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| Sales Management Information |
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3 Steps To Getting A Sales Meeting
The best way to get a new customer is to clearly identify who you want to do business with and then get in front of them. They can then see what you look like, possibly see what your product looks like and also examine any data or statistics you might have. It gives you the ideal opportunity to start building a positive working relationship with your potential customer. Advertising, direct mail, web sites and telesales all have their place but nothing beats the face to face interview. The first challenge is, of course, getting to speak to your prospect and arrange a meeting. When you phone your prospect's organisation it's highly possible you won't get through initially even if you have their direct number. There's always an assistant, a colleague or voice mail to deal with. # 1 Deal with the other person 1. Always be pleasant and polite. Use the person's name as soon as you know it but not over familiar. 2. Use your prospects name and your name; say - "Will you please tell John Smith that Alan Fairweather is on the phone for him." 3. If you are asked what it's about, say - "It's about the contents of a letter Mr Smith has received. (More later) Will you tell him that Alan Fairweather is on the phone for him please!" 4. If you are told that your prospect is in a meeting, find out what time they'll be out of the meeting and ask if it that would be a good time to call. 5. Thank the person for their help and say - "I'll call back at 3.30 and look forward to speaking to John then. Thanks for your help Mary." None of this is easy but persevere and don't be nuisance. Always be friendly, firm and courteous with Mary. It sometimes helps to send a brief letter to your prospect explaining that you'll call to arrange a short meeting. (Don't use the word appointment). Briefly state your product or service benefit or even a couple of questions at the start of the letter. But don't make it a sales letter and don't enclose literature. (Your prospect gets enough of the stuff). # 2 Deal with voice mail: 1. Give your name, business name and phone number. Speak slow and clear, warm, friendly and businesslike. 2. Say what you do - "Were the people who minimise production time and cost on..... I'd appreciate the courtesy of a return call on ........" 3. You might want to make an appointment to call - "I appreciate you are very busy Mr Smith, however I have some interesting information for you. I'll call back at 3pm and would be pleased if you'd speak to me." 4. Follow up with a fax or email and make it human. 5. Leave your phone number again, slow and clear. Again this is a challenge, however if you sound warm and friendly and that you could be worth talking to, then you'll get call backs. Always keep customer details handy because when prospects call back they say - "Hi Alan, its Fred I'm returning your call." If you made twenty calls that day you may not initially know who Fred is, so be prepared. # 3 Sell the meeting Once you speak to your prospect on the 'phone you need to do a good selling job to get the meeting. Most of the time they're going to say something like - "I'm not really interested, we already have a supplier, I'm a bit busy at present." Always keep in mind that the majority of prospects are reasonable human beings and they have nothing against you personally. There's also a strong possibility that they'll welcome a visit from you if you sound warm, friendly and businesslike. If you sound like you have some worthwhile information to impart and you don't sound pushy or manipulative then you are more likely to get that meeting. Plan your call carefully and consider the following. 1. Greeting - Speak slowly and clearly using the prospects name, your name, and your business name 2. Courtesy - Ask if it's convenient to speak 3. Introduction - Say what you do and provide a benefit to the prospect 4. Close - Ask for a short meeting at mutually convenient time 5. Deal with resistance - Acknowledge what the prospect says, outweigh with a benefit and close again 6. Don't use the word "appointment" 7. Don't start selling your product/service on the 'phone only sell the meeting 8. Don't say you'll send literature, say you'll bring it with you 9. Don't be pushy, be persistent and pleasant 10. Have a fall-back position. If they won't see you this time then ask if it would be OK to 'phone at an agreed time in the future - and make sure you do so. You won't win them all however if you sound professional and pleasant, potential customers are more likely to see you, so don't give up. Alan Fairweather is the author of four ebooks in the "How to get More Sales" series. Lots of practical actions you can take to build your business and motivate your team - http://www.howtogetmoresales.com
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Careers and Employment Accepting Responsibility for Your Sales Success That we live in a time of relentless and pervasive change is no longer news to anyone. There is one important implication of this situation that continues to be a challenge. That is that our employees need to continually change their behavior to adapt to the world around them. 14 Top Lead Generation Tactics According to former Harvard Business School professor David Maister, typical marketing practices are not only inapplicable for professional service firms, but they may be dangerously wrong. Producing Premium Performance One of the major issues that arises in managing a small or medium size business is in the area of employee performance. Many business owners are frustrated with the poor performance of their team or some individuals within their team. No matter how hard they try, they don't seem to be able to create a sustainable improvement in performance. The tendency is to blame the employees for poor performance. However, more often than not, the problem stems from not establishing an effective performance management framework. Hire A Six, To Consistently Produce Sales Success For many years