http://www.salescoachinglive.com/blog/ Latest Blogs http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-aspect-s-of-selling-to-your-prospect-s-brain/
#1 Emotional Intelligence
Selling REQUIRES emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as “the abilities to recognize and regulate the emotions in ourselves and others”. If you do not connect emotionally with your prospects and clients, they won’t feel the need to do business with you. People value their relationships, including those with their sales professionals. When they receive value, they enjoy rewarding you with a purchase order, because they believe you earned it! However, as we all know, people are different. They have different values, communicate differently, make decisions differently and have varying needs. Your job is to discover what is most important to them so that you can connect with them on that level.

#2 Personality Style
Building a solid professional relationship requires trust. To do that you will have to uncover their needs, which is infinitely easier when you understand their personality style. One of the most powerful questions to ask is “when it comes to investing in a solution like ours, what is most important to you?” Their answer will reveal their values which are directly related to their personality style. For example, Green personality styles are the more analytical and engineering types who value efficiency and competence. Golds are more leader types such CEO, CFO and financial types who value security and control. Oranges are big picture and look for the immediate benefits and value winning and competition, while Blues value integrity and relationships.

#3 Storytelling
Use stories and analogies to engage the right side of the brain. Stories are memorable and others can put themselves into the story, helping them visualize the situation from their perspective. Customers buy when four criteria are satisfied: needs, cost, solution and risk. ONLY when they are comfortable in each of these areas will they take action. When they hear a relevant success story they can relate to, they begin to see what your solution can do for them. From a personality perspective, each personality will prioritize and analyze needs, cost, solution and risk differently. Right brain people are Orange and Blue in our model and they favor more of the intangibles and are more subjective. Left brain people are our Green and Gold and are more objective and look for the tangibles. Don’t forget that people also buy based on what the solution will do for them personally, which is why building a relationship is vital. Business solutions might lower cost, increase revenue or improve productivity. Personal motivations might be getting a promotion, recognition or peace of mind. Left brain (Green and Gold) customers favor business benefits of your solution and right brain (Blue and Orange) folks favor the personal aspects.

The bottom line is this: know why your customer buys. Just understanding who they are will help you shift the attention away from your goals to theirs, which always nets better results!

You need to:
1. Connect with your customers emotionally = emotional intelligence
2. Understand their needs and their personality style
3. Engage them with stories and case studies that will engage their right brain.]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-aspect-s-of-selling-to-your-prospect-s-brain/ Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:16:48 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-sales-tips-for-the-new-year/ Happy New Year and welcome to another year with a new sales budget! You may already be thinking about the potential challenges you might face. Are you...
1-Follow up. Start this year by taking an inventory of those customers you have been working with this past year and which ones have potential to add incremental business. Which ones showed signs of interest but never made the ultimate commitment? Contact them and remind them of the benefits you discussed in the first place. Think about adding even more value that they would benefit from and how that added value makes getting together now even more important for them. Even better, come up with a very explicit “benefit for meeting now”. Why would your solution make a difference this year? Make sure that you have a “stay in touch strategy” so that your prospects and customers don’t forget about you - remember the old saying “out of sight, out of mind”.

2-ROI. Re-examine the return on investment your solutions bring to your customers. For existing customers, set up a meeting to review how your products and services have been performing for them. This is an excellent opportunity to ask about their goals and objectives for the new year and how you might be able to support them. It’s always easier to add business to an existing client and typically has the shortest sales cycle since you have already established a relationship where trust and credibility exist. This type of engagement with your customers also helps to preempt the competition who would be left out if they skip the request for proposal process saying the business is a modification to an existing purchase. With many companies new business from existing clients can easily be over 50% of your revenue generation. Understanding your clients ROI is important as it is proof of your solution’s success. The more proof you have to give to new prospects about what your customer’s have experienced is usually the MOST marketing you can do. Customers today want tangible evidence that your products and services will do what you say they will do.

