Lessons Learned in B2B Sales

My boss sent the entire Senior Management Team and email yesterday. It simply asked for us to come up with a response to a tip posted by Grant Cardone.  The tip was:  Talk less about your product and tell people what you want them to do. #CloseTheDeal I replied:  I have seen so many executives just like you save time, money, even their jobs by attending our Summits to gather fresh ideas and new contacts. I believe that you will have that same experience. I want you to attend this Summit and I want you to leave with 3 immediately actionable ideas to start saving you time and your company money. It got me thinking about how important the use of strong language is. Using statements like "I want," "I believe," or "I need" might make you feel a bit uncomfortable, but they leaving nothing open to misinterpretation.  Statements like this push sales people to be great. They allow them to properly set expectations, speak with certainty, and build the

Controlling sales conversations is not always easy. I will share a few key techniques that, if followed, will provide you a reliable map to follow from hello to thanks for you business.  When selling, you must tread a thin line between being empathetic yet assertive; driving the focus of the conversation, but still listening to your prospects responses; and building rapport without being overtly obvious that you are looking to close business.  ESTABLISH CREDIBILITY AND PERSONALITY  It is critical that in the first one to three minutes of a sales conversation, whether in person or over the phone, that you establish your credibility and personality. What I mean by credibility is bringing up the name of client that you've worked with that is impressive, a job you completed that is a feather in your cap, a peer of the prospect that would recommend you. Also, be certain to express thanks that they are giving you consideration and time.  "Hi Susan, Leslie Ve

The environment I work in allows for a short sales cycle...I mean very short. A decision could be made in the first call....even for a 60,000 investment a decision rarely takes longer then a single week. This environment allows for something very powerful to happen--Mentally, you walk in to work every single day with a real opportunity to close business. About two years ago, I sat down with our Canadian COO. At that time, he was running the most successful sales office in the world, which means he was beating out about 40 other highly-trained, highly-driven sales teams. I asked him, if he had to choose one single thing that he felt was paramount to his Group's success, what would it be. Naturally, I assumed it would be hiring the right people, great products, his own leadership, etc. What he did reply was: Morning Motivational Meetings . I LOVED the idea and brought it back to my Chicago office immediately. I was already creating and facilitating most New Hire and Continuous

Normally my posts lean towards instructional, but I want to comment during this post. I want to comment on the importance of a truly undervalued skill....Listening. In sales, and in life, listening is critical to our personal and professional success. A couple of years ago, I listened to a TED talk. (Side Note: If you don't follow TED, you should. It is a source of insightful, inspiring, and intriguing conversation). You can view the talk by Julian Treasure titled 5 Ways to Listen Better here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better.html Julian's presentation made me think about how integral the ability to listen is in sales. To me, it appears that sales people are always rushing to results. I think we are generally Type A personalities--assertive, eager to impress, hungry for the deal--and, as a result, we often forget that sales is a conversation. I assert that being able to ask the RIGHT questions at the RIGHT time and then afterwards

Time Management & Prioritization -- I will keep this post brief in an effort to manage my time during my very busy event season.When I realized it had been a few weeks since my last post, I started thinking about priorities and time management. Here are the basic rules I follow when determining what my priorities are and what portion of my time I should allocate to them. Tasks are blocked into one of four quadrants. I am certain you can youtube this method of prioritization and find even more information on it. Today, I will talk about how I apply it to a busy sales environment to ensure I stay focused on closing business. The four quadrants ranked in terms of prioritization are: Urgent & Important Important but Not Urgent Urgent but Not Always Important Neither Urgent or Important So you may have guess that the majority of your time should be allocated to the categories of Urgent & Important and Important but Not Urgent. We all know that urgent emails o

So there are two basics types of questions: closed and open. I think everybody in their first week of sales figures out that open-ended questions tend to work better then closed. Why, then, is it so difficult to routinely ask open-ended questions during the course of sales conversations? Answer: Because we do not speak to our colleagues, friends, and family members that way! In any sales role, you must retrain your brain to think and speak in open-ended questions. There are certainly times when closed-ended questions, particularly if used assumptively can be very powerful as well. Let me walk you through a few of the basics. CLOSE-ENDED QUESTIONS: Can be answered with a yes or no.  OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS: Must be answered with something more substantive than a yes or no. Those questions will begin with WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE, WHEN, WHICH, HOW.  CLOSE-ENDED ASKED ASSUMPTIVELY: You have led them towards saying yes or no. EXAMPLES Here are three differetnt ways of se

