Gaining Appointments on the Phone

As experienced sales people you have a list of people that you can contact on a regular basis. You have a relationship with them and they are likely to give you business. However we all know that natural wastage can occur and this can happen for any number of reasons none of which have anything to do with you. For example, in my world, natural wastage is more often the result of my contact moving on and the ‘new broom’ likes to ‘sweep clean’.

Needless to say that it makes good business sense for us to be continually on the look-out for new business. Obviously there are many ways we can do this but a quick way is to pick up the phone and make some ‘cold calls’ with a view to filling up your diary with appointments. Sometimes even the most experienced people fear this process. Here are some tips that might prove helpful for such individuals.

1. GET READY
Preparation is the key to success in all that we do in life – try getting married or taking a holiday without it! First, clean up your list. Make sure that those companies, telephone numbers and people still exist. You can do this by making a call ‘just for a little information’. I often say “I don’t want to speak to anyone now but could you tell me…? And then I ask my questions and thank people for the information.

When you are ready to make your call, you might find that if you are dealing with corporate clients, sometimes at switchboard level you will be asked the purpose of your call. In your mind you should have a ‘ready reason’. For example, ‘they used you, your company or business sometime ago’, or ‘you sent information recently’ or ‘you want to inform them of something new that could help their business’. If you have any concerns about calling to make an appointment, then having in mind a reason to call makes you feel comfortable in making the call. Next, decide on your objective. To determine your objective, ask yourself ‘what do I want to happen as a result of making this call?’ Next, have EVERYTHING you need to hand and then MAKE THE CALL!

2. GET THEM LISTENING
This stage is crucial because people are not waiting for your call. So plan a good opening to get the ‘prospect’s’ attention. This opening statement needs to have some benefits built in so they can see why they should talk to you, which in turn earns you the right to continue speaking. Here are some reasons why people might want to talk to you: you can save them money; you can save them time; you can help to increase profits. Once you start to look at what you or your business can offer you will find information to help you create a good opening. But the best way to create a powerful opening is to put yourself in their shoes and ask this question: “if I was this person about to receive a call from someone like me, what would I want them to say that would make me want to listen?” Plan your opening until you are happy with and then hit the phone.

3. FIND OUT WHAT THEY WANT
The only way to get into people’s minds is to ask them questions. Don’t assume that because your product or idea is good you should simply talk about it. Try to find out about people and their business before making suggestions. Because what you want is an appointment, you don’t need to ask more questions than is necessary to ‘qualify’ the prospect, but the few questions you ask need to be carefully crafted. To find the best questions to ask prospects about their business, ask yourself this question: “what do I need to know about their business to determine whether or not my product/idea will suit their company?”

At this stage, many people having established that the prospect company could indeed use their products and services are tempted to start TELLING the prospect about the wonders of their products. Try to resist the temptation because remember, you want an APPOINTMENT, which is the PRODUCT you are selling right now. So the next stage is to:

4. ASK FOR THE APPOINTMENT
The words you use here are very important. If you FEEL that you have built good rapport with the individual you might simply ask ‘would you be happy for us to meet?’ But more often than not the ‘asking’ needs to be dressed up a little; the following example works extremely well for attendees to the one-day course on this subject: ‘it seems from what you say that it might be a good idea for us to meet because we can help with... Do you have your diary handy?’ The rest is about fixing day, dates and times that are suitable to you both.

2 HANDY HINTS

The job of Gaining Appointments on the phone requires momentum. This means that you need to make call after call to a) find the prospect available to speak and b) to actually get an appointment as (unfortunately) not everyone will agree to seeing you

Set mini-goals. This is where you determine that you will make X number of calls before having a second coffee, bun or Mars bar! Or that you will speak to 5 decision makers before doing the same


Good luck and see you next time!
Presentation Skills and Introductory Sales Skill Courses also on offer.

Five Fabulous Tips for Cold Calling

Sylvia Modu presents her 5 tips to help with cold calling and telephone sales.

I remember as if it were yesterday, joining a company that had been looking for people to make cold calls. I was the first one to walk through the door; they gave me a huge box of cards with names of companies and telephone numbers, which nobody had touched in years and now I was expected to ‘cold-call’ these companies and sell them my (new) company’s products.

Was I scared?! Yes, I was but I ended up being the biggest producer of sales by telephone. I eventually grew the team from 1 (myself) to 10 and became the telesales manager. I learned from experience and have since gone on to train hundreds of people in the subject. Here I offer you 5 tips, which you might find useful. You will see that they are very much ‘skills-based’ this time. Next time we’ll look at how to create a positive mind-set to help keep you on track when the going gets a bit rough!

1. GET READY
Preparation is the key to success in all that we do in life – try getting married or taking a holiday without it! First, clean up your list. Make sure that those companies, telephone numbers and people still exist. You can do this by making a call ‘just for a little information’. Next, find a reason to call. A reason to call could be ‘they used your company sometime ago’, or ‘you sent information recently’ or ‘you want to inform them of something new’. A reason to call makes you feel comfortable in making the call. Next, decide on your objective. To determine your objective, ask yourself ‘what do I want to happen as a result of making this call?’ Next, have EVERYTHING you need to hand and then MAKE THE CALL!