3-Incentives. Most of you have all experienced company incentives at the end of the quarter or the year as a way to generate business and meet your revenue targets. Why not start the year out by adding incremental value to your solutions as an incentive to buy now. A new year for your customers usually means a new budget cycle and now is the time to stimulate their interest and get ahead of the curve. You’re not discounting your products and services, you’re adding value that might attract the customer or prospect’s attention. Adding value can have a low impact on your margins compared to lowering your price. Knowing your customer base and their needs will help you craft the right incentive that would gain their interest.

Make 2012 be your best year ever. Being proactive from the get go will show your customers and prospects that you have their best interest at heart.
Implement the 3 Sales Tips:

1- Follow up,
2- Show them a healthy return on their investment and
3- Craft the right incentive to spur them on to invest in you and your company.

Happy New Year and good selling for 2012!]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-sales-tips-for-the-new-year/ Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:03:56 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/why-i-can-8217t-seem-to-make-that-first-cold-call-each-day/ The challenge of who shall I call today.

When reviewing the results of one of our recent Prospector’s Academies the other day, we experienced a vivid...]]> The challenge of who shall I call today.

When reviewing the results of one of our recent Prospector’s Academies the other day, we experienced a vivid reminder of one of the key lessons we provide to our customers.

Our latest Prospector’s Academy had spectacular results (pardon the self-congratulations…). At the end of 12 weeks, 24 sales professionals had increased the number of Initial Appointments they had set by the cold call by 600 percent! When you have that kind of success with a customer, you really have the luxury of looking at the details. When we did, we took a look at those that did not share in the success, at least early on when most of the others started to have success. After weeding out the few that just didn’t want to participate, we hit on what we thought was a common theme; lists.

Now we’ve addressed this issue before in this blog, and we address it all the time with the management teams of those we train. However, this time the way it surfaced actually made us see so obviously why so many people fail at the selling process of getting enough Initial Appointments.

There was this particular sales professional who was unfortunately forgotten when the lists were loaded and had no one to call in his first Call Block. When we talked to this person (after addressing his problem) we asked him why he didn’t just start calling those that he had been calling before the Academy began, after all, he wasn’t a brand new rep. He admitted he faced this situation every day. He had names on business cards, paper tablets, spreadsheets, scraps of paper and in his head. He said he was at a loss at where to begin because he had no way to keep track of where is was in the pursuit of any given target, let alone having a pre-determined set of ‘rules’ to follow in the pursuit. Now that he had learned a process to follow in the Academy, he didn’t know how to apply it to all of those that he had been approaching previously. In other words, he was suffering from paralysis of analysis. And, therein lies the lesson.

Many times, we are unable to get started because we’ve not made the time to create our list of who we wish to call today, because we no process to follow and no tool to keep us organized. Even if we know who we want to call today, we have to study each name on the list and think of where we are in the pursuit of that target, what have we’ve said to them before, and what should we say this time. We become overwhelmed and wind up doing nothing.

I can actually remember that feeling myself. I’d put the Call Block on my calendar, but when I got there, I’d open up my ACT!, or folders and floundered around looking for the first target to call instead of just picking up the phone and dialing the first number. I would wind up making follow-up calls and doing everything but what I had set out to do, all because I wasn’t prepared to start. Ever known anyone who is always, “Fixing to get started?” They never do quite get started, do they?

My good friend Sean Piket, founder of Sales Integrity, a company that provides sales consulting, outsourcing and training to small to mid-sized firms, likes to say that sales professionals fail for three reasons: 1) They are not prepared, 2) They are not organized, and 3) They are overwhelmed.

So, here’s the lesson. Ask yourself this question. What would be the impact on your business in 2012 if your sales team simply doubled the number of Initial Appointments they set in 2011? If the answer to that question is, “Significant”, then prepare them for battle in 2012 by addressing the three items Sean’s list. Don’t continue to operate under the mistaken assumption that it takes the same skills, tools and processes to get targets into the pipeline that it takes to get prospects through the pipeline. They are different. Provide them with the skills, tools and processes that will make them successful in 2012.

