Should you leave a voicemail message or should you hang up when cold calling? I have seen both work, but with caller ID just hanging up becomes a little more obvious to the prospect and can work against you. I suggest polishing up on your voice messages to increase the number of call backs and position yourself as someone your prospect would like to talk with. Leaving a bunch of missed calls will probably not peak a quality prospects interest in speaking with you.
Don't give up if your phone does not start ringing off the hook with call backs. If you are calling on busy people it will probably require more than one call to get through. Still, if your messages establish credibility, piques curiosity and closes with confidence you will see progress.
Jill Konrath, sales strategist and bestselling author of Selling to Big Companies and SNAP Selling has a very good short video on How to Leave Effective Voicemail Messages. If you follow her advice and examples you should be well on your way to more appointments and sales.
Here are the three points Jill suggests to improve your message on her video.
1. Establish credibility by showing you understand what is happening in their market place.
2. Pique their curiosity by stressing your value proposition or what might have been realized by one of your other clients.
3. Close confidently by sounding equal to the prospect not like a self serving sales person needing to get something from them.
My last tip would be to have a strategy when leaving multiple messages with one prospect. Plan more than your original message. Make sure there is value and connection between your messages and keep them brief.
If you want to see more of what Jill has to offer, find her at www.sellingtobigcompanies.com.
If you or your sales team wants help crafting your message give me a call and we can set up a time to do that 916-596-3713.
Have you walked into a selling situation where the prospects seem completely sold on another vendor or approach and shows little interest in hearing about your solution? Sometimes it might feel as if they are defending their preference as a protection from hearing something new. Let's say they like apples and you are selling mangos. Apples might be a good solution for them, but the mangos you represent are better. How can you help your prospect
disconnect from their love of apples and be open and begin to
focus on mangos?
First, have the right attitude (no one sale matters). Don't resist their like for apples or defend your mangoes. Be open to learn.
Second, don't make assumptions, go deep into discovery. Find out what they like about apples and why they believe they are the right solution. Have them explain how apples will solve their business objectives if they know what they are. Ask quality questions to learn more about company issues, problems or objectives. You end up learning what you need without creating a wall between apples and mangos.
Third, resist the urge to say "mangos do that too but better" as you hear opportunities to share. Stay in discovery and save it for later.
Finally, when you have gained a clear understanding of their problems, goals or objectives and how they understand apples will help them, use this type of phrasing as your "disconnect and re-focus."
"You have done a very good job at identifying apples as a good solution for you. We don't sell apples, but many of our customers used to buy apples as their solution until they learned how mangos were able to exceed their apple expectations. Would you be interested in learning more about why others are choosing mangos to solve the problems you have expressed and attain your objectives in a more effective and efficient manner? (Of course using specifics they share will be better)
If you get a yes - you have just completed your disconnect and re-focus and it is time to get back to your selling process.
One last reminder: What you resist will persist, when you are okay with someone liking apples you give them room to listen to what mangos have to offer.
Business relationships are no different than personal relationships. Things can go awry when we take things for granted, become less appreciative or neglect the details that first built the strong relationship. When a competitive large sales opportunity presents itself with an existing client or customer an easy trap to fall into is, trusting your key contact (the one with the strong relationship) to do your selling for you.
When you are servicing an account, making small or average sales you will tend to work with the same person for all the buying decisions. You build a strong relationship and there is trust being built. When a new system or major purchase is being considered it is easy to continue selling to the same person you always have in the past, trusting them to do your selling up. This usually happens for a couple of reasons. One; you are getting good vibes; they are saying they will recommend you and two; it is sometimes awkward to work around them to their boss and peers.
On the other hand, the competitor is going straight to the top to sell down, instead of up. If they get to the top level and convince them of their value, your years of relationship can be in serious jeopardy. You obviously don't want this to happen, so I recommend the following sales tips to prevent losing what should be yours.
- Do your job. Remember you have a job to do, not just a relationship to build. As a sales professional we are there to help buyers make quality decisions, hopefully in our favor. If there are new buyers with authority to make a larger purchase they deserve to hear from you so they can make a quality decision just as your regular contact has in the past.
