If you are an ambitious sales person who is looking for a way to get ahead faster and start making more money sooner, then this podcast is for you.
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I've presented more than 3,000 times to more than 20,000 advertisers in fifty five cities across twenty three states. I've worked with countless sales people who have made hundreds of thousands of calls. At last count, my presentations have helped local sales people sell over $55 million in local direct advertising.
When I start working with a group of sales people, I try to bring the very best ideas and techniques I have found. But if I had only five minutes to work with you and I had to summarize everything I have learned about sales into one thought, it would be this; If you don't ask, you won't get.
Prospecting is the life blood of sales. For a sales person or a small business to survive, they need new qualified prospects to call on. And the only way you’re going to find some is to prospect. You have to dig up information on different businesses in order to decide which ones are best for you to call on.
But for many sales people, prospecting is hard work. They find it hard to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger. They don’t like the rejection. Sales people find it especially difficult to prospect a new business for which they have little or no prior knowledge. It can be very awkward calling a business just to ask who the right person to contact is.
The calls sound like “Who handles your copier supplies?” or “Who is in charge of your HR department?”
The person on the other end of the phone suspects the caller is a sales person when he or she calls so the person on the other end of the line is already defensive and they are often somewhat reluctant to give out that information.
In many businesses, the so called “person in charge” of a particular business function within that organization is not the person who can say “Yes” to a new proposal. They are simply the person who handles that business function for the ultimate person of authority. They don’t really make any decisions of significance. They are often just the fulfillment person making sure that the needs of the company are always supplied through an already preferred and approved vendor.
These people may very well be the consumer of your product once the company makes the decision to do business with you so they do play a role in landing the account. They are sometimes called Inside Champions. That means that even thought they are not the decision maker, they may be asked by the decision maker for their opinion of your product or service so be nice. Today’s receptionist is tomorrow’s media buyer. In the vast majority of cases, you will need to talk directly to the owner of the company if you want to earn the business.
And of course, we all know what happens when you call and ask “May I speak with the owner?” Since you didn’t call the owner by name, it’s obvious you don’t know them and the response is “May I ask what this is about?” And once you say why you are calling you get REJECTED! The Rejectionist, I’m sorry, the receptionist is guarding the boss from sales people.
The worst thing you can do is to try some phony, overly familiar sounding approach that clearly exposes the sales person as a rank amateur. You can’t always assume that the name on the building is the name of the decision maker.
Bob Allen Ford is a dealership in Overland Park Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. Over the years, they have had many people come in and want to talk to Bob Allen. Some would say things like “Let me talk to Bob Allen, he’s a friend of mine” or “Let me talk to Mr. Allen.” To the person at the dealership taking the call, that sales person making the call sounds like a big dummy. There is no Bob Allen. There were two guys, Bob Hewlett and Alan Wiegers who joined forces to build up that dealership and it was their inside joke for years.
So how can you call up a company and find out who the owner is without sounding like a sales person or without using a gimmick.
If you work in a Radio station you might call and say “I’m working on the Radio station invitation list and I want to make sure I have all of the VIPs from your company on it, may I get the name of the owner please?”
Now that sounds too easy doesn’t it? But it is an absolutely true opening statement. Radio stations as well as many other types of companies maintain invitation lists for various purposes. If your company invites prospects to various events this could be the perfect way to collect some information for a future sales call. It really works if your company has an event coming up in the near future just in case the receptionist asks about what kind of things you invite people to.
If your company doesn’t have any events to invite prospect to, perhaps you should think of some. I’ll write more on that later in future article.
Once you get the name of the owner, a great follow up question is “Are there any other VIPs that should be included on my list?” In many small companies, there are family members or others being groomed for future positions of responsibility. Now is a good time to get to know them and build those relationships that will transcend the transfer of power from one generation to the next.
But don’t stop there; ask one more time if there are other VIPs, just to make sure you get everyone.
Since you’re working on the Radio station’s database, take a moment to make sure you get the fax number and any emails the person is willing to disclose. You may even ask the person if they would like to be on the list. It’s more than just a flattering gesture. Make sure to include them from time to time when you have something going on or at least send them a nice Thank You note for their help.
If the owner happens to answer the phone themselves, and that’s a distinct possibility, they may say “I’m the owner. How can I help you?” You can respond by saying “Wonderful! May I get your name please?” Sales people don’t use May I and Please nearly enough. Avoid saying things like “I need to get…” or “I want to get…..” because nobody cares about what we want. All they want to know is What’s in it for me?
But if you do get the owner and they do talk to you, they are likely to ask what the invitation list is all about so be prepared to say something like “We have events throughout the year. We have one coming up in just a few weeks called the 2010 Marketing Workshop. It’s a 30 minute presentation about what other small business owners are doing to gain market share as the economy recovers. It’s only 30 minutes long and you’ll get a copy of the materials on a CD. Would you like to come to that?”
Whether or not they attend, you now have the name of the owner. Be sure to send them a note thanking them for taking the time to talk to you. Include your business card and some of your current marketing materials because now you have just generated a real lead from your prospect list. Congratulations.
If you would like more information, please send me an email to Spike@SpikeSantee.Com.
Talk to you soon.