Otherwise, the best intentions of making the dials will never happen.
]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/why-i-can-8217t-seem-to-make-that-first-cold-call-each-day/ Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:16:58 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/relationships-say-it-all-in-sales/ But first, let’s look at the definition of “relationship”? It’s the state of being connected. How are we connected to friends, family or business colleagues? We are connected through our emotions. We connect with others by engaging the right side of our brain where our feelings and emotions reside. We connect with people when we discover things we have in common.

1. Your attitude
The first reason customers want to develop a relationship with you is your attitude. I’m sure you’ve heard many times that attitude is everything. Well it’s certainly a huge reason why people will gravitate to you. And interestingly, even in business, attitude usually trumps aptitude. Attitude is critical in having strong emotional intelligence. Customers want to see a positive, can-do attitude in you. They see it in the way you handle the tough questions and objections they might have for you. They see it when you focus on their agenda. In other words they want you to better understand both their needs and who they are. If you’re just there to just make the sale – you’ve already lost them, because the customer can tell. Your attitude is in your control and it affects everything you do and every relationship you have.

2. Your value
The second reason a customer wants a relationship with you is because you add value and help them solve their issues. Most often it’s more about you the person and not your company, unless of course you worked for Enron or WorldCom. It comes down to their confidence in you, which is directly proportional to trust. According to Stephen M. R. Covey in his book- The Speed of Trust, there are two components to trust - character and competence. Both are necessary and you will never have the chance to add value if either of these trust components are missing. Character is your ability to uphold what is right in the eyes of the customer. It’s looking at the right solution at the right price and making sure that the outcome is fair and equitable for both sides. Putting the customer’s needs first is always paramount. Competence is demonstrating that your customers can trust you to solve their problem. Customers expect sales professionals to be the experts in their field and to know what is best for solving their problem. They also expect you to know that they have alternatives, to you, your product or service and even whether to make a purchase at all.

Customers intentionally build relationships with sales professionals that have the right attitude towards them and the right intentions-trusting you will do the right thing.

When you focus on building strong and trust-based relationships, they will trump your products, services and hopefully your competitors-that’s why your customers do business with you.]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/relationships-say-it-all-in-sales/ Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:45:10 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/six-times-more-initial-appointments-thru-cold-calling/ A case study of a 600% increase in appointments set in less than three months!

We just completed a Prospector’s Academy™ for one of our customers in ...]]> A case study of a 600% increase in appointments set in less than three months!

We just completed a Prospector’s Academy™ for one of our customers in which a team of 22 outside sales people increased their Initial Appointments set from 25 in the first two weeks of the Academy to 149 in weeks eleven and twelve.

I do submit to you that what they were doing before we ran the Academy was not very good, but it is not unusual. Many of our customers tell us that their sales team is spending all of their new business prospecting time responding to the few leads that come in door. The rest of their selling time is spent calling on existing customers trying to upsell and cross sell instead of finding new customers. It is not that they don’t want them to do that, but in all instances, these sales professionals also had responsibility for finding new customers as well as growing the installed base—and they weren’t doing a very good job of that at all.

If you’d like to read a case study on how they were able to accomplish that (and pay for the entire program within one buying cycle), send me an email at bcaponi@caponipg.com. Although a 600% increase may not be typical, 200% or more certainly is, and paying for our program within one buying cycle absolutely is.]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/six-times-more-initial-appointments-thru-cold-calling/ Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:41:39 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/the-psychology-of-selling/ When it comes to reviewing a sales opportunity that either ends in a win or a loss you assess what happened. Why did you lose or why did you win? But ... People don’t buy just for the logical facts about your solution. Why do you buy a car? For the miles per gallon, it’s rating in the consumer report or the safety record? While these are all important, the real decision relates more to the look and feel of the car. It’s what is going on in the emotional part of your brain. There are 3 facts about the psychology of selling. But before we get into these facts we need to define what selling really is. Selling is the transfer of emotions from one person to another. It’s not selling logic or rationale; it’s engaging the customer’s emotions. So let’s look at the 3 facts.

