|
|
| Sales Training Information |
|
|
The First Step to Stress-Free Selling (TM)
Step 1: Get Ready - Create a foundation you can build on. This step involves prospecting and pre-call planning. Approach businesses randomly and you will: 1) Call businesses unsuitable for your magazine 2) Who don't believe in advertising and 3) Are unlikely to advertise with you. Then appeal to them by doing homework before m contact. You will make sales more often contacting businesses inclined to advertise with you. Prospecting Identify the businesses most likely to advertise with you. Then prioritize them. Call your best prospects before your least likely prospects. As adverse as this sounds, many ad reps call businesses who don't believe in advertising or are not interested in their industry or their reader. If this were so obvious to all reps, I wouldn't be writing about it! The fastest way to make sales hard is to call the wrong businesses, and sadly, many salespeople do just this. Start off with the right prospects and save yourself a lot of time. Your key prospects are found in these locations: 1. Advertisers in competitive publications. This most obvious source is the one you should prospect first. 2. Current customers running sizes or schedules smaller than they are in competitors or smaller than their competitors are running with you are great prospects. After all, they already believe in and like your publication. What a great place to start! 3. Advertisers who used to do business with you. Just because someone stopped doing business with you does not mean they never will again. Many will come back. Why make it later rather than sooner? Stay in touch with them. Maybe the decision maker left. 4. Advertisers advertise. Seek key prospects in other media (newspaper, radio, television, billboard, yellow pages, internet, etc.) If they meet your criteria (type of business, location, their customer is your reader), these advertisers are excellent prospects. 5. New businesses entering your market or industry. If they believe in advertising (you'll find out easily in an initial conversation), get them early? before your competitors do. 6. Referrals are my favorite prospecting source. They are the easiest to sell! You can turn these leads into sales nearly 100% of the time. Don't be among the unfortunate who do not capitalize on this tool. When asking for referrals, be specific. Don't ask, "Do you know anyone who would be interested in advertising in our magazine?" Your answer will probably be "No." Ask if they know a specific business (have a list of your top prospects), specific type of business, a business in a specific geographical area. You get the idea. Narrow your request and you will help your customers help you. Make sure the leads are good. Referrers must know the person they are referring well. If they say, "SoAndSo should advertise with you," and they don't know this person, they're right, but this does not qualify as a referral. Just a good idea you probably already had. Pre-Call Planning "To me, selling begins with investing time in preparation and planning," Donald Trump. Determining and gathering the information you need prior to contact facilitates Getting In and helps make first calls successful. At a minimum, know the key places your prospects advertise before you get in touch with them. Know the size ad they run, their main message, and have copies of their ads. You will learn a lot about them. For example, are they running a consistent, cohesive campaign, or is every ad different in look, content and tone? How organized is the company in their approach to advertising? This will clue you. Who should you ask for? If your first call sounds like, "I'd like to speak to the person responsible for advertising," you are likely to get them on the phone before you know their name. This does not make you look good. Learn who to call before getting them on the phone. How long have they been in business? Who is their target market? Find this information and a lot more by visiting their web site or reading their ads. A new business has different objectives than one in business for decades. Does their target market match your audience? Arm yourself with this basic information about your prospects, and you will make Getting In easier and build trust faster. Skip this preparatory step, and you will contact many people before you find the ones who are right for you. Why would you want to do that? Next month, will discuss Step 2: Getting In. Create Introductions that Eliminate Hurdles. Get Past Gatekeepers, Voice Mail and eMail, one of today's biggest challenges. Get Permission to meet with you on your terms. Jenaé Rubin is president of Sales Powerhouse, a sales and marketing consulting and training firm whose mission is to help you become #1 in your market. Jenaé is currently writing a book Stress-Free SellingTM, the 7 Steps to Successful Sales and may be reached at http://www.SalesPowerhouse.com or 954-476-0067.
Prospecting and Cold Calling Presented by Dancing Elephants - dBusinessNews Triangle (press release)
Sales-Training - Google News Want to copy DVDs? Click Here!
