What Are The First 15 Words To Say To A Prospect To Get Them Hooked Into A Conversation?
Here’s a question that one of my contacts asked recently that I thought I would share with you, “So I have got past the gatekeeper – after the introduction, what are the first 15 words (or so) I say to a prospect that’s going to get them hooked into a conversation?”
And here’s my answer…
One of the questions I always ask delegates in sales training seminars is, “How long do you have to make a first impression?” The answer they give me varies but is always no more than a handful of seconds. In today’s world, people make decisions very quickly and, upon receiving a cold call, even quicker still!
From a receiver’s perspective, they want to decide as fast as possible whether this call is a legitimate, business interruption or a nuisance, spam call. There are three things you need to consider to maximize your chances of achieving the former and minimize your chances of suffering the latter…
- Plan and prepare effectively. Understand why you are calling that individual, why now and how you can make a difference for them. Also, get yourself into the right mindset. Mindset is critical for cold calling (and indeed for selling) and I will be posting some sales training videos on this soon…
- Know how you answer their key question, “What’s in this for me?” If you can’t and don’t answer that, and quickly, you’re toast!
- Avoid coming across as a salesperson and using “crash and burn” sales phrases. I teach people how not to use these on my programmes but the easiest way of thinking about them for yourself is to think about the cold calls you get and think about what really puts your back up at the start of the call… and don’t do it!
For more on cold calling, have a look at this short video I did on 10 tips for cold calling.
10 Sales Training Tips That Will Help You To Make More Sales
I am feeling short , sharp and snappy today so here are 10 sales training tips that will help you to win more business…
- Play from a 10.
Attitude is your ability to access your skill. If you’re not on top of your game, you won’t make many sales. We all know that, yet many salespeople don’t fire on all cylinders when they need to. Try measuring your attitude on a scale of 1 to 10 and concentrate on ensuring that you are on top of your game for all important sales tasks such as prospecting, meetings, presentations, negotiations… - Believe & achieve.
If you believe you can, you’re probably right. If you believe you can’t, you more than definitely are! What you believe is one of the biggest predictors of what you will accomplish. Believe you can maintain profit margins, guess what you’ll fight to achieve? Believe you can’t, and guess what? Oh dear! Ask yourself, “What do I need to believe to achieve sales success?” - Care about your clients.
Many clients don’t engage with salespeople fully or honestly because they have been “abused” by a salesperson who was only interested in themselves at some point or other. Most salespeople care only about the sales and themselves, not their clients. Prove you are different by focusing on adopting the mindset of genuinely caring about your clients. - Set big goals.
Set your sights on the stars. Go for gold. Think big and go for it. Mediocre goals and targets are for sales wimps not sales superstars! What do you want to achieve in 2010? What clients do you want to engage with? How much revenue do you want to secure? What are your goals for yourself, your business and your life? - Take action.
Nothing happens when no-one does anything. Most people sit chatting, surfing the internet and faffing around with their “to-do” piles whilst sales winners make money. What can you do today that will take you one step close to your dreams and goals? - Ask great questions.
Sales superstars ask great questions. Great questions come from a mindset of genuine interest in the client, their business and their life. Do an audit of your questioning skills and habits. Plan and design some new questions to try out. What can you do to improve your questioning techniques? - Listen.
No point asking questions if you don’t listen to the answers. Listen to what your clients say. Listen to what they nearly say. Listen to what they didn’t say. Listen to what they meant. Listen to genuinely understand. Listen without an agenda. The objective of listening is to understand, really understand, what your clients are talking about… from their perspective. How would you rate your listening habits? - Add value.
How can you add value for your clients? How can you help your clients? Without knowing how you add value you will be constantly battling with your clients over price. You should be selling on value not price. What questions can you ask your clients to better understand why they want and need you and how you add value. - Match don’t pitch.
Pitch – the worst and most misleading word in selling. Pitch is what you do to a baseball, not a client.Dictionary: Pitch – to throw, fling, hurl, or toss. So that’s going to work then! You shouldn’t talk solutions until you know what a client wants and needs and why. Match don’t pitch. Ask yourself, “What does this client want and need and why?” Don’t guess, ask! - Keep learning.
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone loses sales. Everyone gets knocked down by the express train that is life. How fast are you going to get up and what are you going to learn so that you can perform better next time? Great salespeople keep theirsales techniques and sales strategies sharp by reading sales books, attending sales seminars, learning from others and self-assessment. Do you?
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final
The final of the Apprentice. Cool, professional Kate versus passionate, entrepreneurial Yasmina. Their brief, design and pitch a new brand of chocolate. Sir Alan said they were his best candidates ever and that it was his hardest decision yet. Either could have won. Yasmina did.