Fact number one: consider a little brain science. Customers react to a pain 3 times more often than a gain. Why? Because dealing with pain is emotional. Your emotions reside in your limbic brain. Logic resides in the neocortex. Your limbic brain is stimulated 3000 faster than your neocortex. People respond to pain by finding a cure as soon as possible. As a sales professional, your goal is to find the pain and heighten the impact of what that pain can do. That’s why impact questions used after uncovering a problem are so successful when engaging the customer. Think about having an illness and what goes through your mind before seeing the doctor. Is it just a cold or is it more serious than you think? When you don’t have a solution to pain, you worry which only increases your sense of urgency.

Fact number two: in order to impact the customer emotions, you need to take them into the future. If you don’t alleviate the problem now, or you wait six months, what happens? Again, when you go into the future you have the opportunity to create what you see. Will it be bad by not taking action, or will it be resolved by fixing the issue now? It’s human nature to take things to the extreme especially when you look into the future. You can either paint the ugliest of pictures or the brightest of opportunities. Depending on the situation at the moment, you have the opportunity to steer the customer in the direction that favors your solution.

Fact number three: when customers are engaged emotionally with us, you will build stronger relationships. Think about the relationships you have with friends. Are they built on logic or emotion? You connect emotionally 100% of the time. Emotions have the upper hand over logic every time because our brain is hardwired that way. That’s why customers buy emotionally and back it with logic. Your first reaction to anything is emotional. Just think about how you connect with a movie. It’s not the words or the actions, but the music in the background that connects us emotionally to the scene. Emotions are a right brain activity and relationships are formed in the right brain. To engage the customer’s right side of the brain you need to establish a conversation that takes them to what’s most important to them personally. This is when they will take action.

When you understand that selling is really all about psychology, you’ll
• Focus on the pain
• Take them into the future
• Engage your customer emotionally to build the relationship
Only then will you earn the right to handle their business for the long term.]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/the-psychology-of-selling/ Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:59:58 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/when-prospecting-here-8217s-how-to-rid-yourself-of-dry-spells/ Two metrics to manage your pipeline by to avoid experiencing another dry spell.

Almost all of us from time to time have a great month or quarter with...]]> Two metrics to manage your pipeline by to avoid experiencing another dry spell.

Almost all of us from time to time have a great month or quarter with great closing numbers followed by a miserable month or quarter with nothing to show for our efforts.

There is a way to reduce the risk of that occurrence.

First, answer the following questions and complete the tasks (estimate if you have to—but you should know these numbers):

1. How many Initial Appointments do you need to hit your required sales for the year?
2. How many discussions with decision makers do you need in order to generate those Initial Appointments?
3. How many times do you need to dial the phone in order to get the required number of discussions with the targets you’d like to meet with?
4. Divide that number by 220 (the typical number of selling days in the year) and you’ll have the number of dials you need to make each day.
5. How much time does it take to accomplish a step in the appointment making process? That includes figuring out who to call, what the status of the pursuit of that target is, determining what you’re going to say, dialing the phone number, saying what you want to (when successful getting through), sending email follow ups, leaving messages and recording the results.

If you don’t know, use six minutes as an average per dial. With Klpz (a tool I recommend), you can cut that in half.
6. Do the math—multiply the number of calls needed per day times the average time per call and you’ve got the number of minutes you’ll need each day to hit your number.

