Proprietary July 30, 2003

Cold Calling and Successful Selling

“The three most important things in business are sales, sales, sales,” Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Founder, Ottawa Senators

Cold Calling

1. Before you lift up the phone, think about whom you are calling. Know something about their business, go to their web site and have a ‘solution’ in mind—this let’s you start a conversation with the prospect rather than making a sales pitch.
2. Even if the prospect doesn’t like your idea, they might still like you—your creativity and initiative and the fact that you bothered to make the effort to do some research on them before you called. People like to buy from people they like.
3. If you do this and if you make 50 calls, you should get 10 (20%) F2F meetings.
4. Out of 10 F2F meetings, you should get 4 (40%) sales orders.
5. If your annual quota is $1m in sales and your average order size is $5k, you need 200 orders for the year or 4 per week.
6. That means you need to make 50 calls each and every week to meet your goals…

In summary then, we have:

• Have a conversation starter—an idea of a ‘solution’ for them (‘selling is telling’*)—have a success story to tell them about someone in a similar industry or situation

The Storyteller

• Talk about what their competitors are doing and what they are not doing—that gets their competitive instincts going
• Do NOT sound like a salesperson (i.e. like you are reading a scripted message)
• Learn something about the prospect before you make the call
• Be nice to every receptionist (she/he can/cannot put you through to the right contact)
• Always introduce yourself
• Verify facts – Who is the decision maker?
• Always have a call to action—ask for the deal and have a paper ready that they can sign
• When you hear ‘yes’ stop talking, thank them for the deal, get a signature and then leave
• Always be courteous even when you get a ‘no’
• Remember ‘yes’ is the best answer but ‘no’ is the second best answer
• ‘No’ is better than a ‘maybe’ since ‘maybe’ just wastes everyone’s time
• A call to action gets you a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’—don’t be afraid to ask for the deal
• If you get a ‘maybe’ tell the prospect you are going to treat that as a ‘no’; they will either change their mind or at least you will have resolved the situation
• Selling is best done F2F; second best is by telephone; third best is by email—fax and snail mail do not even rate
• Schedule appointments by saying I am going to be in your area on such and such a date (book two to four weeks in advance)
• Do NOT call to confirm appointments—it gives people a chance to cancel on you
• If people are really rude, look at it as an opportunity to call them back in six weeks or so—they may feel some remorse and you get the appointment and sale anyway
• Keep an up-to-date data base—telephone numbers and email addresses especially
• Always thank people for their time in writing
• Always volunteer to write up the notes of a meeting or the agreement—‘he/she who controls the pen, controls the deal’
• Sometimes use a marketing survey to get in the door
• Ask a lot of questions and listen carefully—people like to talk about themselves and their companies; when you listen, opportunity will present itself
• When people say ‘send me some info’, make sure they really want it and it’s just not a way to get you off the phone
• If they say they are not interested, ask if you can follow up in a few months and then do
• Silence is a weapon—sometimes just by being quiet, they will answer their own objections and talk themselves into a deal
• DV x Q = $, Differentiated Value times Quantity equals Dollars**; what this means is you have to talk to your prospects about your differentiated value—what makes you different and better

“In order to be irreplaceable,

one must always be different,” Coco Chanel

• If call is not going well, ask to be included in the next opportunity: “Can you include me on the bidders list next time you order?” Get an email address and follow up
• Use the six degrees of separation to find someone you know who knows them but don’t rely on third party introductions—go after it yourself; use them as references and sources of testimonials
• Always practice bottom up selling—start with a peer-to-peer relationship before you get the Presidents of the two companies involved; they should only basically get involved to bless a deal
• Always try for at least a two year deal—if every sale you make is one-off, every year you are like a baseball player, you start over at 000 home runs. If you do multi year deals, your sales are guaranteed to increase year over year and increase much faster than if every deal is a one year deal

The Two Step Process—You Only Need to Meet with the Client Twice to get the Deal

Step 0: Study the biz and come up with a case study that is relevant and tells an interesting story. Call the prospect and start a conversation.

Step 1: Meet with the prospect face-to-face—this is a discovery meeting but a discussion is taking place about the case study you are using/suggesting and determining its relevance to their requirements. You are determining their budget and other factors in this meeting.

Step 2: You make a final presentation, ask for the deal and get a signature or … not.

Strategic Selling

See if you can do some strategic selling. Strategic selling is where the cost to your client of buying from you is negative. This is the easiest type of sale to make.

For example, a client buys something from you but you have already lined up someone to buy those products or services from them—you have guaranteed them a win, basically. See for example: http://www.dramatispersonae.org/NegativeCostMarketingArchitectFirm.htm

Sales People are Entrepreneurs

1. Every sales person is really running his or her own business.
2. More sales = more income for you.
3. Your cost side is you.
4. The great thing is you don’t have to worry about all those other kinds of things like paying to keep the heat on; … you just concentrate on your own business, selling more…
5. You are (mostly) your own boss.
6. Create your own PWS (Personal Web Site). Put your bio on it, a picture of you (even on the Internet, people like to see whom they are dealing with), other interesting material you have created/written (e.g., any case studies you have written), testimonials about you given to you by your clients, your contact co-ordinates, etc.
7. You need to be an expert in selling obviously but also an expert in marketing yourself.
8. Remember that the harder/smarter you work, the luckier you get.

Sales are the teeth of the business. Sales people are valuable to every business and even in difficult economic times, they are rarely laid off. When a JOB opens up in the Marketing Department, one typically sees dozens or even hundreds of candidates, all equally well dressed and well presented. Marketing types mostly make $30 to $50k. Sales people make $80 to $100k+.

But people are afraid of sales. They think selling is selling stuff to people who don’t want it when in reality, real selling is providing timely solutions to real problems clients are experiencing. Successful selling is a rush and it is very creative. It also involves a lot of marketing especially if you view your sales JOB as your own business and a big part of your JOB is marketing … yourself.

Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa, Canada. July 2003.

www.dramatispersonae.org

www.exploriem.org

* Thanks to Mark Gencher, Executive Vice President of Brymark.com for this.

** Thanks to Barry J. McLoughlin, President of CEO.TV for this.