could resolve? What is the perception in the market place? What can you learn from their web site?

All of this information will help you in the next part of your preparation - your opening statement and subsequent words. Actors don’t go out on the stage without thoroughly learning and rehearsal and neither should you. Write out your opening statement, which says who you are, which company you are with and what you do. Keep it short, focused and punchy. Remember that many businesses receive cold calls all the time, so what is the benefit in the person spending some time with you? Think of a clear benefit statement to include in your remarks.

As in any selling situation (which a cold call is after all), you are very likely to be met with objections - can’t see you, too busy with a rush order, its Audit time, too many staff on holiday etc. Try and think of every objection and write down what your response will be. Being this prepared will keep you ahead of the game.

Bearing in mind your end objective, how are you going to go in for the kill? What are you going to say to get that appointment?

Going through all this preparation will give you a much needed confidence boost, ready for the next step.

Just Do It!

If you have identified a number of names, set aside a whole morning or afternoon to make your calls. It’s easy to say to yourself that you will do one call today and another tomorrow. Athletes know that you perform better when you are warmed up, so doing a number of calls in a row means you will get better each time - remember what I said earlier about success breeding success. Put the time in your diary and stick to it!

When should you call? Some people will say it’s better to avoid Mondays and Fridays. On Mondays, people are recovering from the weekend, they are too busy planning their week, or clearing up the mess from the weekend! On Friday’s people are winding down and are recovering from a hectic week.

But think about it - if people are planning their week, wouldn’t Monday’s be a great time to call? If people are winding down on Friday’s, they may be in a good mood with the weekend approaching, so more willing to talk and agree an appointment. The bottom line is that there probably is not an ideal time - just do it!

Now you are ready to go. Before picking up the phone, relax your body and muscles, take some deep breaths and ’see’ yourself achieving your objective. What does it feel like to have achieved your goal? What are you doing to celebrate all those appointments you have got? See yourself as a success!

Now you are ready to go. Pick up the phone, ask for the person you want to speak to and in a confident, crisp and clear voice, start off with your opening statement. Be warm and friendly. Don’t switch off into your own ’self-talk’, really listen to what the other person is saying; listen out for those inevitable objections. When they come, answer straight back with your prepared answers. The standard objection is that they are too busy to talk now. If so, agree a time when you can call again as this will avoid telephone tag, where you keep missing each other. In the end you will become a nuisance and you want to avoid this at all costs.

At the end of the call, summarise what was agreed so you are all clear on what will happen next. You don’t want any potential costly misunderstandings.

Review

You will be glad to know that the final step is a review of what took place! After you have put the phone down, sit back and write up your notes, put the agreed meeting time in your diary. Think about what went well; what could have gone better; how you could have approached things differently. Do you think you sounded confident? Did you anticipate all the objections? Did you successfully handle the ones which were thrown at you? Did you meet your planned objective? If so, then celebrate!

Armed with all this new information, pick up the phone and dial the next person on the list.

You may feel cold calling is a bit of a chore. But if you follow these steps then you will very quickly find yourself having too much new business to cope with. What a great problem to have!

© Robert Warlow
Small Business Success

Small Business Success is a resource dedicated to helping small business owners be more successful. If you are looking for a regular flow of ideas and tips then subscribe to Small Business Success a free newsletter, which provides you with quick tips, ideas and articles. Visit http://smallbusinesssuccess.biz

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One of the most popular myths surviving from the old-school days of sales training
is the idea that you will have a better chance of reaching business prospects if you
try calling either early in the morning or in the late afternoon, after regular business
hours have ended. The theory behind this myth is that, because the receptionist
and other gatekeepers are gone, the business owner will personally answer the
phone himself.

As a business owner myself, I can tell you that this idea is a ridiculous idea that will
only waste your time and make you even more frustrated with cold calling.

First of all, this idea dates back to the seventies and eighties, before voice mail
existed. In those days, a business owner would occasionally pick up the phone
because it would simply go on ringing if he didn’t. Nowadays, phones are
forwarded to voice mail outside of regular business hours. They usually don’t even
ring at all.