|
|
|
|
Coaching Training for Trade Shows - 5 FAQs Trade shows are so obvious. You go. You hand out brochures. You come back to the office. It's just a glitch in your work week. Well, it's much more than that. Your bottom line can float on when you make - or lose - a sale at a trade show. Sales Trap - We Love to Talk, But Need to Listen My research has clearly shown that, when it comes to selling, the part we're most comfortable with is talking about what we do - explaining our services and how we can help the client. 3 Tips to Get Clients Now "I need more clients!" wails Steve, a 32 year old Boston-based financial planner, echoing a familiar refrain. Poised and well spoken, Steve is after the same high net worth individual as others in his field. How can he rise above his competition? Sales Skills for the Non Sales Professional Have you ever wondered how in the heck you are going to do it? You are a lawyer who wants to make partner, an accountant, an engineer or other professional and part of your business plan is that you have to attract business customers? You've always detested selling, and you can't see yourself doing it! As a matter of fact, sales people are a HUGE turn off to you!!! Busting Your Assumptions: Effective Probing Techniques for Sales Professionals Do you find yourself making these kinds of assumptions? Closing The Sale Several weeks ago I asked my Newsletter subscribers to send me their biggest sales challenges. So far, I have received 275 challenges. While I am still in the process of categorizing them, Inoticed that a number of them mentioned "Closing the sale" as yourbiggest challenge. Get Tough You deal with rejections, frustrations, disappointment, and possibly disrespect on a daily basis. You probably experience more emotional ups and downs than most other professionals. And, no matter how successful you are, your income is less predictable than that of salaried employees. As a salesperson, your level of mental and emotional toughness affects you everyday, both on and off the job. How To Achieve Excellence In Sales Most people are always striving to better themselves. It's the "American Way". For proof, check the sales figures on the number of self-improvement books sold each year. This is not a pitch for you to jump in and start selling these kinds of books, but it is a indication of people's awareness that in order to better themselves, they have to continue improving their personal selling abilities. 5 Steps to Selling Anything Technical One of the most difficult things we deal with as tech companies is trying to sell our services or products to prospective clients, would you agree? A major problem we face is conveying why our future clients need our services using terminology they will understand and pay attention to. One of the sales secrets I am going to let you in on, is that you can make sales without the client even knowing the name of your product or service or ever saying a word like: Search Engine Optimization, gigabyte, meta tags or even computer. The First Step to Stress-Free Selling (TM) Step 1: Get Ready - Create a foundation you can build on. This step involves prospecting and pre-call planning. Approach businesses randomly and you will: 1) Call businesses unsuitable for your magazine 2) Who don't believe in advertising and 3) Are unlikely to advertise with you. Then appeal to them by doing homework before m contact. You will make sales more often contacting businesses inclined to advertise with you. Qualifying vs closing The art of effective question asking (qualifying) determines the effectiveness and the success of the "close".EXAMPLE: Let's assume you are a candy sales rep. You sell both chocolate and non-chocolate candy. I'm your potential customer. You know nothing about me but you are trying to sell me chocolate candy. You proceed to tell me how great the candy tastes, how exquisite the texture is, how incredible the quality of the chocolate is, and, by the way, how affordable this candy is because your company is doing a promotion on this outstanding chocolate candy. However, you don't sell me a single piece of chocolate candy. WHY?You assumed I liked chocolate candy and I would buy it based on the information you provided. But the most important thing you forgot to identify or ask me is "do you like chocolate candy?".The answer is "no, I hate chocolate candy?". But since you never took the time to understand me as your potential new customer, you lost today's sale and future sales a well. Better Approach: I'm still the customer, you are still the candy sales rep. You're still promoting chocolate candy. The difference is - upon meeting me and establishing a rapport, your first question might be."Do you like chocolate candy?".My response "no, I never eat chocolate candy".Your response "you never eat chocolate candy, why?".My response "because I'm allergic to it". QUESTION: Do you believe it would make any difference to me, the customer, how the chocolate looks, tastes, is processed, or even how affordable it is? Your answer should be "no". However, just because I don't eat chocolate candy doesn't mean I don't know a number of other people who love chocolate candy. Also, you sell hard candy not just chocolate candy, so maybe the next question would be:"Do you eat any kind of candy?".My response "occasionally".Your response "when you say occasionally, how often is that?".My response "2 to 3 times per month".Your response "when you do eat candy, what type of candy do you eat?"My response "hard-type, mint candies".Your response "have you ever tasted our incredible hard, mint candies?".GET THE PICTURE? "Its all about asking, not selling." Once you have identified what's important to me, the customer, you have positioned yourself to sell me what I want - not what you have. Make More Sales By Creating How To Use It Product Updates Do you have any idea what your customers have experienced from using the products they have purchased from you? Most of the vendors I work with make a sale and move on. They often don't bother investing much time improving the products they sell to their customers, much less develop ways to help them better understand how to use them. A very small minority of vendors have continued to send me unsolicited free bonus 'how to use it' follow-up emails and publications long after I made my purchase from them. And whenever I receive something like this, it almost always compels me to take another look at the product I purchased because anything that helps me understand more ways to use what I already own is pretty useful to me. Sales Tips from Sales Masters Three Fast, Short, Simple Ways to Escalate Your Sales 1. Sell an inexpensive product to sell an expensive product. If people like your inexpensive product, they will be persuaded to buy your expensive one. Grow Sales Using Image Tactics In my dreams, I envision being the marketing consultant equivalent of Oprah or Tiger Woods. Oprah, for her premise, "You're a woman and only you are responsible for yourself." Tiger Woods, for his ultimate dedication to the game. Respectively, this is what they're known for or what their personal value can be identified as; put another way, this is what their brand identities are. Turning Sales Techniques Into Sales Success! The goal of all sales training is not just to teach solid selling principles and techniques, but to actually help participants increase the number of new accounts (products and/or services) they sell and improve their multiple sales ratios. Unfortunately, many sales and service industry professionals gain an intellectual awareness of the methods of selling from the sales training they receive, yet fail to improve their bottom line sales results by systematically using the concepts in their daily transactions. See my article, The Processionary Caterpillar Syndrome Costs You Sales? How To Become A Sales Superstar And Have Fun Winning More Business - Start Here! One of the interesting things about being a coach and speaker is that I have the good fortune to work with lots of different people from all sorts of different types of companies, markets and backgrounds. Whilst I do work (on the motivation and public speaking side) with non-sales people probably 95%+ of the work I do is with sales teams of some sort or other! As such, I get a real insight into the challenges and issues that many top sales performers face and also into who they are and what they believe. 7 Ways to Cut Loose from Old Sales Thinking Sooner or later, we all backslide into old ways of thinking about selling that lead us down the wrong path with potential clients. How To Write A Killer Sales Letter I sit down and look at my notebook. Then, I put myself into the 'zone'. Positioning for Profits! Last Friday, I was spending one last day of freedom with a dear friend who was expecting to have her first baby at any minute. We decided to hang out by the pool.
|
| home|Learn Sales Management|Learn-Telesales|Site map | 
|
© 2006 www.elearn-university.org |
