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Sales Training America is a world class sales training and custom development training company specializing in sales training and sales skill development of our client's sales force. At Sales Training America we help our clients improve their sales profitability through the development of their sales management and sales efforts through SalesForce.com implementation. Sales Training America offers both public (open enrollment) sales training seminars well as the development of customized sales systems and sales seminars for Fortune 1000 companies across United States and Canada.

Are you one of the many corporations now focusing on core sales activities while implementing SalesForce.com while outsourcing non-core functions in response to intense competition?

If you are, Sales Training America can help there too. If you simply want to outsource some of your sales or sales management training or if you want to redefine yourself completely to survive mergers, acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, downsizing, or corporate restructuring we can help you.

For free, no obligation information on how we can help you with your sales training needs please contact us today.

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Sales Training Seminars: Overcoming Today's Sales Call Challenges

Change is good... when you understand how to make it work for you. Forget what you think you know about sales and marketing. Things have changed.
Before you get crazy, it isn't that a salesperson should really forget everything he knows. It's just that the sales and marketing tactics of twenty, ten or even five years ago just might not be as effective today. Why?

Two reasons. First, the strategies and tactics are sound but misunderstood and applied incorrectly. Second, the way we "hunt" and "gather" has changed. Customers are much better equipped to search you and your services out, no matter where you do business.
Whether you work for yourself, a small business or a large corporation, you are under daily, monthly and annual call and appointment quotas in addition to your responsibility to meet revenue quota.

There is nothing wrong with that except some less-than-effective methods are used in order to meet those quotas. We picked up some bad habits along the way. We believe our marketing material is effective in forwarding the sales process. We think everyone should want to talk to us the first time we call, write or e-mail.

The truth is that once we welcomed intrusions on our day in the hope of learning something useful and new, or even just as a short distraction. Today we live in an age where our senses are under a 24/7 sensory assault. The majority of people you are selling to suffer from electronic age attention deficit disorder and sound bite syndrome. Few react well to more intrusions than currently tolerated.

The truth about why and when buyers buy
This truth has always been a truth: A buyer buys when he's ready to buy.
For the purposes of this article, buying is more than forking over money for a product or service or signing a contract. Buying is accepting and agreeing to a requested and desired action. In 21st century selling, buying is agreeing to a requested action.
In the 1992 classic movie Glengarry Glen Ross from David Mamet's 1984 Tony Award-winning play, the ABC's of selling epitomized and made famous was "Always be closing."
Around the same time, to reduce "cost of sales" high-priced consultants taught to "always be qualifying." Unfortunately, few learned how to do this effectively and salespeople ended up learning "sales-prevention" techniques. The two merged, leaving any prospect not ready to sign on the dotted line with skid marks on his back and lonely between phone call follow-ups.

If you were not ready to do business on the spot, the sales rep moved on. Moreover, busy chasing the next "sure thing" in a desperate clutch at making quota, the average sales rep is notoriously bad at managing a longer sales cycle and remaining in touch until the buyer is ready to buy. Untold opportunities were lost then, are lost now, because of this antiquated ABC/ABQ philosophy.

The new ABC's of selling are, "Always be Close" and "Always be Communicating."
Staying close to prospects requires consistency, multiple methods and different modes. The communication needs to be consistent, useful, chock full of helpful content and information and address the buyer within the different phases of the sales cycle. The communication needs to personalized and targeted whenever possible.

Take the example of making a cold call to get an introduction (this works for e-mails and letters, too). Typically targeting the person thought to be the decision-maker a salesperson picks up the phone, asks to speak with the president, owner, or CFO, and gets the executive assistant (gatekeeper) or voicemail. The conversation goes something like this:

You: "Good morning. May I please speak with Mr. Owner?"
Gatekeeper: "May I ask the purpose, please?"
You: "I'd like to schedule an appointment to talk about my service."
Gatekeeper: "I'm sorry. Mr. Owner is not available."
Maybe you bypass the 'front desk,' get Mr. Owner's voicemail and leave a similar message; but you never get a call back. In fact, you may have left a number of messages without a return call. Maybe you even reached Mr. Owner once and he rejects your request for a time to meet.

The unsavory reality is that to a prospective buyer salespeople are the social equivalent of a vampire. In case you don't know how the vampire stories worked before the modernization of the teen-love vampire genre, here's the quick version- a vampire can't come into your house unless you invite him.

As a salesperson, don't take it personally. Find the reason to be invited in and use it with calls, emails, marketing material and letters. Once invited in, all is fair.

In the above example, there are seven problems and several corrective actions that can help get a salesperson invited in:

There is no indication of prior relationship (or any relationship) with the person called.
There is no acknowledgement of the importance of the person answering the phone.
There was no effort to enlist the help of the person who answered the phone.
The person answering the phone doesn't know who you are.
There was an action requested without an offer of something in return.
There was no compelling reason for the person to put you through to Mr. Owner or for Mr. Owner to take your call.
The person called is not ready to take our call (they lack the time, lack the need, and lack the resources).

The same issues apply to direct mail letters, radio and TV ads, e-mails, newspaper ads, and mass-market direct mail. A salesperson's call for an appointment is an intrusion and it is the salesperson's job to lessen or eliminate the feeling of intrusiveness.

In a word, the stronger the position and the buyer's need the less number of contacts it takes to achieve your goal. The weaker the position from the buyer's perspective, the more contacts it takes to achieve your purpose.

Before picking up the phone, writing an email or letter (or developing marketing material think about the following. Think about this and make a checklist:

Do you solve problems in similar industries? Do you work with someone of similar status? Were you ever told, "Give me a call when you have something I should look at?"
If you don't know it, ask the person's name. "Good morning. This is Mark Daniels from My Sales Hero, may I ask to whom I am speaking, please?" Then thank the person for that information, offer something else and ask for another action.

Not sure who to call? Use the dialogue to build up the gatekeeper- tell him you think he is the right person to ask for help identifying the right person to contact and whom you should be contacting. Ask if it is okay to use his name - you want to let the person you are contacting know how helpful he is.

Be prepared with a reason why the person you are calling wants to hear from you- It can be proprietary information that helps someone in his industry do something important. It can be a new way of doing something that helps someone in his position overcome a well-known obstacle. Whatever it is, weave it into your conversation focusing on results whenever possible. If you lack a record of accomplishment of results, use it to your advantage and make it a selling point; after all, it is something new to share the competition does not yet have.

Still not getting in the door? If there is no reason to talk today, ask permission to stay in touch and to follow up periodically. Write up a schedule and stick to it. Be consistent and always have something new to share.

Source: Mark H Daniels link

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