So that done (!), I thought I would sum up some of the core sales training lessons from this year’s Sales Apprentice…
On sales motivation and mindset…
- Top sales performers perform, they don’t talk about performing. Sales is not about what you say you’re going to deliver. Sales is all about what you actually do deliver.
- Sales success is all about action. Success in sales does not come to those who watch the game. Success in sales comes to those who pick up the ball and play their hearts out, right the way to the final whistle.
- Maintain your focus because sales superstars are focused. They know what they want. They work out how to get it. And they take action to achieve it.
- Sales success is about taking responsibility – responsibility for yourself, your sales activities and your sales results.
- Sales success is directly related to effort.
On prospecting…
- Know your client, know your client, k-n-o-w your client.
- Set objectives for all sales activities and prospecting calls.
- Get proactive and get your prospecting done. Procrastination and lethargy are the enemy of successful new business winners.
- Get yourself in the right mental state for cold calling. Attitude is your ability to access your skills.
- Know where to expend your energy. Working smarter is the route to success.
- Know your product. Know your product. Know your product.
On selling…
- Under promise and over deliver. Delivering on your promises is essential in any business.
- Develop trust and credibility if you want top class client relationships.
- Always give 100%. Nothing short of 100% if good enough if you want to be a sales superstar.
- When negotiating, sound like you believe in what you’re saying and plan your negotiation tactics and strategies.
- Sell on value and not price.
- Maximize the impact and effectiveness of your sales activities.
- Understand your clients, their markets and their needs. Your sales presentations need to be matched and tailored to suit their wants and needs and not just your own.
- Ask better questions. Listen harder. Seek to fully understand your clients.
- Know that people buy on emotion and justify with logic.
On presenting…
- To make powerful and persuasive sales presentations you need to know your stuff, you need to know what you’re presenting, you need a solid and proven structure.
- Know your audience. Know your audience. Know your audience.
- Do your preparation and planning.
- Have a call to action. People need an incentive and encouragement to buy now.
- Practise. Practise. Practise.
- Give 100% and be yourself.
On sales leadership…
- Watch out for sales terrorists in your business who focus everyone on the negative and undermine your business. In today’s turbulent economy you cannot afford to have negativity like this in your teams.
- Utilize the skills of your team effectively. Different people have different strengths and different weaknesses and using these to best advantage is key.
- Be approachable and personable so that your team will communicate with you, confide in and support you.
- Encourage involvement and participation and create team spirit.
- Take responsibility and make decisions.
- Judge the reality of a situation not just what you believe it to be.
- Learn to delegate. Being a great leader is not about being able to do everything yourself.
- Get the right salespeople into your business to build high performance sales teams and get great sales results.
So that’s it for another year. What did you learn and what are you going to do differently to get the sales results that you want?
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VII
Week 7 and 8 apprentices remained to compete in this week’s task of choosing two products from a selection of 12 and then selling them to dealers in Manchester and Liverpool over a two day period. The winning team, as usual, would be the team which made the most sales. Sir Alan was quick to say that tonight’s task was all about sales and that everybody had to sell and that no-one would escape.
So, at last, a sales task to get our teeth into and one which they would be held personally accountable for. What sales training lessons would we learn tonight? Who would step up as a sales superstar? Who would fall on their face as a sales loser?
Team leaders were quickly elected as Lorraine for Ignite and Mona for Empire and after a roll call of the ingenious, the interesting and the downright odd our teams selected the products that they wished to sell. Lorraine’s team plumped for a cat playhouse and an expandable bag for carrying shopping on a bike. Mona and Empire were attracted to a lover’s dog lead that allows two people to walk a dog at the same time and a sleeping bag with arms and legs.
These were interesting choices particularly from Mona’s team because Sir Alan had pre-organized two meetings for them with two big retailers and neither of these products seemed like a good fit for their product ranges so they effectively dismissed two potentially huge clients before even starting out.
Sales training tip: I can’t believe I am offering this advice as it seems so obvious but, then again, salespeople, as we saw, often manage to stray far away from the obvious. When selling you need to make sure that you understand your clients, their markets and their needs. Your sales presentations need to be matched and tailored to suit their wants and needs and not just your own. With hot meetings set up with real possibilities of selling and with only one day to set up other meetings Mona’s team really should have thought about this more…
Next day in Liverpool city centre at a large hardware store Yasmina and Lorraine pitched their bike bag and their cardboard cat toy. When asked by the client how many he would have to order Lorraine said 5-6000 units. The client said that this was too many. In the board room Sir Alan was equally dismissive saying that no store could sell this amount.
Sales training tip: To be a sales superstar you need to ask better questions. To be a sales superstar you need to listen harder. To be a sales superstar you need to really understand your clients. A good strategy, rather than guessing, is to ask your client better questions such as, “How many would you typically order?” or “What size of order were you thinking about?” This also makes solid sales negotiation strategy too.
