Cold Calling Campaign… Does This Look Like Your Office?

Posted by Gavin Ingham on August 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment 


The cold calling campaign at Sales Inc. was not going to well! I’ve seen plenty of sales offices that look like this as I am sure you have too. Perhaps you’re looking at one now and pulling your hair out! It’s amazing the excuses that salespeople can come up with when trying to avoid contacting new and (even) existing customers.

If you don’t want your sales office to look like this then why not speak to me about organizing an inspirational and motivational sales talk for your next sales conference, AGM or away day.

Filed under Bert's World, Motivation & mindset, Motivational speaker, Prospecting & cold calling, Sales training · Tagged with , , ,

Cold Calling Blues?

Posted by Gavin Ingham on January 28, 2010 · 4 Comments 

Just under a year ago, I bought a new car. Many of you may remember this as I mentioned a BMW dealer who showed a total lack of interest in my questions and enquiries. He effectively made my decision for me to buy from a different manufacturer. Anyway, I was reminded of this incident when I got this email from one of my readers…

We lease some cars for sales staff on contract hire.  Sales guy rings from the lease hire company and asks to be put through to me

“Hello Mr Smith.”
“Hi.”
“How’s the cars going?”
“Fine.”
“Good – give us a ring if you need anything.”
“OK . Bye.”

You would have thought with the state of the car market he could have a bit more to say!

2′nd call – this afternoon – I answer the phone – something I try and avoid.

“XYZ company, Joe Bloggs speaking.”
“Hello, can I speak to the head of marketing?”
“What’s it about?”
“Marketing.”
“No – he’s not taking sales calls.”
“Can I send an email?”
“No – Bye.”

Man – if he’d looked at our website my names there as the Director!

Idiot.

You’d like to think that these individuals were particularly bad wouldn’t you? Or maybe that they were just having a bad day. But that isn’t my experience of leasing companies… or of cold callers…

One of the biggest issues many of my sales training clients have is getting their sales teams doing the activity that they need to do to bring in enough opportunities to give them any chance of success. Helping businesses to improve motivation, increase lead generation activity and implement systems to support and improve their reach with new clients is a large part of my business but it’s not the only part…

You have to do it correctly too. Activity alone is not any good. There is no point repeating a totally ineffective cold call over and over again. As I am sure Mr. T might say, “Pity the poor busy fool!”

As a sales director, I used to get dozens of cold calls every day. Most did indeed go like this…

“Hello Gavin, how are you today?” (Ugggh!)
“Fine.”
“I’m calling from It’s All About Me Recruitment Specialists, are you looking to recruit any new salespeople at the moment?”
“No.”
“I have a really good guy I have just interviewed, can I tell you about him?”
“No.”
“Oh ok, bye.”

Pointless.

There’s no point cold calling your clients without thinking preparing first and then without bothering to find out what’s important to them. There’s no point going to networking events and then not following up correctly on the phone. There’s no point working to create a Web 2.0 presence to create new leads if you do nothing with them because you cannot structure your calls effectively.

For many companies, lead generation is something that they need to do more consistently but they also need to do it better. They need to be more effective, more structured and more professional. There is little point making more cold calls of the calibre of these unprepared and unprofessional fools above.

To be a successful cold caller you need to be focused, confident and prepared. You need the right structure and approach and you need to effectively warm your calls up so that they are relevant to your prospects. And then you need powerful questions that are all about them so that you can engage them and start a meaningful dialogue.

There is a huge difference between spam cold calling and legitimate new business calls. Which side of the equation are you on? What do your prospects and clients think of your calls?

When done well, cold calling is one of (the?) fastest and most effective route to gaining more new business leads. Critically, there are times when it would be incorrect to use cold calling and something else would be more effective… but there are also times when nothing will beat cold calling and when cold calling may be the only way to reach your target market.

One of my friends (and an ex-seminar delegate) and his team, set up 250+ appointments, closed tens of millions of business and took a major market share through the use of professionally targeted b2b cold calling in a very short period of time.

What areas of your cold calling do you need to focus on to win more sales right now? How can you improve your cold calling? How can you improve your approach to be more professional, more effective and more consistent?