You will now have two key metrics to apply to keep a dry spell from occurring again. Here’s what they are and how to use them:

1. The first is the number of Initial Appointments you’ll need to hit your number this year. Divide that by 44 (the number of full selling weeks in a year) and you’ll know how many Initial Appointments that precede a buying cycle you should have on your calendar each week. If you don’t have that number at any point—you’ll know to make the time to get back on the phone and set some more appointments or you WILL have a dry spell again
2. The second metric is the time you’ll need to set aside each week/day to set those appointments. The best way to use this metric to avoid dry spells is to set appointments with yourself first each week to make the dials that are necessary to set the Initial Appointments needed.


(BTW, I’ve got a free tool to help you with this process of figuring out how to determine both of these metrics. If you’d a copy, click here to be taken to a page to send me a note to request one. I’ll send it to you.)]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/when-prospecting-here-8217s-how-to-rid-yourself-of-dry-spells/ Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:56:17 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/when-will-an-executive-buy/
#1 Financial Impact:
One of the key metrics executives look at is the return on the investment (ROI). Executives will analyze to determine if we make this investment for “X” amount of dollars what will be the return. How long will it take to pay back the dollar investment and what will be the realistic growth as time goes on. No one invests in a product or service that does not have a strong ROI. The executive will always have someone in the finance organization run the numbers on the investment.

#2 Productivity, Efficiency and Effectiveness:
What will the solution do for the productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of your culture and your operations? If you were an executive evaluating a Customer Relationship Management software package, think about the criteria you would use to make a decision. Would it be easy to implement-first and foremost? Would people not only be able to easily learn the system, would they use it? Next, what will the system do for reporting key information to upper management? Will we be able to communicate more effectively with customers? Would we be able to evaluate the sales pipeline for reality? Will the system free up time for sales and sale support to get more face time with customers? These are some of the issues executives will consider in the evaluation. It all gets back to a return for the investment. Will you improve your operation with this investment?

#3 Competition
Will this investment improve our offerings so we can increase market share and our competitive position? This depends on the type of company you are working with. Are they product and innovation intensive, or are they service intensive. Every executive is concerned about improving their competitive position which is directly proportional to corporate growth. How can your solution position them for growth? Showing the executive results that another customer achieved is one of the best ways to show how they can succeed, especially if that customer is in the same industry. Testimonials are powerful and of the utmost importance; proving you can do what you say minimizes the risk.

Executives will evaluate your solution based on:
1. The ROI
2. How it can improve productivity, efficiency and effectiveness
3. Whether it will improve their marketshare

When they see these three criteria in a positive light, the risk of buying from you will be minimized. Make sure that your solutions can stand up to this level of evaluation.
If you do, you may earn the privilege described in this scenario: many years ago the saying was, “no one ever got fired for making a decision to go with IBM”. Can your company say the same?]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/when-will-an-executive-buy/ Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:11:57 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/the-foolproof-lack-of-sales-early-warning-system/ What is the best way to predict (and fix) a coming shortfall in sales revenue?

Ever had a great quarter or month followed by a dry one? We all have a...]]> What is the best way to predict (and fix) a coming shortfall in sales revenue?

Ever had a great quarter or month followed by a dry one? We all have at one point or another. Those of us who didn’t want that to happen again have adopted systems and processes to reduce the risk of it happening again. But, what is the quickest and easiest way to predict a coming shortfall in sales?

Every sale is preceded by an Initial Appointment. Regardless of what we sell or how many calls it takes to close that sale, they all begin with an Initial Appointment. That appointment could be a face-to-face call, a web-based call or a good old-fashioned phone call. It really makes no difference.

So what does this have to do with an early warning system? Simple. We must know how many Initial Appointments it takes to generate a sale and then figure out how many Initial Appointments must be on the calendar at any given moment to provide the number of needed sales. For instance, in our case, we need five Initial Appointments spread out over any given two-week period at any time.

Now for the final step in the process: What precedes an Initial Appointment? The conversations and dials that are necessary to set up those appointments is the answer. So, the final question to ask ourselves is how many dials are necessary to generate those five appointments. Because the dial is truly the earliest step in the selling process, I can now monitor my dials to see what my sales will be.

