Do not be too pushy

People hate salespersons that are too pushy and keep on nagging to sell. They are sure turn offs. Never consider your prospects as a disposal box of your product. If you find your prospect is not interested in your product, leave it there. If you become too pushy, you may end up losing the prospect forever and incur bad perception of your brand.

Don’t lose hope

With a failed trial or series of trials do not lose hope, it will show on your face and you may appear boring, sad and cold to a good prospect too. If you are not enthusiastic about your product or service, you can’t expect your prospect to find interest in it too. Staying motivated from street to door, under every circumstance, every atmosphere is important as it’s you who are ‘face’ of the brand. So appear enthusiastic, pleasant, motivated, and persuasive. Remember, your prospect is literally a ‘prospect’ for you, not your customer, so don’t expect him or her to be too receptive. They are the people who are not actively looking for your product and your visit is unexpected, interfering. Conversion rate in this type of sale is low, so accept the fact. In a failed attempt, just think it was a bad one and move on to the next with a winning attitude. Celebrate each successful sale, and stay motivated.

Little planning can be helpful

Rather than being random and ringing all doorbells on your way, with piled up rates of failure why don’t you start planning a bit and secure more chances of success? Good planning and research may help you. Know who is your target audience, where they are located, what promise they expect from you, what is their trust level, when are they available and receptive to your presentation, what motivates them etc. Choose locations accordingly. So before starting with your sales call do a thorough research on the demography and psychograph of the desired target group. Also, do not reach them in inappropriate time. Strike a balance between quantity and quality of calls.

And you are there. Go and shoot, win and celebrate.

What are the tools of cold prospecting?

Ideally, any tool that connects you with your audience could be uses for cold prospecting, but practically, many of those tools cannot be used because of the expense involved. Typically, a business will use one or more of the following communication tools for cold prospecting:

• Call on cell phones
• Call on landlines
• Text messages
• E-mails
• Direct mails on home or office address

Each of the above tools are also overused (read abused) tools, and that is why all the unsolicited attempts to get in touch with your future market are considered spam or junk. This perception is not too far from reality. It is such perception that renders these tools useless?

Then how to use any?

This is a natural question that springs out in the mind. But the good news is that there is a way to put these tools in use, which I going to outline below.

• The very first rule of cold prospecting is moderation. Do not go on steroid. Everyone equally hates, and some hates more, cold callers. But not all the time. At times people are receptive to the messages they receive. Do not bombard users with multiple calls or multiple variants of your message. They are already too bogged down by such messages.
• Once a user expressed his unwillingness to buy your product or services, strike out his or her name from your database. Your database software should have a list of out of bound contacts, whom you should never contact.
• Instead of cold calls, send emails, text messages, and creatively done postcards to suspects. These are less intrusive mean of communication.
• Never call in the peak time or the peak season when your suspects are busy doing their important works.

Take the above precautions, and you will increase your chances of acceptance. Your cold calls will not remain as mindless.

There is another fact, and it is related to objection handling. No matter what objection your clients have, or what problem they say they have, you can handle it and that too by following a set of steps given below.

Sincerely listen to what he has to say

Do not object or stop your client from speaking his heart out. Cutting him short is a sign of weakness. Let him speak not only and try to understand his point of view on the matter at hand. More so because he may himself tell you the answer to the objection he has raised.

Make him talk

If your client is not the kind who bares his heart out then make him talk. Ask questions that will make him reveal more about the objections. More often than not clients reveal the solution when talking about their objections, so make them talk.

Ask questions related to the objection your client raised

Ask questions to unearth the reason behind the objection raised by your client. Quite often, the issue raised by the client is mere a disguise (or external appearance) of the real objection he has. You need to ask relevant questions so that you can unearth the real reason behind his denial to make a purchase now.

Do not try to prove them wrong

Proving your clients wrong is the worst thing you can do in a sales situation. You are not there to win a debate, so do not go with that mindset. Let you client speak about his problem, and except that whatever he says is write, after all he is the one who is there stuck in a problem.

Be gentle to him, and even if you have to say that your client is wrong, say it in a way that it does not hurt his ego. It should not appear that you are playing the one-upmanship game. Make him realize that you are trying to solve his problem by understanding his point of view of the situation.