Later on, at the same hardware store, we saw the Achille’s Heel of apprenti, past and present, rear its ugly head yet again – lack of planning and preparation. Howard and Debra were presenting the sleeping bag to a buyer and when asked how much a normal sleeping bag costs they didn’t know. Howard responded with “good question” and Debra (clearly a student of the bodge it, blag it and wing it sales academy) responded with the fact that it “varies from bottom to top”.
Really Debra? You don’t say!
Sales training tip: Know your product. Know where your product sits compared to the competition. Know the relative strengths and weaknesses of your product in relation to the competition.
At the second company, Howard and Debra faired little better with Howard unaware of what departments the store had or what products they carried either…
Sales training tip: Know your prospects. To demonstrate professional respect for your prospects you should know everything about them that your prospect could reasonably have expected you to know.
Next day on team Lorraine, Lorraine was challenging Ben, Kate and Philip, over the phone, as to why they had not made any sales yet. Ben’s response was classic sales whiner, “We’ve tried booking as many as we possibly could. Basically we’ve only made one.” There was no mention of Sandhurst. Lorraine, all credit to her, wasn’t prepared to accept this and challenged him again, “How many calls did you make?” Ben, Kate and Philip weren’t sure but the answer was 10, 15, 20… they didn’t know. And it was not clear whether that was each or together but either way it was not enough.
I’d go a step further. It not only wasn’t enough, it was pathetic. And I’d like to have seen the phone bill to see how many calls they actually did make. There’s a 100k job here, you’re on TV and it’s one day only and you say you want it? Get your head up, pick the handset up and get on with it. Every time we saw you lot in that car that phone should have been glued to your ear…
I don’t rate Ben or Philip so their behaviour didn’t surprise me one bit but Kate let herself down giggling with them in the car and seemingly not caring whether she had made any sales or not. Lorraine probably hit the nail on the head when talking to Yasmina saying that she did not know what was distracting them “but I hope it’s not Kate’s beauty”. It probably was. And it seemed that Philip’s “beauty” was distracting Kate too…
Sales training tip: Maintain your focus because sales superstars are focused. They know what they want. They work out how to get it. And they take action to achieve it. They don’t, when not managed, giggle and carry on like a bunch of ill-behaved teenagers on a day trip to Scarborough for the first time.
And then, good on her, Mona stepped up and showed some solid negotiation skills. In a camping shop, a prospect said that he was interested in the sleeping bags. “I’d try a few” he said so Mona responded that she had a minimum order of 24 and quoted a price. When the client asked for a discount she asked him if he could order more. Even when he tried to finalize the deal she held firm and extracted a final concession on price.
Like it.
There is a bit of an unofficial second competition going on, not to be The Apprentice but to be the author of the best quote. If Lorraine didn’t have it in the bag already tonight with “I hope it’s not Kate’s beauty” here are a few other contenders (possibly paraphrased in places!)…
From a pet shop owner on the cat playbox, “It’s a cardboard box at the end of the day and I’m just not that bothered!” Lorraine on the North, “The wages are a little lower here.” Nick on Phil, Ben and Kate selling nothing, “Frankly them coming back to board room without sales is like popping in that cat plane and going off to fight the Battle of Britain.”
In the board room…
Mona and Empire made £4501.
Lorraine and Ignite made £1302.
A hammering for Lorraine’s team and all the more telling because Mona’s team, due to their poor choice of products, had sold nothing to the two “banker” clients.
You didn’t sell, you didn’t sell and you didn’t sell barked Sir Alan jabbing his finger at Kate, Philip and Ben. Philip, who has been gobby and opinionated since day 1, was yet again blind to his failings saying that he was bewildered as to why he had not sold anything but that he, Kate and Ben were the best salespeople anyway.
Can anyone be bewildered as to why they did not perform and know that they are amazing at the same time? Is that possible?
Kate meanwhile was digging her own hole, “You can’t sell if people aren’t there” she whined. Margaret was quick to jump on her head telling her that getting appointments is part of selling. Well done Margaret, that’s why my No Fear Cold Calling programmes are so popular and so powerful for your sales and business results too!
Then Sir Alan kicked away their crutches and their excuses saying that he had got some of his people to make some calls, that they rang 6 stores and that they got in. Hee hee!
Lorraine, who I still don’t rate, but who was looking better under fire, said that she and Yasmina were “banging out calls” but that she did not sense any urgency from the other team members…
Philip and Kate meanwhile were coming under more pressure from both Sir Alan and Nick – Kate for not realizing that a client’s lack of interest is her poor selling techniques and Philip for saying he was a better salesperson than Lorraine when he sold nothing.