Given our ratios of dials to conversations of 13% and our conversations to appointments ratio of 26%, we need to dial the phone 15 times a day between those of us who sell. Not a monumental task, but a task that must be done, nonetheless.

I look at my Klpz dashboard each week and can see both the number of dials and the number of appointments we’ve got on the calendar at any given moment. If either of those numbers is low, it is an easy fix to keep our sales two months in the future from cratering. Get on the phone….]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/the-foolproof-lack-of-sales-early-warning-system/ Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:29:55 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/the-biggest-mistake-cold-callers-can-make/ Decision makers do communicate with their gatekeepers, you know.

I was at an event with other CEOs and business owners this past week. Most of the at...]]> Decision makers do communicate with their gatekeepers, you know.

I was at an event with other CEOs and business owners this past week. Most of the attendees know what my company does so they love to regale me with stories of sales professionals who attempt to get an appointment with them. It is a great way for me to hear the target’s side of what works and what doesn’t.

This past week the subject came up of a ‘technique’ a sales professional (and in this case, I use the term lightly) had used to try to set an appointment with him. He said his regular administrative assistant was on vacation so it worked—for a moment anyway.

This particular seller told the ‘gatekeeper’ that he had recently met the CEO at a conference and that her boss had asked him to call to set up an appointment. Now there was potentially a grain of truth in this story as the CEO told me that he was at the same event. However, he said he had never even met the person, let alone told him to call for an appointment.

The good news for our intrepid seller—he got through. He proceeded to attempt to set an appointment never mentioning the ruse he had employed to get through. The even better news was that the CEO had some interest in what he was selling. The best news of all was that he got the appointment.

Now for the bad news: About an hour later, the CEO calls his temporary administrative assistant and asked her to set up a conference room for him for this appointment as well as to ask one of his direct reports to attend as well. It is at this time that the administrative assistant innocently asked if this was for the guy who called saying they had met at the conference.

Want to know how the seller found out his appointment was cancelled? From his sales manager, who got the cancellation call directly from the CEO.

Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall when this seller got the news from his sales manager?

If you’d like to read more about the impact of lying to gatekeepers to get through to the boss, read my blog entitled, “The impact of lying to get through on a cold call.”

http://coldcalling101.com/the-impact-of-lying-to-get-through-on-a-cold-call/]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/the-biggest-mistake-cold-callers-can-make/ Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:09:57 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/why-customers-hate-to-be-sold/
Let’s look at 3 reasons why customers hate to be sold.
#1 - they’re tired of being told! Decision makers are more open to a sales person who asks questions about their needs rather than telling them what they need to do? Yet, surprisingly most sales professionals ask just one or two questions waiting for the first opportunity to go into present mode! REAL needs – the ones that are attached to the biggest budgets - aren’t close to being fully understood. The customer’s true issues aren’t evident, yet the sales person goes into tell mode or as we experienced in 3rd grade, “show and tell”. Telling is the same as convincing which is just another synonym for selling. What customers prefer is the advice of an expert consultant that asks pertinent questions about their business.

#2 - they’ve lost their place as the center of attention-you have taken their place. Customers want to talk about their goals, aspirations, the future and their own personal goals. When you present prematurely, the focus and priority is no longer on the customer but on your need to talk about their solution. The right time to present the solution is when the customer asks for it and not before. The customer will ask you to talk about your solution when you have peaked their interest and they have a desire to hear what you have to offer and not a minute sooner. Your job as a GREAT sales professional is to build curiosity in the mind of the customer so that they want to hear more. That is why customers enjoy buying. They see the need for your solution and in their own mind they made the decision and feel good about it.

#3 - no one wants to be pressured. The last thing anyone needs today is more pressure. We live in a world that puts timeframes on everything. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes – they already have enough pressure put on them from their own company to get things done, meet goals and objectives and of course meet every deadline. Customers want to buy on their timeline not yours. Think of all the sales incentives that start with, if you make a decision by the end of this month, we will give you……. Incentives are attractive only when the customer is ready to make a decision. Would you buy a product or service for half price if you didn’t need it? Neither would I.
As you think about the ways to be a more effective sales professional, remember to ask – don’t tell OR sell. Make inquiries and keep the focus on your customer.