Filed under Gavin's rants, Prospecting & cold calling, Sales training, Stories · Tagged with , , , ,

Question: “In A World Of Social Media, Is There Any Room For Cold Calling?”

Posted by Gavin Ingham on July 30, 2009 · 1 Comment 

Short answer, “Yes, there is.”

Longer version…

Today I mentioned in a status update that I was helping some surveyors to build new business leads through cold calling sales training. I was asked the question,

“Cold calling? In an era of social media and connection?”

The answer for so many reasons is… “Yes.”

A top-class, sales development, plan should assess and consider many routes to market. Sales development is about multiple routes to market. Recent economic times prove that what you do today may well not work tomorrow. Many companies thought that what they were doing a year ago would always be good enough. Many companies thought that they did not have to consider other options to carry on succeeding. Heck, even the government thought that they had eliminated “boom and bust” for ever. They were all wrong.
If life tells you anything it is that things change. Things don’t stay the same. So it’s a good job that variety is the spice of life.

So to cold calling…

Cold calling, done correctly, can be incredibly effective. Cold calling, done well, can be powerfully effective. Cold calling, employed successfully, can catapult a business from zero to huge growth with minimal budgets and with break-neck speed. For many industries and companies failing to consider cold calling as part of their route to market is every bit as short-sighted as doing nothing but cold calling for business and employing no other strategies whatsoever. What’s more, cold calling is eminently measurable, gets immediate and tangible results and is within the control of the individual.

Yes, cold calling done badly will waste time. Cold calling done badly is disrespectful. Cold calling done badly is no better than spam. Cold calling done badly will not work. And many businesses do cold calling very, very badly… but I wasn’t talking about doing it badly now was I? That’s what sales training is for.

Many have predicted the death of cold calling many times over and many will again. Many have a vested interest in predicting this in any case. And many salespeople wish this were true as they don’t like doing it. Maybe one day it will happen but not today. Cold calling directly connects individuals to other individuals and that can’t be a bad thing in a world obsessed by email and faceless, impersonal communication.

Through sales training, sales seminars and sales consultancy, I have helped and seen businesses double sales growth rapidly by employing legitimate and professional cold calling tactics. I have helped individuals grow small businesses from scratch with proven cold calling strategies. I have helped SMEs take on international behemoths by outflanking them and taking the initiative by getting themselves in front of senior decision-makers using… guess what?… cold calling skills.

But what of social media…?

I love social media. I use social media. I spend time with social media. To a point… but it is not for everybody. Certainly, not yet anyway and maybe never. Everybody said that video would kill cinemas and, for a bit, it did but cinemas reinvented themselves and became popular again. E-books were supposed to kill printed books but Amazon, Borders, Waterstones and others (Harry “flipping” Potter to name but one)  changed this prediction.

Cold calling may change. It may be used less. It may be used more. It may stop working altogether. But, at the moment, I and many businesses have incontrovertible, black and white, bottom-line evidence that cold calling done well kicks ass in many businesses.
But as I said, I like social media too. Social media is incredibly powerful but what if…?

What if your clients have not embraced blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc? In some markets, the lion-share of individuals have not even heard of LinkedIn, they do not read blogs and many over 30 do not even have a Facebook account. To them Twitter is something they do not understand or see the point of.  I know many busy executives who make important buying decisions for companies who are “too busy to mess about on the internet” as they have “a real job to do”!

How do you reach these people through social media?

You don’t. Not yet anyway and maybe you never will. Some people do not have the time or interest for social media. Some people do not and might not “get” social media. Social media is incredibly powerful but you cannot use it to reach and engage with people who have not yet embraced it and who do not use it. Social media is powerful but it is not a wonder solution that wipes out all others. Social media is a “communication” channel and as such should only be part of an overall sales and communication strategy.

So, as I was saying…

Today I was teaching surveyors to cold call professionally to win more business. Cold calling might not work for you. It might not work for your business. But, then again, is it not possible that cold calling could be a powerful way of building business and generating sales leads for you, for your sales team and for your business? Want to know more about sales training and cold calling?

