I was surfing the web this morning – looking for inspirtional rading and I found it on Kevin Dee’s Blog posting from December 12th. Check this out:

“If you are an excellent salesperson, delivering consistently on your numbers, then management should give you “elbow room” on the “minor” aspects of your job … right?

If you regularly deliver your projects on time and under budget then the company shouldn’t worry about small policy items … right?

Certainly this line of thinking is common in some companies, but there are some minefields in that thinking … for both company and individual.

1. The minute you start to think that you are good is the minute you start to exude that message … and clients, co-workers and bosses really don’t like it.”

Dedicated to increasing your sales,
Colleen

Over the past few weeks I have been leading many private sales training classes for clients in various industries, with teams of varying experience. Despite their differences, all teams have a common struggle: A constant battle to get through to the decision maker.

Once engaged with a decision makers my clients are having little trouble navigating through the buying process, building a relationship and making a sale. In fact, we are finding that for many clients, closing ratio’s are up. Trouble is ,sales are down becuase meetings are way down.

So what can we do. Here are a couple simple yet effective techniques for getting through.

1) Don’t look and sound like a sales person. You must look and sound like an industry expert. When you act differently to all other vendors, the gatekeeper and decision maker will treat you differently. Try this exercises in your next sales meeting:

“Divide a paper in half and on the left hand side write down all the things a typical sales person in your industry says and does – maybe its the same list of what you said and did yesterday. Them, on the right hand side list everything you can do that is different from the column on the left. What can you do that’s different?”

2) Scour the news for valuable articles about your prospect’s business that you can send them in the mail, with a note attached from you. These CANNOT be advertising pieces. Chose articles that your company wrote, or that others wrote that are pertinent to your clients business an/or business problems. Call them back about 5 days later and there is an increasing chance they will return your call because they will want to thank you for the article and discuss it with you.

3) Be friendly with the gatekeeper. Remember that all day gatekeeps are feilding calls from vendors, and employees trying to get hold of their boss. The majority of those calls are not respectful, fun nor easy. What can you do to show respect and thankfulness to the gatekeeper? Can you make them laugh? If they like you, you have a better chance of getting through.

4) Ask for their help. Something like “I was hoping you could help me…..” often works to get you an appointment with the decision maker because people have hard time resisting “help”. Take a look at our article on Gatekeepers for more detail.

send a thank you. Try www.sendyourcardnow.com if your handwritting is that terrible! If you do manage to get put through or have an appointment schedule take out a pen and a card and hand write a thank you card immediately. Send it to the gatekeeper. They will remember you and help to make sure your calls are taken in the future

Cheers, Colleen
P.S.

I read everything I can get my hands on about sales, marketing, business growth and wealth development. You should too. The holiday season is a good time to catch up on some reading. Here are a couple suggestions:

Recently I discovered a new blog on sales:

http://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/blog/

Although its about tech sales specifically, the same principles can be applied to all types of sales. I particularly liked this posting on firing customers.

For personal development I just finished a book called Why You’re DUMB, SICK, & BROKE . . . and How to Get SMART, HEALTHY & RICH by Randy Gage. Yes, its as shcking and contreversial as the title sounds. read it. regardless of wether you agree with everything he says…I know I don’t…it will challage you to develop critical thinking skills, take a stand and make some chamges in your life.

Finally, The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan Kennedy is as good as it gets. Even though you miught only be in sales and not have any formal marketing responsibility in your company you can use the ideas in this bok to create a marketing and sales plan for your territory! Anything by Dan Kennedy is worth reading…this is a MUST!

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Colleen
Toll Free at 1-877-364-2438

P.S.

Sorry its been a while since I posted. Its been a whirlwind of activity, attending the Dan Kennedy seminar last week and the CAPS (Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Conference this past weekend. I am back in the Eastern time zone again but this time in Toronto

Recently I received the following question from a reader:

“How can I become a successful sales professional?”

My answer:

Behavioral Congruence = Results Congruence.

What does that mean?

Find a successful sales person – better yet, find 5. Take not of all the things they are doing that are the same. Yes, there will be some differences. You want to take note of the similarities. Keep in mind that the people you model must be people whose results you admire in business, and in personal life. If you can figure out what they are al doing, that is similar to be successful, and you commit to doing those things, you too will be successful.

Do what they are doing and you will reflect their results. Many successful sales people are modeled in our e-booklet “The secrets of the top 10%”. If you don’t know any successful sales people to model, this booklet is a great start because it will provide the clues of how to identify success as well as providing concrete ideas on how you can be a success.

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Toll Free at 1-877-364-2438

P.S.