Got a great success story to share? How about a sales disaster that no one should have to live through again? Got a new idea or a question on cold calling, closing, communication, finding prospects, overcoming objections, developing leads, improving customer service, honing your management skills, improving your creativity, or getting a better attitude? Well, this is your moment to shine, get some feedback, and to check out what everybody else is up to.
FFEJ
Approach
Posted 7:25 PM on 08/27/08 -
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I work for a Fortune 500 international company and the majority of my day consists of cold calling business to business selling office equipment, mailing systems and software solutions for shipping and receiving. I am struggling with a door opening approach that will get me different response than "we have everything we need and are not in the market right now". I am looking for a way to determine a need or pain to focus on and provide a solution. I know the gatekeeper is not the person I need to speak with, but when I do find out who the decision maker is, I have a hard time providing a reason him/her to agree to an appointment.
Suggestions??
J
Sales Coach
Posted 3:34 PM on 08/27/08 -
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Where can one find a good sales coach? Jeffrey talks about getting a sales coach as being one of the best methods to increase your sales, yet, I am having a hard time locating one.
J
Referrals/Testimonials
Posted 2:58 PM on 08/27/08 -
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I am in a business where people like to "guard their territory." They want to be the only people in their area that have access to, and use our products. We sell all direct, with technical support/sales throughout the country. My customers love me, however want to keep me and our product to themselves. When one is in this sort of situation, is there any good way to get referrals and testimonials?
Jonathan
Creating sales follow up and quality sales process
Posted 2:04 PM on 08/27/08 -
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So I just started a new position at my company doing new business development. The problem I am having though is there has been zero training, since I already knew the software system they have just kinda dumped random lazy projects on me like giving me a list out of a phone book to call and get decision makers addresses and then send them some contact info. I was comfortable doing that and blew by it really quickly but now I want to call up those decision makers and follow up but I am not sure how I should approach it, should this be where I try to squeeze in a presentation or should I try to set up an appointment. Should I have some power questions ready now or should I save that for a presentation. It is very difficult to traing yourself on a brand new industry and create my own sales process I am hoping some vets out there can give me good advice
Eric Dyson
The Power of Testimonials
Posted 8:36 AM on 08/26/08 -
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Jeffrey,
I felt compelled to tell you about the greatest testimonial event I have ever seen. It is a tribute to the fact that people may not believe you but they will believe your customer's testimonials.
This spin is a little different but because it was different the testimonials were even more powerful.
Last Sunday in church the preacher talked about the scars we have in life. He let us know that our scars and experiences may be unique but having scars and being help to help those that are going through a similar experience is not unique.
When he was done speaking, members from church came up front with poster boards. On the front was written what they had been through, and where they are today. These were people that we all see every week in church. The assumption was that they had normal trouble free 9 - 5 lives; a spouse with 2.3 kids, a 3 BR 2.5 bath house in Suburban Dallas.
But instead they had to courage to get up and tell what they had been through and how they are doing today.
The signs read things like: Front: "Former alcoholic and drug addict." Back: "Clean and sober." Front: "Lost immediate family memberfrom suicide." Back: "Making it one day at a time with prayer." Front: "Had two miscarriages in 1999." Back: "Two healthy chidren in the family today." Front: "Former heroin addict." Back: "About to graduate seminary school."
There wrere probably about 50 "testimonials," and there were not too many dry eyes in church.
Did we belive the preacher? Probably.
Did we believe the testimonials? You're darn skippy we did.
Clay
COLD CALLING MERCHANT SERVICES
Posted 5:13 AM on 08/26/08 -
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I was looking for some advice on cold calling. I've done plenty of it in other financial markets but
I'm working for a privately held merchant services co. This particular area of sales has an extreme amount of solicitation phone wise. I have done most all of my deals or no deals cold walking. Face to face. Yet I'd love to keep that up, but simply can't afford to drive from area to area. I find it easy to differentiate face to face through presentation attitude & persistance. Most of the money is in cold calling where the numbers are far larger & less time-consuming. As far as the company I work for goes, I really don't know where to begin. I've fielded inbound calls of my clients just to see what kind of typical or atypical scenario is. I really just like the man says sell the appointment. Leaving questions or somewhat intriging stuff within the mind. Any suggestions?
