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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.

Closing the sale, cinching the deal, tying up all the loose ends, and getting to a yes decision is an important skill in the selling process. Even getting a “No” decision is better than holding onto an everlasting pending one.

Joe K., a friend and former client, discovered the importance of an effective close at an early age. Joe has been the president of major corporations and currently serves on several corporate boards - so pay attention to his comments.

Here’s what he has to say about closing the sale . . .

“When I was in high school in downtown Philly, I went into a men’s clothing store to buy a new suit. Obviously, many of the salespeople are career salespeople, and know all the lines and closing techniques. After trying on one suit, I came out of the dressing room and looked into the three-way mirror. The salesman approached me, smoothed out the back of the suit, tugged a little on the cuffs, and told me, “On you it looks good.” I continued to look in the mirror, and moved from side to side, and he sensed some reluctance on my part. That’s when he came up with the best close I have ever heard. He said,” If you don’t buy that suit, you are insulting yourself.” So, not wanting to insult myself, I bought the suit.”

Finally, it’s not as important how you say what you say. What’s more important is that you know exactly what you’re going to say - during the “Close.” Preparing and practicing in advance will always, and I mean always beat out on-the-spot improvisation.

Optional homework assignment - if you want to improve your closing technique and take it up to the next level grab a pen and a yellow legal pad. First think and then write how you plan to ask for the order in the future. Review and edit what you have written each day for four consecutive days. My guess is you’ll have an incredible and powerful closing statement by the fourth day.

If you skip the assignment your approach to closing the sale will continue to be a “Wing it and sing it” one. It’s not a big deal for me. But I guarantee you every customer/prospect can tell the difference between “preparation and improvisation.”

Jim Meisenheimer is the creator of No-Brainer Sales Training. His sales techniques and selling skills focus on practical ideas that get immediate results. You can discover all his secrets by contacting him at (800) 266-1268 or by visiting his website: http://www.meisenheimer.com

Reward Power refers to the ability to deliver rewards or benefits to influence others. These can be financial, material, or psychological rewards. Reward Power is the fastest way to persuade.

This power is the opposite of Coercive Power. With Coercive Power you punish, and with Reward power you offer incentives. Reward Power is based on utility, which is an understanding that in every transaction there is a potential for exchange. Basically, utility power recognizes that there is always something I want and something you want. We can meet each other’s needs by swapping what we have for what the other wants. Prizes are a form of utility power. They are a way to reward people for doing what you want them to do. The reward becomes the incentive for compliant action. Examples of utilities include sales bonuses, paychecks, incentive clauses on contracts, bonus miles on airlines, and bonus points on credit cards.

It is important to understand some incentives will work well with one person, but not with another. To some people, money is the reward. Still to others, recognition is the reward. As a persuader, you need to find the motivating force or reward for each person you work with - you must understand the desires of the person or group. Reward Power is extremely effective in changing human behavior and in increasing your ability to persuade. You get what you want with minimal effort. Let’s face it - everyone has their price.

There are several inefficiencies to note, however, when using rewards. First of all, the law of diminishing returns quickly takes over when you employ this type of power. Diminishing return means the more you use the reward, the less powerful it becomes. When people become accustomed to an incentive, they can become bored with it and either expect more or drop performance standards if the incentive is removed. One example is the common practice of offering children rewards for reading in elementary school. They win pizza or other prizes after they have read a certain number of books. These incentives often backfire because many of the children think they need a reward to read. Reward Power ultimately leads to the desired outcome, but the incentive generally has to be repeated each time to get that desired outcome. The reward is only effective as long as the person doesn’t see a “better deal.” Your incentive will always be compared to the next person’s offer. Rewards reinforce behavior, so as long as you are employing them, expect your prospects to keep demanding them.

Reinforcement Theory has a lot to do with Reward Power and Coercive Power. Basically, if a person knows a positive consequence will follow a certain action, then they will perform that action. Consequences influence behavior. The type of consequence involved influences what actions people will take and what actions they will avoid. There are three main rules of consequence. They are:

(1) Consequences giving rewards increase behavior.

