Sales Chump

Cold calls are the heart and soul of any outbound sales effort.  Whether it be setting up face to face interviews, telemarketing or telesales; a new sale is made by picking up the phone and calling someone.  A cold call is calling someone who did not ask for your call nor are they expecting it.  This is why most people grimace when you mention the two “c” words back to back.

Many sales reps try to avoid cold calling by doing other busy activities.  Those rep’s sales generally suffer.  Sales is a numbers game.  The more cold calls = more prospects = more sales.  More experienced reps can make less calls to make one sale.  A lot of times these reps stop when they hit their quota or goal instead of making more calls and doubling their numbers. 

The number of cold calls you make a day is likely dictated on whether you have an auto dialer or any other normal job functions to handle on a daily basis.  Most people try to come up with the lowest number possible when coming up with an acceptable call volume but put it in perspective.  3 cold calls every half hour = 48 in a day.  That seems so insignificant when it is broken down.  100 cold calls a day should seem much more attainable now!

Cold calling is not fun but it can be more tolerable by following some of these tips: 

-Don’t take a no or hang up (or worse) personal.  The person at the other end of the line does not know you.  They may be a miserable person or a nice person caught at a bad time.  Whatever the case, they don’t know you from Adam so don’t let their negative attitude bring you down or bring you to their level.  Move on and forget it the second you hang up.

-Make more cold calls.  This will thicken your skin and get you more accustomed to rejection.  You will have 99 no’s but that one yes will make up for it. 

-Make goals and track your daily progress.  This will keep you motivated during the tougher times to succeed.

-Set up competitions with your co-workers and put lunch or just bragging rights on the line.  A contest for most sales in a week or most prospects or calls in a day can make cold calling a little easier to do. 

-Find out how much a cold call is worth to you.  To do this you have to figure out how many calls equals a sale and how much that sale is worth to you.  Simply take that amount and divide it by the number of cold calls you make.  For example if it takes 100 calls to make 1 sale and that sale is worth $100 to you, each call you make is worth $1.  Every time you pick up the phone and dial, it is $1 in your pocket.

Who wants to make some cold calls? 

Wikipedia defines competitive advantage as a position a firm occupies against its competitors.  This means something your company has that others don’t.  This can be the lowest price, the best materials, the best service, the highest quality manufacturing, etc.

I can’t stress the importance of using you or your companies competitive advantage(s) in your favor.  You should be well aware of all the competitive advantages you have over your competition.  This is something that no one else but you (or your company) can claim to have.  Why shouldn’t you remind your prospects and customers of this?

I recommend writing them all down so you can easily reference them.  I also like to write a “what this means to you” after the competitive advantage so it can be quickly used in a conversation when the opportunity arises.

For example:  Long term fixed rates for a product.  What this means to you: “Because we offer long term fixed rates you are able to take advantage of a low price and protect yourself and your company for 5 years without any fluctuation in price.”

If you have no competitive advantages or the most in a marketplace, you can always add one more:  YOU.  You should be the number one competitive advantages you can offer to your prospects or customers.  You should not be like your competition; you should go above and beyond the customers expectations and offer a relationship that sets yourself apart from the rest.

Open ended questions can be the most important tool sales reps have to determine customer needs.  Too many times will sales reps just talk and talk and never find out a prospects true needs.  When this happens, the sale is usually not made or money is left on the table.

You wouldn’t expect a car salesman to show you every car on the lot, with every option, in every price and in ever color.  How inefficient is that?  The sale is likely to be lost unless the car they want is the first one shown.

All sales should be viewed this way.  The product you’re selling much likely has multiple options, terms and pricing.  How do you know what best fits the customer’s need without asking open ended questions?

When you ask open ended questions, questions that require a response that is more than yes or no, it allows the customer to open up.  You should be able to determine their wants, their concerns, their needs and other things that are on their mind from these questions.  Make sure you take good notes and even repeat certain things to make sure you fully understand.

Below are several open ended questions.  Use them and watch your customers do all the talking and you do all the listening.

• How has the economy affected your business?
• What is your competition like?
• When you go over your monthly expenses, are there any that remain constant?
• Where do you see your business in five years?
• What got you into this type of business?
• If you could freeze any of your expenses, would you do it and why if so?
• When you got into business, what were your expectations?
• When analyzing your expenses, do you look for ways to improve your bottom line?
• Have you entered into fixed contracts before? How did that work out for you?
• What do you think about having the ability to protect your upside while taking advantage of the downside?
• What type of protection are you looking for?
• What are some of the things your current supplier does that you like?
• What are some of the things you would like your current supplier to provide that they don’t now?
• Who else is involved in the final decision?
• What risks do you want to avoid?
• What other factors come into your decision making process?
• Other than price, what other things are you concerned with?
• What time frame are you looking at?
• What steps do we need to take to move forward?

What is this you ask?  Well you will be able to send us your questions regarding your pitch, how to approach a certain customer, how to peak interest, etc.  Send us your questions throughout the week and we will answer as many questions (hopefully all) as we can every Sunday evening.

We look forward to helping you out with any road blocks you run into and hope we can help you see from another perspective to a situation on what can be done. We will have more information on this later.