Filed under Ask Gavin, Marketing, Prospecting & cold calling · Tagged with , , , ,

Now Is The Time For Sales Heroes

Posted by Gavin Ingham on October 13, 2008 · 13 Comments 

“It’s not affected me yet!” That’s what most salespeople and busines owners were saying to me about their sales results, when booking motivational speeches and sales training programmes, until a few months ago, “It’s not affected me yet!” Few clients or business people that I meet are saying that now. Far from it. 6 months ago most were hoping that this “correction” (“credit crunch”, “recession”… call it what you will) was going to pass them by if they kept their heads down. They figured that they’d heard doom and gloom from the media before and that it would all blow over and everything would be back to business as normal.

It seems that may not be the case and that with every passing day things keep seeming to get worse. Banks seem to be failing with alarming regularity, no financial institutions seem to be safe and many companies are making redundancies and cost-savings. Everyone seems to be battening down the hatches preparing for the worst.

On a personal level many people are worried about their savings, their investments and their jobs. And don’t even get me started on pensions! This lack of confidence is being carried back into the workplace and is affecting many salespeople, business people and entrepreneurs in the way that they act, how they behave and how they sell – in work and out of it.

Companies are acting the same way and are being cautious; very cautious. And rightly so. It’s right for companies to be pulling in their belts and preparing for what could well be tough times ahead. It’s right for companies to be prudent in how they spend their money. It’s right that we all reassess what we spend our hard earned cash on.

The times of credit, credit , credit are over… probably for good… and this is going to make the job of a professional salesperson harder in the future, potentially much harder, but also very, very important.

In the boom times that we have been experiencing, many salespeople didn’t need to be very good at what they did. I have long said that many so called salespeople in many supposedly high-end industries were little more than order takers. Well if there ‘aint no easy orders, there ‘aint going to be much for them to do in the future.

I have privately, and to my inner circle, predicted that many salespeople had a rude awakening coming when their markets changed and that failing to invest in themselves, their own personal development, their sales career and failing to learn to sell properly was like sleep walking into a furnace – lethal if you don’t realise you have before the door shuts behind you!

This is serious. This isn’t no X-Factor, fantasy football or fairy tale; this is real life and real life doesn’t rely on one good song to make your fortune and get you out of the smelly stuff. Real life requires consistent work to improve and better yourself and your business. Real life requires consistent effort and motivation. Real life requires you to have the ability to get up again when all around you give up.

Real life requires sales heroes.

Sales heroes know that they have to keep getting up when all around them fall. Sales heroes know that they have to keep persisting when all around them give up. Sales heroes know that they need to be 100% on top of their game.

Let’s get one thing straight, there is still business out there. You may have to work harder to get it. You may have to work smarter to get it. You may have to be a better salesperson than you are today to get it. But get it you can, if you want to and if you’re prepared to put the effort in.

One area that deserves more effort and energy in today’s markets is prospecting. Prospecting is the very life blood of salespeople and is essential in all markets and critical in tough markets like the ones that we currently face. Prospecting is the very air that you and your business require to breathe. But it’s an area that many sales and business people do not do consistently enough. And one area of prospecting that is avoided studiously by many is cold calling…

  • Many salespeople believe that cold calling doesn’t work – they don’t know how to do it properly.
  • Many salespeople don’t get the results that they deserve when cold calling – they don’t know the correct skills.
  • Many salespeople aren’t consistent enough cold callers – they don’t know the mindsets and strategies of sales superstars.
  • Many salespeople do no prospecting other than cold calling – they’re one-trick-ponies and no-one likes that!

Cold calling may not be right for every industry and for every product, service or solution but in many industries and situations cold calling is a proven, measurable and cost-effective strategy for creating new leads, new opportunities and new clients. As part of your lead generation strategy, cold calling more than likely will have an important role to play.

I recently recorded some short video clips on various sales training and business development subjects which were going to be sold as bitesize sales training and development clips but I have decided that special times require special actions so on my website you will find a short, snappy 10 minute video on how to become a confident and effective cold caller.

Its’ yours to watch for free, all I ask is that when you have benefited from this clip, please forward it to a salesperson colleague, a sales manager or a friend who will also benefit and encourage them to join my Sales Success newsletter too. I have embedded the video from Youtube so that it is easy for you to forward the video or you can just forward the link to the free sales training, cold calling webpage.

http://www.gaviningham.com/2008/10/10/10-tips-for-confident-cold-calling-sales-training-video-1/.