- Don't take anything for granted. Every buying decision must be justified. Never let the past be the justification for a new buying decision. Perform your quality discovery and present a solid ROI. Don't let the "good feeling" from your solid relationship cause you to take a short cut.
- Don't get bogged in technology and features. When you are servicing an account you will tend to discuss features and technology more as the buyer is already sold on the strategic advantage of doing so. When a larger purchase is in play and new buyers are involved, make sure you are talking about their strategic objectives and how your offering will help them solve their high level problems. Talking tech or features to higher level buyers will weaken your sales position.
- Take the lead. You don't need permission from your long term contact to do your job. Lead them in a way that makes them look like a champion for doing business all the years that they have.
When things are comfortable it is easy to fall asleep on the job. If you approach each sale as if you were winning it away from your competitor you will stay sharp, serve your customer and preserve a strong relationship for the future.
There was a time when leading the sales process was very easy as buyers depended on salespeople to be the expert. Today, buyers are much more educated and informed and will at times tend to lead the sales process themselves, but don't let it happen.
As a Service-Minded salesperson you are there to lead buyers through the sales process and help them make a quality decision related to your offering. Leading does not mean controlling; there is a difference between the two. When leading, you allow the buyer to follow. When controlling you leave them no choice. Buyers like choices.
Here are five key areas you want to lead buyers into discovering or confirming.
- What problem they are solving or goal they are attaining that will support their company initiatives and plans.
- What their decision making criteria is.
- How any solution matches with their goals and criteria.
- They are convinced of the value and return on their investment.
- They are convinced and comfortable working with you.
It is the salespersons responsibility to help them understand these five areas.
So how are you doing at leading? If you want to take a quick look, answer the questions below.
- Are you assuming leadership of the sales process?
- Do you explain your process up front and get the buyers buy-in on following it?
- Are you willing to walk from companies that will not allow you to lead or follow a good process?
- When you receive fluffy, surface answers to tough business questions do you settle or ask a deeper question?
- Do you ever deliver or present your solution without confirming that the buyers understand the value tied to their problems, goals or vision?
- Do you accept when you are told you will not be meeting with decision makers, or do you sell them on why you need to?
- Do you let your good feelings about the deal or conversations cause you to take short cuts in your process?
Being a Service-Minded sales person does not mean you will win every deal you are involved in, but it does mean you will help your buyer be very clear about the value you offer and follow a quality buying process. To do this will require leadership.
What is the value of the contacts you made today? If you have an answer to this question you are viewing the value of your contacts from a short term perspective. We never will know the value of any contact (person we converse with and get to know) until their life is over. So how do you increase the lifetime value of each contact you make? Most professional B2B Sales Managers would suggest:
- Don't care about how much value someone can bring to you, but you do care about how much you can bring to them.
- Stop looking at "people" as prospects, suspects, customers and clients and you see them as people who might be able to use your help.
- Never determine the value of a relationship on whether they buy from you or not. Offer them your best if you win or lose, and maintain a relationship.
- Always give to the relationship when you get a chance. This could be as simple as staying in touch with a call, card or email, or sending them information that they can use in their business orlife.
- Genuinely care. Don't worry about if you are crossing some business/personal line. Caring is always good if it is recognized or not.
- Never burn a bridge, even if one is burnt back to you.
- Follow your heart; it is less risky than keeping up with the Jones'.
Supporting Case Study:
Three years ago a consultant met and proposed a sales management solution to a V.P. of a large regional company. The V.P. chose not to buy, but the consultant stayed in touch. He contacted him two or three times for the past three years with industry information that might have been helpful to the V.P. This year one of the consultant's clients opened an office in the V.P.s area. He gave the V.P. a call to see if his company would like to meet his client, for a possible strategic partnership. Two meetings later the two companies started a relationship.
Because the consultant was not short-sighted and practices building lifetime value this partnership was possible. Time will tell but I anticipate the value the two companies bring to each other will be significant over the coming years. As for the consultant, he happens to earn an overide based on sales of his client which will return value to him.