While sales is a numbers game there is a truth to the phrase, "work smarter, not harder." If you are not dialing the phone you will not get ahead, but you can dial the phone all day and not reach a decision-maker if you are not dialing smart. In this entry I will discuss a few of the ways to increase the quality of your dials and to avoid gatekeepers as often as possible. Many of these suggestions may seem quite simple. However, I assure you that they are so simple inside sales executives often underestimate their importance. Not only should you be using all of these techniques, you should be using them constantly and consistently. I promise that you will see results if you execute my advice in that manner! BEST TIP:  ASK for the direct dials and cell phone numbers of the decision-makers you are trying to reach. I know that sounds silly, but often we are not even asking for the information that we need. Expect a low rate of return on this request. You may ask 10 gateke

As I stated in a previous post, it is important to keep in mind that gatekeepers are not decision makers. As nice or as helpful as they may be, they can only say no to you--never yes. That means you should always remain polite and professional when dealing with gatekeepers, but don't give them more information than they need. I have heard many a poor sales person brag all day about the five admins that they just made best friends with and how sure they are that it will help them ultimately reach the decision-maker. I don't buy it and I have never seen it work. Below are a few ways to help you professionally deal with gatekeepers. My next post will lay out tricks of the trade to help circumvent gatekeepers all together! Remember that gatekeepers can come in a few forms. Most often, you will deal with a direct assistant or departmental admin. However, gatekeepers are sometimes receptionists or colleagues. It is important to distinguish these differences when using the bel

If you must incorporate emails into your cold calling campaign I suggest you stay organized, focused, and calculated to get the greatest results. Here are a few key tips that increased the rate of return for email correspondence from about 2% to 15%+. 1. Try to reach the prospect directly before defaulted to an email campaign. I cannot stress this enough. Do not over call the person, but I highly recommend you try them at least ten times over the course of two weeks before sending an email. 2. The subject line needs to POP. As tempting as it may be to send a generic email blast, I suggest you personalize each email. Either purchase software that can automatically input the prospects name or take the time to do it yourself. Your target is significantly more likely to reply to your email (even if its with a no) if they feel that the email is personalized. Your subject for instance could read: John--Follow-up RE: CFO Forum with AT&T Finance Director You want your subject t

1. Do not fool yourself into thinking that you will get a high rate of return from cold emails or cold voice mails. More importantly, be thankful that you do not get a high rate of return from those methods or else we--telesales executives--wouldn't have jobs any longer. If you really want to reach somebody you need to pick up the phone and call them. That does not mean that you should be stalking your prospects and calling them all day long everyday or hanging up as soon as a gatekeeper answers. It does mean that you should be calculated about how often you call (I suggest never more than twice a day). If you do reach a gatekeeper, you should be polite, but busy. 2. Gatekeepers can rarely say yes to you, but they can always say no. It is important to keep in mind that a gatekeeper has their job because they are good at keeping people like us away from their bosses! Always be polite and professional, but be busy and sound important. A few tricks to get around leaving a messa

Hello all! I recently realized that I have a mastery of cold calling and decided that I should share my knowledge with the world via blogger.com. This realization came to me after reading a few sales books, signing up for a number of Webinars and paying for one pricey interactive training. All of these experts purported to have the ability take my cold calling skills to the next level yet none of them provided me anything new. One of the training sessions, given by the royalty of cold calling, was a refresher on the basic sales principles I teach each new hire on Day 1 with the company. Admittedly, many of these basic ideas were passed down to me during my new hire training, but they were redefined by my amazing boss at the time--John Ksar. Since that point six years ago, I have fused my initial training with my prior background and my real life phone experience. As a result, I created a fresh new three-day new hire training two years ago, as well as a series of refresher training