I suspect there are going to be some more bad news headlines this week and plenty more doom and gloom from the media. Why not join me and swim against the current this week? It’s time for us salespeople to take a hold of this economy… watch and enjoy my video and then get out there and make things happen for you and for your business. I know that’s what I am going to do.


Have a great week and sell with passion.

Filed under Motivation & mindset, Prospecting & cold calling, Sales training · Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Who Cares About Web 2.0? Sales Training & Business Development Tips For The Uninitiated

Posted by Gavin Ingham on May 17, 2008 · 7 Comments 

web-2-120.jpgWhat is the best way to bring in and attract new business? How can companies ensure that they have a constant stream of new business opportunities? Why is it that one company has loads of leads and opportunities whilst another struggles to generate enough new prospects?

Great questions all.

One of the things that I have noticed on my travels as a motivational speaker and sales training expert is how stuck people seem to get in the way that they do things. Once someone starts to do something one way then they assume that it is the only way to operate their sales and marketing efforts. Whole companies operate “one-trick pony” sales and marketing strategies because “it’s the way that they’ve always done it”!

It reminds me of one of the first personal development stories that I ever heard…

A newly married couple have invited some friends around for Sunday lunch and they had decided to have a roast. The wife, wanting to impress her new husband (see I told you it was an old story!), is focused on doing everything perfectly. Just before she puts the beef in the oven she cuts it in half and puts each half in two separate roasting trays.

Seeing this, her new husband asks why she did this. She replies that that’s what you do for it to cook the best. Confused, the husband asks why the meat cooks better this way and the wife replies that she would have to ask her Mum as she taught her how to cook.

A few days later at the mother’s house, the husband asks his wife’s mother if she cuts her beef in half. “Yes” she replies, telling him that it helps it to cook better. He again asks why the meat cooks better and she says that her mother taught her!

A few days on the husband is visiting his wife’s grandmother and he asks her if she used to cut the roast in half. “Yes” she also replies. So he asks her why. Her answer, “Because our over is not big enough to take a full roast so we have to cut it in half for it to fit!”

Sales training moral: Just because something has always been done one way does not mean that it is the best way to do it!

I have met companies that only cold call to win new business… I have met companies that never cold call for business. The first might say, “Cold calling is the only viable way to bring in new business in our industry, it’s just so competitive.” The second might say, “Cold calling just doesn’t work in our industry, it’s just so competitive.”

Hmmm… so far, so confusing.

I don’t believe that either of these stances are correct or that either are wrong. They’re just different opinions and there are always different opinions in every market and every conversation! If, like me, you want to increase your sales, grow your business and get great results then right and wrong are not half as important as what actually works…

My sales training take on this is that I want to take the best from all sales philosophies and get the best possible results.

In my opinions there are only two correct and right answers. Your sales development activities need to:-

  1. Create enough new prospects and leads for you to hit your sales targets &
  2. Your lead generation needs to be sustainable in volatile markets.

The first question is easy enough to answer and the answer, once you’ve worked out your sales statistics, is an easy “yes” or “no”. Adjusting this answer by doing more lead generation activities is simple as long as you are committed to getting results (sales training aside: the problem being of course that many people aren’t committed enough to getting results… but more of that another day!).

The second point is perhaps the lesser asked question and it’s too easy to ignore when things are going well…

Let’s say that you only do one or two marketing activities and they both work really well bringing in enough prospects and leads for you to make oodles of sales. The temptation is to keep doing these and ignore all other lead generation and marketing activities.

This might work well for a while but there is always a danger that the market conditions might change and you will run short of leads. Now if you have the sales skills and resources to rapidly open up other routes to market then that’s fine but if you don’t… this could spell trouble. (Running short of lead generation ideas? Check out my article 98 lead generation strategies…).

At this moment in time a lot of “real world” business are ignoring so called Web 2.0 strategies.