as a sales manager, I would only hire the stereotypical sales representative. You know the type-on a human relations continuum or scale of zero to ten, with the ten representing a candidate who is totally gregarious and outgoing and the zero, someone who is introverted with few people skills, I'd always recruit the ten. As an advisor to businesses and professional service firms on how to build an effective sales team, I would also council my clients to hire "tens." Big mistake! How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance -- Part 1 Business executives and sales managers frequently bemoan "80/20" performance on their sales teams, where approximately 80 percent of sales are produced by approximately 20 percent of salespeople. Why do salespeople perform so differently? What is it about top sales performers that enables them to achieve such vastly superior results? Increasing Sales by Using Coupons - Will it Help Your Business? Increasing Sales by using Coupons. Will it help your business? Well, the Promotional Marketing Association's (PMA) "Coupon Council" shows that 3.8 Billion coupons were redeemed in 2003. Consumers saved over 3 billion dollars. 79% of American's used coupons last year. There are many Coupon Franchises out there with quite a track record. Here are a few of them: Val-Pac; http://www.valpak.com/info/franchise/franchise_faqs_content.jsp. 5 Secrets to Managing Your Sales Manager Productively Many people believe that the main reason for representatives leaving their organisation is that of money in that they leave for a bigger salary. In fact, the biggest reason why people leave organisations is that the role they are doing is no longer offering any challenge or excitement. The second reason is due to the behaviour and capability of the immediate line manager. More often than not, the two are strongly linked with the manager taking little interest in the representative's development and as such the representative feels under valued and bored due to the lack of attention and challenge. 6 Common Mistakes in the Sales Hiring Process Is lack of sales results, more sales training costs, months of unearned salary and damage to your company's image or reputation your company's method of NOT finding good salespeople? For most companies it is! We Will Make It Back----- A Fictional Story Based on Fact About Sales Management Success Bill Borders stepped up onto the podium. He had just been introduced as the new Vice President of Sales for Kiechler Building Supplies. As he looked out at the fifty seven faces staring back at him, time seemed to stop and everyone was motionless. Bills mind wandered. This wasn't a nervous reaction; it was more of a reality check. How to Sell Strategically If you want to maximize your sales performance, take a strategic approach to selling. After all, wouldn't you agree that "the 80/20 rule" applies to customers, where approximately 20 percent of customers produce approximately 80 percent of sales? Stop Drowning: Nine Strategies For Managing Your Priorities I just got off the phone with Susan. She is a well-meaning, big-hearted, caring, effective and creative sales manager. Susan is also exhausted. The Hidden Competition: Avoiding the 2 Most Common Competitors There are really only two types of competitor: Energize Your Organization No matter what you do, it seems, your employees do only what's absolutely necessary to get along. You've handed out raises across the board year after year. You've been as generous as you can be with various incentives. Now you are at wits end. You ask in frustration, "What will it take to motivate my employees?" The Four ?D?s of Sales Management Recently I stumbled across some notes that I had kept from a project I had been involved in which involved looking at manager behaviours. The aim of this project was to identify "preferred behaviours" in sales managers when they were working closely with their sales representatives. The outputs were interesting and helped my colleagues identify four main types of sales managers and the differences between effective and ineffective behaviours. 3 Steps To Getting A Sales Meeting The best way to get a new customer is to clearly identify who you want to do business with and then get in front of them. They can then see what you look like, possibly see what your product looks like and also examine any data or statistics you might have. It gives you the ideal opportunity to start building a positive working relationship with your potential customer. Snowflakes Improve Holiday Sales Snowflakes are beautiful! Five Steps to Maximize Success in Targeting For Growth Targeting is the process of selecting high potential customer accounts to receive intense sales focus. Goal setting translates that high potential into achievable numeric objectives, i.e. revenue and margin growth. Whats a Professional Sales Manager? I was in the depths of a major depression. As a third year salesperson with a good company, I was doing well, and was on my way to becoming the top salesperson in the nation for that company. But business had slowed down a little, and I did not have my usual number of proposals out for consideration. So, I wasn't as busy as usual. As my activity slowed, I began to worry. My doubts increased to the point where I had thought myself into a real depression, stuck on the question of "What's the use of trying?" The more negative my thoughts became, the less energy I had. My lack of energy led to fewer and fewer sales calls, which of course, led to less activity. And that led to more depressing thoughts. I was caught in a powerful downward spiral. 8 Line Items of a Trade Show Budget Budget Guidelines for Trade Show Marketing Project/Program Management Best Practices for Success in ANY Industry! Where is our success? Although there have been improvements, over 60% of projects/programs failed and many were canceled in 2003 (ref:The Standish Report CHAOS)! Our goal for 2004 and beyond is to contribute to a 60% and better, project/program success rate! STOP THE MADNESS-MANAGE AND CONTROL PROJECTS
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