Lorraine elected to bring back Philip and Kate. They attacked her and she defended herself by saying that they were in a “relationship” with each other. They said that had nothing to do with it. She still has to go soon but at the start of the show I’d have buried Lorraine in this company but you know what…
Go Lorraine! Go Lorraine! See you Philip!
“Kate you have performed well in the past weeks. Philip you’re certainly a fiery person and I’m thinking… about the hundreds of other people I employ and thinking of their reaction to you and it ‘aint good the picture I have in my head… Lorraine the underlying concern I have is that you alienate people… Lorraine I am still not clear about you but Philip I think I am clear in my mind that your bravado and attitude ‘aint going to fit in my organization so Philip you’re fired…”
Outside the board room Kate turned to Lorraine, “I feel absolutely insulted that you could suggest that anything that goes on in my personal life can affect my business performance.”
But it did and Kate looked slightly less bullet-proof than she had. In the cab Philip was muttering, “I’m a much better candidate than she (Lorraine) is.”
But she’s still in it Philip and that’s what counts.
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IV
Tonight’s task on the sales apprentice was to produce two original and natural body care products and then sell them to the public. The team leaders were selected personally by Sir Alan and were Noorul and Paula… let the battle of the ex public sector employees commence.
Paula’s Empire team quickly decided that they were going to produce a shower gel and a soap using seaweed as their natural ingredient. Given the importance of profit margins in this task, this was a smart move and made it a shame that the later mess-ups elsewhere on costing totally wiped this advantage out. Paula was quick to recognize her blind spot in the area of finance and appointed Ben and Yasmina in charge of costs and finances.
Sales training & leadership tip: As a business or sales team leader it is important that you utilize the skills of your team effectively. Different people have different strengths and different weaknesses and using these to your best advantage makes sense. It’s not often on the Apprentice (or in life) that people are honest about their own weaknesses but being honest with yourself is a sure route to self-improvement (For more on sales leadership see my book Motivate People).
Over on the other team, Noorul “I talk posh” and his team looked particularly uninspired, an air which they managed to carry with them right up until the final stages of the task. This team didn’t seem to gel at all tonight. Usually on the Apprentice this seems to be because there are too many queen bees fighting over the hive and not enough workers but tonight it did genuinely seem that none of them wanted to lead… particularly not Noorul. Eventually, and half-heartedly, Ignite decided that their products were going to be a bubble bath and a soap, both using honey as their natural ingredient.
As the two teams spread their energies between bee bothering, beach combing and mad-professor-like-tasks in the laboratory, Ben was hanging back from getting too involved, “At the end of the day, I’m a bloke and they’re girls… they know all about soaps and smelly things” he mused. And whilst Ben had his eye off the ball, Yasmina and Paula made a defining mistake, confusing Cedarwood and Sandalwood (the former costing about £20 per kilo and the latter over £1200). This monumental cock-up was to overshadow the rest of the task.
With their products created, both teams set about designing their “brand identities”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but brand is not the same as designing a label and some fancy stationery. Brand is about identity, about values, about how a company is perceived by its consumers; it is not just a case of designing some fancy packaging. For sure, packaging is A part of your brand but when you’re selling on the streets for just one day you are not designing a brand anyway, you’re designing something eye-catching, or pretty, or striking that will help you to sell more… today.
And then Debra noticed the Sandalwood on the “recipe” and asked Paula why they were using an ingredient that costed £1259.90 per kilo? Paula responded that they were only using about a half a gramme; Yasmina, meanwhile, was pouring in 450 grammes.
Sales training thought: Know your costs. This blog is about sales and sales training. This blog is about building profitable businesses. This blog is about creating, motivating and leading market leading sales teams. This blog is about increasing sales and increasing turnover. It’s not about accountancy or advanced arithmetic but the facts remain that if your cost of sale is too high it matters not how good a salesperson you are or how great a sales team you can muster and Paula’s team were living testimony to this.
On the streets…
The next day saw our sales teams head out onto the streets to sell their wares. They had 8 hours to sell as much as they could. The team making the most profit (sales less costs, obviously) would win.
Empire secured pitches in Portobello Market, Notting Hill and in Bond Street tube station. From what little we saw they seemed to be having a good sales day.
Notable high points included…
- Robust pricing. After their slip up with the costs the day before, Empire had decided to sell at twice the price they had previously intended and did so with belief.
- Know your customers and your location. Well to do customers (in Notting Hill for example) are prepared to pay for premium products.
- Sell on value and not price. By outlining the quality ingredients (Ben telling customers that Sandalwood is over £1000 per litre), talking up the freshness (we made it ourselves yesterday) and using scarcity as a sales tactic (we only have limited supply), Empire were able to keep on selling at higher prices.
- Smart selling. At the end of the day when stock was running low they upped their prices rather than lowering them, stressing the scarcity of the product and the prestige behind owning it.