TLee
If Customers Leave
Posted 2:11 PM on 08/25/08 -
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If you’ve done everything you think you can to make sure your customers don’t get to the point of leaving you, but they still do, how should you go about getting them back or at least, find out the real reason they left so you can improve and not lose more customers? Is it okay to just ask them? What is the most effective and professional way to gain insight on customers that exit from your product or service?
Anderson360
If Customers Leave
Posted 5:10 PM on 08/26/08 -
Reply to this postI found some good wording from another 'sales guru' guy, Ari Galper on this. It also works real well for prospects that give you the "silent treatment". You think things are going great, and you think you'll definately close the sale, and then BAM...nothing.
"Hi_____ it's_____from____. I just wanted, first of all, to call and apologize that we ended up not being able to connect. I feel like somewhere along the way maybe I dropped the ball, or I didn't give you the information you needed. I'm not calling to move things forward because I'm assuming you've probably gone ahead with someone else, and that's perfectly okay. I'm just checking to see if you may have some feedback as to where I can improve for next time."
As Ari Galper said - "You haven't lost the sale. You just don't know the truth yet."
Jeff
Asking Nicely.
Posted 10:40 AM on 08/27/08 -
Reply to this postIf they ever were a good customer, I can usually call them and talk about it. After I assure them that I understand and appreciate their decision, they stop getting defensive and start offering real feedback. In fact, my listening and thanking them for the feedback has caused a lot of them to come back to our firm. Perhaps that would work for you.
rich34232
if customers leave
Posted 9:08 PM on 08/27/08 -
Reply to this post What we do, and this has been very affective, we send the top sales technician and the owner to a lost customer. This is a must including the owner as the customers know the owner carries a lot weight, they also know we care. We do not try to sell the lost customer, we try to make a connection as to why the events turned ugly. When we find out why a customer goes south we then work on trying to find a way for this not to happen to another customer. We have weekly meetings covering new training, and new product info that helps our sales force.
We have not been doing this long enough to come up with a percentage of how many of the lost customers have come back. Those we have visited, 20% have returned.
Anderson360
Voicemail
Posted 4:00 PM on 08/21/08 -
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I'm in home/auto insurance sales. Only been in the business about 5 months, but one of the biggest obstacles I've found is getting voice-mails returned. Most of the time I'm calling on internet leads I recieve and I've been trying several different styles of messages I leave. I still have yet to find one type that works more than another. I've done one extreme of just leaving ny name and number, to the other of stating who I am, the company I represent, my phone number, and a humorous comment or two........Has anyone found a good style of voicemail that gets a high number of returned calls????
simon W
Voicemail
Posted 4:29 PM on 08/24/08 -
Reply to this postYeah -its a difficult one - as with most things it really depends on who you are dealing with. As much as we all like to sell in certain ways people also like to buy in certain ways and therefore respond to different stimuli. Personally I think a simple name and number is the best method - dont be over friendly just to the point in a normal manner - ' hi its john smith my number is 01234 567890, thank you'
TLee
Time Management
Posted 1:12 PM on 08/21/08 -
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I am new to a sales group and have been tasked with the job of improving efficiency and helping with tasks that take away from selling time. I am not going to be selling anything, myself, but need to figure out what I can do to help with the existing sales team. What is the first best step? My thoughts were to get with the representatives and have them document their day for a few days to a week. Then I can sit down and look at where their time is currently being spent and determine how I can help with non-sales related work.
Another thought was to just have them write up a list of things that they know takes away from their selling time, and give it a time value. Again, I would look at these lists and determine where I can save and/or better utilize time.
Any thoughts on better ways to go about this?
rich34232
time management
Posted 8:16 PM on 08/22/08 -
Reply to this postTLEE congratulations on your new position.
Build a goal that you want to reach with the other sales technicians. Look at what each sales technician has done over the last two years. Set a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly goals that you would like to see the sales technicians meet and exceed.
Set up a round table discussion on a weekly basis with your sales team. Allow them to speak freely without hesitation without restraint. Allow them to talk about all phases of their day from the successful closings to the sales that went south and why they think it went in that direction.The others in the sales team will give advice,gain knowledge. Role play, find the weaknesses of each sales technician,give them solutions in order to be highly successful.
When the above has been implemented the efficiency will improve,the less important parts of the job that takes them away from the art of closing will be found out and given to others who have the potential to grow into the sales team that you have built.