(2) Consequences giving punishments decrease behavior.

(3) Consequences giving neither rewards nor punishments extinguish behavior.

Remembering these basic rules can be an excellent guide for deciding what to do in certain situations, depending on the desired outcome. Just be sure you take into account some of the Reinforcement Theory’s limitations. Some examples of such limitations are listed below.

Limitations of Reinforcement Theory

1. What is considered reward or punishment will vary according to who you’re working with and what the exact circumstances are.

2. As mentioned earlier, rewards can lose value over time. Instead of feeling rewarded, the person will feel like you owe her something.

3. Other sources of reward or punishment may interfere. For example, an employee may value the reward of esteem and friendship from other less productive employees more than what you have to offer.

4. If a person is just responding to a reward, then there has not really been an internal change. They will revert back to their old behavior if the reward doesn’t remain part of the new routine.

5. Punishment is difficult to deliver well. It is a powerful tool, but it must be executed appropriately. Punishment must have the following elements to be effective: a) immediate, b) strong or firm, c) unavoidable, and d) consistent.

6. Punishment can breed anger, fear, and hopelessness. These negative emotions will be associated with the person inflicting the punishment.

The challenge you face when using rewards is the decrease in internal motivation. Once you condition them to expect something for their compliance, your prospects will always seek external rewards for their behavior. This causes them to do it only for the reward and not for any other reason. We have found that even if the person was willing to exhibit the desired behavior without the reward, once the reward was given the subject would not perform the desired behavior without the reward. An experiment proved this concept. Subjects, sitting together at a table, worked on a puzzle for a half an hour.

After the half hour was up, the experimenter told the subjects the solving session was over and they had to leave the room. The experimenters then began to monitor the behavior of the subjects when they went into the waiting room. What would they do during their free time? Would they play with the puzzles? Would they choose other activities? They study found that those subjects that were paid for doing the puzzles were far less likely to play with them for fun during their free time in the waiting room. And those who did not receive an external reward for their efforts were far more likely to play with the puzzles during their free time in the waiting room. Persuaders know that a behavior chosen out of free will last longer than a behavior rewarded by an external reward.

Learning how to persuade and influence will make the difference between hoping for a better income and having a better income. Beware of the common mistakes presenters and persuaders commit that cause them to lose the deal. Get your free report 10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands and explode your income today.

Kurt Mortensen’s trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; rather than convincing others, he teaches that you should attract them, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available! His message and program has helped thousands and will help you achieve unprecedented success in both your business and personal life. If you are ready to claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know, begin by going to http://www.PreWealth.com and getting my free report “10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands.” After reading my free report, go to http://www.PreWealth.com/IQ and take the free Persuasion IQ analysis to determine where you rank and what area of the sales cycle you need to improve in order to close every sale!

If you asked me to point to the heart and soul of a startup company, I would not say it’s the people, the culture, or even the product. I would say it’s the pitch. The pitch is that one message that, when delivered, makes people say “wow, that’s a great idea!”. The pitch gets everyone in the room excited about getting on board with your product and your company. It’s the inspiration that carries everyone along for the ride.

The pitch also determines whether or not the company’s offer has any viability in the market. For this reason the pitch should always precede any other developments or decisions. Your pitch is your divining rod that helps you make decisions on where to go next. So working on the pitch should always be the first step toward introducing any new concept.

Pitch Early

Pitching early is about as close as you can come to having your own crystal ball to see into the future. Getting a customer to say “yes” today, even though the product may not exist yet, is as important as getting them to say “yes” when it’s actually available. This process allows you to probe your customers’ objections early and understand where the fatal flaws in the model or product offering exist. Better to find out now that customers aren’t dying for your product than after you’ve mortgaged your house to finance your idea!