Noorul’s Ignite team meanwhile were selling in Carnaby Street and Camden Lock. Enthusiasm and rapport building were helping them all to sell a decent amount of product. All that is except for Noorul who, frankly, can’t lead, can’t manage and, it appears, can’t sell for toffee either.
In the board room…
Ignite had raked in £900.85, spent £406.88 and made a profit of £493.97.
Empire raked in £1073.20, spent £1141.24 and made a loss of -£68.04.
Ouch!
This result was a shame for Empire who would have won by over £100 if they had not confused Cedarwood and Sandalwood but a lucky escape for Noorul who surely would have landed on his arse on the pavement outside Sir Alan’s offices had Ignite lost.
Sir Alan was quick to say this was all about costs but I disagree because no-one was in any doubt at the importance of costs. The failure here was a failure of common sense and a lack of focus. Cedarwood is not Sandalwood and that’s that.
The narrowness and sheer luck of their escape was totally lost on Ignite… Noorul, “We absolutely destroyed the other team” and Howard, “This is not Noorul’s win, this is our win.” Err, no chaps, this was Empire’s loss not your win.
Back in the boardroom, Paula decided to face the music with Ben and Yasmina – choosing them as she had delegated costing to them and therefore she felt that they were most responsible for the catastrophic blunder. Paula quickly passed the buck to Yasmina and Ben saying that she had tasked them with the costings. This, however pathetic it sounded, was true.
Ben said he had nothing to do with the mistake itself which was partly correct although that in itself was an admittance that he had totally failed to do what he had been asked to do. Had he looked over the pricing as asked he would have either spotted the error or blundered in the same way as both Yasmina and Paula. Yasmina admitted to her mistake but said that she should not be judged on just one mistake but on how she then dealt with it.
After some debate and plenty of arrogant shouting from Ben, who clearly thinks he is the best thing since slice bread (“We were better candidates that you are… I did outstandingly on sales… I also got a scholarship to Sandhurst… The girls even said I was brilliant at selling…”) Sir Alan sacked Paula believing her to be ultimately responsible for the fatal mistake. As project manager, clearly she was responsible, but by this rational why not just sack the losing project manager every week?
But it was obvious why Sir Alan sacked Paula – both Yasmina and Ben make good TV and have big personalities. Yasmina shows sparks of potential and Sir Alan himself said he would like to see her in a project management role again. And, arrogant and annoying as he may be, Sir Alan is unlikely to let Ben go without testing him further to see if he is all mouth or all trousers. Personally, I think he’s too arrogant and too full of himself but time will tell.
So that’s it for another week.
What was your favourite sales tip and who would you have sacked tonight?
8 More Tips For Confident Cold Calling…
I promised last post that I would continue with more of my 23 tips for confident cold calling so here are 8 more sales superstar tips that will help you to become a more confident and successful cold caller.
Tip 8
Don’t put the phone down between calls.
Putting the phone down between calls can slow you down and impede your motivation. Keep the energy going by keeping the phone in your hand once you start your cold calling sessions.
Tip 9
Wear a headset if at all possible.
Wireless ones are the best. Holding the phone to your ear can impede your movements and impact your ability to communicate naturally. By using a headset you allow yourself more freedom of movement. The more freedom of movement you have, the more you can express yourself.
Tip 10
Sit up, or better still, stand up, when on the phone.
This is a particularly useful tactic at the start of cold calling sessions or when you are feeling your enthusiasm beginning to cool off. Sitting up or standing up will inject much needed energy and vitality into your calls.
Tip 11
Keep your head up and breathe naturally.
Maintain the correct physiology by keeping your head up and breathing naturally. This helps to improve your focus, your attention and your motivation.
Tip 12
Be well prepared.
Being well prepared not only enables you to make more targeted and more professional calls but it also increases confidence because it helps you to know that you are going to make a great call.
Tip 13
Learn from your mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes. The real question is not whether you make any missteaks mistakes but whether you learn from them or not.
Tip 14
Remind yourself of past successes.
Think of a time when you achieved success through cold calling; maybe when you won a piece of new business or secured a sales appointment with an important decision maker. This will help to get you thinking positively and feeling more confident.
Tip 15
Accept that you can’t win them all.
So stop beating yourself up when you don’t! Even the best cold callers don’t get that appointment or close that deal every time so get over it already!
For more on cold calling check out my No Fear Cold Calling seminars, my Power Canvassing audio or my Power Canvassing DVD programme. Make sure that you join my Sales Success newsletter – it’s always jam-packed full of sales strategies, sales tips and sales techniques that you can use right away to boost your sales and best of all, it’s totally free.
p.s. Want to get even more tips for successful cold calling for free? Check out this video, 10 tips for confident cold calling, now.
What Are Your Favourite Sales Questions?
