How good will you be next year?

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

Get More Sales Meetings

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. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result!" – Thanks, Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP

On-Going Professional Development

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. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result!" – Thanks, Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP

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…heading home Thursday!

An interesting comment was made during the Dan Kennedy conference that I thought worthy of sharing because sales reps are always asking me how often they should be following up, with their prospects. Most reps, in my opinion are not following up enough, and now I have a guru to back up my opinions!

Direct marketing master Bill Glazer, who runs the Glazer - Kennedy Inner Circle along with Dan Kennedy, spoke at the conference about the direct mail campaigns he ran to his client base when he operated Baltimore's #1 retail men's clothing store, Gage Menswear, along with his late father.

Bill shared a a story about one of his first direct mail campaigns. He told his dad that they were going to mail a special promotional offer to the same list three times. His father was appalled.... yelling at Bill that he was stupid and wasting their money!

Bill persisted and mailed all three pieces of the campaign. His results revealed that mailing the exact same offer three times doubled their response AND in- store sales poured in!

According to the latest statistics we are inundated with over 4000 distinct messages every day! In order to get your message heard, you need to repeat it over and over. This is why repetition works. Without repeating your offer at least 3 times to your audience you are never going to break through the clutter to actually get your prospects attention, get them to listen ,AND get them to respond.

How can you use this in your sales practice?

Your newsletters - Are you publishing and sending your company newsletter often enough? Can you send 1 per month rather than 1 per quarter…or even 2 per month?. How about adding a newsletter from a different medium (e-zine if you are print only or visa versa)

I believe you should be reaching out and "touching" your prospects and customers at least once a week, if not more. The best way to do this, without annoying customers is to mix up the types of communication medium ( paper, ax, email, phone)

Events - When promoting events, you're going to need many more than one or two announcements or mailings. As a general rule, when I'm really trying to fill up a Web class for Engage we send out 3 emails dedicated to the promotion. 2 in our newsletter and 1 as a separate email. For a live event, we will send dozens of announcements, well ahead of time.

Sales calls - How many times are you following up? Using my voice mail technique we find that you can follow up 3 times per week, 2 times per month without annoying the customer. Don't be afraid to call or mail again. Harvard Business Review points out research showing that decision makers claim 37% of sales people don't follow up enough!

Advertising - Instead of blowing your budget on a few large ads per year, try running a smaller ad much more often. Most publications, both online and offline, will provide discounts for purchasing more than one ad at a time.

Repetition is the key. You don't have to be overly creative with your marketing - just saying or mailing the same thing over and over is better than not saying it or mailing it again!


Cheers, Colleen

Toll Free at 1-877-364-2438
P.S. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result!" – Thanks, Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP

Being a Successful Sales Professional

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. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result!"
- Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP

Modeling Success

Hi Everyone,

I am at the Dan Kennedy / Bill Glazer No BS Wealth Creation conference this weekend in LA. It just wrapped up and my head is spinning with new ideas to help you grow your business.

A couple things I noticed about the successful participants at this session - by successful I mean those pulling in at least $1million dollars or more in personal income per year

1. They are focused on value not cost
2. They are focused on ROI not activity input
3. They take immediate and decisive action, and make decision quickly
4. They implement, rather than thinking about what to do next
5. They associate with others like them, who are supportive of new ideas
6. They are all breaking the model of how business is being done traditionally in their industries.

Often, successful people are the ones with the most outrageous ideas. Starbucks was considered outrageous when they opened their first store - I mean really, who thought there would be a market for $7 coffee? With hindsight….wouldn't you have liked to be a first investor now?

Here is an exercise I can't wait to start, and I encourage you to o it as well. One the left hand side of a piece of paper, right down all the things your competitors do. What is considered normal business practice for your industry. Then, on the right side, list all the things you can do, to break these norms and stand out.

Remember - you can't make a sales and win a customer for life until after you do something different. Find those things that your competition is unwilling to do, and do them. If you treat your prospects differently, they will treat you differently and you will be differentiated from your competition forever.

Dedicated to increasing your sales,
Colleen
www.engageselling.com

Cheers, Colleen
Toll Free at 1-877-364-2438
P.S. – If you have not already taken advantage of my 30-Day no-charge trial of Lead- Up sales mentoring program, here is another opportunity to see what you have been missing: http://www.lead-up.com

"Colleen, one of our reps went from one or two conversations out of 10 cold-call connects and no prospects (previous week average), to 6 prospects from of his 10 cold-calls on the day immediately following your training. That is a pretty dramatic and immediate result! Thanks,"
- Lewis Prochnau Corporate Sales Manager Protus IP

AA Finally Came Around

Good Evening Sales Pro!

Last time I spoke about my frustration with AA (American Airlines not the other AA in case you were wondering) and their lack of customer service at the Cleveland airport. I am happy to report that in the end....they did redeem themselves.

Despite a cancelled connecting flight in Chicago, they offered to out me up for the night in Cleveland because they could get me a nice hotel, attached to the airport so I didn't have to be shuttled anywhere. Had I gone to Chicago, I would have had to travel away from the airport for miles to get a room. They also presented me with a choice of alternative routes home the next day and let me pick the one that was best for me.

I was impressed, had a good night sleep and arrived home safely the next morning. Yes it would have been better to arrive home a planned the night before. But hey, you can't control the weather and given the circumstances I would have rather had a hotel in Cleveland then a bench at O'Hare airport that night.

Congratulations AA for bringing this customer service story to a happy ending.

We should all take a lesson from this. Make it easy for your customer to be happy with you. Give them choices so they feel involved in the process and when a crisis happens, provide them with convenience on their terms...not yours.

Dedicated to increasing your sales,

Colleen