Pitch Everyone

For the pitch to work, you need to see how it resonates with all of the usual suspects - customers, investors, and employees, in just that order. Each of these constituents thinks about your pitch slightly differently and for good reasons. Customers are interested in how your service improves their life. Investors want to know that your idea can turn into a profitable enterprise. Employees want to know that selling your service will create a great (and steady) place for them to work.

The reaction of each member of this trifecta merits careful consideration. For example, if your customers love your product but investors don’t see how you’ll ever make money, you have a potential problem. You will need to successfully pitch all of these groups eventually, so pitching them effectively early on is critical toward refining your offering and insuring its later acceptance.

Build the product with the pitch in mind

Knowing the pitch allows you to make much better decisions when developing the product. If what you’re building doesn’t add to the pitch, think twice about adding it at all. In a startup environment you have limited resources, so you need to concentrate your time and effort on features that will lead directly to the customer’s, investor’s and employee’s decision to say “yes”. Your product should always be built with the pitch in mind.

Sculpt the pitch

French author and aircraft engineer Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said a designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Sculpting your pitch is no different. Keep paring your pitch down to just the most critical elements that make or break a customer’s decision to buy. Anything else is just excess waiting to be scraped away, or worse yet, confuse the customer. Your pitch has become a masterpiece when it is as short and to the point as possible. The faster it hits home, the more powerful it will be.

Keep it flexible

A good pitch is like a chameleon - it adapts and responds to a changing environment. You may find that what you once thought were the perfect selling points get morphed into a message that sounds quite different but is more effective. Don’t sweat it. There’s nothing wrong with changing the pitch over time as long as it continues to be more effective. There are no points won here for “getting it right the first time”, but there are plenty to be lost for never fixing it. Some of the best pitch masters out there are not only great at speaking, they are great at listening to what customers say and modifying their pitch accordingly.

If they won’t buy the pitch, they won’t buy the product

It’s rare that you will be present every time your customers are considering whether or not to buy your product. That said, if you can’t convince someone to say “yes” while you are standing there giving your pitch in front of them, you can rest assured you’re not likely to get a “yes” when you’re away. A good pitch should be so tightly integrated with your offering that it’s able to sell itself without coming from you. And it should be so infectious that customers can’t help but sell it to their friends.

Remember - if you can’t sell it, it doesn’t really exist!

- Wil

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Wil has been recognized as U.S. Small Business Person of the Year, twice as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999 & 2004), and is a member of the Business First Top 40 under forty. Connect directly with Wil at wschroter@yahoo.com. Visit http://www.goBIGnetwork.com.

These tips will help to boost your telemarketing sessions and improve your cold calling results..

Physiology or should it be Fizziology!

- If you wear a collar and tie, loosen this off

- Have plenty of water next to you when calling, as drinking cold water keeps your voice fresh and clear

- Sit up straight! Don’t slouch over when you are calling as it constricts your diaphragm, this in turn will affect your breathing and how you sound

- If you are about to make what you perceive to be a difficult call - stand up and move around. This will change your state and get the blood pumping

- Keep a level head when calling - no literally, lift up your chin, it helps to project your voice more clearly
Take regular breaks away from the telephone, every 20 minutes or so to walk around as this will reenergise you.

Psychology

- Measuring your results is important, otherwise how will you know if you are improving, or how many calls it will take to close new opportunities? Keep a tick sheet handy next to the telephone to record dial outs and results

- Call somebody you know first as this will warm your voice up and put you in the right mood

- Making qualification and information gathering calls at the start of a session really helps

- Set a clear target for each calling session, either number of calls or number of opportunities generated

- Break down the calls you need to make to hit today’s target into several mini sessions of say 15 calls per session

- When you get a YES, and you will get straight back and call the next person as your enthusiasm will come through in your voice

- When you have achieved your target make sure you give yourself a reward

A number of people hate receiving cold calls and this is due to bad practice from a small number of people in the cold calling industry. However, if you approach cold calling professionally, and you can genuinely help the person you are trying to reach, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Most people don’t like cold calling because they fear rejection. If you would like to find out how we can help you and your team to get more results with less effort and deliver the right proposition to the right person at the right time call us on or fill in our contact form and we will be in touch.