All sales training experts and sales gurus alike, myself included, extol the virtues of asking good questions. Asking the right question can develop rapport, increase credibility and turn a sale around.
As part of my Real World Sales Tips project I thought that it would be fun to find out what your favourite questions are to ask your clients and prospects.
To get you started here are a few from Real World Sales Skills…
- How do you currently go about…?
- How long have you been operating that way?
- When you considered the options why did you choose that solution?
- How has that solution performed against those criteria?
- What issues have you had with…?
- How often? Who was involved?
- What effect did that have on…?
- Who / what else was effected?
- What options have you considered to resolve this?
Scroll down the page to see other people’s questions and to post your thoughts and ideas.
Cold Calling Howlers, Gavin’s Kitchen Nightmares!
Last Friday I was working from home for the day. I had spent the last three days delivering two of my favourite sales seminars, No Fear Cold Calling and Professional Selling Skills, in Manchester, Nottingham and Birmingham. I was working on my forthcoming book No Fear Cold Calling and was determined to not be disturbed when my home phone rang.
After a sip of tea I decided to answer the phone just incase it was someone from my family or one of my friends. It wasn’t, it was a cold call.
Salesperson: “Hello. This is so and so from Blag & Bodgit Kitchens, how are you today?
Me: “OK.” (This is such a lame question. I don’t believe he means it! “How convenient is it to speak?” is much more polite.)
Salesperson: “We want to locate a few houses in your area so that we can redesign their kitchens and use them as show kitchens. Would you be interested?”
Me: “Maybe.” (I am currently looking to redesign the kitchen but, despite the fact that I will speak to 3 people from this company, they will never find this out! Questions are the critical piece of selling not telling).
Salesperson: “OK. Would you be prepared to take another call from a sales consultant at a later stage but I cannot say whether you will get a call back or not?”
Me: “Yes, whatever.” (Bizarre! They go to the effort of cold calling me and then arrange to maybe call me back at a non-specified time on a non-specified date in the future, maybe. What a waste of resource!)
But this kitchen company must have been eating their lucky beans because, amazingly, last night I was at home for the first time in a week and the phone rang again. Thinking it was most probably my sister calling about meeting up with my nieces over the weekend I answered it.
I was quite surprised to hear that it was Blag & Bodgit again and possibly the most frightened cold caller I have ever heard in my life. He also sounded about 12 years old. I actually felt sorry for him!
Salesperson: “Hello. I am calling from Blag & Bodgit Kitchens, one one one of my co-colleagues ra-rang you la-last week and sa-said someone m-might call you back.”
Me: “Yes.”
Salesperson: “H-how are you?”
Me: “Fine.” (Oh, come on!)
Salesperson: “Ok. Well we-we s-sell kitchens and we would like to t-talk to you about yours.”
Me: “Yes.” (What about reminding me of the call last week? I might have forgotten)
Salesperson: “H-how old is your house?”
Me: 5 years.
Salesperson: “How long have you lived there?”
Me: “5 years.”
Salesperson: “Wh-who owns the house?”
Me: “Me.”
Salesperson: “With anyone else?”
Me: “No, all mine.”
Salesperson: “Are you interested in h-having one of our s-sales consultants come out to you to see you and discuss wh-what we can do with your k-kitchen?”
Me: “Yes, that would be intersting.” (Not much of a buying signal there then!)
Salesperson: “Are you available tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes, I am working from home actually.” (The easiest close ever)
Salesperson: “Great. Can I arrange for a sales consultant to come around at 3pm, no obligation?”
Me: “Yes.” (And it’s closed. Or so you would think.)
Salesperson: “OK. Can you just hold a minute? I need to put you on to my boss.”
Me: “OK.” (Why?)
Sales manager: “Hello. This is Mr. Daft Sales Manager calling from Blag & Bodgit Kitchens. How are you?”
Me: S-i-l-e-n-c-e. (About the same as I was about 5 minutes ago mate and you’re going to have to make this good now!)
Sales manager: “Uummm. I understand that you would like to see one of our consultants tomorrow afternoon at 3pm.”
Me: “Yes.”
Sales manager: “Is it just you there tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes.”
Sales manager: “Are you married?”
Me: “No.”
Sales manager: “Do you have a partner?”
Me: “Yes.”
Sales manager: “Will she be there?”
Me: “No.”
Sales manager: “Ah. We like both partners to be there. When else can you do?”
Me: “That could be difficult, one or the other of us is usually away.” (And this is my house as I told your monkey and it is also totally my decision. I feel like I have been interrogated. This is not how questioning should be done!)
Sales manager: “We would need to see both of you.”
Me: “Really.” (Losing patience now. Ok, so it’s fair to assume that husband / wife, boyfriend / girlfriend, fiancées or partners, make decisions together but you ought to ask more questions not just assume it. This assumption is about to lose Blag & Bodgit a prospective kitchen because they will not get through the door again.)