Indeed, and on mentioning the phrase, many of them have never even heard of Web 2.0. I guess that’s not all that surprising as the world of online marketing is a difficult one to pin down and one could fill up a life time of research sifting through the online sales and marketing strategies, tactics and sales approaches to work out what does and what does not work!

So first of I suppose we should answer the question, “What is Web 2.0?”

Well there’s another nonsense question… If you search Google the first search result says “A term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform …”

Righto!

But what does that mean to you?

Web 2.0, in my mind, is the transition of moving the web from something static to something where people get involved and voice their own opinions… think blogs, social networking and video posting sites and you’re on the right track.

Perhaps 10 years ago, websites were all about putting your brochure online and getting people to look at it. Most companies couldn’t get people to look at their brochures. Even if they could they were similar to their “real” brochures so not that exciting. Most companies bombed and failed to sell successfully online. Not surprising really as people quickly realised that any idiot could put up a website and say anything about themselves or their business!

So what is Web 2.0 really?

  • Web 2.0 is the maturing of the web and the utilisation of the technology to create meaningful conversations with your prospects and customers so that they can interact with you on their terms.
  • Web 2.0 is the opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertise and to leverage the power of he web to reach and talk with your potential (and actual) client base.
  • Web 2.0 provides the chance for you to get your customers onto your website and keep them there.
  • Web 2.0 is an opportunity for you to answer customer queries and problems.
  • Web 2.0 encourages your customers to refer you to their friends, colleagues and business partners.

So what is Web 2.0 not?

  • Web 2.0 is not some magical sales lead generation elixir. Don’t listen to the hype. Great results online come from hard work and effort – exactly the same as offline.
  • Web 2.0 is not a replacement for your offline activities. If you are a “real world” business Web 2.0 should form a part of your sales and lead generation strategy but not your whole lead generation strategy!
  • Web 2.0 is not easy. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of approaches, hundreds of gurus and hundreds of “axes to grind”. Sorting out the wheat from the chaff is a full time job.
  • Web 2.0 is not the only way. Remember… a one trick pony is a one trick pony! Even if you are setting up a purely online business offline activities will increase your results. Many of the top internet marketers use offline strategies for collecting names, gaining PR, leveraging the media, getting to know their prospects and customers better…

So where does all of this leave us?

Web 2.0 is an important arm of any new business development plan. Web 2.0 can help you to make stronger and better contacts with your customers and prospects. Web 2.0 can leverage the power of technology to reach more people, more easily than ever before…

So how do I avoid the pitfalls and generate more leads and powerful interactions with my clients using web 2.0?

Great question…. And that’s for another article coming soon…

Filed under Marketing, Sales training · Tagged with , , ,

98 Lead Generation Strategies To Grow Your Business

Posted by Gavin Ingham on April 12, 2008 · 12 Comments 

lead-generation-money-120_1.JPGIn the new sales and marketing paradigm individuals, consultants, entrepreneurs and small businesses can play on a level playing field with the big boys. Anyone can embrace the power of the internet, couple this with a powerful sales and marketing strategy and bootstrap their way to success on minimal expenditure. 

In fact, minimal budgets, far from being a barrier to success, can actually focus your mind on what you really need to do to get more sales. Minimal budgets make you ask the question all of the time, "What will get me the best sales results?" Minimal budgets don’t lure you down the the tempting path of spend, spend, spend!

I had a friend who used to run a small business. He complained a lot. Mostly about lack of funds. "If only I had the funds to spend on advertising I could compete with the big boys." he used to say.

He didn’t and he went bust.

Since then he has set up a new business with a budget of  £0. He even had to use someone else’s credit card to pay the £4.99 per month for his webspace!

His business is flying. Lack of cash focused his mind.

But in today’s new selling paradigm, lead generation is key. If you don’t know how to generate leads then you’re not playing the game properly. Most small business owners and professionals I speak to employ less than 5 methods of lead generation regularly. They rarely review or change their tactics. The average number that people employ is 2 or 3.

This is not enough.

If you want a successful business you need to utilise as many methods of lead generation as you can. You need to monitor the success of these lead generation methods, measure their results and tweak your strategies until you find a mix of 7+ minimum methods that work.

Once you have this mix you need to keep on shaking it up and trying other methods as well.