Take notes

This is vital, and notes taken when the client was talking will also help you in addressing his concern. Take notes, but not in a way to break is stream of thought. Your note taking should go undetected.

The things I have discussed above about objection handling are very important. You need to cultivate yourself in such a way that the above given objection-handling technique becomes part of your nature. Inculcate these into yourself, and practice it until it becomes your nature.

Mistake number 1: Data, data, and data

Yes, no one is interested in your long boring bar graphs, or your endless number of slides. No one cares about them, not even your clients. You should not excessively indulge in churning numbers and discharging them on slides to show your clients. They are bored of all these things. If you want sales to happen, avoid doing that. And start connecting with your clients.

Mistake number 2: Words, words, and words

Do not rattle off the speech you memorized yesterday. Do not even try to make it sound like an extempore. No one cares what you have to say, especially not your clients. Your words don’t mean anything to him. What matters to him are his own words and his alone. Listen to him intently and try to figure his needs from his own words. Be mum, if need be. Your goal is not to talk, but to sell.

Mistake number 3: Sell, sell, and oversell

I have seen many sales person who will start selling the moment they enters the room, and keep on selling until they are either metaphorically kicked out, or their battery get discharged. Do not do so. You should not oversell yourself. Draw a line and never cross it. Do not speak even a single word related to the product, until asked to, once your client agrees to your point. Overselling backfires!

Keep these mistakes away from your organization, and you will see a difference in the inflow of orders as well as in customer satisfaction.

Argue with your client

Argue with your clients, and do it fiercely, if you want them to go out with all their money. This will save you from all the chasings that you do every month. It will help you stay at home for the whole week, months, and years. Arguing with client over big or small issues is a surefire way to agonize them.

Tell them [heck] you are right

You know their business better than they themselves do. After all, you are a sales person than why the goddamn client should say you are not right. You are hell right, and you know that. This meeting is now your opportunity to tell them how write you are and how hopelessly wrong your client is. Teach them a lesson or tom if you want him to go away from you for rest of his life.

Talk, talk, and talk

Listening is a bad thing. Who said you should listen to your client? And why should you do that Listening is for those who do not research their client. ? Does not your client know how much time you have invested in researching his need? Is there any way on this planet in which he could possibly know more about himself they you now do after hours and hours of research?
You are not here to listen to him, but to tell him how great your product is and how it can help him solve his problems. He should better listen to you. This attitude will surely push off your client sooner than you would have expected.

Afterthought

I know you would not like to push your customers off then why do you adopt one or all three of the above written steps? No presentation works. Try to engage your client in discussion.

Pre-sales

Pre-sales is the phase in which a salesperson make a list of the probable buyers, qualify them, fix a meeting, and study about the prospects. This phase is important as it gives the salesperson idea about who client is, what he does, and what approach to take during the meeting.

Sales

This is the second phase where actual sales happen. A salesman meets the client, know client’s problem deliver the sales pitch presentation, tell the client about his company, offer the solution to client’s problem, ask questions, and handle objection. This phase is very important as this is the phase in which you meet the client and talk to him in person about his problems, and tell the client how the product you are offering is going to solve his problem. Do not over promise. Over delivery (delivering the solution that exceeds expectation) is great, but over promise is bad. This phase culminates with asking for order and making a sale.

Post-sales

This is the third and final phase of a sales process. This is a “follow-up and thank you” phase in which you, the salesperson, need to call up or write an e-mail saying thank you for his time, and if you have not yet got the order than mention that you are looking forward to serve him. And if the product was sold then you should ask the client if he or she is facing any problem with the product you sold. This is very important step and it helps you build rapport with your client.

Each step in the sales process has a role to play. Missing any of the steps is risking business.

1. Begin with telling your name and company’s name, and do it as succinctly as you can.

2. Use this brief moment to gain access to more time, may be 45-50 seconds more. This can only be done, if you address the client’s problem in one single line. You got me right. You will need to do some research before making the cold call. No blind cold calls please!

3. Once you got the time you asked for, get directly to the point and build the case, so that you can get a chance to have a face to face meeting.