2. GET THEM LISTENING
This stage is crucial because people are not waiting for your call. So plan a good opening to get the ‘prospect’s’ attention. This opening statement needs to have some benefits built in so they can see why they should talk to you, which in turn earns you the right to continue speaking. Here are some reasons why people might want to talk to you: you can save them money, you can save them time, you can offer security or your products can massage their ego. Once you start to look at what your company can offer you will find reasons for calling. Plan your opening until you are happy with and then hit the phone.

3. FIND OUT WHAT THEY WANT
The only way to get into people’s minds is to ask them questions. Don’t assume that because your product or idea is good you should simply talk about it. Try to find out about people and their business before making suggestions. To find the best questions to ask prospects about their business, as yourself this question: ‘what do I need to know about their business to determine whether or not my product/idea will suit their company?’

4. PRESENT YOUR IDEAS FAVOURABLY
If you have established by good questioning that this company could use your product or service, the next step is to present your ideas favourably. This means using the benefits of your offer. There are 3 key ingredients that will help you to do this: what it IS, what it DOES and what it MEANS. What it is – it’s made of metal; what it does – it’s strong; what it means – it will last a long time. So for example ‘it’s made of metal so it is very strong which means that it will last you a long time and save you money’.

5. ASK FOR THE BUSINESS
That’s right; go ahead and ASK. People rarely say ‘you’ve done such a good job, I would like 10 of those’. There comes a point in your conversation with your prospect when you know you have asked enough questions, you have matched your products to their requirements as in idea 4 and you know that this is a good time to ask for the business. Try words like ‘shall we go ahead on that basis?’ Or ‘which would suit your company best, the metallic or the plastic?’ Don’t be afraid to ask for the business – the worst thing that can happen is that they say ‘no’ and nobody ever lost family or friends as a result.

Good luck and see you next time!

Winning in Monaco on Presentation Skills Training

Sylvia Modu has just returned from success in Monaco!

Not for the Monaco Grand Prix however, but for 10 years service in presentation skills training to a single client who has their head office in Monaco. Single Buoy Mooring are a multi-billion dollar operation in Oil and Gas off loading.

So successful is this milestone that we have had our article picked up as a presentation skills training press release in the UK.

See the full article on our website regarding Presentation Skills Training

Technorati Link

Technorati Profile

Its all about cross networking and interconnections!

Or is it just to get Technorati up the google rankings by inward links? So to balance things here are a list of my blog and web interests with lots of great partners and projects: No particular order.

G8way
Jamie Lawrence Football Academy
JLFA Blog
Refill Food
Cherrie Box Media
Emerging Markets Investor Services Ltd
Watersons Marketing Group
Inspirational Seminars Ltd
Inspirational Seminars Blog
Sylvia Modu
Faye Klein Lingerie
DMR Ltd
Bevin Fagan (who sadly died in April 2008)
Gold Investments
Property Investment and Credit Crunch
Business Start Ups
Yorkshire Network
Gold Bullion Trading
Click4Marketing
Affordable Seminars
Barbur Realty
Canal Craft
Management Resource
Unique Sounds

Plus a whole load of ongoing projects in Africa to build Solar Tower Power Stations, renewable energy systems and exploding the myth of global warming and the great carbon tax con.

I am also very keen on lean government along the lines that Hong Kong adopted and not the over-bloated British Model!

Closing Major Deals

Consultative Selling

Many thanks for the authors of this article; Thomas Kratzert is vice president in A.T. Kearney’s communications and media practice. Michael Broquist and Håkon Tanem and associated consultant Frank Robert for their invaluable assistance in preparing this article.

The most successful sellers don’t focus on specific product attributes or even solution superiority. Rather, they present a solid business case and compelling opportunity (see figure 1).

Because the focus is on solving significant business issues, the consultative seller wins favour by presenting a convincing business case and truly differentiating its offering from the competition’s. The value proposition typically includes a significant amount of partnering, and for equipment suppliers, a large services component.

Sales Strategies

The process runs through three major phases:
All these phases presuppose that the delivery team is able, competent and highly skilled at presenting to groups and in the psychology of sales techniques. These aspect are often overlooked in the excitement of a pitch, but to make it a great pitch these skills are as necessary as all the technical and business competencies that your team possess. [Inspirational Seminars]

The rest of this article is on the web site: CLICK HERE

The Venue is SO Important

A little series of episodes has occurred over the last few weeks which highlights just how important the venue and the organisation of the facilities is for any professional presenter.

A very large financial institution who shall remain nameless seems to have got it into it's head that when running courses you should have an events organisation AND a training organisation to put on courses.

And guess what, its a mess every time. The trainers arrive to find the venue staff have little or no idea of the number of rooms, the layout and equipment needed or that the trainer will need a little time to set up. So we find ourselves arranging matters the night before with the venue staff who have been left in the dark.

The event organiser and trainer either need to work closely with maybe some co-ordination by the client training manager (part of their role?) or we can loose the event organiser to save money that would be better spent on keeping highly experience presenters and trainers happy!

Too much delegation I think.

Training the Trainers

Sylvia Modu has just returned from the first (of many to come) train the trainer sessions at Shell UK. Now these were all highly experienced trainers who have been on the job for years. The sort who "have seen it all", and a potentially worrying prospect for the inexperience trainer.

But Sylvia had come prepared with her "unstructured structured" approach to provide these guys with a challenge and worthwhile experience that will benefit them all. With providing presentation skills training, knowing your audience is paramount. But even the best trainers can improve.

The course was so well received that a round of applause was initiated at the close of business. A telling compliment indeed.