Written by John Bancroft

John has over 15 year’s experience in cold calling and runs regular telemarketing training courses for private companies as well as Intellect IT Association. You can reach John at john.bancroft@incognate.com or visit his website http://www.incognate.com.

I was speaking with a potential client the other day and asked THAT question…”Who is your target market?” As a provider of telecommunications equipment, his response was, “Anyone who has a phone!” While that may seem like a good answer, the reality is that it is completely unfocused and undoubtedly wastes thousands of dollars in marketing costs and tens of thousands of dollars in opportunity costs. After all, would you rather spend your valuable time with a prospect who buys 70% of the time, or one who buys 15% of the time?

The reality is that no matter what business you are in, no matter what product you sell, you can take a look back at your customers and very quickly determine the characteristics of those most likely to purchase your product or service. Why is this important? Let’s say you do sell telecommunications equipment like my prospect. When you examine your sales history, you find out that 80% of your customers have between 10 and 20 million dollars in sales, have more than 15 employees and are sole proprietorships. So you now know with indisputable proof that for whatever reason, a sole proprietor with $12 million dollars in sales and 20 employees is much more likely to buy from you than a partnership with $5 million in sales and 10 employees. How important can that be when planning your lead generation and conversion tactics?

Let’s briefly discuss defining some prime market segments, specific geographic markets, sizes and trends, characteristics of people and 12 very important reasons to profile your target customers.

1 - You will know how to communicate your message with a minimum of confusion when you know who your customers really are and deliberately set out to attract them.

2 - You will be better able to decide how to market your product or services to best reach prospects most likely to buy.

3 - You will know what additional services that your prospective customers or clients will want and expect from you.

4 - You will know what your target customers are willing to pay.

5 - You will know what your target customers will expect in terms of quality.

6 - You will know where large groups of target customers are located so you can market to them directly and cost effectively.

7 - You will know who else is after your target customers.

8 - Your customer will help you define your true market.

9 - You will be able to identify where it’s not only possible to possible to survive, but to prosper.

10 - When human needs aren’t being met, you’ll find a widening gap in the market and the key to opportunity.

11 - You will learn simple techniques that will help you gain insight into consumer behavior.

12 - It will be very important because you’ll be able to conceptualize your overall market.

Does this mean that we sell ONLY to our target market? Of course not! And does it mean that you give up on those outside your market? Again, a resounding NO! What it does give you is a place to start. When you aren’t sure WHY people outside your customer base aren’t buying, the first thing to do is to target prospects that have the same characteristics of your current customers.

The second, later thing to do is to find out WHY those outside your base are not buying and see if you can change that. It may be as obvious as no one under 30 buying your wrinkle reducing cream, but most likely it will be much more complicated. Once you are able to determine the reason for a particular group ignoring your sales message, you can address that issue.

Greg Beverly is a sales coach dedicated to helping create abundance for all who seek it. Find out how YOU can become a sales champion and live the life of your dreams by visiting http://www.salessuccess.yougethelp.com today.

Unbelievable! Turns out the very person sales professionals dread talking to on the phone is not to be dreaded at all.

That’s right, the affectionately referred to gatekeeper, bull dog, mean-spirited witch on the other end of the phone … in polite terms referred to as The Executive Assistant … is without question your most powerful ally who wants to help you get face time with the executive.

Yep. She is the keeper of the keys to the executive suites. Treat her wrong and she’ll keep the door securely closed. Treat her right and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll get the coveted sales meeting with THE decision maker.

As a whole, sales professionals mistreat executive assistants.

How do I know that? Executive assistants told me so! I asked them pointed questions, and they answered.

I went on the road, visited four cities and interviewed executive assistants. During the interviews, these women candidly revealed the many things sales professionals do wrong during cold calls to executives. Additionally, these powerful women generously gave several important tips as to how to win them over during a cold call.