4. Give some detail about the problem you seek to address and hide some details. The idea is to build curiosity.

5. Let the client take the lead. Your objective is to get to the meeting table, not to practice the one-upmanship.

6. No one likes pushy sales person, so hang up if the person is not interested.

Yes, if it’s done right then it is worth the effort. Cold calling is one of the most cost effective and widely used lead generation techniques. Indeed, there are many much more effective ways of lead generation, but the utility of cold calling cannot be ignored.  If you are running tight on budget, cold calling can help you getting your foot in the door, and from there you can begin your elevator pitch. Cold calling can be more effective than any other means of communication in the following three situations:

Introduction: There are situations in which cold calling is more effective than any other technique. If you are new in the market, and you want the clientele to take notice of you then you can consider using the cold calling techniques. Unlike introductory e-mails, a call to one of your prospective clients will buy you at least 10-15 seconds before they hang up. Use these 10-15 seconds to introduce your business, and if the call continues ask for 45-50 more seconds to discuss the things in detail. Use the time allotted to you very wisely. You do not need to supply all the essential detail in this 45-50-second time, just power pack the allotted time with an objective to fix a meeting by building interest in the services or products you are offering.

Database Tuning: A reply is not guaranteed when you send an e-mail to a random person from your database. The chances of your e-mail landing directly into trash bin are quite high, but when you make a call the person on the other end has to reply with either a yes or no; at time, people may be rude and just hung up the phone, nonetheless, you got the answer you were seeking. Use it to clean up the garbage from your database.

Sales Qualification: Use cold calling to see if your prospect is in the frame of mind to receive your salesperson or not. Given the complexity of sales life and the demand put on the organization’s resources (time, money and effort) cold calling can save hundreds to hundred thousands of dollars. This of course depends upon the size of your organization and resources you allot to prospecting and lead generation.

Be pushy and you lose the customer. This is guaranteed. No one likes pushy salesperson. Can you think of any more way in which we can use cold calling effectively? Write into the comment box below your inputs and suggestions. In the next article on cold calling, I will be giving a framework for a typical cold call.

]]> http://itlist.com/cold-calling-is-it-worth-the-effort/feed/ 0 http://itlist.com/10-everyday-sales-mistakes-to-avoid-part-ii/ http://itlist.com/10-everyday-sales-mistakes-to-avoid-part-ii/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:37:08 +0000 bikram http://itlist.com/?p=1300 As we discussed in the first part, a friend of mine from X-Paper (codified name of the only organization I worked for) was not very successful in selling the ad space despite his glittering MBA degree from a reputed institution, whereas, my bosses, most of whom had just plain vanilla graduate degrees, made a killing out of it. This article will tell you why?

But before going deep into it, let’s figure out the mistake my friend was making. The methods he was employing to woo clients was creating a layer in front of his eyes, which he named professionalism, and the layer was so thick that it hardly let anything other than the works requirements, issues and problems pass through it. Whenever a client started speaking about other things, the salesperson would either shut their mind away from the question, or at worst they will try to cut the discussion short. Anything other than business related problems were prevented to enter seller’s mind.

To a pair of untrained eyes, it looks like utter professionalism: work at the time of work, no small talks, but to a mind that is well-trained in the working of human psychology this step will look utter nonsense. As a human, neither we are capable of, nor can we compartmentalize our thinking, every day we find ourselves sandwiched between our professional requirements, and familial demand. In the context of human relations with his surrounding, this is normal, and everything else is not. My friend did not understand that he was not dealing with a machine made up of blood vessels and synaptic nodes, so pure ruthless professionalism would not fetch any result, instead it would put off the person on the other side of the table.

In the recent time, the scene has changed a lot. People leaving in the post 9/11 world are no longer looking for stark professionalism. Now unlike the 80s, the speech or interaction devoid of emotion is no longer considered the epitome of professionalism. These days, people are looking for human touch in everything they do, as the societal fabric is getting torn and tattered. They want to deal with someone who is empathetic towards their needs, desires, goal and aspirations, so what if it is personal. The dividing line between the work life and personal life is blurring. Every salesperson need to understand that the person on the other side of the table is as human as he or she is, so providing them an audience when they need is not a waste of one’s time, rather it will help the salesperson develop a strong bond with the buyer that will last longer, as the connection is on human level.

As we have discussed the problem one can have if any transaction is devoid of basic human emotion. Now, it is time to talk about 10 everyday sales mistakes that you can avoid while dealing with clients.