The most successful sales professionals always focus on the needs of their customer. This puts them at the center of attention. When they feel valued for the information they share and you work to craft the right solution at the right time, they don’t feel pressured but instead, curious to find out more about you and your solution. Remember sales is all about building relationships and relationships are built by developing trust. Avoiding typical selling and telling will help both you and your customers succeed.]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/why-customers-hate-to-be-sold/ Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:22:02 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-ways-to-peak-your-prospect-s-interest/ The first major problem you face when making that initial call to a prospect is their indifference. It’s bad enough that you might be calling someone that doesn’t know you, but just as important is how you can get their immediate attention to hear why they should spend the time to meet with you. Is there a need you can address and if so how bad is that pain?

Step One: What’s their issue?
To peak their interest, start by stating an issue that your research shows to be the most likely one they are facing today. Given the uncertainty of our economy, one issue that would get the attention of most prospects might be cash flow. Test that hypothesis by saying, “Most of my clients say that one of their biggest challenges right now is the need to improve cash flow. How much of an issue is cash flow for you today?” There are several issues that can be of concern to companies/individuals today. It’s fairly easy to uncover what those top issues are in your specific industry. Good research to identify their most common issues will pay off by getting their attention.

Step Two: Impact of their issue?
Once you have their attention, help them understand the impact of that issue on their business. Heighten the issue by asking impact questions. Impact questions reveal how the issue can implicate other areas of their business. For example, ask, “If cash flow is an issue, how does that impact your investment goals in equipment or application software or expansion goals? What’s the impact on your hiring strategy? What’s the impact on your customer satisfaction goals? Impact questions can help the prospect see the consequences of unresolved issues. But remember, understanding impact alone doesn’t necessarily mean they will take action. You’ll need to make sure that you touch their emotions too, because we make decisions with both sides of our brain.

Ironically, even though people may buy when they see an opportunity to improve their business - they don’t like to be sold. So, speak to their emotion first, and then back it up with the logic to justify the solution. Emotions always have the upper hand.

Step Three: What are possible recommendations?
Lastly, be prepared with potential recommendations. Even though you may not have all of the information needed to make a firm suggestion, having some realistic ideas shows that you’ve done your homework – you do understand something about their business. AND, you have experience with other clients and have a track record of success. Customers look to the sales person for advice. To close the call share a success, “Mr. Smith, we recently helped one of our clients free up $250,000 a month in cash flow savings that allowed them to expand their operation by opening up a new office in Boca Raton. Their revenues are now projected to grow 15% this next fiscal year. I would like to sit down with you and discuss an approach that can achieve the same results for you. Would you be free next Wednesday at 2pm?

Getting appointments is difficult, so you’ll have to stand out from the other noise and competition in the marketplace. Remember to use these three steps to take your sales success to a new level:
Step One: What’s their issue?
Step Two: What’s the impact of their issue?
Step Three: What are possible recommendations?
You’ll find the results to be impressive!

Good Selling!]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/3-ways-to-peak-your-prospect-s-interest/ Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:06:25 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/overcoming-the-sales-rut/ You thought things were moving along nicely, your pipeline of opportunities was filling up, you just closed a nice piece of business that you’ve been working on for 4 months and bam - what’s next? It happens to many of us. As you manage opportunities and build your prospective pipeline, in reality you are at the prospects beck and call. The mantra is, don’t call us, we’ll call you when we are ready. Their own priorities always come first and not yours.

If your pipeline isn’t full, you may be wondering how you can avoid and get out of that “sales rut”? In the age of social media there are more ways and opportunities to make yourself visible to your prospects and convey the value that you can offer. Let’s visit 3 ways we can circumvent the sales rut.