Here is a list to get you started. I am not saying that all of these will work for you or be practicable in your business or industry because every situation is different. B what they will do is set you off on the right track, get you thinking creatively about lead generation and, perhaps most importantly, they will remove the biggest blocker to your sucess, "But I don’t know what to do!"

Please comment and let me know other ways that have been successful for you and which are your favourite methods out of the ones below. I will share my top 7 with you another day but for now… and in no particular order,  here are 98 lead generation strategies to help you grow your business…

  1. Sales letters to decision makers
  2. Classified advertisements
  3. Catalogues in venues
  4. Flyers
  5. Leaflet dispensers at tageted locations
  6. Special reports
  7. Online catalogues
  8. Telemarketing
  9. E-Newsletters
  10. Traditional newsletters
  11. Viral marketing
  12. Ebooks
  13. Magazine and paper inserts
  14. Associates and affiliates
  15. Introducers
  16. My top 100
  17. Family and friends
  18. Joint ventures
  19. Radio ads
  20. TV ads
  21. Position yourself / your company as an expert   
  22. Internet adverts (PPC)
  23. Press releases
  24. Yellow pages
  25. Toastmasters
  26. Sponsor an award
  27. Fax marketing
  28. Business cards
  29. Chamber of Commerce
  30. Public relations (PR)
  31. Attend industry seminars
  32. Gather and use testimonials
  33. Offer a free consultation
  34. Offer a free trial
  35. Organise an open day
  36. Promote an industry event
  37. Give endorsements to prominent people
  38. Set up a Squidoo lens
  39. Write articles online
  40. Form alliances with your peer group
  41. Create a give away e.g. calendars, mugs, posters…
  42. Write for the local newspaper
  43. Syndicate a column
  44. Write letters to industry magazines
  45. Conduct industry research
  46. Send articles to clients
  47. Advertise on buses, bill boards, cabs
  48. Speak at the local college
  49. Panel at professional seminars
  50. Write a how-to pamphlet
  51. Offer a finder’s fee
  52. Do pro bono work for charity with industry links
  53. Sign your car
  54. Make up t-shirts
  55. Do a stunt (e.g. Richard Branson)
  56. Cross-promote with other businesses
  57. Enter a contest
  58. Create a contest
  59. Direct mail new clients
  60. Post card promotions
  61. Business cards
  62. Networking offline
  63. Networking online
  64. Trade shows
  65. Referrals
  66. Speeches
  67. Cold calling – foot
  68. BNI
  69. IOD
  70. Trade shows
  71. Franchise shows
  72. Blogging
  73. Social networking sites
  74. Christmas cards
  75. Birthday cards
  76. Thank you cards
  77. Add value notes / paper cuttings
  78. Promotions
  79. Article writing
  80. Online forums
  81. Bill boards
  82. Freebie pens / t-shirts / mugs
  83. Teach a class
  84. Send letters to papers as expert
  85. Local radio interviews
  86. Loss leaders
  87. Free teleclassses
  88. 3-foot rule
  89. Podcasting
  90. Youtube
  91. Ebay
  92. Mini-courses
  93. Two-step paper ad
  94. Rotary
  95. Church
  96. Masons
  97. Golf club
  98. Press release

 

Filed under Marketing, Prospecting & cold calling, Sales training · Tagged with , , , ,

Finding New Client Information

Posted by Gavin Ingham on September 6, 2007 · 2 Comments 

Salespeople are always moaning to me about not having enough people to ring or about not having enough leads to prospect. It doesn’t seem to matter who they are or what level they are working at, comments like, “I’ve run out of people to ring” and “The database they (the management) gave me is useless” are commonplace.

Here’s the thing. There are plenty of clients out there but you have to take some action to find them. Sales people moaning and whining about this subject always reminds me of a child saying that they’re bored in the middle of the summer holidays. Nonsense.  There’s always something to do, they’re just too busy focusing on their own perceived boredom and not on what they can do. These salespeople are just the same. They are spending far too much time moaning and far too little looking for new clients!

It sounds unbelievable as I write this but I once gave one of my sales consultants Wales as a territory. That’s Wales the country not whales the animals. He came back to me a week later and said that there was no business in Wales. I asked him how he knew and he said that he’d rung everyone!