Richard Saling on Linked in asked this great question. "When does persistence cross the line to diminishing returns. We all hear about the importance of persistence. That old saying "Persistence pays off", but how much is too much where you become an annoyance?" I also answered this same question in a coaching meeting today, so here is your sales tip of today.
You are an annoyance when the other individual is not interested in hearing from you at that time. The best way I have found to minimize allowing my persistence become an annoyance is to remain interesting to the other person (lets speak of a prospective customer for now)
This is accomplished by:
- Being very clear about how they want to buy.
- Quit fitting them into your time table and work yourself into theirs.
- Include them in on how they want to be worked with by asking.
- Be willing to hear an early no - ask questions (not closing ??) but questions that allow them to tell you if they are interested in continuing the process or not.
- Be clear about dates, times and purposes of any follow up call.
- Always bring value or new information when you make a contact, it will keep you on their interesting list.
If you are doing these well and the prospect is honest about his interest, I assume delays are a shift in their priorities. I might leave a VM or email like this:
"Joe - you must be swamped or some new priorities have piled on you since we last spoke. How would you like me to follow up with you? Do you still want to proceed with the process we are engaged in? I can be patient if needed, just let me know how to serve."
I then let the sales process go we were engaged in and convert them to a prospective opportunity that I need to market to for a future sales process.
I think many sales people try to keep a dead sales process alive to long and instead need to shift back to marketing (creating interest). If you don't it will impact your sales motivation in a negative manner.
Lastly - Don't call up and say, I was just checking in (there is no purpose or power in this line).
Check out my article on No One Sale Matters to put yourself in the right frame of mind to ask these questions.
We are selling in a different time. In general I have heard these trends. Decisions are being delayed, pricing is more scrutinized and in general decision makers are not as decisive. This all leads to a longer selling cycle. For a Small Business Sales Team this can be an anxious time.
It does not mean you will sell less over time, it does mean you might experience a short term down turn. You probably have time on your hands that used to be filled with closing activity. What should you do?
Lets cover what you should and should not do.
- » Don’t spend all your time trying to close a deal that is on a delay.
- » Do adjust your follow up appropriately to be ready to close when they are ready to buy.
- » Don’t assume people are not interested in buying.
- » Do prospect more than you did last year to find the buyers and be prepared to make up for any current lull.
- » Don’t assume what worked last year will work this year.
- » Make sure you are educating buyers thoroughly and provide your best ROI justifications.
- » Don’t get sucked into negative talk.
- » Be a positive light through this time, people will remember you.
- » Don’t assume your pricing will work.
- » See what your vendors can do for you so you can adjust pricing to clients.
Those who work harder and smarter today will be okay and prepare themselves for a bonanza once things start flowing again.
A lesson I learned about fly fishing relates to the sales process of landing a big deal. I was taught my chances of catching a big fish were increased not by the amount of times I presented a fly, but in the quality and timeliness of my presentation.
The other day during a direct sales coaching session the salesperson shared he was having a hard time marketing his service but then went on for five minutes to try and convince me (or him) about all the benefits of the service. I had to stop him and let him know that if he was doing the same with propsects, he was scaring them away.
The advice I recieved about fishing could be applied in his marketing situations. The fishing pro advised me to cast less often so I would not scare the fish away or have them become disinterested in my presentation. When sales people talk, talk, and talk about all the features and benefits of their products and services, they are over casting and losing their prospect interest.
To land the big fish, I was instructed to take my time and study their eating patterns. Kick back and watch as they gently rose up and swallowed their next morsel. If I did not take the time to learn, I would have walked right by the big fish not noticing they were there. Big fish are more subtle and wise. They don’t jump out of the water to catch a small fly, they wait until what they really want and need shows up.
The point is this. If you want to land a bigger deal, take your time. Don’t rush in and expect people to love what you have. Forget about what you have, and learn about what they need and want, practice consultative selling. Learn about how they like to buy and how often they buy. When you have gathered enough knowledge, check and see if you have the right fly in your service box, take aim, and present your best cast in a way that draws them in.