February 2014 - Page 4 of 9 - SalesTactics.org

Sales Prospecting Claude Whitacre Kindle Edition

Sales Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide To Finding Highly Likely Prospects You Can Close In One Call by Claude Whitacre is FREE on Kindle for the next couple of days. If you missed it, c'est dommage, but it's worth the tiny investment regardless. In Sales Prospecting Claude Whitacre has provided quickly actionable, complete and hard-to-find information about prospecting that you simply can't find anywhere else. Choosing your prospects is, in my experience, one of if not THE top things you can do to ensure success.

Here's my review of Sales Prospecting Claude Whitacre Kindle Edition:

As a sales trainer, I can tell you that prospecting is simply the step of the process nobody seems to want to do.

Alas, prospecting is the FIRST step of the sales process. You won't get many conversations if you won't prospect!

This is right where Claude's book comes in. Choosing your prospects carefully--to the point of spending MOST of your time selecting those prospects--is the #1 thing you can do to ensure your sales success. Claude shows you how to find those prospects who want to talk to someone like you...who you don't have to persuade to buy...and how to start those conversations so that they don't sound like grinding gears. If you want a more pleasant and effective experience, and to make the money you desire, this is your starting point.

What You'll Get from Sales Prospecting Claude Whitacre Kindle Edition

"If you are a salesperson who is looking for a proven method to multiply your sales prospecting results, you have just found the Motherload.

Inside, you’ll discover;

Why prospecting the way you were taught is a colossal waste of time.

How to cold call comfortably, without fearing rejection or suffering call reluctance.

The one vital factor in getting referrals that nobody is taught, that will triple the number of referrals you get.

The one secret to referral prospecting that will almost guarantee that referrals will buy from you.

How to get people to want to ask you about your business, in a way that is completely natural and comfortable.

A proven method, not taught anywhere else, to find the 6 % that will almost certainly buy from you...and the system to see an endless supply of these highly likely prospects.

Written by a salesman who practices what he preaches. Every method is field tested and proven.

Complete with every script, answers to every objection, and every resource you need to send your sales prospecting results through the roof."

Don't miss this.

No affiliate links here. Just great content.

>> Was this article helpful to you? Please Like, Share or Comment to let others know! Thank you <<

Do you find yourself saying things like, "We don't have time for sales training"? "We're too busy"? A writer recently recognized just that.

Lest you begin to believe the field of sales is dominated entirely by men, Monika D'Agostino is indeed a woman. She does point out the "male-dominated hierarchy" of the Austrian insurance industry, which she spent 17 years climbing to the top of before moving to the US, however.

Saying you don't have time for sales training is as easy as saying "We're too busy" for anything else. I receive a good dozen emails a day in the midst of the usual blizzard that promise quality content I would like to review--but I just don't have the time. Even when I buy a product, it can take weeks before I'm able to force myself to carve out a spot in my calendar to look at it. And that leads us to D'Agostino's conclusion: Priorities.

What You're REALLY Saying When You "Don't Have Time for Sales Training"

Here's what you're saying when you announce, "We don't have time for sales training":

Business Development is not a priority for you.

The status quo is just fine. Ensuring your results don't decline is not a priority for you.

Being a top performing company is not a priority for you.

Are those the things you want to be known for?

A Quick Story About Performance Improvement Projects

I think it's also worth sharing some stats Monika provides about her sales certification program. The duration is typically 6-8 months. Sales is not something you're going to pick up in a one-day seminar. And the average growth of revenue is 30%. Now these are salespeople who likely were already performing well.

A little story to explain what I mean: when I was factory manager at a company that made backpacks and Gore-Tex jackets, I ran a sewing performance improvement program. When you make these things you do a lot of sewing. We had over 120 people in multiple departments, just sewing. Some lousy sewing staff were picked to be part of the program, and some competent ones. I had trainers work with both groups. And you know what? The lousy ones never got any better. I mean, they were dismal to begin with. No talent for sewing at all. They had no aptitude for the work, and never would...and had gotten their jobs because they knew someone already working at the company. I had to let these people go. The costs of their slow productivity, screw-ups and rework was too high.

The sewing staff who were already decent at the job before the training? That's who we got the best improvement out of. Big takeaway: you probably aren't going to get that wished-for 2000% performance improvement from your poorest performers. The truth is they shouldn't have been in the role in the first place. What's far more likely is that your high performers will see a good and realistic improvement. And that's where your sights should be.

