Don't sweat the Sales Stuff.

Selling is really quite simple and not nearly as scary as some people think.
You get a list together of why your service or product is of value to your prospect and be willing to promote it.

What’s in it for them? How are you going to make their life wonderful?

Many people think about telemarketing and all those annoying calls you get at home when they think about selling products or services. It can be lawn maintenance, newspapers or carpet cleaning or just about anything else that you might find annoying to talk about after a full day of work. Usually the calls happen on your way out the door or when your in middle of something like making or eating dinner. Someone could be visiting or you could be relaxing for 5 minutes.

I had a telemarketer call me the other day to sell me some magazines from McLeans. He was offering such and such and this and that and blah blah blah and I finally I had to interrupt him, "I’m sorry I’m not interested."

what he said next surprised me. "You Don't Read" he said. Rule #1 Don’t insult the prospect!

What about Car Salesmen........that’s Exhausting. You ask a simple question "How much does this car cost?" then you wait and answer 25 questions before they give you a price. They will probably want to sit in the back seat while you test drive it to analyze the conversation you have with your spouse. Then they take off to go and see a manager to discuss your offer without you....Then they make you a deal but it’s only valid for 10 minutes or 24 hours. I could go on and on about all the tactics used but basically, I'm offended by the games and I think most customers are. These types of strategies give the profession of selling a bad name.

You need to have a straight forward and honest approach. People will respect you. Leave the games at home to play with your children.

In corporate sales there are 3 things I like to teach people....

Establish the key players

Find out who makes the decisions. When you are prospecting start at the top and work your way down. You won't step on any toes that way. People will tend to listen better when you are able to name drop and say that "Victor Barnes suggested I speak with you." It's important to introduce yourself to a high level person so there won't be any surprises later on, when the company starts doing business with you. They will remember your phone call to them. Is it a VP, an owner a CEO or high level manager. Have them release the names to you.

Which department takes care of the buying your products. There are often many players involved-could be 3-5 people deep depending on how large the company is and what you're selling. It is very important to find out who the key decision maker is? You can waste a lot of time prospecting the wrong person.

Determine the potential

YOU will get completely frustrated and agonize over why people aren’t buying when in fact----they don’t buy anything ever..you can’t sell ice to Eskimos, although I've been told that I can.

You absolutely must determine the potential of the account at the beginning. In IT for example, we measured the potential by how many pc’s they had? This gave you a good indication of their budget.

I'm not a big fan of coming right out and asking them what their budget is. If they don't know you've made them sound foolish and not important enough to have that information and it could be confidential in which case you have offended them by asking.

There are many other creative ways of finding out how much they spend on your product. Use their past history for example. Do they buy name brands. How old is their product now? Who are they buying from? How committed are they to using your product or service?

In corporate sales this can be tricky. If you're doing your job properly and actually putting yourself out there and making the calls you will always here “The budgets are cut”, “We aren’t buying too much these days, things are pretty quiet."

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I wouldn’t have to work.

They won’t share too much information with you in the beginning until some trust is established because they don’t even know who you are. That’s your job to figure it out. I like open ended questions that are conversational. For example......"What are you doing with your pinters?" "Did you decide on whether you were going to uprade this year?" "Do you generally purchase from one supplier or do you have a few you like to use?"

Building the relationship

I had a guy working for me once who was so pushy. He would keep people on the phone and practically beg them. As my Dad would say "That guy couldn’t sell steak to hungry millionaires” That kind of energy is creepy. Put more eloquently by Steve Chandler "Neediness is icky"

You want to be naturally confident and that comes from knowing what you offer has value. You pull it off something like this. Here's what we offer. This is what we do really well and this is what is excellent about our products. Here is the value for you. This is how much it costs. And I’m completely unattached to you saying yes or no. There are 4 billion people on this earth, someone will say YESSSSSSSS

To build a client relationship you have to establish a presence in the account. Be persistent and cultivate it. It’s like planting seeds. You water them, fertilize the soil, and nurture those seeds so that the plant becomes healthy and strong.

Same with an account. You’re making follow up calls, staying in touch, offering your services, thanking them for the opportunity, sending some information or free stuff. I sent golf balls to once to someone while relentlessly pursuing him. I called to follow up those golf balls. It was the VP of Finance at CTV. He thanked me and graciously offered me a name of someone to call at CTV and it turned out to be my largest AND most fruitful account, all because of 3 golf balls.

What can I tell you about Sales. Things change. Be persistent. Stay on them. They may not need you today. But NO means maybe...NO means not right now, not this month.

I heard NO from my very best clients while I was still prospecting them. If you can promote your products and services with confidence that what you are offering is of value to them, THEN when the players change or their current level of service goes down or someone drops the ball you’re the first person they will call. Because you have persistently and politely pursued their business.

Prospecting isn’t nearly as frightening as you would think. So get out there and remember 3 principles.

Know your value, Have a positive attitude and be persistent.

Happy selling,

Carrie Wynne