Sales manager: “Yes.”
Me: “Could be weeks.”
Sales manager: “When?”
Me: “Call me back when I get back off holiday in 4 weeks.”
Sales manager: “OK. What day?”
Me: “I have no idea. You’ll have to try me.”
Sales manager: “OK.”
Me: “Bye.” (They are now going to waste even more time trying to get hold of me whilst I am going to pick up the Yellow Pages and buy my kitchen elsewhere.)
Some companies are better trained than others. Some salespeople have more cold calling experience than others. But this particular company clearly makes cold calling people in their homes a crucial part of their sales operation and as such should not be burning opportunities like this.
There is a whole school of thought that argues that cold calling is a waste of time. If it was all done like this I am sure this would be true!
Fortunately, having trained thousands of salespeople, business owners and entrepreneurs in many different industries, and watched them set up meetings, close sales and dramatically increase their sales results using proven cold calling techniques, I know this to be untrue.
If you can get in the right state of mind, warm your calls up through correct planning, remove the aggression and stress present in most cold calls, centre your call around your prospect and demonstrate genuine interest, then cold calling can dramatically boost your sales results and help you to trounce your competition.
Why not share the worst / best cold call anyone ever made to you below?
How To Build Confidence And Close More Sales
Confidence! You either have it or you don’t. There’s confident people and there’s not. It’s the way that we are made. There’s nothing you can do about it.
That’s what perceived wisdom would have us believe about confidence but perceived wisdom about confidence, as about many things, is seriously wrong. Perceived wisdom can also seriously damage your sales results, your sales career, your business and potentially your life.
Know this, confidence is a mental programme. It’s something that we do not something that we are. It’s a way of thinking. That means that it’s something that everyone can learn.
The question is then – how important is it to you to learn it?
If you want to be a great sales professional or a successful business owner it should be very important to you. Confidence changes your sales behavioues and the way you approach challenges. It changes your actions and your results. It changes your image, your appearance to others and your influence skills when selling. Ultimately, confidence will change your sales results and your business!
Unfortunately, many not so confident people make excuses… the most common being, “Ah yes, but too much confidence will make me arrogant”. Wrong! More confidence just makes you more confident only more arrogance can make you arrogant!
Building confidence can be done in many ways – try some of these strategies and see which work best for you…
1. Ask for client testimonials
Collecting client testimonials after a successful sale can work wonders for building confidence. Imagine what it would be like to have a file of testimonials from delighted clients who all think you are just fantastic! Feels good doesn’t it!
Collecting client testimonials will also strengthen your beliefs about the value that your products, services or solutions provide to your clients. Salespeople who really believe in the value that their product adds sell more and at higher prices. That means more profits and more commissions! Most salespeople blather on and on about adding value but most don’t spend enough time really focusing on it!
When you take the time to solicit, compile and appreciate client testimonials you will feel more confident in the face of client rejections and cynicism.
What are you waiting for?
2. Compile case studies
Much like gathering client testimonials, compiling case studies is great for building your confidence. It is, of course, phenomenally useful for your sales presentations too!
Get detailed studies of clients that you have worked with successfully. Consider interviewing them to put together this study too. Sometimes we underestimate the real impact that our solutions and products have within the businesses of our clients. By taking the time to do this exercise we not only create robust beliefs about our solutions but we also ramp up our confidence and realise solid and credible marketing materials to boot!
3. Log personal successes, wins and sales
What has been your best success since you’ve been in sales? When did you last think about it? Probably not recently enough I would guess. In our society we are incredibly adept at minimising our successes. For most people this started as children when parents and teachers told us not to be “big-headed”! Many people take this to heart and never really appreciate success when they really do achieve something worthwhile focusing instead on the times that they fail!
This is not how to build confidence.
I attended a sales training seminar recently and one of the speakers said that you are only as good as your last sale. Now, I understand why he said this but I don’t agree with him. Clearly, what he really meant was that you shouldn’t rest on your laurels after you’ve made a sale. He meant to say that you should carry on working hard.
But he didn’t say that. Not at all. The (somewhat common) statement that he made was entirely different. What’s worse, most salespeople have probably heard this saying and probably believe it too. And that, as they say, is a problem…
Think about it. If you’re only as good as your last sale and your last sale was a disaster then what does that make you?
A-ha!
On my sales training seminars I help salespeople, business owners and entrepreneurs to believe this. You are a success. That fact never changes. My belief is that you are way better than even your best sale because you have unlimited potential. Now that’s a confidence builder.
Start now and log your best sales successes, wins and deals and use them to catapult your confidence into the stratosphere.