A 30% improvement on a million bucks in annual revenue is a darn good bump from my point of view; and well worth the investment.

You know you lose an average of 10% of customers every year thanks to normal attrition. What are you doing to ensure you replace and increase upon those losses? Still think you don't have time for sales training?

>> Was this article helpful to you? We share this info for Free. So please please please with a sewing machine on top Like, Share or Comment! << P.S. The sewing machine pictured is called a Serger. It uses multiple threads for an extremely strong stitch, and makes a high-pitched but not unpleasant whizzing sound when operating. There, you learned something! (I also know a lot about glue thanks to that job...a good reminder that there's ALWAYS more going on than you think.)

Door to door sales have gotten a bad rap over the years. The reason is simple: because the salesperson is right there in front of you, it's a lot harder for most people to get rid of them than the easy impersonal act of hanging up the phone.

Door to door sales can be done in residential areas, or in business zones. I've walked through industrial condos and gone in to talk to the business owners about copy and technical writing work. Sometimes it's really surprising who and what is inside these blank walls. One time I found a stained glass window making machine and the owner wanted a user manual written for it. That's a project I would not have found by calling, because the company would not have passed my list screening requirements. You never know unless you get on the ground and look.

What (IMO) Good Door to Door Sales ISN'T

Now I've gotten into arguments before with people over what I believe good door to door selling is. This guy:

...for the record, is NOT what I believe good door to door sales is about.

Some people like it. Funny street hawkers. The product, you'll notice, hardly matters. Well they can go watch Ron Popeil sell another 100 rotisserie chicken cookers on the Home Shopping channel. That may be selling, but it's not MY kind of selling. Do you really want Jimmy Fallon using your stoop to deliver the opening monologue of the Tonight Show? Does that truly make you want to buy?

And What Great Door to Door Sales IS

For a fantastic example of door to door sales, and what it takes to make them, read this Inc. article on 48 Hours With the King of Cold Calls (a bit of a misnomer to me, since "cold calls" in my world means by phone, but we'll let it slide).

Chuck Piola is our door to door sales man this time around. He believes in the service his company offers. He solves a real need. And he has an effective means of getting conversations with decision makers about it: he puts himself out in front of them.

That's how effective door to door sales works.

You don't panic about the gatekeeper: you know they're here to help you. You make it easy for them to want to connect you with the decision maker. And you get out there in front of people. Over and over again.

If you're going to give up and go home because one business owner, the first person you tried to talk to, said they're not interested, you don't belong in sales. You shouldn't own your own business. Why? Because you don't believe enough in what you do. You don't truly know in your bones that what you offer will help people.

So What's the Big Secret to Door to Door Sales?

Persistence, just the same as when you pick up the phone to call, is the name of the game. All you want is the person who wants to talk to you. That's all prospecting is about. Door to door sales is another form of prospecting. Knock on the door of a home or go into an office. Use your first prospecting technique to get connected with the decision maker. Use your second technique to start filtering. Should I be talking to this person? Do they have a need for what I offer? Budget? Personality fit?

Since you're physically there with them, it's more difficult for prospects to be rude. If you're halfway decent on the phone you won't encounter many rude people anyway--and those you do instantly qualify themselves Out as someone you wouldn't want to work with. But it's even easier in person.

No half-measures, though. Don't say, "I'll do a couple cold walk-ins and see how it goes." No. That won't work. Make 20. Plan it out ahead of time. Map the visits out. Then go do them.

Note the value of chance in these meetings. If you weren't physically there, you wouldn't have met an unexpected prospect.

And sooner or later, you can begin putting together a leadgen funnel to start driving you prequalified prospects you ought to go visit in person.

Final thought: straight from Chuck Piola himself. He's talking about the fear of gatekeepers blocking salespeople. "It blows my mind," Piola says. "At 11 o'clock I was outside on the street. Five minutes later I'm in the sanctum sanctorum of one of the country's 20 biggest banks. It shows you that this interference thing is just a head trip." Head trash. There it is again.

>> Did this post help you? We don't charge for it--so please Like, Share or Comment to show us that it did! <<

Month: February 2014

Sales Prospecting Claude Whitacre Book FREE on Kindle for Short Time