Warning: The truth hurts, but it will also set you free. You’ll want to take a deep breath as you read and process what Assistants say:

“Sales professionals call and are rude, pushy, and treat me as though I don’t matter. It’s clear that the only person they believe has value is the executive. Fact is, the executive thinks I’m important enough to trust me with his calendar and to run the business in his absence. Do they think I deserve disrespect?”

“I’d never let sales persons know I was laughing, that would be rude. I represent the office of the executive and do my levelheaded best to be respectful at all times. But seriously, you have to laugh. These people call, ask for an appointment, I say ‘no’ and they call again … with a disguised voice. Do they think I don’t recognize that fact? Please!”

“My first day on the job I told my executive how I handle the daily onslaught of inbound telephone calls from people asking for him. With his approval of my methods I went to the receptionist and told her specifically, how to determine which calls should be sent through, and which calls should be screened out.”

These phone behaviors tell executive assistants a caller does not belong:

1. “A caller who talks too fast, making me feel pushed against the wall rather than conversed with.”

2. “A sales person who does not announce the bottom line reason for the call and goes to rambling, asking lots of questions to which they should already have answers.”

3. “A man or woman who talks as though he or she is a friend of the executive, but I have never heard mention of them.”

4. “A pleasant enough person who asks totally, inappropriate questions, such as, ‘what’s your president’s name?’ ‘which of our competitors do you use now?’ ‘are you satisfied with their service?’. I feel embarrassed for a lot of these callers. They don’t seem to know how inappropriate they are.”

Sure, there are lots more mistakes sales professionals make when they cold call executives, but these are a few to which most can relate!

Tips for Building an Alliance

Executive assistants want to know how to best serve the executive. One way they do this is by identifying callers who potentially have effective solutions for the executive’s most pressing business issues.

Although these executive assistants do screen out people who don’t belong, the shocking truth is that they are actively searching for people who do belong.

When you call the executive office, be sure to:

1. Converse with the executive assistant rather than talk at her.

2. Speak at a pace that can be easily understood. Avoid the temptation to spew out words at a rapid fire pace, in favor of engaging in conversation with the assistant.

3. Develop a statement that in ten bottom line words or less, conveys the business solution your products/services have to offer the executive.

4. For goodness sake, don’t ask lots of questions to which you should already have answers.

Then, before your very eyes, watch as the person heretofore thought of as “public enemy number one” makes a magnificent transformation from “obstinate gatekeeper” and turns into your strong ally!

Forward this article to friendsthey’ll thank you for it!

For your FREE mini-course “Jealously Guarded Secrets to Cold Calling Company Presidents” visit http://www.ColdCallingExecutives.com! Or call Your Sales Coach for Extreme Profitability, author/speaker Leslie Buterin (like butterin’ bread) at (816) 554-3674 9-3 CST (that’s Kansas City/Chicago Time).

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?

The starting point for strategic selling is figuring out a) which customers produce the bulk of your sales, and b) what they are buying. Armed with this information, you can strategically plan how to increase sales.

Critical Data Elements

If you want to sell strategically, you need to have access to specific data elements. Plus, you need to be willing to perform data analysis.

Which data elements do you need? This list provides a reasonable starting point:

• Customer Name
• Revenue by Month by Customer
• Gross Margin or Gross Profit by Month by Customer (this is only necessary if it impacts your performance measurements)
• Product or Service Name (for each product or service purchased by each customer)
• Product or Service Quantity (for each product or service purchased by each customer)
• Product or Service Unit Price (for each product or service purchased by each customer)
• Product or Service Extended Price (quantity x unit price)

This data can be used to analyze the buying habits of your customers. Sort it in various ways to answer the following questions:

• Which customers buy the most from you?
• What is the trend for each customer’s purchases? Are they buying more or less when you compare the current month to preceding months? How about when you compare the current month to the same month in the previous year?
• Which products or services are they buying?
• Are the amounts purchased in line with your expectations and the commitments that have been made by your customers?
• Which products or services are they not buying?
• Why aren’t they buying these other products or services?