Errr, right.

Moral: There’s always more clients out there to prospect so stop moaning, get of your ass and take action.

The tips below are great for beginners as we all need to start somewhere but they’re also good for everyone else too! There’s no rocket science here, just good, solid sales habits. Infact, I hope that experienced salespeople read this and think, “I knew all of that” because at least that proves that you haven’t been asleep thus far in your career!

But, despite the fact that you may know it all, I still think you should read it and whilst you’re doing so, check that you really do do all of this stuff regularly! Many clients I have worked with kick themselves when they realise that they are not consistently doing what they know!

1. Check client websites

Client websites are a great source of knowledge. Search them. There’s more on the web than video and audio downloads and as a salesperson you should be using it. You would be quite justified in today’s marketplace spending a fair chunk of time in web research but the problem is that most salespeople seem to think that the screen on their desk is for playing on Facebook, instant messaging their friends and browsing their favourite websites! All great fun but not something that you should be doing in core selling hours!

On the web you can search and locate your target clients? Find their contact details. Check out their latest news, research their products and check out their clients to see if they may become clients of yours too! You’ll find plenty of contact details on websites They might not be the people you want but they might well be able to tell you who is!

2. Google it

The internet is phenomenal. I’m no great expert but I know there are more contact details on the internet that I could ring in a 100 million life times and it’s growing every day. Thing is, as the internet grows so the names get harder to find. Invest a small amount of time now in finiding out how to use your search engine of choice (I normally use Google and Yahoo) and get searching.

There are many free courses online which teach you how to search intelligently, indeed Google and Yahoo have fairly comprehensive instructions in advanced search terms if you choose to read about them. An hour on the internet learning how to search properly a few years ago drastically improved my ability to find more of what I wanted in my search enquiries and has saved me many hours of work since.

An increasing number of people also have their CV’s online and guess what’s on them? Contact details!

3. Your clients’ clients

Most salespeople do a deal and then either walk away from their clients or try and sell them something else. This is incredibly short sighted as your clients represent a shortcut to your long-term success. Getting a referral from a happy client is one of the most powerful sales approaches there is.

Why not organise a meeting with one of your happy clients and ask for a testimonial? If they’re happy with that ask them for a referral. Even better, tell them how your product can help their clients and how that in turn will help them. You’ll be amazed how helpful they will be.

Many salespeople do not ask for referrals for fear that their clients will say “No”. Many clients might say “No” but you only need a small handful to say “Yes” to boost your sales exponentially. I have only ever met a handful of sales professionals who always ask for referrals. Amazing! This represents a huge pool of untapped leads.

Be honest with yourself, do you always ask for referrals? Probably not. Don’t worry, it’s never too late to start!

4. Your physical sales network

All salespeople should have their own network of individuals who they can contact for help, advice and support. Some of you may have this at work but in my experience, not many. Mutually supportive and beneficial sales networks rarely occur by accident. Most are set up deliberately.

If you are a sales manager this is something that you must build within your business. If you are a salesperson then you need to create your own network. Be imaginative, who would be the best people to have in your network? It does not have to be colleagues, it could be your friends, your clients, your coach…

Think about who you can help and how. To get the sales edge you need to constantly add value to your network and make it easy for them to help you to succeed.

In my business my network consists of people in a variety of fields who can help me in a variety of ways. In today’s marketplace your physical network can even be partly (or wholly in some markets!) on the worldwide web.

5. Trade directories

Many trade directories are relatively cheap to buy and can be packed full of information. With the internet you can now view sample pages of many of them online and compare the information that you are getting. This is pretty important as not all trade directories are created the same. Some are far more up to date than others and some are far more open to approaches from sales people than others. It very much depends how and why the names were collated in the first place.

Many companies buy trade directories and ring them “willy nilly”. Whilst (if the directory is up to date) this may seem an easy way of securing names to ring, it’s also an easy way for your competitors to find names too so the clients in these directories may be a little “sales sick”.

6. Databases

These can be bought, traded or acquired but make sure that you do not fall foul of any legal requirements such as the Data Protection Act.

