So many times our prospects aren’t really interested, but they either don’t know how or won’t come out and tell us. Instead they will say things like, “Go ahead and send me the (information, brochure, demo) and I’ll take a look.” Or, “Put that quote in writing and send it to me.” When a Top […]
How To Handle the RFP Process
I was having lunch with a client last week and she was telling me about how frustrated she was with a prospect who wasn’t calling her back. “But our first meeting went so well,” she told me. I asked her what happened, and she told me that she visited with a prospect who currently has […]
How To Grab Interest In 5 Seconds
I hear over and over again how important the first few seconds of a phone call are to make a connection and grab interest, and my question to you is — are you still opening your calls with the standard, “How are you today?” If so, then you’ve just turned off about half of your […]
The Five Secrets To Writing Killer Prospecting Script
I’ve written, tested, re-written, tweaked, copy edited, composed, marketed, reviewed, and used thousands of telemarketing scripts over the last 26 years. I’ve written and used opening scripts, closing scripts, prospecting cold calling scripts, warm inbound scripts, closing scripts, rebuttal scripts, trial close scripts, initial resistance scripts, blow off scripts, qualifying scripts, etc…. Bottom line? Nobody […]
How to Listen like a Detective
I once heard an interview with a police detective that directly relates to sales. The detective was talking about various interrogation techniques, and he said something that I thought was brilliant and totally applies to the importance of listening while selling over the phone. The detective said that when you ask a question you should […]
Three Things You Must Do To Succeed
Job layoffs. Budget cuts. Recession. Welcome to 2010! While 80% of companies and sales reps are expecting the worst, the Top 20%, as always, expect to and will do well this year. Here are the three things they are doing, and that you can do, too, to make sure you are successful in 2010: 1) […]
How to Handle Incoming Leads
I get many requests each week from readers who want to know how they should deal with incoming “warm” leads. “These leads are more qualified because they are calling in,” I hear over and over. But we all know this isn’t necessarily true is it? In fact this attitude leads to the biggest mistake 80% […]
Questions to Help Open Up the Sale
Have you ever been in a closing situation that seems to have stalled, where your prospect isn’t really objecting, but they sure aren’t going where you want them to go? Sometimes during a close you’ll find it necessary to sort of re-open the close, to keep your prospect talking, and to find out exactly what […]
How to Overcome the “I Need to Think about it / Need to Wait until Next Week/Month / I'll Get Back to You” Objection
One of the oldest and most used smokescreens in the book is the, “I need to think about it” objection. So many sales reps struggle with this one because they think the prospect isn’t saying no, and so they don’t know how to respond to it. Unfortunately, what many of you have found out is […]
How to Overcome the Fear of Cold Calling
If I told you I had an easy way for you to overcome your fear of cold calling, would you be interested? If I told you I had a guaranteed way for you to actually enjoy prospecting, be more confident doing so, and be more successful at it, would you be willing to try it? […]