No sense of urgency

First, put yourself in the mind of your prospect: why would they delay moving forward to the fall? Ultimately, it’s because there’s no sense of urgency. They don’t see any reason why your product or service is a top priority for them, therefore, it can wait! Companies are very busy juggling 20 balls at once. If you’re lucky, you are one of those balls. The question becomes, how do you get your prospect to stop and see your ball as a bigger ball in the scheme of things. Remember, people buy based on perceived value. The greater the value, the greater their need to take action, and they will equate your value to the benefits of your solution. More benefits = greater value. Relate your benefits to their needs. Don’t ever lead with features because features don’t meet customer needs. The only way to heighten their sense of urgency is to show them the impact on their business of not implementing your solution.

Keep in touch strategy

The second point to consider when combating the summer time blues is to develop a keep in touch strategy. How do you keep in touch with your prospects and what value do you communicate to them? When you stay in touch, give them pertinent information that can be of benefit to their business. Do you have a newsletter; do you send industry articles on trends and information to be aware of? Do you post information on LinkedIn and Facebook? Do you belong to networking groups that give you the opportunity to share information about trends in your industry? The greater your activity level in communicating pertinent information, the better your chances of keeping an active dialog with prospects. After all, they want value from you.

Monitor the pulse

The third point is to monitor your pipeline pulse. When you look at your pipeline, what do you see? Can you see a snapshot of what opportunities will be closing in the next 30 to 60 days? If you segment your pipeline into A, B and C opportunities where A’s will close the soonest, you can then see the big picture as to when you might be hitting the blues. If you are going into June with 5 deals that are supposed to close in the next 2 months you have a great chance of avoiding the summer time blues. Having a combination of A, B and C opportunities moving forward is vital to a constant closing of new sales opportunities.

The best way to bust the Summertime blues is to:

• Demonstrate the benefits of your offering to create a sense of urgency
• Stay in touch in ways that matter to them = add value
• Pay attention to your pipeline – where are the holes and the opportunities
Anytime is a good time for selling, especially when you follow these three easy points.

Good selling!]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/schlackman/blog/overcoming-the-sales-rut/ Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:58:06 +0000 Stu Schlackman http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/got-a-challenge-with-setting-initial-appointments/ The Caponi Performance Group has been helping individuals and sales teams with selling challenges since 2004. Five years ago, we decided to dedicate o...
Last week, we re-launched a commletely redesigned website dedicated to appointment setting. Our customers tell us our approach is very unique and very successful. We address both the effecitiveness and efficiency sides of the challenge simultaneously as no one in the industry does.

If you must pick up the phone and call strangers (whether they be warm or cold) to begin the selling process, do what some of the most successful people in sales have done. Check out the ColdCalling101 solution at our new website. You'll see detailed results of what others have attained, see what the measurable value of addressing the Art, Science, and Best Practices simultaneously will do for you, and see how it all works togehter.

When you get there, I encourage you to read the three different "Does this challenge sound familiar?" you'll see displayed in the scrolling window at the top of the home page. You can also see more by clicking on the 'More challenges' buttons displayed with each of the three different types of challenges. If any of them sound familiar to you, we can help you solve them quickly, sustain the gains, and do it with an amazing ROI.

http://caponipg.com/index.php]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/got-a-challenge-with-setting-initial-appointments/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:30:56 +0000 Barry D. Caponi http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/new-books-are-now-available/
Here's the detail. The books, Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! come in two volumes.

Volume I - Effectiveness, the ART of Appoinemtn Making
Volume II - Efficiency, the SCIENCE of Appointment Making

Both are now available for order through the following link. This link will also give you a good view into what is in each and if either one, or both, might benefit you and your challenges.

http://caponipg.com/books.php]]> http://www.salescoachinglive.com/barrycaponi/blog/new-books-are-now-available/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:03:57 +0000 Barry D. Caponi