Many companies sell databases and some of these are remarkably good. Some are also remarkably bad!Generally speaking you get what you pay for. As with trade directories many databases will be used by call centres and cold calling teams so the “names” may well have been hammered.

This doesn’t tend to make them particularly open to cold calls so make sure that you put some thought into why they might want to speak with you and approach in the right way.

Ultimatelt, a bought database (or information) can aid a quick start but the best database is always one that you built and maintained yourself

7. Ring and ask

I often work with individuals who say that companies have “no name policies” and that potential clients will not give out any information. When I ask them how many calls they have made it is usually very few – sometimes only one.

One of my biggest breaks as a young salesman was breaking into a large software company. They had a no name’s policy and refused to give out any information. Many of my peers had tried a couple of times and failed and I had been handed this potentially huge but unassailable account.

At this stage in my career I had no magic tricks, very few strategies and even less experience. The one thing I did have however was hunger and persistence. I wasn’t going to be beaten and I rang and rang and rang this client. I kept ringing and ringing and ringing the client over a period of days and eventually someone gave me my lucky break

As my mum used to say, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again!” Great advice.

8. Call the sales dept and ask for…

Here’s a little trick that one of my first sales managers taught me. This tactic works really well if you know which company you want to talk with but you cannot find the right people to speak with. He pointed out to me that the one group of people in an organization who can rarely keep their mouths closed are the sales team!

If you really cannot find the names of the people that you need to approach then give the sales team a try! It’s easy ot get through (who won’t put you through to the sales team?) and they’re usually pretty talkative. Who knows, they may even become a part of your sales support network!

9. Read! Read! Read!

Spending some time every day reading is not only an enjoyable part of my day it has also delivered several of the best clients that I have ever approached. Many of these I had never even heard of until I read something written by or about them! I’ve picked up really hot leads in newspapers – national and local – magazines, trade magazines, online ezines, circulars.

One of my first MDs hated me sitting reading the industry press because he thought that it was a "waste of time" but I wasn’t listening because I knew just how many of my clients had been "cherry picked" this way.

Probably every company you will ever want to deal with has at some time or other spoken to the press, launched a new product or put out a press release. This is a great way in to companies and one that rarely fails when done well.

Now if you’re reading this thinking that you’ve already tried this approch but that it didn’t work, it’s probably because your approach was too focused on you and your products. The key to making this approach work is in making your opening gambit totally client and individual centric.

Let’s say an outsourcing company have just won a new contract to roll out some software with a national company and they are bragging about it in the paper for some PR. They’re going to get plenty of call from salespeople saying things like…

"Hey Mike

This is John from XYZ software. I see you’ve won the contract for Blah National – well done. We specialise in that kind of roll out and I’d like to talk with you about it. Can we meet?"

Let’s face it – this is not going to work! Not by a long shot! Think about it…

1. Why does Mike care?
2. Mike knows you don’t really mean “well done”!
3. This is the 5th call today he has had like this!

You need to research more and plan your opening gambit carefully. There are many different approaches that could work… Why not practise now and think about how you would you approach this one in such a way that it showed the client that you were genuinely interested in them and their company?

10. Your personal network

At the age of 19 I was sold a pension by a friend of mine. He had gone to work for a company selling pensions and the first thing he was asked to do was list 200 people he knew on a piece of paper. If the employees could not write down 200 names then they were sacked!

They were then asked to go and “practice” their techniques on 200 family and friends. If they couldn’t do this they were sacked! If they didn’t make many sales to their family and friends, guess what, they were sacked!

I suppose that for the company this was a great way of testing their potential staff and also a good way of making sales because surely a large number of “friends” and family would make a purchase if only to “help out” the employee! Even if they didn’t make it in the trade the company would have made a few sales before they left!

So I don’t put this strategy first, I put it last! And I think that you need to know your stuff well before you approach your friends and family because they will hopefully be your friends and family long after you retire or change jobs!

That said, if you’re remotely social, your personal network will be able to help you a lot but (and I do find this a bit bizarre) they probably won’t unless you find a way of suggesting that they can. I think sometimes it’s just easier for them not to.

So there you are, 10 great ways of finding new client information. Why not share your favourite ideas and tips by commenting below. Happy hunting.

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