Once you have completed the first stage of analysis, consider this next set of questions:

• How much time should you allocate to each customer in your territory? (Tip: You should spend 80 percent of your time with the customers that buy the most and/or offer the greatest potential for sales growth.)
• What is your plan for increasing sales to each of your customers? (This includes selling more of what they have already been buying, and selling other products or services that they haven’t purchased from you previously.)
• Which new prospects should you pursue? (Tip: Which prospects can your existing customers refer you to? Which prospects have the greatest potential to produce significant sales?)

It may not be easy for companies to extract the data that is required to support strategic selling. However, arming salespeople with this data is the best investment a company can possibly make. Strategic selling enables salespeople to maximize their sales, which in turn maximizes the company’s overall sales and profitability.

How frequently should the data be made available to salespeople? If sales cycles are relatively short, it would be ideal for the data to be available on demand, with the minimum frequency being weekly. For longer sales cycles, providing the data on a monthly basis may be adequate.

Strategic selling begins with data availability. If you are going to maximize sales, you need to be able to analyze your customers’ buying patterns to determine how to prioritize your efforts. Which customers should you spend the bulk of your time with? How much time should you allocate to each customer? How will you increase sales to specific customers? Which new prospects should you pursue?

Plan your work, work your plan, and compare your results frequently against your quota and personal goals. Sell strategically to maximize your sales, minimize unpleasant surprises, and maximize your earnings!

Copyright 2005 — Alan Rigg

Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don’t Perform and What to Do About It. His company, 80/20 Sales Performance, helps business owners, executives, and managers DOUBLE sales by implementing The Right Formula for building top-performing sales teams. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020salesperformance.com.

Good sales people can close, but few “step up” for even more sales from that close. Yet stepping up should be one of the easiest accomplishments in sales — that is if you know how to build the staircase.

Do it by applying a leadership tool I have taught thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years. The tool is simply to foster a particular viewpoint, which is this: Challenge people not simply to do a task but to take leadership of that task.

The difference in results-producing effectiveness between doing a task and taking leadership of a task is the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.

This change in viewpoint may seem simple even simplistic; but when put into action many times daily, it can work wonders.

For instance, I worked with a manufacturing leader whose workers were constantly falling short of productivity goals. I told him he was leading the workers in the wrong way; he was ordering them to get productivity advancements. I told him that he should have the workers sign on as leaders of productivity advancements. When the workers began seeing themselves as such leaders, they started hitting the goals consistently.

Now, let’s apply this leadership tool to the sales process. I’ll show you how to get step-ups in results that go far beyond the results achieved from closes. Here are three ways to do it.

(1) Don’t Just Sell Products, Get Cause Leaders: Salespeople often fail to get step-ups because they have a short-sighted view of the customer. They view the customer as only a customer! Whereas, if we want to get step-ups, we must see the customer not just as a customer but as a “cause leader,” one who can lead our cause both inside and outside their company. Instead of aiming just to sell a product, to get a close, aim to turn your customer into your cause leader.

For instance, I consulted with a materials supplier that wanted to acquire new customers in the computer industry. The salespeople of the materials company not only worked diligently on closing with the engineer-customers but also on creating step-ups by persuading those engineers to be the cause leaders for their materials within the company.

Here is the way that they enlisted that leadership. They discovered that the engineers needed increased productivity and faster cycle-times — and to do it with fewer resources.

In response, the sales people developed a materials performance package for the engineers that increased their productivity and cycle-times. In addition, they brought in productivity experts from their own company to help the engineers streamline their design processes. They’re not only selling their materials. They’re selling productivity as well. Seeing that the sales people were helping them meet their vital needs, the engineers became the sales people’s cause leaders within their company — unleashing a torrent of step-ups.