Secondly, if a business owner is in the office early or late, it’s because he’s trying to
get a jump on the day and be productive without anyone or anything else in the
office to distract him. As a result, he surely isn’t going to answer the phone, or for
that matter, take the phones off voice mail so they will ring. Chances are, the phone
on his desk is turned off during this private productive time. And if you do manage
to get the owner on the phone when he doesn’t want to be disturbed, you greatly
increase your chances of annoying him with your cold call, even more so than cold
calls already annoy people.

Finally, if your funnel is so empty that you are resorting to the before- and after-
hours tactic to drum up new business, you need to step back and take a look at the
bigger picture. If you’re in that situation, you definitely are lacking an effective
lead-generation system. If you had one you wouldn’t need to cold call at all, let
alone early and late in the day! Self-marketing is the answer … trying to call a
business owner at seven in the morning is not.

Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the hit sensation “Cold Calling Is A Waste Of
Time: Sales Success In The Information Age”. His training and products teach
salespeople how to generate hot leads without cold calling and how to keep
their power and remain in control of sales situations. For more information
please visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com.

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Unfortunately, most salesmen and women believe that a successful career in sales culminates in sales management, and yet there are of course far less management positions up for grabs than sales positions. As a consequence, salespeople with this attitude concentrate on making sales rather than investing in themselves in order to become Top 5 % players and eventually most become disillusioned, resulting in a significant dip in achievements levels.

The knock-on effect of this is that good Level 2 salespeople who move into management, take with them an underdeveloped view of selling - a Level 2 orientation and as consequence they help to create or maintain an unrealistic and short sighted vision of what will be needed to develop their teams. Because they lack Level 3 experience themselves and an insight into the skills needed to make it at Level 3, the environment that they help to create fails to recognise the need for Level 3 performers and this is particularly noticeable in the compensation structures they build, which neither supports nor encourages their teams to break through that final glass ceiling. (Please see my articles: “The Three Levels of Selling Identified” and “Top 5% Achievers - What Do They Look Like?”)

Good Salespeople Don’t Necessarily Make Good Managers:

The single most common mistake that organisations make is promoting their number one salesperson into the role of sales manager, thereby depriving themselves in a single stroke of their best producer and hamstringing their sales force with an ineffective manager. The skills required for managing, mentoring and developing a sales team are totally different from those required for selling. As a result, it’s not uncommon to find newly promoted sales managers who regret having taken a management position and may even leave to get back into sales.

Insufficient Time for Sales Team Development:

The majority of sales managers - new and experienced alike - say they do not have sufficient time to train and develop their sales teams. They are so focused on sales results - and so accustomed to achieving success through their personal pursuit of those results - that they overlook their greatest potential source of power, the power to increase sales performance by developing their people.

Providing Development for Sales Managers:

Successful Sales Directors ensure that some sort of training and development program is in place to help sales managers continually improving the way they coach and develop their team. Equally important, top-performing Sales Directors look for ways to provide sales managers with the resources they need to perform effectively. This may mean, for example, giving managers tools with which to identify each individual salesperson’s strengths and development areas, providing them with an easy-to-use framework to address development areas, and putting a process in place that helps their team to implement new skills.

Opportunity to Make a Difference:

Every sales manager has a powerful role to play in developing and supporting their team members’ potential so that an increasing emphasis is placed on performance management to
enable more salespeople to achieve more of their potential. We have identified the eight most common reasons why salespeople fail i.e.

Wrong or no selection process = The wrong person for the position

Wrong or no training = Insufficiently developed

Wrong or no planning = Expected to do all of their own planning

Wrong or no supervision = Left without competent supervision

Wrong or no motivation = Not properly motivated to meet objectives

Wrong or no stimulation = Not stimulated by appropriate incentives

Wrong or no evaluation = Not regularly appraised against a set of agreed objectives

Wrong or no executive action = Not adequately supported by a competent manager

The Sales Manager has control over all of these factors, including the final one!

The moral right of the author, Jonathan farrington has been asserted. All rights reserved. This publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.

Jonathan Farrington is a business coach, mentor, author, and consultant who has helped hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world achieve their full potential and consequently, optimum performance levels in his capacity as Managing Partner of The jfa Group - http://www.jf-assocs.com

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