4. Visualise previous successes
Someone once said that we are what we think about most. I believe this to be true. Emotion is really a series of mental activities so we can “do” confidence any time we like by simply remembering a time when we were super, super confident. By actually remembering a time when we felt confident we actually start to feel more confident.
Try it out now. Think of a time when you were super confident. What were you doing? What were you thinking? What thoughts were going on in your head? Who were you with? Now double the confidence and live the moment like it was now.
Feel more confident? Of course you do. You can do this any time you need to, to feel more confident. The more often you do it, the easier it will get, the more confident you will become and the more you can use this technique to supercharge your sales results.
5. Vividly imagine being confident in future sales meetings, presentations, negotiations…
The next step from the exercise above is to choose a future sales situation where you might not feel so confident. Now lay that to one side in your mind and use the technique above to get yourself into a confident and resourceful state. When you are really confident, think about the "unconfident" future scenario but this time dealing with it from your super confident state.
Take some time with this visualisation and notice how you act, think, move and feel differently than you normally would. Note the changes in attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Learn what you need to learn and then repeat the process a few times over.
Next time you get into this kind of selling situation you are far more likely to access or be able to access your more confident state. If it doesn’t work perfectly at first, keep practising. The more that you practise, the better this process will work for you.
6. Ask your clients why they bought from you
One of the most empowering things I ever did was by mistake. Life’s funny like that I find, it has a tendency of teaching us what we need to know but most of us ignore it every day!
Anyway, I was doing some research with my clients and customers to help me to improve my sales results. I wanted to know why they bought from me in the first place to see if I could use this to my advantage in future sales situations.
It’s certainly fair to say that I did get some great sales tips but one of the main things that I discovered was that I had loads of clients who wanted to tell me all of the positive reasons that they bought from me and not from my competitors. Understandably, this gave me a major confidence boost!
Bonus!
7. Acknowledge and accept compliments, “Thank you…”
In our society we are really good at refusing compliments. Have you ever worked really hard on something and then when you got a compliment said something like, “Oh! It was nothing”?
We all do it. As I said earlier, this sort of thing is usually trained into us as children! When you think about it, what we’re really doing is refusing the compliment! I’m sure that the “grown-ups” who taught us this practise were only doing their best but frankly it’s not useful for either you or the “complimentee”.
Next time someone gives you a compliment say, “Thank you” and shut up. This approach might feel a little uncomfortable at first, maybe even a little like you’re being arrogant. (How weird is that?) But once you get into the habit of accepting the compliment you will feel liberated. What’s more the “complimentee” will feel better too so a real win-win situation.
8. Ask, “Why do you say that”
Here’s a technique that I use that will help you to build confidence. It is an extension of the technique above.
Let’s say that someone comes up to me and says, “Great speech” after a sales conference or seminar. I say, “Thank you. Pleased you enjoyed it. What particularly did you like about it?” And then I shut up and listen.
Three things are happening here. I am accepting the compliment, “Thank you.” That’s great for me! Secondly, the “complimentee” feels heard. And thirdly, I am seeking concrete evidence – “What particularly?” to support the compliment and to make it even more powerful for me.
I’m not saying that you should use this approach all of the time but when you do use it, it is an important way of underpinning your growing confidence.
9. Model confident people
To be successful you need to model successful people. Modelling is an approach to analysing, understanding and copying someone else’s success strategies. It is based on the principle that if one person can do something, so can another! Modelling is one of my preferred strategies for achieving anything that I want to achieve.
First off, find someone who can really do what you want to do. In this case then that is someone who is extremely confident. Even better, pick an extremely confident business or sales person. Analyse their values, beliefs, emotions and behaviours and then try them out yourself!
The beauty of modelling is that you can model not only people that you know but also people that you’ve read about or know of. Obviously, the more information you have on someone, the more effective this approach is likely to be.
if you haven’t got anyone to model then invest some time and money in reading, listening to or watching sales books, sales audios and sales DVDs from sales and business experts. From these you can not only learn the skills but uncover the attitudes and beliefs too.
10. Ask yourself better questions
Use this technique when you are preparing for an event – whether cold calling session, sales meeting, sales negotiation or sales presentation – where you think you may not be quite as confident as you’d like to be.
Take some time beforehand to construct some questions that will focus your mind on how you can be more confident. These pre-selected internal questions will focus your thoughts and therefore your emotions. The quality of your internal questions is essential if you wish to be more confident.
Here are some starters for ten… “How can I feel confident in this situation?”, “How would I behave if I was totally confident?” and, “What do I need to learn to feel confident all of the time?”
So there we are, 10 tips for building super, sales confidence that will allow you to influence more effectively, sell more congruently and win more sales. These strategies are incredibly powerful but remember… Reading them is not enough. You need to take consistent action.
What can you do to start building your confidence and your success today?
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