(2) Start Early: George Burns said, “I had to work hard for 20 years in vaudeville before I became an overnight success in radio.” That’s a lesson in stepping up. Stepping up sales results with my leadership tool doesn’t just happen overnight. You must prepare to get those step-ups starting in the early stages of the sales process: when prospecting for new clients, identifying decision makers, and making initial calls.

In this early stage, ask yourself: “What is the close in this sale? And how can that close lead to the customer not simply buying my product but also becoming the product’s cause leader, both inside and outside his/her organization?”

For instance, the sales people of the materials company I mentioned aimed to replace their competitors’ materials with their materials in computer housing applications. With that focus, they would have gotten closes — but not step-ups. The differences between their competitors materials and their materials were negligible in cost and performance.

The sales people continued to develop the traditional channels to their customers’ purchasing departments. But they also began building step-ups early by including design engineers in their first-stage sales activities. They focused on being their customers’ “design partners” — not simply showing them where they could save costs and achieve performance advantages but also showing them how they could get market share through the innovative uses of those materials.

Getting in early as their customers’ design partners, they not only got closes but step-ups from those closes by integrating their materials into new generations of housings.

(3) Link to “Must-Have” Results: Step-ups happen only when you answer the vital needs of your customers — not the nice-to-have needs. Discover those needs by asking and answering: “What are your customers absolute must-have results?”

Those “must-haves” are your great step-up opportunities, because when you are delivering on the must-haves, your customers are more likely to become your cause leaders.

In the above example, the sales people were able to get step-ups because they focused on their customer’s “must-haves”, productivity and cycle-time.

Here’s another example dealing with another busines sector: I consulted with an insurance company whose growth had flattened out. We found out a key reason why. Their products were not meeting the must-have results of their customers. The must-have results of their customers were that they absolutely had to grow their businesses. Yet the company’s products did not materially address the growth needs of their customers.

Only when the sales people convinced their own company to develop and sell products that met the growth needs of their customers were they able to turn those customers into cause leaders. Once those new products were offered to the customers, they far outsold the old products.

Don’t sell yourself short by focusing exclusively on the close. Liberate the step-up opportunities that are embedded in most closes by using this powerful leadership tool of challenging people to lead not simply do. By getting customer cause leaders, starting early, and linking to must-have results, you can multiply sales far beyond what closes achieve.

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2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com

Is cold calling dead? And if laws are being passed to put it to
rest once and for all, how do we generate business from now on?

Opinions on the subject vary greatly depending on the background
of the individual. For example, most of the old-timers are
vigilant in preaching their belief that the only possible way to
succeed in the world of selling is to make no less than fifty
calls each and every day. On the other hand, younger salespeople
tend to become frustrated with this rather quickly and begin
looking for more innovative ways to generate business.

I was just reminded of how ingrained this cold calling belief
is. I spoke with a friend who left a sales position with a major
merchant processing bank only a few weeks after starting. The
reason? He was required to make a minimum of 400 cold calls each
and every week and to document his activity with business cards.
He is highly experienced and knows how to generate business
without knocking on 400 doors per week and decided to discuss
the strategies that have worked for him in the past with his
managers. Their response? This is how we’ve done it for forty
years and we’re not about to change.

That response, in my opinion, is the reason we’re seeing record
business bankruptcies today. The world and our economy have
changed and are breaking into bold, unchartered territory. But
the management of most business organizations insists on doing
things the old way, even though the old way produces less and
less results as time goes on.

The concept of “Permission Marketing” is slowly but surely
gaining popularity as the old idea of “Interruption Marketing”
becomes less efficient and more wasteful. There are several
reasons why cold calling in particular has become less effective
as we move further into the Information Age. It destroys your
status as a business equal. It forces you to spend time with
unqualified prospects while the qualified ones are buying from
your competition. It annoys people and is increasingly
considered to be rude and disrespectful. Moreover, it may now be
illegal (and in several states it’s been illegal for quite some
time). But, most importantly, it destroys sales peoples
attitudes.