1. Focusing more on the hard data and giving less consideration to soft skills.
2. Focusing too much on the strength and sporting an ostrich-like attitude on weaknesses, (if you cannot see it, it hasn’t vanished, so burying your head in the sand will not work).
3. Constant jabbering and not listening to client.
4. Continue to sell even after client is sold to the product, idea or services.
5. No follow-ups
6. Not sweating on doing the required background research for the client
7. Too self-conceit to ask for referral
8. Not reading the psychological and behavioral cues let out by client.
9. No knowledge of where to pull the plug and ask for order
10. Not enough knowledge about the products and the services you are selling.

Let’s give you a personal account in brief to explain this more clearly. Couple of years back, I was employed in a space selling team of a national newspaper (for convenience sake let’s call it X-Paper). My stay there was not long, but I learned quite a few things there. While in X-Paper, I made a friend, who was very polished, professional, and stiff and had a quirky sense of humor. One fine day, he was not in his usual mood, not cracking his kind of jokes, which made me ask, how he was doing. In response to this he started verbally bashing our bosses (we had a handful of them). As he said, his issue was with the way our bosses lick the clients boot by being polite (overly) to make a sale (perhaps he was referring o their soft skills), and to meet their targets. He felt, it was not being professional. He went on saying he was against such things; one should do what he used to do, make a good PPT, put all the necessary information in it, and deliver the presentation, as best as one could. And that according to him was how sales should be made; no personal chit-chat, no small talks. What he was suggesting was this: do not be friendly (over, as he put it) with the people on the other side of the table, they are just business associates, so, instead of showing concern to their matters, we should focus on solving problems in their business. As he said, we should focus on what problem clients’ business had, and how our product was going to solve it.

After couple of months in the only corporate job, I quit and started a viral marketing and buzz generation agency (I come from MARCOM background), and hired this person for sales job. Six months into the position, he was still looking to make his first sale. I tried convincing him the other method, but he did not listen, and shifted the blame on our agency being a new thing. His point was well taken. Interestingly even when he was with X-Paper, a very well established niche newspaper, his sale was still not justifying the salary he drew. I was naïve then, and due to lots of other reasons my venture failed, but while taking its last breath it taught me the power of soft skills. The power of a simple smile, saying sorry, listening carefully, politely disagreeing when the difference in opinion arises, and admiring heartily when come across wonderful thing. All in all it taught me the wisdom that lies in being a good human.

Why my friend from X-paper despite those glittering MBA degree from a reputed college failed in doing what my bosses found it every day affair? Most of my bosses did not even have an MBA degree, they were plain vanilla graduates! I am not planning to kill you by the length of this post, so return tomorrow and get the answers. Till then, so long!

Close your eyes for a while and think, will you like to do business with the person whom you do not trust? Will you put your hard earned dollars in the hands of a person whose intention is not to help you but just to take money out of your pocket? No, you will not do that! Then why do you expect your customer to behave differently, just because you are on the opposite side of the table? Well, no matter how many times you turn the table, and how many people you bring on the other side of the table, you cannot be successful in making a sustainable customer base.

There is only one golden rule of selling and that is honesty. Be honest and sell only the product your customer needs, not the product your company wants to push to every customer. This is what we call integrity selling. Integrity selling will not only build a reputation for you, but it will also give you a rock-solid foundation made of loyal customers to stand on.

Integrity selling is the only way to maintain a long sustainable base of customers. In order to be successful in applying integrity selling in your business, you genuinely need to believe in solving the customer’s problem. I am saying believing, not feigning to believe, as most sales people do. This is how you can build reputation for yourself and your business. Till the time you are concern with just meeting your target for the month or the quarter, you cannot succeed in winning the hearts of your consumer. You need to win a significant share of customers’ hearts to remain in the business for the long run. Integrity selling is indeed tough, but the return it fetches makes it worth trying. As said, integrity selling will build a long term reputation for you, and the more you practice it the more equity gets deposited to your reputation-bank, which in the long run will mean more business for you.

Let’s think over a very famous quote: you can cheat a few people for a long period of time, you can even cheat many people for a short period of time, but there is no way in which you can cheat everyone (or many people) for the longer period of time, it isn’t possible. If you are salesperson, always remember this and never ever try to sell lie. A lie can help you meet the immediate goal, but it will hurt you badly in the long run. It is always wise to fix your eyes on the long term results, short term results will never last.