Where is the good news in all of this? Well, the great news is
that if you begin using new, innovative, “Information Age”
methods for prospecting, you’ll be miles ahead of your
competitors who are wasting their time annoying people with cold
calls. In this age of the Internet and vast communication
networks, why on earth would anyone knock on doors or make cold
phone calls to look for business?

Think of the power at your fingertips: there are literally
dozens of ways to use the Web and e-mail to let the idea of
Permission Marketing do its magic. Allow customers to raise
their hands and let you know they’re interested. Begin finding,
implementing and reaping the benefits of this bold, new
Information Age we are in. Your competitors will be the ones
standing in bankruptcy court and explaining their “do-not-call”
violations to the government while you are happily taking
orders.

Is your 30-second commercial or elevator speech powerful? Does it invite others to want to know more? Do you even have a 30-second commercial? How do you know if someone’s really interested and wants to get more information? And what do you say next?

A 30-second commercial or elevator speech is a brief introduction of what you do. This is the start of a conversation to find out if someone wants to know more about what you do.

Whether you sell products in your home business, or whether you are looking for other distributors, it’s important to take the time to create an interesting, but brief intro to your business.

So how do you create an effective 30-second commercial? First, realize that most people are dissatisfied with one or more of these areas:

1. Their finances
2. Amount of free time they have
3. Their job or current business
4. Their health

Taylor your 30-second commercial to hit one of those areas. Start with a question that addresses one of those key areas. “Do you know how concerned people are about making ends meet?” “Do you know how disappointed people are with never having enough time with their family?” “Do you know how people just don’t have enough energy?”

Find a hot button that you know people struggle with. Then show them how you solve that problem. “Well, what I do is to help/show/work with people to….”

Let’s say you meet Jane at a business mixer. The first thing to remember is to forget about YOU and learn about Jane. Ask her questions about her family, her job or business, how long she’s been in that job, etc. Be sincerely interested in Jane, who she is and what she does. If you are, then in almost every situation, Jane will ask you what you do.

Instead of answering Jane in just one or two words, start by asking a question. “Do you know how frustrated people are with their jobs?…Well, what I do is to show people how to get out of the rat race and start their own fun, simple and profitable home business with a product people already love.”

You can design your 30-second commercial around your product or service, or around your business opportunity. Either way, you are stating a common problem and then offering a solution through what you do.

Now, if Jane has no interest in what you do, she might say. “Oh.” If she doesn’t ask any questions, then either she has no interest in what you do, or your 30-second commercial wasn’t powerful enough. If someone doesn’t ask any other questions, that’s your clue to move on to another topic of conversation.

However, if Jane can relate to what you’ve said, she’ll probably say something like, “Really? What’s your product?” or “Hmmm, how do you do that?” What you do next is critically important.

Do NOT start rattling off all the facts about how great your product, service or business is. Avoid getting so excited about your product and business that you start talking non-stop. At this stage, if you start giving detailed facts about every aspect of your product or business, you will turn people off very quickly.

Answer the questions directly but also ask Jane another question to learn more of her situation. By asking Jane questions you’ll learn more about how you could really help her. If Jane asks you more questions, then the door is open to have a true conversation with her about your business.

Make sure that you keep the focus on HER and if your product or business could help her. Do not focus on “selling” her on your product or business. Just relax and listen for a way you can sincerely help. After talking for a few minutes, if there appears to be a genuine interest, ask if you can get together for about 30 minutes (by phone or in person) to give her all the details. That’s the time for a complete presentation.

This all starts with an interesting 30-second commercial. Perfect yours and be able to say this in your sleep. Ask questions, listen more than you talk and keep the focus on how your product or business can solve an area of dissatisfaction for the other person.

Donna Davis has successfully built several businesses from a local accounting service to a large online network marketing team. To learn more about Donna, her family, her current business and how she helps others achieve their dreams visit http://www.myfuncandlebiz.com